Love from Judy

Last updated

Love from Judy
Love From Judy.jpg
Original West End cast recording cover
Music Hugh Martin
LyricsJack Gray
Hugh Martin
Book Eric Maschwitz
Jean Webster
Basis Daddy Long Legs
by Jean Webster
Productions1952 West End

Love from Judy is a musical with music by Hugh Martin, lyrics by Martin and Jack Gray, and a book by Eric Maschwitz and Jean Webster. It is based on Webster's novel and play Daddy-Long-Legs . The original production opened in Coventry in 1951 and then moved to the Saville Theatre on the West End and opened on September 25, 1952. The production was also televised in 1953.

Contents

Productions

The original production opened in Coventry, England in 1951 and was directed by Charles Hickman with choreography by Pauline Grant. The production starred Jean Carson as Jerusha Abbott. The rest of the cast included Barbara Deeks, Pixie Murphy, Moiya Kelly, Linda Gray, Vincent Lawson, Bill O'Connor, Audrey Freeman, June Whitfield, Johnny Brandon, William Greene, Adelaide Hall, Jeanette Landis, Francis Pidgeon, and Thane Bettany. [1] The production transferred to the West End Saville Theatre the following year and opened on September 25.

Television adaptation

The original production was filmed with the original cast and aired on BBC on March 16, 1953. [2]

Synopsis

Jerusha "Judy" Abbott, an orphan living in New England. One day, a visiting trustee becomes interested in Judy and decides to give her a chance and send her to a college. He only requests that she send him a letter once a month keeping him updated on her studies and life. As she does not know his identity, she decides to name him "Daddy long-legs." Over the course of her years in college, she begins to fall in love with her mysterious benefactor and he returns her feelings.

Musical numbers

Casts and characters

CharacterOriginal West End

1952

Jerusha "Judy" Abbott Jeannie Carson
Gladiola MurphyPixie Murphy
Mamie Moiya Kelly
Mrs. Grace Pritchard Linda Gray
Cyrus WykoffVincent Lawson
Jervis PendletonBill O'Connor
Julia PendletonAudrey Freeman
Sally McBride June Whitfield
Jimmy McBride Johnny Brandon
Gordon McLintockWilliam Greene
Butterfly Adelaide Hall
Mary Lou WagnerJeanette Landis

Related Research Articles

<i>Wonderful Town</i> Musical

Wonderful Town is a 1953 musical with book written by Joseph A. Fields and Jerome Chodorov, lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, and music by Leonard Bernstein. The musical tells the story of two sisters who aspire to be a writer and actress respectively, seeking success from their basement apartment in New York City's Greenwich Village. It is based on Fields and Chodorov's 1940 play My Sister Eileen, which in turn originated from autobiographical short stories by Ruth McKenney first published in The New Yorker in the late 1930s and later published in book form as My Sister Eileen. Only the last two stories in McKenney's book were used, and they were heavily modified.

<i>Daddy Long Legs</i> (1955 film) 1955 film by Jean Negulesco

Daddy Long Legs (1955) is a Hollywood musical comedy film set in France, New York City, and the fictional college town of Walston, Massachusetts. The film was directed by Jean Negulesco, and stars Fred Astaire, Leslie Caron, Terry Moore, Fred Clark, and Thelma Ritter, with music and lyrics by Johnny Mercer. The screenplay was written by Phoebe Ephron and Henry Ephron, loosely based on the 1912 novel Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster.

<i>Can-Can</i> (musical)

Can-Can is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter, and a book by Abe Burrows. The story concerns the showgirls of the Montmartre dance halls during the 1890s.

<i>Daddy-Long-Legs</i> (novel) American epistolary novel

Daddy-Long-Legs is a 1912 epistolary novel by the American writer Jean Webster. It follows the protagonist, Jerusha "Judy" Abbott, as she leaves an orphanage and is sent to college by a benefactor whom she has never seen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jean Webster</span> American novelist

Jean Webster was the pen name of Alice Jane Chandler Webster, an American author whose books include Daddy-Long-Legs and Dear Enemy. Her best-known books feature lively and likeable young female protagonists who come of age intellectually, morally, and socially, but with enough humor, snappy dialogue, and gently biting social commentary to make her books palatable and enjoyable to contemporary readers.

<i>Pal Joey</i> (musical) 1940 Rogers & Hart musical, atypically featuring an antihero as its protagonist

Pal Joey is a 1940 musical with a book by John O'Hara and music and lyrics by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. The musical is based on a character and situations O'Hara created in a series of short stories published in The New Yorker, which he later published in novel form. The title character, Joey Evans, is a manipulative small-time nightclub performer whose ambitions lead him into an affair with the wealthy, middle-aged and married Vera Simpson. It includes two songs that have become standards: "I Could Write a Book" and "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saville Theatre</span> Cinema in the London, former theatre

ODEON Covent Garden is a four-screen cinema in the heart of London's West End. Formerly known as The Saville Theatre, a former West End theatre at 135 Shaftesbury Avenue in the London Borough of Camden. The theatre opened in 1931, and became a music venue during the 1960s. In 1970 it became the two cinemas ABC1 Shaftesbury Avenue and ABC2 Shaftesbury Avenue, which in 2001 were converted to the four-screen cinema Odeon Covent Garden.

<i>Daddy-Long-Legs</i> (1919 film) 1919 film

Daddy-Long-Legs is a 1919 American silent comedy-drama film directed by Marshall Neilan, and based on Jean Webster's 1912 novel Daddy-Long-Legs. The film stars Mary Pickford.

Megan McGinnis is an American Broadway Actress, who performed in the role of Éponine, in the revival of Les Misérables. She created the role of Jerusha Abbott in the Off-Broadway production of Daddy Long Legs. She played Belle in Beauty and the Beast

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caroline O'Connor (actress)</span> Australian actress and singer (born 1962)

Caroline Ann O'Connor is a Helpmann Award-winning, Olivier Award-nominated Anglo-Australian singer, dancer and actress. For her theatre work she has won three Helpmann Awards: Best Female Actor in a Play for Edith Piaf in Piaf in 2001 and the same category for Judy Garland in End of the Rainbow in 2006, and Best Female Actor in a Musical for Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes in 2015.

Dear Enemy is the 1915 sequel to Jean Webster's 1912 novel Daddy-Long-Legs. It was among the top 10 best sellers in the U.S. in 1916. The story is presented in a series of letters written by Sallie McBride, Judy Abbott's classmate and best friend in Daddy-Long-Legs. Among the recipients of the letters are Judy; Jervis Pendleton, Judy's husband and the president of the orphanage where Sallie is filling in until a new superintendent can be installed; Gordon Hallock, a wealthy Congressman and Sallie's later fiancé; and the orphanage's doctor, embittered Scotsman Robin 'Sandy' MacRae. Webster employs the epistolary structure to good effect; Sallie's choices of what to recount to each of her correspondents reveal a lot about her relationships with them.

<i>My Daddy Long Legs</i> 1990 Japanese animated television series

My Daddy Long Legs is a Japanese animated television series based on the novel Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster.

<i>Daddy Long Legs</i> (1931 film) 1931 film

Daddy Long Legs (1931) is an American pre-Code film directed by Alfred Santell and starring Janet Gaynor and Warner Baxter. The story involves an orphan who is taken under the wing of a wealthy benefactor.

<i>Daddy Long Legs</i> (1938 film) 1938 film

Daddy Long Legs or Vadertje Langbeen is a 1938 Dutch romantic comedy film directed by Frederic Zelnik, based on Jean Webster's 1912 novel of the same name - one of several adaptations of that book.

<i>Zip Goes a Million</i>

Zip Goes a Million is a musical with a book and lyrics by Eric Maschwitz and music by George Posford, based on the 1902 novel Brewster's Millions. It premiered in London in 1951, starring George Formby, and ran for 544 performances.

Penny McNamee is an Australian actress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Renee Kelly</span> British actress

Renee Kelly was an English stage and film actress.

<i>Daddy Long Legs</i> (musical)

Daddy Long Legs is a stage musical with a book by John Caird, and music and lyrics by Paul Gordon. It is based on the 1912 novel of the same name by Jean Webster. Set in turn-of-the-century New England, the musical tells the story of orphan Jerusha Abbott of the John Grier Home and her mysterious benefactor who agrees to send her to college, who she dubs "Daddy Long Legs" after seeing his elongated shadow. Under the conditions of her benefactor, Jerusha sends him a letter once a month, describing her new-found experiences with life outside the orphanage.

<i>Hey, Jeannie!</i> American TV series or program

Hey, Jeannie!, retitled The Jeannie Carson Show during its second season and also during later prime-time reruns, is an American situation comedy that aired on CBS during the 1956-1957 television season and in first-run syndication during 1958. The series stars Jeannie Carson as a naïve young Scottish woman who emigrates to New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moiya Kelly</span> British actress (1934–2023)

Moiya Ann Kelly was a British actress during the 1950s who is probably best known for playing Martha Cratchit in the film Scrooge (1951) starring Alistair Sim.

References

  1. "Love from Judy - The Guide to Musical Theatre". guidetomusicaltheatre.com. Retrieved 1 February 2021.
  2. Hickman, Charles (16 March 1953), Love from Judy (Drama, Musical), Jeannie Carson, Pixie Murphy, Moiya Kelly, Linda Gray, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), retrieved 1 February 2021