People to Know - George Abbott

I first heard of Mr. Abbott when I watched Elaine Stritch at Liberty. She was talking about working for him on a revival of his show On Your Toes.

George Abbott was born in 1887 and was a great producer, director, playwright and actor. He made his Broadway debut in 1913 in The Misleading Lady. He went on to act in several Broadway shows, and in 1925 the first play he wrote made it to Broadway. From there his career really took off. He was the original director of Chicago, Room Service, The Boys from Syracuse, Pal Joey, Sweet Charity, On the Town, A Funny Thing … Forum and many more. He also wrote On Your Toes, Damn Yankees and The Pajama Game, to name a few.

Abbott was known for being a show doctor. If a show was not working on its out of town try out or before opening on Broadway, many producers brought in Abbott to look at and help fix the work.

George Abbott died just days before his 108th birthday. In 1995 during the opening of the Damn Yankees revival on Broadway he was greeted by a standing ovation. As everyone was applauding he leaned over to someone he was with and said, “Someone really important must be here.”