Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (play)

Infobox Play
name = Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?


image_size =
caption =
writer = George Axelrod
characters = Rita Marlowe
George MacCauley
Michael Freeman
Irving LaSalle
Harry Kaye
Bronk Brannigan
Masseur
A Secretary
(see "Script Variations" below)
setting = The sitting room of Rita's Marlowe's suite in the St. Regis Hotel in New York City and the office of Rita Marlowe Productions in Hollywood (see "Script Variations" below)
date of premiere = October 13, 1955
country of Origin = United States
subject = A Faustian comedy about Hollywood
genre = Comedy
web =
playbill_event =
ibdb_id = 2539 "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?" is an original stage comedy in three acts and four scenes that opened on Broadway October 13, 1955, starring Orson Bean (George MacCauley), Martin Gabel (Irving LaSalle), Jayne Mansfield (Rita Marlowe), Harry Clark (Harry Kaye), Carol Grace (A Secretary), Lou Gallo (A Masseur), William Thourlby (Bronk Brannigan) and Walter Matthau (Michael Freeman).

It was written and directed by George Axelrod, and produced by Jule Styne. The production closed November 3, 1956, after 444 performances.

The play is a Faustian comedy about a fan magazine writer (Orson Bean) who sells his soul to the Devil (in the guise of a Hollywood literary agent) to become a successful screenwriter. The character of Rita Marlowe (played by Jayne Mansfield) is a vapid blonde sex symbol, an exaggerated lampoon of Marilyn Monroe (who had starred the previous year in the film version of Axelrod's play, "The Seven Year Itch"). The surname Marlowe is an homage to 16th Century playwright Christopher Marlowe who wrote the drama, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, the plot of which served as the inspiration for Axelrod's play.

The 1957 film Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? utilized the title of the play and the character of Rita Marlowe (with Mansfield repeating her stage role), but little else. The story was changed to a satire on television advertising and Tony Randall starred as Rockwell P. Hunter, a character who never actually appeared in the play.

Production

George Axelrod's phenomenal success with the Broadway production of "The Seven Year Itch" had made him an overnight celebrity, a phenomenon that he parodied in his 1953 "roman a clef" teleplay, "Confessions of a Nervous Man," which was broadcast on the CBS-TV anthology series, "Studio One", with actor Art Carney portraying him. According to that script, he was afraid to write a second play because its failure would make him an overnight has-been. But the Billy Wilder-directed film version of "The Seven Year Itch" (starring Marilyn Monroe) had been so heavily rewritten in order to meet the puritanical standards of the Hollywood Production Code, that Axelrod was inspired to write another play about a noble playwright and his refusal to bow to Hollywood's low standards. Axelrod used the character of George MacCauley to illustrate how many writers succumb to the lure of high pay and celebrity, while others like Michael Freeman (Axelrod's alter ego) remain true to themselves. Twentieth Century-Fox, the same studio that had altered his first play, bought the film rights to "Rock Hunter" and threw out his entire story and all but one of his characters.

After a year in Hollywood, Jayne Mansfield had played only bit parts in four movies when her agent arranged for her to audition for the role of Rita Marlowe, an all-too-obvious send-up of Marilyn Monroe. Her astonishing 40" - 21" - 35 1/2" measurements and her one-of-kind comic twist on the dumb blonde stereotype quickly won her the role ["Press-Telegram" (Long Beach, CA), September 21, 1955, Jack Gaver column] and by opening night she found herself a full-fledged Broadway star, courted by many of the Hollywood studios that had previously ignored her.

Axelrod had originally intended to call his play "Will Success Spoil Rock Hudson?" but Hudson's agent, Henry Willson, threatened a law suit. After the play opened, Axelrod was vacationing in Jamaica and ran into Rock Hudson and his new wife, Phyllis Gates, on their honeymoon and the three became friends. When the Hudsons returned to New York, they attended a performance of the show at which Hudson's name was substituted for the fictitious Rock Hunter. ["The Evening Standard" (Uniontown, PA), November 22, 1955, Leonard Lyons column] Interestingly enough, Willson had created both pseudonyms, "Rock Hudson" and "Tab Hunter," for his clients Roy Fitzgerald and Arthur Gelien, respectively.

Actress Carol Grace, who had twice married and divorced playwright William Saroyan, played Miss Logan ("A Secretary") in the play and understudied Jayne Mansfield. In August of 1959, she would marry her co-star Walter Matthau. Tina Louise, who also understudied Mansfield, played the small role of "A Swimmer," a part that was deleted from the published script. According to columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, "Jayne Mansfield, Tina Louise and Carol Saroyan are all imitating Marilyn Monroe, probably by direction. It gets a bit repetitious in that department." ["Lowell Sun" (Lowell, MA), October 4, 1955, Dorothy Kilgallen column]
In February of 1956, Orson Bean broke his arm in the fight scene with Bronk Brannigan and returned to the role with a cast on his arm. ["Lima News" (Lima, OH), February 15, 1956, Earl Wilson column] Tom Poston replaced Bean in July when the play moved from the Belasco Theatre to the more centrally located Shubert Theatre.

ynopsis

Crew-cut fan magazine writer George MacCauley pays a visit to Hollywood's reigning sex goddess Rita Marlowe in her swank New York hotel room and confesses that this will be only his second interview, the first having been the article, "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?" Arriving moments later is the hottest new playwright in town, Michael Freeman (based more on Axelrod himself than on Marilyn Monroe's future husband Arthur Miller), who has sold his play for an exorbitant fee and is enjoying his newfound celebrity. The next visitor is a slickly dressed Hollywood agent, Irving "Sneaky" LaSalle (inspired by real-life agent Irving "Swifty" Lazar), who tries to convince the playwright to sign with his agency and write a second play, but Mike is determined to enjoy his overnight success and not write what might turn out to be a flop and kill his great new lifestyle. Hollywood mogel Harry Kaye (based on Harry Cohn or any of the other studio heads then in power) enters next, almost apoplectic over having paid $350,000 for the rights to Mike's play.

Rita, who can't seem to get George's name right (calling him McCarthy, McClure, Carstairs, Carson, Klein and more), exits into the adjoining room with Mike and Harry, while LaSalle encourages George to sign with him. George's confession that he can't really write (except for one article called "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?") falls on deaf ears. "We are not speaking of "talent"," LaSalle tells him. "We are speaking of "success"! There is -- and immodest as it may sound -- I am speaking literally -- nothing -- but nothing that I cannot do for a client..." LaSalle's fee for each of these wonders is just the usual ten percent. What George doesn't quite grasp, but the audience quickly does, is that the innocent schnook will soon be selling off pieces of his soul in ever increasing increments.

George swallows the bait and when he suggests that he would like to have a million dollars, he is astonished when a phone call to Irving Trust reveals that there is, in fact, an account in his name with a million dollars. When he fantasizes about having a woman like Rita Marlowe love him, Rita returns and, indeed, does reveal her attraction to him and Act One ends with George carrying Rita into the bedroom.

In Act Two, the scene shifts to the Hollywood office of Rita Marlowe Productions. George and Rita are still together, but George discovers that Rita's not-yet-divorced husband, Los Angeles Rams football star Bronk Brannigan, has heard about the new man in his wife's life and is none too happy. But with Mike standing by in awe, LaSalle encourages George to write his first screenplay, an adaptation of Mike's psychological drama about a "prostitute" and a "psychiatrist". George's version is a romantic comedy in which the high-class call girl and the shrink "meet cute" when each of them sends out a couch to be recovered:

GEORGE: "But there is a mix-up -- and her couch is delivered to his office -- and his couch is delivered to her apartment. He goes to her apartment to get his couch back. "I need it for my work!" he says. And she says: "I need it for my work!"

In Act Three, a year has gone by and George has won an Oscar for his screenplay and Rita is still very much in love with him. But when left tackle Bronk Brannigan shows up and begins to pummel George, LaSalle mysteriously appears and, for another ten percent fee, enables George to get the better of Brannigan, finally tossing the astonished athlete through the window in a shower of broken glass.

In the final scene, George comes to see Mike and frantically explains the deal he has made with LaSalle. Each of his wishes has cost him a piece of his soul and there's only ten percent left to go. He must get out of town before LaSalle takes control of him. But his penultimate wish was to give his buddy Mike the gift of a ready-made, Pulitzer Prize and movie sale guaranteed hit play which he hands over to the astonished playwright. But Mike has a sudden burst of self-awareness and realizes that he could never pawn off as his own a play that he didn't write. When LaSalle suddenly appears, George selflessly releases Rita from his control and is prepared to give in to the agent from Hell. But Mike convinces LaSalle to take him on as a client, even agreeing to start with a 90% share already pledged, if he will release George. LaSalle grabs the offer and is nonplussed when Mike explains that it was a bad trade, because Mike is completely happy with his life as it is and has no intention of selling off the remaining 10%. LaSalle grabs George's Oscar and, with a petulant gesture of "so there," departs. As the play ends, Mike and George are on their way back to New York, Mike not forgetting to grab his typewriter on the way out.

Movie Version

Few films have ever had less relationship to their original source material than the 1957 20th Century-Fox comedy, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? Jayne Mansfield had been such a hit in the Broadway play, that studio head Buddy Adler was willing to buy the rights to the play just to get her out of her contract, even though he didn't think the play would make a good movie. But producer/director/screenwriter Frank Tashlin had seen Mansfield's screen test for "The Wayward Bus" and wanted her for his film version of Garson Kanin's novel "Do Re Mi" (which would become the comedy classic, "The Girl Can't Help It"). ["Daily Times-News" (Burlington, NC), September 26, 1956, Bob Thomas column] Tashlin's solution was to throw out all of Axelrod's play and create a new comedy about the world of television advertising, using only the character of the sex goddess Rita Marlowe (Mansfield). All of the other characters in the movie version of "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?" were created by Tashlin, including his new leading man, Rockwell P. Hunter (Tony Randall), a character who never actually appears in the play. To prepare for her role in the film (and for her new seven-year contract with Fox), Mansfield studied with Karl Malden at the Actors Studio. "I'm studying dancing, singing and dramatic acting," she told columnist Louella Parsons. "20th has promised to build me as one of their important stars." ["Kingsport Times" (Kingsport, TN), May 4, 1956, Louella Parsons column]

cript Variations

In the Broadway production, Act III Scene 2 was played on the terrace of Michael Freeman's bungalo at the Beverly Hills Hotel. This scene was rewritten for the Samuel French acting edition to appear in Rita's office, thus eliminating one set and three characters seen on Broadway: A Bellman (David Sheiner), A Swimmer (Tina Louise) and A Chauffeur (Michael Tolan). The Broadway version of the script (minus the character of the Swimmer) was published in hardbound by Random House (March 1956) and in paperback by Bantam Books (August 1957).

References

These are all syndicated columns, printed in many newspapers

External links

*ibdb title|id=2539|title=Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter
*ibdb name|id=5777|name=George Axelrod
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0712243/ "Confessions of a Nervous Man"] at Internet Movie Database
* [http://content.cdlib.org/dynaxml/servlet/dynaXML?docId=ft138nb0zm&chunk.id=d0e2422 Interview with George Axelrod]