Biography/History

Theatrical producer David Merrick was born November 27, 1912, in St. Louis, Missouri. He was interested in the theatre at an early age and availed himself of every opportunity to see “everything live that came to town in the way of entertainment.”

He entered Washington University on a scholarship. While there he out-ranked Tennessee Williams by winning second prize in a playwriting contest. He transferred to St. Louis University where he earned a degree in law, never ranking lower academically than third or fourth in his class. At both colleges he directed and wrote plays but he came to prefer production. He went to New York where he practiced law until 1949.

In 1940 he first ventured on Broadway by investing $5,000 in The Male Animal, produced by Herman Shumlin. This investment brought him a return of $20,000. He also worked for Shumlin as a playreader, agent and general manager. Shumlin has since called Merrick “a milestone in our modern theatre, where the exploitation of plays has become a lost art. He has revived it. I don't know of anybody in my time in the theatre who's done a job of producing so well or on such a scale.”

Despite his successful law practice Merrick was bored with the law technicalities and he had an increasing interest in the theatre. So, in 1949 he put aside law and made his first production venture, Clutterbuck. Subsequent productions were as follows:

1954:	Fanny, with rights from Marcel Pagnol who wrote the trilogy upon which the musical is based. It starred Ezio Pinza and Walter Slezak.
1956:	The Matchmaker by Thornton Wilder
1957:	Look Back in Anger by John Osborne
1958:	The Entertainer by John Osborne, starring Laurence Olivier
	The World of Suzie Wong, by Paul Osborn, based on a novel by Richard Mason
	Epitaph for George Dillon by John Osborne and Anthony Creighton
	Maria Golovin by Gian Carlo Menotti
	La Plume de Ma Tante, written, devised and directed by Robert Dhery, won the Drama Critics' Circle Award as the best musical of the season. Elizabeth Seal was cited as the best musical-comedy actress.
1958-59:	Romanoff and Juliet by Peter Ustinov; Ustinov also acted in it.
	Jamaica, with book by E. Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy
1959:	Destry Rides Again, with music and lyrics by Harold Rome and book by Leonard Gershe
	Gypsy, suggested by the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee; book by Arthur Laurents
	Take Me Along, based on Ah, Wilderness by Eugene O'Neill
1960:	The Good Soup by Felicien Marceau; adapted and directed by Garson Kanin; starred Ruth Gordon
	Vintage '60, a musical revue
	Irma La Douce, with book and lyrics by Alexandre Breffort
	A Taste of Honey, by Shelagh Delaney, won the Drama Critics' Circle Award as the best foreign play; a Tony was given to Joan Plowright as the best dramatic actress of the year.
	Becket, by Jean Anouilh, starred Laurence Olivier. It won four of the American Theatre Wing's annual Tonys, for the most distinguished playwriting, costumes, sets, staging.
	Do Re Mi, with book by Garson Kanin.
1961:	Carnival, originally based on story The Seven Souls of Clement O'Reilly by Paul Gallico and filmed as Lili.

At one time during 1960-61 Merrick had six shows running in New York. He is rated as one of two or three most successful theatrical producers in America today. This is attributed to his talent for promotion and his tireless dedication to his productions. Although critics have facetiously called him the “Barnum of Broadway Producers,” because of his use of gimmicks for publicity and promotion, no one can adversely criticize his financial uprightness and acumen. John Kobler in the September 16, 1961 issue of the Saturday Evening Post writes: “... only four of Merrick's twenty-one productions have failed to return their backers' investment. Two broke even. The others have yielded gross profits totaling close to $50,000,000.” Fanny grossed $7,500,000. The unsuccessful productions were Epitaph for George Dillon (66 performances), The Good Soup (21 performances), Maria Golovin (5 performances) and Vintage '60 (8 performances).

In April 1961 Merrick was given a special Antoinette Perry theater award “in recognition of a fabulous production record over the past seven years.” Garson Kanin has said of Merrick: “I revere the guy. He keeps the theater alive in a day when the chances against bringing in a hit are a hundred to one.”

Merrick is said not to like gimmicks for promotion but he uses them--successfully so--as a means of stimulating attendance on the part of those who need such gimmicks to attract them to the theatre and thereby to safeguard the producer, director, playwright and cast. For example, when Fanny opened, it did not receive good notices. Merrick had a sculptor to make a life-sized statue in the nude, of the show's belly dancer. This statue was placed opposite a bust of Shakespeare in the Poet's Corner of New York's Central Park. Life carried a photograph of the statue; posters for the show were displayed on the French Riviera. Fanny continued for a run of 888 performances. The Matchmaker received good notices but Merrick prolonged its run by placing a monkey at the wheel of an antique British taxicab, concealing the actual driver, and sending the cab down Broadway with a sign reading “I am driving my master to see The Matchmaker.” In the fall of 1960 when it appeared that theatre attendance would be lessened by a 7:30 curtain time, Merrick irked his competitors by returning to an 8:30 - 8:40 curtain time on Wednesday evenings.

Mr. Merrick insists upon keeping his private life private.