Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday (1946), a comedy by Anita Loos. [ Broadhurst Theatre, 564 perf.] Addie Bemis (Helen Hayes), a mousy librarian, has fallen so in love with the young bank clerk Paul (Louis Jean Heydt) that she follows him to the Jersey Mecca Cocktail Bar and there has her first drinks: some Scotch and a few Pink Ladies, which she has been told is a “tart's” drink. The alcohol sends her spinning but also liberates her from her inhibitions. These gone, she wins Paul away from a jezebel, Myrtle (Jacqueline Page). Written as a vehicle for Hayes, it was her brilliant performance that lured playgoers to the Rodgers and Hammerstein production.