Writer/director Luke Yankee had a childhood that reads like a screenplay of a Hollywood movie. His mother was the Academy Award-winning actress Eileen Heckart, who juggled her very successful Broadway/Hollywood career with her life as a wife and mother of three boys .

In 1956, she was cast by triple Academy Award nominee Joshua Logan as a waitress and best friend of the star Marilyn Monroe in BUS STOP. Monroe was THE biggest movie star at the time, but nevertheless, the women formed a tight bond on and off the screen, and the story of their remarkable relationship is now the subject of a new play by Yankee, who is Heckhart’s youngest son.

It’s a remarkable account of two exceptional women who both left their mark on the world at large, and a very impressionable young gay boy on the other hand, who thought nothing about doing things like being taught how to make martinis for Ethel Merman!  Yankee spoke with Queerguru about his plans for the play to have a highly anticipated Broadway run, hopefully this Fall