Clyde (From Old Catalog] Fitch

Born William Clyde Fitch at Elmira, New York, he wrote over 60 plays, 36 of them original, which varied from social comedies and farces to melodrama and historical dramas. As the only child to live to adulthood, his father, Captain William G. Fitch, a graduate of West Point and a Union officer in the Civil War, encouraged him to become an architect or to engage in a career of business, but his mother, Alice Clark, in whose eyes he could do no wrong, always believed in his talent. She would hire...See more

Born William Clyde Fitch at Elmira, New York, he wrote over 60 plays, 36 of them original, which varied from social comedies and farces to melodrama and historical dramas. As the only child to live to adulthood, his father, Captain William G. Fitch, a graduate of West Point and a Union officer in the Civil War, encouraged him to become an architect or to engage in a career of business, but his mother, Alice Clark, in whose eyes he could do no wrong, always believed in his talent. She would hire the architectural firm of Hunt & Hunt to design the sarcophagus set inside an open Tuscan temple for his final resting place at Woodlawn Cemetery in Bronx, New York. Fitch graduated from Amherst College in 1886, where he was a member of Chi Psi Fraternity. He was the first American playwright to publish his plays. His first work of note was Beau Brummell (1890), a major work set in the English Regency which became a showcase for actor Richard Mansfield (1857-1907), who would play the title role for the rest of his life. His 1892 play Masked Ball (an adaption from Alexandre Bisson's Le Veglione) would be the first time that Charles Frohman put Maude Adams opposite John Drew Jr. which led to many future successes. In 1900, Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines, made a star of Ethel Barrymore. He is remembered particularly for his works such as Nathan Hale (1898), The Climbers (1901), The Girl with the Green Eyes (which ran 108 performances at the Savoy Theatre in 1902, and starred Robert Drouet as John Austin), The Woman In the Case, (which also starred Drouet and ran 89 performances at the Herald Square Theatre in 1905), The Truth (1907) and The City (1909). His works were popular on both sides of the Atlantic. His play based on the heroine of John Greenleaf Whittier's poem Barbara Frietchie met with mixed reviews in 1899 because of the romance he added to the tale, but it would be successfully revived a number of times. In 1896 he wrote the lyrics to a popular song Love Makes The World Go 'Round, with the arrangement by William Furst. See less