Mart Crowley

Mart Crowley (born August 21, 1935) is an American playwright.

Crowley was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi. After graduating from The Catholic University of America (Studying in acting and show business) in Washington, D.C. in 1957, Crowley headed west to Hollywood, where he worked for a number of television production companies before meeting Natalie Wood on the set of her film Splendor in the Grass. Wood hired him as her assistant, primarily to give him ample free time to work on his gay-themed play The Boys in the Band, which opened off-Broadway on April 14, 1968 and enjoyed a run of 1001 performances. Crowley became part of Wood's inner circle of friends that she called "the nucleus", whose main requirement was that they pass a "kindness" test.

The Boys in the Band was adapted into a film in 1970 directed by William Friedkin.

Crowley's sequel to The Boys in the Band was entitled The Men From The Boys.

Crowley made other works: Remote Asylum, the autobiographical A Breeze from the Gulf, and The Men From the Boys, his sequel to The Boys in the Band.

In 1979 and 1980, Crowley served first as the executive script editor and then producer of the ABC series Hart to Hart, starring Wood's husband Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers. Other credits include the teleplays for There Must Be a Pony (1986), Bluegrass (1988), People Like Us (1990), and a Hart to Hart reunion special in 1996.

Crowley has appeared in at least three documentaries: The Celluloid Closet (1995), about homosexuality and its depiction on screen throughout the years, Dominick Dunne: After the Party (2007), a biography of Crowley's friend and producer, Dominick Dunne, and Making the Boys (2011), a documentary about the making of The Boys in the Band.

Crowley is openly gay.

Archival Sources

 * Charles Boultenhouse and Parker Tyler Papers, 1927-1994 (35 boxes) are housed at the New York Public Library. Includes correspondence with Mart Crowley from 1969 to 1972.
 * Lucille Lortel Papers, 1902-2000 (49.61 linear feet; 37 vols.) are housed in the New York Public Library. Includes correspondence with Mart Crowley from 1996.