Broadhurst, George (Howells)

Broadhurst, George [Howells] (1866–1952), playwright and manager. Coming to America from England when he was twenty, he began his theatrical career by running theatres in Milwaukee, Baltimore, and San Francisco. The first play he wrote, The Speculator (1896), was a quick failure. Some comedies that followed had better luck, notably The Wrong Mr. Wright (1897), What Happened to Jones (1897), and Why Smith Left Home (1899), although, ironically, all were more successful in London than in New York. For the next several seasons Broadhurst tried his hand at dramas, comedies, and musical comedy librettos before writing the hits The Man of the Hour (1906) and Bought and Paid For (1911). Other works of note include Today (1913), in which a husband discovers his wife in a brothel, and The Law of the Land (1914), about a justifiable homicide. In 1919 the Shuberts named their newest theatre after him, and he managed it in conjunction with them. Broadhurst produced many of his own plays as well as those of other writers. He was once characterized as a playwright “who had a knack for the sort of melodrama that poses as a serious study of morals.”