Mart Crowley

Crowley was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi. After graduating from The Catholic University of America (studying acting and show business) in Washington, D.C. in 1957, Crowley headed west to Hollywood, where he worked for a number of television production companies before meeting Natalie Wood on the set of her film Splendor in the Grass. Wood hired him as her assistant, primarily to give him ample free time to work on his gay-themed play The Boys in the Band, which opened off-Broadway on April 14, 1968 and enjoyed a run of 1,000 performances. Crowley became part of Wood's inner circle of friends that she called "the nucleus", whose main requirement was that they pass a "kindness" test.

The Boys in the Band was adapted into a film in 1970 directed by William Friedkin.

In 1979 and 1980, Crowley served first as the executive script editor and then producer of the ABC series Hart to Hart, starring Wood's husband Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers. His other credits include the teleplays for There Must Be a Pony (1986), Bluegrass (1988), People Like Us (1990), and a reunion special of Hart to Hart in 1996.

Crowley's 2002 sequel to The Boys in the Band was entitled The Men from the Boys.

In 2018 Boys in the Band was restaged on Broadway in a 50th anniversary revival featuring Matt Bomer, Jim Parsons, Zachary Quinto, and Andrew Rannells.

Crowley died in Manhattan, New York on March 7, 2020. He suffered a heart attack, after which he underwent open-heart surgery and died while recovering.