Title: Charles MacArthur Papers
Inclusive Dates: circa 1920-1957

Creator:

• MacArthur, Charles, 1895-1956

Call Number: U.S. Mss 90AN; MICRO 585

Quantity: 1.2 c.f. (3 archive boxes) and 1 reel of microfilm (35mm)

Repository:

Wisconsin Historical Society Archives / Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research
Contact Information

Archival Locations:

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

Abstract:

Papers of a noted playwright and screenwriter, consisting of scripts and related notes for motion pictures such as Gunga Din (RKO, 1939), Wuthering Heights (UA, 1939), and The Senator Was Indiscreet (Universal, 1947), and for plays such as Lulu Belle (1926). Several titles relate to MacArthur's successful collaboration with Ben Hecht in stage and screen writing.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-us0090an

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Charles MacArthur, newspaperman turned playwright and screenwriter, “created laughter and diversion as other men create steel industries and department stores,” in the words of his frequent collaborator, Ben Hecht. Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on November 5, 1895, MacArthur was the son of an itinerant minister and his wife, the Reverend William T. and Georgiana MacArthur. Desiring Charles to become a minister, the Reverend MacArthur sent him to the Wilson Memorial Academy in Nyack, New York, a school for missionaries.

Upon leaving the Academy, however, MacArthur turned to the field of journalism. After a summer working for his brother on a newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois, he became a reporter for the City Press, a Chicago news service. He subsequently was a reporter for the Chicago Herald-Examiner and the Tribune. It has been stated that he was the highest-paid reporter in Chicago at the time, except possibly Ben Hecht.

During Pershing's expedition to Mexico, MacArthur joined the First Illinois Cavalry. He was with the Rainbow Division in World War I. In 1922, he moved to New York to work for the American. Living for a time with Robert Benchley, he became a member of the Algonquin Round Table group. In 1926, his play Lulu Belle, written with Edward Sheldon, was produced by David Belasco. Opening night was, to MacArthur, “like pulling out the stitches after an operation for kidney trouble, and I must say it was comparatively painless.” The success of the play established him as a recognized playwright.

Two years later Salvation, written by MacArthur and Sidney Howard, opened in New York. Later that year, on August 14, 1928, The Front Page, a drama concerning a newspaper reporter written by the ex-reporters MacArthur and Hecht, became the first in a series of popular collaborative ventures between the two men. Other stage plays they wrote were Jumbo (1935), Ladies and Gentlemen (1939), Swan Song (1946), and Twentieth Century (1932 and 1950).

In 1931, MacArthur wrote the screenplay for The Sin of Madelon Claudet. Considered a mistake by studio executives, the film was befriended by Irving Thalberg and became a hit, winning an Academy Award for its star, Helen Hayes. The film was chosen as one of the ten best pictures in the annual Film Daily poll. MacArthur wrote a number of other Hollywood pictures: Rasputin and the Empress (1932) starred John, Ethel, and Lionel Barrymore; The Senator Was Indiscreet (1947) was directed by George S. Kaufman and starred William Powell and Ella Raines.

MacArthur and Hecht collaborated on films, as writers and as producers and directors. Barbary Coast (1935), for which they wrote the screenplay, was a United Artists release produced by Samuel Goldwyn and directed by Howard Hawks. Wuthering Heights (1939) was another Goldwyn production written by them, directed by William Wyler. In 1934, they teamed to produce and direct films at the Astoria film studios on Long Island. With a cast relatively unknown to the screen--Broadway actor Claude Rains and dancer Margo--they made Crime Without Passion (1934). Their film The Scoundrel (1935) featured Noel Coward and Julie Hayden. Once in a Blue Moon (1936) was filmed with Nikita Balieff, Jimmy Savo, and Cicilia Loftus.

During World War II MacArthur was assistant to the chief of the Chemical Warfare Service in Washington. In 1948 he became editor-in-chief of Theatre Arts magazine when it was purchased by Alexander Ince. One of MacArthur's innovations was the inclusion of the text of a current Broadway hit in each issue. When Ince sold the magazine, MacArthur's brother became the publisher. MacArthur resigned from the editorship shortly thereafter.

MacArthur married Helen Hayes in 1928, three days after the opening of The Front Page. In addition to their joint work on The Sin of Madelon Claudet, they were involved together in the Broadway play Ladies and Gentlemen (1939). Otherwise, they maintained separate careers. Their daughter, Mary MacArthur, died of infantile paralysis in 1949. Their son, James MacArthur, became an actor.

MacArthur's offstage personality was as dynamic as his plays. During their first meeting he gave Miss Hayes a bag of peanuts and told her, “I wish they were emeralds!” “From his youthful days to his last ones, Charlie was a man of adventure,” stated Hecht in his eulogy. “He loved life and he threw his wit at people and events like a man scattering inexhaustible treasure.” Alexander Woollcott remarked that “everybody who knows him always lights up and starts talking about him as if he was a marvelous circus that had once passed his way.”

The Charles MacArthur Papers consist of three boxes of manuscripts written by MacArthur, both singly and with collaborators. The first box contains movie scripts and treatments, arranged alphabetically. Wuthering Heights (1939) was selected as one of the ten best pictures of the year by the film critics polled by The Film Daily.

Box two contains drafts of stageplays, also arranged alphabetically. Ladies and Gentlemen (1939) was the only MacArthur play in which Helen Hayes appeared. Lulu Belle (1926) was the first of MacArthur's plays to be produced. A Stag at Bay (unproduced), written with Nunnally Johnson, was based upon John Barrymore's relationship with his daughter Diana.

Box three contains stories written by MacArthur, and miscellaneous materials. The story “The Ragged Stranger” was written during his days as a reporter in Chicago. For an account of the circumstances under which it was written, see Charlie, by Ben Hecht (New York, 1957). The printed program for “It's Fun to Be Free,” produced by the St. Louis Chapter of the Fight for Freedom Committee to Defend America on December 10, 1941, includes the printed text of the pageant “Fun to Be Free,” which MacArthur wrote with Ben Hecht.

The George S. Kaufman Papers at the State Historical Society also contain materials pertaining to The Senator Was Indiscreet. There is material relating to the Fight for Freedom Committee to Defend America in the Melvyn Douglas Papers.

Acquisition Information

Presented by Helen Hayes MacArthur, Nyack, New York, August, 1963.

Processing Information

Processed by Alice Green, July 23, 1969.

U.S. Mss 90AN	Series: Motion Pictures
Box   1 Folder   1	Gunga Din, 1939 Note Producer: George Stevens Director: George Stevens Screenplay by: Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur, Joel Sayre, Fred Guiol Cast: Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Joan Fontaine
	Script, third draft, by Hecht and MacArthur, incomplete, 1937, March 3
Box   1 Folder   2	“Public Debutant #1”: treatment, by MacArthur and L. Bus Fekete
Box   1 Folder   3	The Senator was Indiscreet, 1947 Note Producer: A. Nunnally Johnson Associate Producer: Gene Fowler, Jr. Director: George S. Kaufman Screenplay by: Charles MacArthur Cast: William Powell, Ella Raines, Peter Lind Hayes
	Script
Box   1 Folder   4	“The Ten Dollar Trunk”: treatment
Box   1 Folder   5	Trilby (unproduced?): Script, second draft by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, 1948, June 19
Box   1 Folder   6	The World's Our Oyster (unproduced?): Script by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, 1938, June 9
Box   1 Folder   7	The World's Our Oyster: Script, by Hecht and MacArthur, 1940, Aug. 6
Box   1 Folder   8	Wuthering Heights, 1939 Note Producer: Samuel Goldwyn Director: William Wyler Screenplay by: Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur Cast: Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier, David Niven, Flora Robson
	Script, first draft
	Series: Stage Plays	⇧
Box   2 Folder   1	Jumbo (N.Y., 1935, Nov. 16) Note Producer: Billy Rose Staged by: John Murray Anderson Book directed by: George Abbott Writers: Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur (book); Richard Rodgers (music); Lorenz Hart (lyrics) Cast: Jimmy Durante, Poodles Hanneford, Gloria Grafton, Donald Novis
	Script
Box   2 Folder   2	Ladies and Gentlemen (N.Y., 1939, Oct. 17) Note Producer: Gilbert Miller Director: Charles MacArthur, Lewis Allen Writers: Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur Cast: Helen Hayes, Philip Merivale
	Script
Box   2 Folder   3	Lulu Belle (N.Y., 1926, Feb. 9) Note Producer: David Belasco Director: David Belasco Writers: Edward Sheldon, Charles MacArthur Cast: Lenore Ulric, Henry Hull
	Script
	A Stag at Bay (unproduced), by Nunnally Johnson and Charles MacArthur
Box   2 Folder   4	Scripts, Act I
Box   2 Folder   5	Scripts, Act II
Box   2 Folder   6	Script
Box   2 Folder   7	Script, notes
	Twentieth Century Note N.Y., 1932, Dec. 29 Producers: George Abbott, Philip Dunning Director: George Abbott Writers: Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur Cast: Eugenie Leontovich, Moffatt Johnston, Roy Roberts N.Y., ANTA, 1950, Dec. 24 Producer: Jose Ferrer Director: Jose Ferrer Writers: Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur Cast: Gloria Swanson, Jose Ferrer, Hobert Strauss
Box   2 Folder   8	Script, 1932 production
Box   2 Folder   9	Script, undated, annotated, bound with light cues, costume and prop lists
Box   2 Folder   10	Clippings for 1950 ANTA production and for , 1950-1951 ANTA season
Micro 585 Reel   1	Microfilm copy
U.S. Mss 90AN	Series: Stories	⇧
Box   3 Folder   1	“Cherie”
Box   3 Folder   2	“The Chosen Vessel”
Box   3 Folder   3	“Elegie”
Box   3 Folder   4	“The Ragged Stranger”
	Series: Miscellaneous	⇧
Box   3 Folder   5	Program, “It's Fun To Be Free,” St. Louis Chapter, Fight for Freedom Committee to Defend America, 1941, Dec. 10 Scope and Content Note: Includes the printed text for “Fun to Be Free,” by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur.
Micro 585 Reel   1	Microfilm copy
U.S. Mss 90AN Box   3 Folder   6	“He Passed This Way,” Newsweek, 1957, June 17, pp. 120-121
Micro 585 Reel   1	Microfilm copy
U.S. Mss 90AN Box   3 Folder   7	Photograph
Micro 585 Reel   1	Microfilm copy