the longer productions was Payment Deferred (1931), which had 70 performances, as well as Sailor, Beware! (1933), which had 500 performances. In 1934, the theater hosted Ode to Liberty, featuring Ina Claire. The Bowery Savings Bank moved to foreclose on a mortgage loan on the theater in mid-1935. Later that year, the Lyceum was leased for one year to Julius Stone for a presentation of Squaring the Circle. The next year, Frohman leased most of the theater, except for his own offices, to Spencer D. Bettelheim of the Lyco Company for five years. Contemporary newspapers said the lease to Bettelheim was "a sentimental gesture", since Bettelheim's father was Frohman's old friend. Bettelheim then announced a renovation of the interior, including new seats. Long-running productions during the late 1930s included Pre-Honeymoon (1936) with Jessie Royce Landis; St. Helena (1936) with Maurice Evans; and Having Wonderful Time (1937) with John Garfield and Katherine Locke. The theater was less financially stable after the Lyco Company dissolved in 1938. By March 1939, the Bowery Savings Bank was foreclosing on the Lyceum, which was in danger of demolition. After Stanley Howe, a friend of Frohman's and an aide to mayor Fiorello La Guardia, intervened, the bank promised that Frohman could stay in his apartment for the rest of his life. The Lyceum was leased to Victor Payne-Jennings that April, on the condition that Frohman be allowed to keep his residence. The Bowery Savings Bank acquired the theater at a foreclosure auction in December 1939 for $100,000. Shortly afterward, Samuel Briskman leased the theater and used it to show When We Are Married. In May 1940, the Bowery Savings Bank announced it would sell the Lyceum to a syndicate that included playwright George S. Kaufman, producer Max Gordon, and playwright Moss Hart for $250,000. Frohman was to be allowed to live in the apartment above the theater for $1 per year, though Frohman died in December 1940, less than a year afterward. Among the syndicate's first works at the Lyceum was George Washington Slept Here in 1940, as well as The Beautiful People and Junior Miss in 1941. This was followed by The Doughgirls, which had 671 performances, and The Late George Apley, which had 384 performances. The Lyceum then hosted Born Yesterday, which opened in 1946 and was the theater's longest-running production with 1,642 performances. Born Yesterday was transferred out of the Lyceum mid-run in