Walter Hackett

Walter Laurence Hackett was an American playwright and theater manager. A native of Oakland, California, Hackett attended grammar school in that city before continuing his education at a boarding school in Canada, the country of his father's birth. He ran away from that institution to become a sailor, and subsequently worked in a variety of professions including horse trainer and school teacher. By 1901, he was working as a journalist for the Chicago American, and that same year his first plays were staged with casts led by the actress Lillian Burkhart. His first significant play as a solo playwright was The Prince of Dreams, staged in Chicago in 1902.