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Mary Coyle Chase
Born Mary Agnes McDonough Coyle 25 February 1906(1906-02-25) Denver, Colorado, USA Died 20 October 1981 (aged 75) Denver, Colorado, USA Spouse Robert L. Chase
Information
Notable work(s)	Harvey
Awards	Pulitzer Prize for Drama (1945)

Mary Coyle Chase (25 February 1906 – 20 October 1981) was an American journalist, playwright and screenwriter, known primarily for writing the Broadway play Harvey, later adapted for film starring James Stewart. She wrote fourteen plays, two children's stories, one screenplay, and worked seven years at the Rocky Mountain News as a journalist.

Biography

Born in Denver, Colorado in 1906, Chase remained in Denver her entire life. In 1924, she began her career as a journalist on the Rocky Mountain News, leaving in 1931 to raise a family. At the News, she started writing on the society pages, but soon became part of the news itself as "our little Mary", reporting the news from either a comic or a sob sister, emotional angle. In the 1920s, reporters typically worked in The Front Page tradition: putting in long hours, drinking hard, and stopping at nothing to beat the competition to a story. Running around Denver with photographer Harry Rhoads in a Model T Ford, she recalled, "In the course of a day, Harry and I might begin at the Police Court, go to a murder trial at the West Side Court, cover a party in the evening at Mrs. Crawford Hill's mansion, and rush to a shooting at 11pm."

Chase wrote Harvey (1944), which ran on Broadway from 1944 until 1949, becoming the 35th longest running Broadway show in its history. She also collaborated in writing the screenplay for the 1950 Universal pictures film with Jimmy Stewart.

Harvey is about a man (Elwood P. Dowd) with an invisible six-foot rabbit friend ("Harvey"), whom only he can always see, though there is speculation that his sister, Veta Louise Simmons, her lawyer, Judge Gaffney and his niece, Myrtle Mae Simmons have seen Harvey. Even the respectable Dr. Chumley, who at first thought Elwood P. Dowd a madman, definitely saw and appreciated Harvey. Although Elwood does consume more than his fair share of alcohol, it turns out that "Harvey" is not a by-product of liquor, but in the end is a veritable pooka.

Frank Fay and James Stewart were the most famous actors to portray Elwood P. Dowd. Josephine Hull portrayed his increasingly concerned (and socially obsessed) sister on Broadway originally, and won an Oscar for her stellar performance in the faithful film adaptation. Ruth McDevitt, Helen Hayes, Marion Lorne, and Swoosie Kurtz have also played Elwood's sister in various media.

Chase's comedy Mrs. McThing (1952) deals with a witch who is able to create duplicates of people from sticks; the duplicate looks and sounds exactly like the original person but has a radically different personality. Whenever this duplication process is made, the duplicate takes over the original person's life and the original is banished to a diner at the edge of town, where he or she is forced to work in menial labor: the diner is inhabited by colorful customers and oddball staff.

Bibliography

Plays

• Me Third (1936)
• Sorority House (1938)
• Slip Of A Girl (1941)
• Harvey (1944)
• The Next Half Hour (1945)
• Bernardine (1952)
• Lolita (1954)
• Mrs. McThing (1954)
• Midgie Purvis (1961)
• The Prize Play (1961)
• The Dog Sitters (1963)
• Mickey (1969)
• Cocktails With Mimi (1974)
• The Terrible Tattoo Parlor (1981)

Children's Stories

• Loretta Mason Potts (1958)
• The Wicked, Wicked Ladies In the Haunted House (1968)

Film adaptations

• Sorority House (1939)
• Harvey (1950)
• Bernardine (1957)

References

• "Mary McDonough Coyle Chase". Denver's History. City and County of Denver. 2009. http://www.denvergov.org/AboutDenver/history_char_chase.asp. Retrieved 2009-02-12.  

External links

• Mary Coyle Chase at Find a Grave
• Mary Coyle Chase at the Internet Broadway Database
• Mary Coyle Chase at the Internet Movie Database
• Mary Chase at the Doolee Playwright's Database
• Guide to the Mary Chase papers at the University of Oregon