bio notes:
born: 12/13/1890
died: 12/21/1980
born as: Marcus Cook Connelly

American playwright, journalist, teacher, actor, and director, best know for "Green Pastures" (a folk version of the Old Testament dramatized through the lives of blacks of the southern United States) and for the comedies that he wrote with George S. Kaufman. - Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature