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Brady was born to a
newspaperman in 1863. His father kidnapped him from San
Francisco and brought William to New York City, where his father
worked as a writer while William was forced to sell newspapers
on street corners. Upon his father's death when William was 15,
he
hitchhiked
his way back to San Francisco.
He made his start on the stage in
San Francisco, California
shortly after his return. As a callboy in
The White Slave,
he filled in a role for an ill actor, and started his career.
After a failed attempt to produce a version of
She
by
H. Rider Haggard,
he was able to secure the rights to
After Dark,
successfully bringing the play to New York. While Brady was sued
for his efforts, as
Augustin Daly
claimed
plagiarism,
Brady was able to make enough money to continue with his theater
ventures.
Brady inadvertently became a boxing
promoter during this time. He cast
James J. Jeffries
in After Dark, and later introduced the man into the
boxing circuit, where Jeffries would eventually become the
undisputed
heavyweight champion.
Brady would be inducted into the
International Boxing Hall of Fame
in 1998, remaining the only person to manage two undisputed
heavyweight champions, in Jeffries and
James J. Corbett.
Brady ran a successful theatre
operation for thirty years, having met actresses like
Grace George
(whom he later married)
and having, at one point, hired famous humorist
Robert Benchley
to complete ad copy for him.
Brady's success continued until the
Stock Market Crash of 1929,
which wiped out his entire savings. He was able to secure the
funds to produce
Street Scene,
which was written by
Elmer Rice,
won the
Pulitzer Prize,
and netted Brady a half a million dollars. His total theatrical
output included over 260 plays, including a version of
Uncle Tom's Cabin
that was later used as images for a book in 1904,
and a number of movies before his death in 1950. William Brady
is interred at
Sleepy Hollow Cemetery
in
Sleepy Hollow,
NY. |
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