Edna Ferber wrote in a 1936 article for Stage that beyond Moss Hart's "elan there is a fine playwright with still finer potentialities; a dignified and dimensional human being with insight, sympathy, and understanding considerably beyond his years." In the same article Ferber dashed the popular opinion that Hart's rise in the theater had been on a fast track and instead asserted that his talent and career were "founded on a solid basis of endeavor, study, ambition, and heartbreaking preliminary work." Although Hart's intimates were aware of his several idiosyncrasies, they also recognized his immense gifts as a playwright, director, author, actor, and producer.

Hart's theatrical gifts were acknowledged in his day, as he and collaborator George S. Kaufman won the Roi Cooper Megrue Prize from the Dramatists Guild for their first joint effort, Once in a Lifetime (1930). These two authors, one of the most famous playwriting teams in...