James A. Herne

Biography

Cohoes, New York, greeted the first cry of James A. Herne on 1 February 1839, and the Hudson River town would echo in his pen for the rest of his life. A playwright who turned stageboards into living rooms, he stitched small-town heartbeat into enduring dramas: the twin filmings of *Hearts of Oak*—once in 1914, again a decade later—and the 1914 screen version of *Shore Acres* still carry his dialogue in their DNA. Offstage, his heart found two leading ladies: Katharine Corcoran and, later, Helen Western. The final curtain fell on 2 June 1901 in the electric whirl of New York City, but the voices he set speaking have never quite left the spotlight.