Marc Connelly

Marcus Cook Connelly (December 13, 1890 – December 21, 1980) was an American playwright, director, producer, performer, and lyricist. He was a key member of the Algonquin Round Table, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1930.

Biography Marcus Cook Connelly was born to actor and hotelier Patrick Joseph Connelly and actress Mabel Fowler Cook in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. His father died in 1902. Connelly attended Trinity Hall boarding school in Washington, Pennsylvania, after which he began collecting money for ads in The Pittsburgh Press to help to support his mother.

Connelly received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for The Green Pastures in 1930. The play, a re-telling of episodes from the Old Testament, was staged with the first all-black Broadway cast. He contributed verse and articles to Life, Everybody's, and other magazines.

Connelly was a drama teacher at Yale University from 1946 to 1950. In 1968, Connelly published his memoirs, Voices Offstage. Over the years, Connelly appeared as an actor in 21 movies, including The Spirit of St. Louis (1957) with James Stewart.

Connelly's television debut as an actor came in 1953 in an episode of Broadway TV Theatre on WOR-TV. A review in the trade publication Variety said that Connelly "handled himself with winning aplomb".

A film about the Round Table members, The Ten-Year Lunch (1987), won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and featured Connelly, who was the last survivor. The 1994 film Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, a fictional account of the group, featured actor Matt Malloy as Connelly.

Connelly died on December 21, 1980, in St. Luke's Hospital in Manhattan, aged 90.

Filmography Year Title Role Notes1920 The Sleep of Cyma Roget Minor Role 1957 The Spirit of St. Louis Father Hussman 1960 Tall Story Prof. Charles Osman