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Biography of David Belasco
Name: David Belasco
Birth Date: July 22, 1853
Death Date: May 14, 1931
Place of Birth: San Francisco, California, United States
Nationality: American
Gender: Male
Occupations: playwright, director, producer
David Belasco
David Belasco (1853-1931), American theatrical director-producer and playwright, attempted to bring veracity to the popular melodrama through meticulous detail in setting and lighting. He led in the movement that made the director the theater's dominant personality.David Belasco was born in San Francisco, Calif., on July 22, 1853. He was educated in a monastery, which may have prompted the quasi-clerical garb he wore in later life--a style that earned him the name "the Bishop of Broadway." He fled the monastery and joined a circus. By the age of 12 he was an actor on the San Francisco stage and had begun writing plays. In the following few years he joined companies barnstorming through the mining camps. In Virginia City, Nev., he served as secretary to Dion Boucicault, who inspired Belasco to try playwriting again. From 1873 to 1881 he was associated with several San Francisco theaters. His first play to attract attention was a collaborative …showed first 150 words…
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…showed last 150 words…put together, Belasco took time to perfect his work; even his most severe critics admit a "tidiness" not often found on the American stage. He excelled in creating a mood and tension in his crowd and mob scenes. Moreover, whatever was seen on stage was Belasco and the other artists were the instruments of his will. He died in New York on May 14, 1931. Further Reading Belasco presents his ideas in The Theatre through Its Stage Door (1919) and in a chapter in Toby Cole and Helen Krich Chinou, eds., Directors on Directing (1963). Craig Timberlake, The Bishop of Broadway: The Life and Work of David Belasco (1954), is an objective biography. The theater conditions Belasco knew are described in George R. McMinn, The Theater of the Golden Era in California (1941), and Robert Grau, The Business Man in the Amusement World (1910). Alan S. Downer, ed., American Drama and Its Critics (1965), contains material about Belasco.
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