John Patrick was born in Louisville, Kentucky on May 17, 1906 and after finishing his education at Columbia and Harvard he turned to writing radio scripts, including an adaptation of Arrowsmith for Helen Hayes. His first ventures on Broadway, Hell Freezes Over in 1935, and The Willow and I in 1942 were unsuccessful. Like Hemingway and Faulkner in World War I, Patrick enlisted in the American Field Service in World War II. From his experiences as an ambulance driver in Africa, Asia, and Burma he devised the play, The Hasty Heart which he wrote on a transport taking him to the United States from Algiers in 1944. The play was produced by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse that same year and established Patrick as a playwright.
However, after this initial theatrical success, Patrick's next three plays were failures - The Story of Mary Surratt, which he also directed (1947); The Curious Savage and Lo, and Behold, both in 1950. It was not until 1953 when he adapted Vern Sneider's novel, The Teahouse of the August Moon, for the stage that he achieved his next, greatest, and so far, last theatrical success. The play opened at the Martin Beck Theater on October 15, 1953 with David Wayne and John Forsythe in the starring roles of Sakini and Captain Frisby. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize, the Antoinette Perry Award, and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. It was translated into foreign languages and productions of it were staged in Mexico, England, France, Holland, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Italy, Yougslavia, Hungary, Israel, Australia, and Japan. Patrick's next two plays, Good as Gold (1956) and Juniper and the Pagans (1959), were unsuccessful.
Mr. Patrick has also written the motion picture scenarios for: The President's Lady, Three Coins in the Fountain, Mister Roberts, Some Came Running, and The World of Suzie Wong.
