Noted Playwright Commits Suicide

John Patrick, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of “Teahouse of the August Moon” and a screenwriter who hit his stride in the 1950s with “Three Coins in a Fountain” and “Love Is a Many Splendored Thing,” has died.

Patrick, 90, who left a suicide note in the form of a poem, was found Tuesday with a plastic bag over his head in the assisted care facility where he lived.

For “Teahouse,” a reworking of Verne J. Sneider’s novel about the Americanization of Okinawa, Patrick not only won the Pulitzer, but also the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, the Tony Award, the Aegis Club Award and the Donaldson Award. The play ran for 1,027 performances on Broadway.