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DAZZLER: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MOSS HART. By Steven Bach. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001; pp. xiii + 462. $29.95 cloth.
The Broadway theatre of the 1930s and 1940s has almost disappeared from the New York landscape, leaving behind but a few buildings and a lot of legends that seem to expand with the years. Also disappearing rapidly from the scene is an entire generation of playgoers that would know immediately whom you meant by Noel and Cole, Woollcott and Woolley, and Kaufman and Hart. There was something glamorous about Broadway in the decade before World War II, even with the stock market tumbling and unemployment rising, when writers, actors, and producers were shuttling between New York and Hollywood, turning a hit in the former into a product for mass tastes in the latter. There were cruises to Europe and to other exotic places by popular stars, authors, and composers that seemed to epitomize the lifestyle of the rich and famous. All of this and much more is contained in Steven Bach's excellent new biography of one of the most talented of these "beautiful people," the playwright and director Moss Hart. Given his eminence in the theatre world, it is difficult to believe that there has been no biography of Hart since his own Act One: An Autobiography was published in 1959. Regrettably, his wife Kitty Carlisle Hart "chose not to cooperate" (xii) in the writing of this book. Her...