Joshua Logan

In 1945 he married Nedda Harrigan.

Logan suffered from bipolar disorder, a mental disorder for which he had to be hospitalised for a couple of times. After he came to know that it can be restricted with proper treatment, he spoke on the subject to create awareness and also appeared on TV shows along with psychiatrist Ronald R. Fieve, who treated him with lithium in the 1970s to control the disorder.

He was born on October 5, 1908, in Texarkana, Texas, to Joshua Lockwood Logan and his wife Susan née Nabors. His father committed suicide when Logan was only three years of age.

After the incident his mother relocated to her parent’s house in Mansfield Louisiana with young Logan and his younger sister Mary Lee. Forty years hence Logan used the same location as the backdrop of his play ‘The Wisteria Trees’.

When he was around nine years of age, his mother remarried following which he began attending the ‘Culver Military Academy’ in Culver, Indiana, where his stepfather worked as a teacher. It is in this academy that he had the opportunity to attend a drama class, an activity that became quite to his liking.

Completing graduation from high school Logan enrolled at ‘Princeton University’ which he attended from 1927 to 1931. There he remained actively associated with ‘University Players’, the intercollegiate summer stock company and also with the venerable musical theatre group of the university called ‘Princeton Triangle Club’. He also remained president of the club during his senior year.

However after winning a scholarship to study acting under eminent Russian actor and theatre director Constantin Stanislavsky, Logan left the university before completing his graduation and moved to Moscow.

In 1932 he began his career in ‘Broadway’ with the historical play ‘Carry Nation’ by playwright Frank McGrath. Later he started working as an assistant stage manager.

He made his debut in Hollywood in the mid-1930s as a dialogue writer in a couple of films that starred Charles Boyer.

He went on to co-direct a romantic drama film along with Arthur Ripley and George Cukor (uncredited) titled ‘I Met My Love Again’ that was released on January 14, 1938. The film failed to create an impression at the box office and incurred a loss of $64,104.

Logan then opted to comeback to ‘Broadway’ where he met with moderate success directing the 1938 play ‘On Borrowed Time’ that ran for around a year.

His first significant ‘Broadway’ success as theatre director came with the play ‘I Married An Angel’, which opened on May 11, 1938, at ‘Shubert Theatre’. The play was staged for 338 performances and closed on February 25, 1939.