12 Facts About Dale Wasserman

Dale Wasserman was an American playwright, perhaps best known for his 1965 book, Man of La Mancha.

Dale Wasserman was born in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, the child of Russian Jewish immigrants Samuel Wasserman and Bertha Paykel, and was orphaned at the age of nine.

Dale Wasserman lived in a state orphanage and with an older brother in South Dakota before he "hit the rails".

Dale Wasserman started as stage manager and lighting designer for musical impresario Sol Hurok, and for the Katherine Dunham Company where he claimed to have invented lighting patterns imitated later in other dance companies.

Dale Wasserman wrote some 30 more television dramas, making him one of the better-known writers in the Golden Age of Television.

Dale Wasserman adapted Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest into a play by the same title which ran for six years in San Francisco and has had extensive engagements in Chicago, New York, Boston and other US cities.

Dale Wasserman was a founding member and trustee of The Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center and was the artistic Director of the Midwest Playwrights Laboratory, which encompasses 12 states in its program and awards fellowships and production to 10 playwrights yearly.

The phrase "To each his Dulcinea", featured in Dale Wasserman's play, was first used in the Kester play.

Dale Wasserman died of heart failure on December 21,2008, in Paradise Valley, Arizona, aged 94.

Dale Wasserman's did not begin his writing career until 1954; his first offering, "Elisha and the Long Knives," which was acclaimed as one of the best television scripts of the year [Irving Settel] was shown in 1955.

Any dates below that are earlier than 1955 are the dates the series began, not when Dale Wasserman's work was shown on them.

Dale Wasserman has been awarded several Honorary Degrees, These Include.