Her New York theater credits include creating the role of Lorraine Sheldon, loosely based on Gertrude Lawrence, in The Man Who Came to Dinner.
Sheridan Whiteside was one of Morrissey's pseudonyms, taken from the protagonist of the play The Man Who Came to Dinner by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart; that character was in turn based on dramatic critic and raconteur Alexander Woollcott.
In New York, Lenore found work as a model and was eventually offered a lucrative stage role as Lorraine Sheldon in The Man Who Came to Dinner at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego.
The title of the short is a reference to the 1942 Warner Brothers film version of the 1939 George S. Kaufman Broadway comedy The Man Who Came to Dinner, in which an overbearing house-guest threatens to take over the lives of a small-town family.
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She remained active on Broadway throughout the 1980s appearing in The Man Who Came to Dinner (1980), Macbeth (1981), Einstein and the Polar Bear (1981), You Can't Take It With You (1983–1984), Benefactors (1985–1986), and Social Security (1987).
Shand played in several straight dramatic roles with the company, appearing in such plays as The Man Who Came to Dinner, Arsenic and Old Lace , Love Thy Neighbour and Bell, Book and Candle.
Often seen as semi-autobiographical, Uncle Dick was apparently initially based on the character Sheridan Whiteside in the 1941 film, The Man Who Came to Dinner (played by Monty Woolley, apparently based on American critic Alexander Woollcott), although Russell later wryly admitted: "I’ve grown more like Uncle Dick and Uncle Dick has grown more like me. My wife says he is me."