 March viewed the latter novel as a meager accomplishment, but it gained the most praise and success of any of his novels, selling more than a million copies in one year, launching a long-running Broadway hit penned by the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Maxwell Anderson and an eponymous 1956 movie directed by Mervyn LeRoy.On March 25, 1954, March suffered a mild heart attack and was still recovering when "The Bad Seed" was published on April 8; he was able to read many of the book's positive reviews.He was discharged from the hospital on April 24, but after only three weeks, on the night of May 15, 1954, he died in his sleep of a second and more severe heart attack, at age 60.