Michael V. Gazzo

Michael Vincente Gazzo was born in Hillside, New Jersey, on April 5, 1923. He attended Erwin Piscator's Dramatic Workshop at the New School on the GI Bill after being demobilized from the US Army Air Force after World War II. Gazzo's first major success was as a playwright. His play about drug addiction, "A Hatful of Rain," was a success on Broadway, running for 389 performances in 1955 and 1956 and winning Ben Gazzara and Anthony Franciosa Tony award nominations as Best Actor and Best Featured Actor, respectively. However, his second (and what would prove to be his last) Broadway play, "The Night Circus," also starring Gazzara, was a flop, lasting just 7 performances in 1958, "A Hatful of Rain" was made into a successful film by Oscar-winning director Fred Zinnemann in 1957. Franciosa won an Oscar nomination for reprising his role in the film. Gazzo turned to screenwriting, penning the Elvis Presley hoses-opera King Creole (1958). Eventually he turned back to acting, where his stock