Gardner was born on December 28, 1934, in Brooklyn, New York. He attended New York's High School of Performing Arts from which he graduated in 1952. The same year, his first play, The Elevator, a one-act play, was produced. Gardner made a name for himself professionally as a cartoonist for the Chicago Tribune in the 1950s. Here, he created the comic The Nebbishes, which was a very lucrative enterprise. Around the same time, he published his first and only novel, A Piece of the Action (1958). Unsatisfied with these creative pursuits, he left cartooning to write plays full-time. His first full-length play, A Thousand Clowns, was based heavily on Gardner's own experiences, as it featured a man who abandons a lucrative career. The play was a huge success on Broadway and earned Gardner the "promising playwright of 1961-62" award from the New York Drama Critics. When Gardner adapted the play...