John Steinbeck home in California to attend any performance of the play during its New York run, telling director George S. Kaufman that the play as it existed in his own mind was "perfect" and that anything presented on stage would only be a disappointment. Steinbeck wrote two more stage plays ("The Moon Is Down" and "Burning Bright"). "Of Mice and Men" was also adapted as a 1939 Hollywood film, with Lon Chaney, Jr. as Lennie (he had filled the role in the Los Angeles stage production) and Burgess Meredith as George. Meredith and Steinbeck became close friends for the next two
John Sanford (author) John Sanford (author) John Sanford or John B. Sanford, born Julian Lawrence Shapiro (May 31, 1904 – March 5, 2003), was an American screenwriter and author who wrote 24 books. The "Cambridge Companion to Jewish American Literature" describes him as, "Perhaps the most outstanding neglected novelist." A one-time member of the Communist Party, after he and his wife Marguerite Roberts refused to testify to the House Un-American Activities Committee, they were blacklisted and unable to work in Hollywood for nearly a decade. Sanford wrote half of his books after he was 80. He published a 5-volume autobiography, for which he