Catherine Chisholm Cushing, from a 1916 publication
Catherine Chisholm Cushing (April 15, 1874 — October 19, 1952) was an American writer of songs, librettos, and plays, best known for her 1916 stage adaptation of Eleanor H. Porter's Pollyanna.
Cushing started her literary career as an editor at Harper's Bazaar,[2] before finding success as a writer on Broadway. Her first show, The Real Thing (1911),[3] was a comedy that ran for sixty performances and starred Henrietta Crosman and Minnie Dupree.[4] This was followed by her Widow by Proxy (1913) with May Irwin,[5]Kitty MacKay (1914),[6][7]Sari (1914, book by Cushing and Eugene Percy Heath),[8]Jerry (1914) starring Billie Burke,[9][10]Pollyanna (1916, based on the book by Eleanor H. Porter),[11][12]Glorianna (1918-1919, a musical based on Cushing's own Widow by Proxy), Lassie (1920, a musical version of Kitty MacKay), Marjolaine (1922), Topsy and Eva (1924-1925, a burlesque based loosely on Uncle Tom's Cabin),[13]Edgar Allan Poe (1925),[14] and The Master of the Inn (1925-1926, based on a book by Robert Herrick).[15]
Her Topsy and Eva was among the first American musicals adapted for early television; a one-hour version aired in July 1939. "Possibly because the program was so racist, history has chosen to forget this broadcast," commented one historian of television.[18]
Personal life
Catherine Chisholm married Henry Howard Cushing in 1904. She was widowed in 1937 and died in New York in 1952, aged 78 years.[19]
^Catherine Chisholm Cushing and Rudolf Friml, "L'amour, toujours, l'amour" (Harms 1922), Sheet Music Collection, Music Library and Bill Schurk Sound Archives, University Libraries, Bowling Green State University.
Sheet music for "Love, Love, Love!" from Glorianna (1918), lyrics by Catherine Chisholm Cushing and music by Rudolf Friml; in the Digital Commons collection, University of Maine
