Edmond Rostand

Edmond Rostand was born in Marseille to a middle-class family of intellectuals. His parents encouraged him to study philosophy, literature, and history, and as a teenager Rostand enrolled in the prestigious Collège Stanslas in Paris. He published poetry during his twenties, and succeeded in putting on many plays even before he turned 25. In 1894, he saw the premier of one of his most popular works, Les Romanesques, the play that would form the basis for The Fantasticks, one of the longest running Broadway musicals of all time. His next play, Cyrano de Bergerac, was hugely popular when it premiered in 1897, and as a result Rostand became one of the most famous writers in Europe. His later efforts included plays about the Napoleonic Wars and Metternich, none of which measured up to the success of his earlier works. He died in 1918, one of the millions of victims of the global flu pandemic.