Lee Falk - Theater

Theater

Falk's next large passion after cartooning was the theater and stage plays. During his lifetime, Falk ran five theaters, at one time or another, and he produced about 300 plays, and also directed about 100 of them. Falk wrote 12 plays, including two musicals: Happy Dollar and Mandrake the Magician, which were both based on his comic strip character. After Falk's death, his widow Elizabeth directed a musical called Mandrake the Magician and the Enchantress, which was written by Falk, and which was practically the same as his previous Mandrake the Magician musical. Some of his plays drew well-known actors and actresses such as Marlon Brando, Charlton Heston, Celeste Holm, Constance Moore, Basil Rathbone, Chico Marx, Ethel Waters, Paul Newman, Ezio Pinza, James Mason, Jack Warner, Shelley Winters, Farley Granger, Eve Arden, Alexis Smith, Victor Jory, Cedric Hardwicke, Eva Marie Saint, Eva Gabor, Sarah Churchill, James Donn, Eddie Bracken, Ann Corio, Robert Wilcox and Paul Robeson to perform in them.

The actors and actresses were all paid for their work, but many of them worked on small fractions of what they would normally earn with their movie work. Falk was proud to state that Marlon Brando had turned down an offer of $10,000 a week to act in Broadway plays, in favor of working for Falk in Boston in the play, Arms and the Man. In 1953, Brando's contract for Falk's play paid less than $500 a week.