Paul Osborn

Osborn, Paul (1901–88), playwright. Born in Evansville, Indiana, the son of a minister, he was educated at the University of Michigan, then studied with Professor George Pierce Baker at Yale. Osborn taught at both schools before seeing his first plays produced: the campus drama Hotbed (1928) and the melodrama A Ledge (1929). He scored his first hit when he turned to comedy with The Vinegar Tree (1930), followed by the short‐lived Oliver Oliver (1934) and the popular fantasy On Borrowed Time (1938). The warm domestic comedy Morning's at Seven (1939) failed to run very long but decades later became Osborn's most‐produced play when it was a hit on Broadway and in theatres across the country. His remaining works to reach Broadway were successful adaptations of novels: The Innocent Voyage (1943), A Bell for Adano (1944), Point of No Return (1951), and The World of Suzie Wong (1958). The diversity of his writing makes it difficult to characterize Osborn, but his best original works were filled with sharply and affectionately drawn figures.