Anne Nichols
Anne Nichols was an American playwright and actress born in 1891 in Dales Mills, Georgia, who pursued a career in theater after leaving home at sixteen. Her initial foray into show business began as a dancer in a traveling production, but she eventually transitioned to writing when financial constraints made it difficult to buy vaudeville sketches. Nichols gained fame with her 1922 play "Abie's Irish Rose," which, despite being criticized for its sentimentality and predictable plots, became a commercial success and ran for five years. The play addresses themes of love overcoming prejudice, featuring a Jewish man and an Irish woman who hide their backgrounds to marry. While her works were often ridiculed by critics, they resonated with audiences, leading to several adaptations for notable Hollywood stars. Throughout her career, Nichols earned substantial royalties and was known for her belief in love and prayer as life's most important elements. In her later years, however, she faced financial decline and spent her final days at the Actors Fund Home, passing away in 1966. Despite mixed critical reception, Nichols is remembered for her ability to tell simple, engaging stories that appealed to the public.
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Subject Terms
Anne Nichols
Playwright
- Born: November 26, 1891
- Birthplace: Dales Mill, Georgia
- Died: September 15, 1966
- Place of death: Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey
Biography
Anne Nichols was born into what she considered a rigid Baptist family in Dales Mills, Georgia, in 1891. Growing up in Philadelphia under the influence of her grandmother, she fell in love with the theater and ran away at sixteen, after two years of high school and six months of business school, to pursue an acting career. Her first job, as a dancer in a traveling biblical extravaganza, The Shepherd King, paid eighteen dollars a week. In 1914 she married actor and producer Harry King and had a child before divorcing in 1924.
Nichols turned to writing drama when she could no longer afford to purchase packaged vaudeville sketches. Her first original work was greeted with inappropriate laughter, but she still was signed to a vaudeville writing contract, coming up with many sketches as well as nineteen plays. Her plays were so predictable, the plots so lacking in originality, that critics made a game of finding new ways to ridicule her endeavors. However, the performers often attracted considerable praise and audiences were enthusiastic. Although the plays were scorned for their sentimentality, several were made into motion picture vehicles for such Hollywood notables as Gloria Swanson, Bob Hope, Betty Grable, and Martha Raye.
On May 23, 1922, the play that made her famous, Abie’s Irish Rose, opened to poor reviews, labeled as nothing more than a cheap farce. As was true of much of her drama, this play had a moral center, with love and intelligence overcoming bigotry. In it, a Jewish man and an Irish woman conceal their backgrounds so they can marry without family interference. Of course, they are found out, and only through the birth of twins are the two sides of the family reconciled. A priest, Father Whalen, says to Rabbi Samuels: “We’re all trying to get to the same place when we pass on. We’re just going by different routes,” to which the rabbi responds “And just because you’re not riding on my train why should I say your train won’t get there?” This neat wrapping up of a problem was characteristic of all of her work.
Nichols was concerned with the avant-garde productions of the day that aimed to shock with material she considered filth, and she believed that love and prayer were the only important things in life. No matter the barbs of the critics, no matter the rumor that young writer Robert Benchley refused to grace the Republic Theatre side of Forty-Second Street where Abie’s Irish Rose had its five year run, Nichols earned one million dollars in royalties and many more millions as a producer. In her declining years, she dwindled away her fortune and eventually entered the Actors Fund Home in Englewood, New Jersey, dying at the Cliff House Nursing Home on September 15, 1966. While it is true that Nichols helped hone the critical skills and penchant for witticisms among literary critics of the day, and though many laughed at her literary pretensions, she met a public need for a simple story told in simple terms, most often with a guaranteed happy ending.