The Good Fairy is the English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 translation by Jane Hinton of the 1930 play A jó tündér by Ferenc Molnár

Ferenc Molnár

LanguageFerenc Molnár was a Hungarian dramatist and novelist. His Americanized name was Franz Molnar...

. The Hungarian

Hungarian language

Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....

 original premiered in Budapest, Hungary in October 1931, and the English translation was presented on Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 with Helen Hayes

Helen Hayes

Helen Hayes Brown was an American actress whose career spanned almost 70 years. She eventually garnered the nickname "First Lady of the American Theatre" and was one of twelve people who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony Award...

 playing "Lu" for 151 performances in 1931–1932, with another production playing 68 performances later that year.

In 1935, Preston Sturges

Preston Sturges

Preston Sturges , originally Edmund Preston Biden, was a celebrated playwright, screenwriter and film director born in Chicago, Illinois...

 adapted the story for the film The Good Fairy

The Good Fairy (film)

The Good Fairy is a 1935 romantic comedy film written by Preston Sturges, based on the 1930 play A jó tündér by Ferenc Molnár as translated and adapted by Jane Hinton, which was produced on Broadway in 1931...

, which starred Margaret Sullavan

Margaret Sullavan

Margaret Brooke Sullavan was an American stage and film actress. Sullavan started her career on the stage in 1929. In 1933 she caught the attention of movie director John M. Stahl and had her debut on the screen that same year in Only Yesterday...

. The play was also the source for the Deanna Durbin

Deanna Durbin

Deanna Durbin is a Canadian-born, Southern California-raised retired singer and actress, who appeared in a number of musical films in the 1930s and 1940s singing standards as well as operatic arias....

 film I'll Be Yours

I'll Be Yours

I'll Be Yours is a 1947 musical comedy film starring Deanna Durbin and directed by William A. Seiter. It was adapted by Felix Jackson from the screenplay for the 1935 non-musical film The Good Fairy by Preston Sturges, which was based on the play A jó tündér by Ferenc Molnár as translated and...

in 1947. Sturges used his screenplay for the 1935 film, which diverges significantly from the play, as the basis for the 1951 Broadway musical Make A Wish, which had music and lyrics by Hugh Martin

Hugh Martin

Hugh Martin was an American musical theater and film composer, arranger, vocal coach, and playwright. He is best known for his score for the 1944 MGM musical Meet Me In St...

.

On television, Hallmark Hall of Fame

Hallmark Hall of Fame

Hallmark Hall of Fame is an anthology program on American television, sponsored by Hallmark Cards, a Kansas City based greeting card company. The second longest-running television program in the history of television, it has a historically long run, beginning in 1951 and continuing into 2011...

presented The Good Fairy on NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

 in 1956, produced by Maurice Evans

Maurice Evans (actor)

Maurice Herbert Evans was an English actor noted for his interpretations of Shakespearean characters. In terms of his screen roles, he is probably best known as Dr...

, directed by George Schaefer

George Schaefer (director)

George Louis Schaefer was a director of television and Broadway theatre from the 1950s to the 1990s.-Life and career:...

, and starring Julie Harris

Julie Harris

Julia Ann "Julie" Harris is an American stage, screen, and television actress. She has won five Tony Awards, three Emmy Awards and a Grammy Award, and was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1994, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts. She is a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame...

, Walter Slezak

Walter Slezak

Walter Slezak was a portly Austrian character actor who appeared in numerous Hollywood films. Slezak often portrayed villains or thugs, most notably the German U-boat captain in Alfred Hitchcock's film Lifeboat , but occasionally he got to play lighter roles, as in The Wonderful World of the...

 and Cyril Ritchard

Cyril Ritchard

Cyril Ritchard was an Australian stage, screen and television actor, and director. He is probably best remembered today for his performance as Captain Hook in the Mary Martin musical production of Peter Pan....

.