playwright screenwriter author
Peter Stone was born on February 27, 1930, in Los Angeles, California, United States. He was the son of John and Hilda Stone. He had a brother, David. His father became a producer and screenwriter at Fox Studios in the 1920s, later writing for Shirley Temple and Charlie Chan movies. After divorce, his mother Hilda moved to Paris and married a literary agent George Marton.
In 1947 Peter Stone graduated from University High School in Los Angeles. In 1951 he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Bard College. In 1953 Stone received his Master of Fine Arts degree from Yale University.
After graduating, Peter Stone traveled to Paris, France, where he was a journalist and newsreader for CBS radio and television. He returned to the United States in the late 1950s and began writing plays, his first being Friend of the Family (1958). He also wrote movie screenplays, and after his first film, the 1963 romantic comedy Charade starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, was produced he won an Oscar for the Grant comedy Father Goose.
His first big Broadway hit was 1776 (1969), which he adapted three years later to film. Stone became well known for his skill at adapting works to stage and screen, including the movies Mirage (1965) and Sweet Charity (1969), and the plays Sugar (1972), Woman of the Year (1981), and Titanic (1998). His The Will Rogers Follies (1991) won an Antoinette Perry - Tony Award for Best Musical, a Grammy Award, and a New York Drama Critics Circle award, his Annie Get Your Gun (1999) won a Tony Award for Best Musical Revival and a Grammy Award, and he won Drama Critics Circle and Drama Desk awards for 1776 (1969), as well as numerous other prizes.
His last work included a play adaptation of Finian's Rainbow (2000), and the movies Just Cause (1995) and, under the pseudonym Peter Joshua, The Truth About Charlie (2002), an adaptation of Charade Stone, who sometimes wrote under the pen name Pierre Marton, also wrote scripts for television, including Asphalt Jungle (1961), and the series The Defenders (1961-1962) and Adam's Rib (1973-1974). Stone was a president of the Dramatists Guild of America from 1981 to March 24, 1999.
(A full-color gallery with over 150 photos of the original...)
1997(Winner of five 1969 Tony Awards, including Best Book and ...)
1969(Cary grant as a boozy beachcomber sitting out WWII in pea...)
1964
Quotations:
"The audience is wrong individually and always right collectively. If they don't laugh, it isn't funny. If they cough, it isn't interesting. If they walk out, you are in trouble."
"A book is a concept and a structure, and dialogue is the smallest part. You can have the best score in the world, but if the book is weak, it won't work. On the other hand, if the book is good, it can carry a mediocre score."
Peter Stone was a member of the Dramatists Guild of America.
On February 17, 1961, Peter Stone married Mary O'Hanley.
