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
Lenny Bruce death, New York Governor George Pataki granted him a posthumous pardon for his obscenity conviction. Bruce was the subject of the 1974 biographical film "Lenny", directed by Bob Fosse and starring Dustin Hoffman (in an Academy Award-nominated Best Actor role), and based on the Broadway stage play of the same name written by Julian Barry and starring Cliff Gorman in his 1972 Tony Award-winning role. In addition, the main character's editing of a fictionalized film version of "Lenny" was a major part of Fosse's own biopic, the 1979 Academy Award-nominated "All That Jazz. The documentary "Lenny Bruce: Swear to Tell