Title: Robert J. Crean Papers
Inclusive Dates: 1947-1971

Creator:

• Crean, Robert J.

Call Number: U.S. Mss 95AN

Quantity: 3.6 c.f. (9 archives boxes)

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 writer for television and theater whose work is known for its frequent exploration of religious themes. Scripts, notes, and correspondence relating to teleplays for Catholic Hour (NBC), CBS Playhouse, and N.Y.P.D. (ABC), comprise the bulk of the collection. There are, however, some produced and unproduced motion picture and theater scripts and a file of general correspondence containing exchanges with his friend Sir Tyrone Guthrie about dramatic theory and the general state of the theater. Many documents bear helpful annotations supplied by the donor.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-us0095an

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Robert Crean was an award-winning dramatic writer for television and theatre. A devout Catholic, he explored many of the dilemmas of post-vatican II Catholicism and other religious and ethical themes in his work.

He was born in Indian Orchard, Massachusetts in 1924 and attended a nearby high school. The performing arts fascinated him, and while still in high school, he obtained an interview with Jeannette MacDonald, which was printed under his by-line in the Springfield (Mass.) Daily News. After graduation he worked for a year as a reporter and copydesk editor for the Springfield Morning Union. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II as a gunsight specialist and was discharged as a corporal in 1947. Crean then free-lanced before studying drama at Catholic University under Father Gilbert Hartke and attending Walter Kerr's lecture series. Also there he met Katy Simonaitis, whom he married in 1951 after he received his BA and she her MA in drama.

From 1951 to 1954 they lived in Washington D.C. where Crean worked as a staff member and TV columnist for the Standard and a reporter and editor for NCWC News Service. However, he decided that he must be in New York if his career as a playwright was to take shape. Peter Lind Hayes and Mary Healy took him on as a staff writer and later promoted him to chief writer. His 1956 “Anna Santonello” on Kraft Television Theatre was the first script to attract favorable critical notice. Other scripts were produced as specials and on such series as The Defenders, Armstrong Circle Theatre, East Side, West Side, Trials of O'Brien, The Virginian, and The Catholic Hour. From 1960 to 1968 a great number of his scripts were shown on The Catholic Hour, of which the most outstanding was the four-part series “Prejudice - U.S.A.” This series won numerous awards, including the National Brotherhood Award of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, the American Jewish Congress Award, the Thomas Edison Award, and a first prize at the International Film Festival at Monaco.

In 1960 Crean temporarily withdrew from television writing to concentrate on writing for the legitimate stage. His first play for Broadway, A Time to Laugh, was produced in 1962 by his personal friend, Sir Tyrone Guthrie. Crean objected to the practise common on television of revising scripts to fit the fancy of the sponsor, the star, or the producer; he much preferred to write for the stage, where material can only be revised with the author's approval. Despite this preference, he soon returned to writing for television and wrote such outstanding material as “My Mother and My Father” shown on CBS Playhouse in 1968.

Crean died in May 1974, and is survived by his wife and ten children.

The Robert Crean Papers, 1947-1971, mainly document his work for television, but there is also material for motion pictures and theatre as well as a very small amount of biographical material and general correspondence. Included in the general correspondence, 1952-1971, are many letters to and from Sir Tyrone Guthrie concerning dramatic theory and the current state of the art, and personal matters. Crean typed comments about each of the television, motion picture, and theatre projects documented in this collection, and these comments (always on a single sheet) are filed at the beginning of the first folder on the project. Many of these projects were never produced.

The television material consists of almost seven boxes, most scripts but there are also some notes and correspondence. This material includes a folder concerning the 1969 Emmy Awards voting and scripts for four projected series, several teleplay scripts, and extensive files from his work for The Catholic Hour and CBS Playhouse. The care with which he constructed his scripts can be seen from the large number of rewrites for two CBS Playhouse shows, “My Father and My Mother” and “The Day Before Sunday.”

The motion picture material documents a produced short subject Inscape and seven unproduced projects. Treatments, notes, revised scripts, rewrites, and publicity material show his development of “The Great American Hangup” and “No Little Thing”; the record of other projects is very sparse.

Also sparse is the record of six unproduced plays for theatre written by Crean, and there is no material in this collection concerning his A Time To Laugh or other produced works for the stage.

Acquisition Information

Presented by Robert Crean, New York, New York, on 31 December 1969 and 19 September 1973. Accession Number: MCHC69-155 and MCHC73-119

Processing Information

Processed by E. McKay and L. Karls, 1974.

Box   1 Folder   1	Series: Biographical Material, 1960-1969
	Series: General Correspondence	⇧
Box   1 Folder   2	Jan. 29-1971, May 12
Box   1 Folder   3	Undated
	Series: Television	⇧
Box   1 Folder   4	Emmy awards voting kit, 1969 May
	The Catholic Hour(NBC)
Box   1 Folder   5	“The Trial,” script, 1960
Box   1 Folder   6	“Reflections--1960,” Parts I, IV, scripts, 1960 May
Box   1 Folder   7	“Prejudice USA,” Part II, script, 1961 Oct.
Box   1 Folder   8	“Once There Was a Postman,” Show #2, 1962 Oct.
Box   1 Folder   9	“Crisis and the Christian Conscience,” three shows, correspondence and scripts, 1964 Oct.
Box   1 Folder   10	“Encounter,” three shows, scripts, 1965 Oct.
Box   1 Folder   11	“The Priest,” Parts I-III, scripts and set design, 1966 Oct.
Box   1 Folder   12-13	“The Workout,” Part IV, correspondence, scripts, notes, publicity, 1967 Oct.
Box   1 Folder   14	“The Sisters,” Part III, correspondence, scripts, set designs, 1968 Jan.
	CBS Playhouse
Box   1 Folder   15	“The Oddball,” notes, outline, n.d.
	“The Day Before Sunday,” taped 1969 Dec.
Box   2 Folder   1	Resume, notes
Box   2 Folder   2	Script, April revision
Box   2 Folder   3	Script, July revision
Box   2 Folder   4	Script, November revision
Box   2 Folder   5	Script, December revision
Box   2 Folder   6	Final script
Box   2 Folder   6	Publicity
Box   2 Folder   7-9	Semi-sorted rewrites
	“My Father and My Mother,” 1968 Feb. 13
Box   3 Folder   1	Correspondence, 1967 Dec. 23-1968 May 8
Box   3 Folder   2	Script, first draft
Box   3 Folder   3	Rehearsal script
Box   3 Folder   4	Final script
Box   3 Folder   5	Set props
Box   3 Folder   6	Publicity and photographs
Box   3 Folder   7-10	Semi-sorted rewrites
Box   4 Folder   1-6	Semi-sorted rewrites
	“Dear Friends,” projected TV series
	“Cross Right and Smile, Honey”
Box   5 Folder   1	Outline, revised script, notes
Box   5 Folder   2	Second draft, notes, final draft
Box   5 Folder   3	Bound, final script and series projection
	Fame Is the Name of the Game
Box   5 Folder   4	“The Inheritance,” outline
	“Girls Girls,” projected TV series
Box   5 Folder   5	Correspondence, outline, notes, 1967, April-May
	“The New People,” projected TV series
Box   5 Folder   6	“Hello Up There - Anybody Home?”, correspondence, outlines, 1969, Aug.
	NYPD
Box   5 Folder   7	“Whatever Happened to Michelangelo?”, correspondence, outlines, 1967 June
Box   5 Folder   8	“The Pink Gumdrop,” outlines, scripts, 1967 Sept.
Box   5 Folder   9	“The New Yorkers,” projected TV series
	“A Hill of Beans,” script
Box   5 Folder   10	“The Road West”
	“The Fair Ladies of France,” script
	“Strange Paradise,” half-hour daily series
Box   5 Folder   11	Scripts, 49, 51-56
Box   6 Folder   1	Scripts, 57-60, 62-64
Box   6 Folder   2	Scripts, 65-71
Box   6 Folder   3	Scripts, 72-74, 80-83
Box   6 Folder   4	Scripts, 84-90
Box   6 Folder   5	Scripts, 91-93
	“The Teaching,” a play for television
Box   6 Folder   6	Script
	Tales of O'Brien
Box   6 Folder   7	“A Gaggle of Girls,” script, ca. 1965 Sept.
	Series: Motion Pictures	⇧
	“The Beachcomber,” unproduced
Box   6 Folder   8	Treatments, script
	“The Great American Hangup,” unproduced
Box   6 Folder   9	Treatment, notes
Box   7 Folder   1	First draft, handwritten
Box   7 Folder   2	First draft, typed
Box   7 Folder   3	Final draft
Box   7 Folder   4-5	Semi-sorted rewrites
	Inscape, short subject (1968)
Box   7 Folder   6	Correspondence, script
Box   7 Folder   7	Rewrites
Box   7 Folder   7	Publicity
	“It's a New World, Harry,” unproduced
Box   7 Folder   8	Outline, screenplay
	“Jefferson Square,” unproduced
Box   7 Folder   9	Treatment
	“No Little Thing,” unproduced (1968)
Box   8 Folder   1	Outline
Box   8 Folder   2	First draft, notes
Box   8 Folder   3	Second draft,
Box   8 Folder   4	Revised draft, notes
Box   8 Folder   5	Screenplay
Box   8 Folder   5	Publicity
Box   8 Folder   6-9	Semi-sorted rewrites
	“Salute From a Dead Man,” unproduced (1967)
Box   9 Folder   1	Revised script
Box   9 Folder   2	Second revised script
	“Vincent,” unproduced
Box   9 Folder   3	Treatment
	Series: Theatre - Unproduced	⇧
	“Has Anybody Here Seen God Lately?”
Box   9 Folder   4	Unfinished first draft
	“The Hero,” (1967)
Box   9 Folder   5	Correspondence, treatment, script
	“The Pavilion,”
Box   9 Folder   6	Correspondence, script
	“Games Children Play”
Box   9 Folder   7	Outline
	“Legs--Without Marlene” , (after 1947)
Box   9 Folder   8	Draft
	“The Priests' Pavilion”
Box   9 Folder   9	Projections, section of a script
Box   9 Folder   10	Semi-sorted rewrites