Joshua Logan
Joshua Lockwood Logan III (October 5, 1908 – July 12, 1988) was an American theatre and film director, playwright and screenwriter, and actor. He shared a Pulitzer Prize for co-writing the musical South Pacific and was involved in writing other musicals.
Joshua Logan
Early years[edit]
Logan was born in Texarkana, Texas, the son of Susan (née Nabors) and Joshua Lockwood Logan.[2] When he was three years old, his father committed suicide. Logan, his mother, and his younger sister, Mary Lee, then moved to his maternal grandparents' home in Mansfield, Louisiana, which Logan used 40 years later as the setting for his play The Wisteria Trees. Logan's mother remarried six years after his father's death and he then attended Culver Military Academy in Culver, Indiana, where his stepfather served on the staff as a teacher. At school, he experienced his first drama class and felt at home. After his high school graduation he attended Princeton University, here he was active in the Triangle Club, the university’s venerable musical theatre troupe.[3] Moreover, he was involved with the intercollegiate summer stock company, known as the University Players, with fellow student James Stewart and also non-students Henry Fonda and Margaret Sullavan. During his senior year, he served as president of the Princeton Triangle Club. Before his graduation, he won a scholarship to travel to Moscow to observe the rehearsals of Konstantin Stanislavski, and Logan left school without a diploma.
Personal life[edit]
Logan experienced mood fluctuations for many years, which in the 1970s psychiatrist Ronald R. Fieve treated with lithium, and the two appeared on TV talk shows extolling its virtues.[6]
Logan was married briefly (1939–1940) to actress Barbara O'Neil. After the couple divorced, he was married to Nedda Harrigan from 1945 until his death from progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) in New York City in 1988; they had a daughter, Susan Harrigan Logan, and a son, Thomas Heggen Logan.[1]
In 2019, Jane Fonda, who starred in Logan's 1960 film Tall Story, claimed both she and Logan were in love with lead actor Anthony Perkins at the time of filming, causing tension during an already difficult shoot.[7][8]