October 16, 1939: “The Man Who Came to Dinner” Premieres

Bette Davis and Monty Woolley in the film version

October 16, 1939: The Man Who Came to Dinner premieres at the Music Box Theatre in New York. The play is written by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart.

It was based on their mutual friend, theater critic Alexander Woollcott, leader of the Algonquin Round Table, visiting Hart's country home outside Philadelphia, and making a nuisance of himself. Hart told Kaufman he was lucky Woollcott hadn't broken his leg and gotten stuck there (there was no hospital within miles at the time), and Kaufman thought it would be great comedy -- should it happen to somebody else!

Monty Woolley was cast in the Woollcott role, named Sheridan Whiteside. The original cast also included Gordon Merrick as the Hart analogue, Richard Stanley; a young Mary Wickes, later known for battleaxe roles and appearing as a Match Game panelist, as Miss Preen; John Hoysradt (later known as John Hoyt) as Beverley Carlton, based on Noël Coward; and David Burns as "Banjo," a character obviously based on another friend of Kaufman and Hart, Harpo Marx.

The play was filmed in 1942, with Woolley reprising his role, Jimmy Durante as Banjo, and Ann Sheridan and Bette Davis also starring. It was filmed again in 1972, with those roles filled by, respectively, Orson Welles, Don Knotts, Lee Remick and Joan Collins.

Kaufman and Hart died a few months apart in 1961, Woollcott in 1943, Woolley in 1963, Burns in 1971, Merrick in 1988, Hoyt in 1991, and Wickes in 1995.

The Music Box Theatre is still open, at 239 West 45th Street. It hosted the premieres of Of Thee I Sing, Dinner at Eight, As Thousands Cheer, Merrily We Roll Along, Stage Door and Of Mice and Men in the 1930s; I Remember Mama and Tennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke in the 1940s, The Male Animal and Bus Stop in the 1950s, A Far Country and There's a Girl In My Soup in the 1960s, Sleuth and Deathtrap in the 1970s, Agnes of God and A Few Good Men in the 1980s, August: Osage County in the 2000s, and Dear Evan Hansen in the 2010s.

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October 16, 1939 was a Monday. Baseball season had ended 8 days earlier, with the New York Yankees sweeping the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And the NHL season started 17 days later. So there were no scores on this historic day.