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
National Steinbeck Center affiliated programs. The National Steinbeck Center Archives constitutes of over 45,000 historical documents, family documents, manuscripts, letters, photographs, films, interviews, and artifacts all pertaining to author John Steinbeck and the history of his hometown of Salinas. The Archives department manages and preserves these holdings. Currently the NSC is working to digitize and make their collection browsable online. Interested researchers, scholars, historians and students are able to reserve and schedule time to research the collections with the archivist. Events and outreach programming makes up the bulk of the National Steinbeck Center's time, effort, and budget. The Center plans and runs over