Adolph Green and Betty Comden

Betty Comden, Lyricist for Musicals, Dies at 89. Betty Comden, who with her longtime collaborator Adolph Green wrote the lyrics and often the librettos for some of the most celebrated musicals of stage and screen, died today at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. She was 89 and lived in Manhattan. The cause was heart failure, said Ronald Konecky, her lawyer and the executor of her estate. During a professional partnership that lasted for more than 60 years, and which finally ended with Mr. Green’s death in 2002, the Comden-Green blend of sophisticated wit and musical know-how lit up stage shows like “On the Town,” “Wonderful Town,” “Peter Pan” and “Bells Are Ringing.” Their Hollywood credits included the screenplays for two landmark film musicals, “Singin’ in the Rain” and “The Band Wagon.” Through the years, they worked with composers like Leonard Bernstein, Cy Coleman, Jule Styne and André Previn, creating songs like “New York, New York,” “The Party’s Over,” “It’s Love” and “Some Other Time.” They were adept at making their lyrics fit the mood, whether it was rueful (“Lonely Town”), raucous (“100 Easy Ways to Lose a Man”) or romantic (“Just in Time”). The title of one of their own songs, from “Bells Are Ringing,” summed up their joint career: it was truly a “Perfect Relationship” in which they met daily, most often Ms. Comden’s living room, either to work on a show, to trade ideas or even just talk about the weather. Hollywood called again and this time, for the most part, they had better luck. “Good News” (1947), with June Allyson and Peter Lawford as singing, dancing campus sweethearts, was their first screenplay. They wrote “The Barkleys of Broadway” (1949), which marked the film reunion of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, and adapted “On the Town” (1949) for the screen, with Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Jules Munshin as the freewheeling sailors navigating the streets of New York. They contributed heavily to the success of “The Band Wagon” (1953), the Vincente Minnelli musical for which they wrote the witty screenplay. The film had a score by Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz and starred Mr. Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Oscar Levant and Nanette Fabray. The Comden-Green screenplay received an Academy Award nomination. They were still wedded to Broadway, however, and their stage work during the next few years included the Jule Styne musical “Two on the Aisle” (1951), a revue with Bert Lahr and Dolores Gray; “Wonderful Town” (1953), an adaptation of the 1939 comedy hit “My Sister Eileen,” with music by Mr. Bernstein and starring Rosalind Russell and Edie Adams as two sisters from Ohio trying to make it in the Big Town; and, most notably, “Bells Are Ringing.” That 1956 musical reunited them with Ms. Holliday, who headed the cast as an operator at an answering service who falls in love with one of the service’s male clients (Sydney Chaplin), after listening to his voice over her telephone line. The score included the comic lament “I’m Going Back (To the Bonjour Tristesse Brassiere Company)” as well as some songs that became part of the standard pop repertory, like “Just in Time,” “Long Before I Knew You” and “The Party’s Over,” which ended with the melancholy verse: Now you must wake up All dreams must end Take off your make-up The party’s over It’s all over, my friend. Ms. Comden and Mr. Green also wrote the screenplay for the 1960 film version, which starred Ms. Holliday. Even their less successful shows yielded musical nuggets, one example being the 1960 “Do Re Mi,” which had a book by Garson Kanin, music by Mr. Styne for which they wrote the lyrics, and which featured Phil Silvers and Nancy Walker. That largely unmemorable score included one gem, “Make Someone Happy.” Ms. Comden and Mr. Green went on to write “Subways Are for Sleeping” (1961), with Carol Lawrence and Mr. Chaplin, and “Fade Out-Fade In” (1964), with Carol Burnett and Jack Cassidy, both shows with music by Mr. Styne; the lyrics for “Hallelujah, Baby” (1968), which had music by Mr. Styne, a book by Arthur Laurents and which starred Leslie Uggams and Robert Hooks, and then wrote the book for “Applause” (1970). Adapted from the film “All About Eve,” with music by Charles Strouse and lyrics by Lee Adams, the show starred Lauren Bacall as the take-no-prisoners movie queen Margo Channing played by Bette Davis in the film. In the years that followed they teamed up with the composer Cy Coleman for “On the Twentieth Century” (1978), based on the Ben Hecht-Charles MacArthur play about a flamboyant movie producer (John Cullum) and his leading lady (Madeline Kahn), traveling from Hollywood to Broadway on the Twentieth-Century Limited in the 1930s. The show was a hit and brought them Tony Awards for their book and score. In 1982 they wrote the book and lyrics — Larry Grossman wrote the music — for what was meant to be a kind of musical sequel to Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House,” but the result, “A Doll’s Life” (1982), was a four-performance disaster. Their last major Broadway show was “The Will Rogers Follies,” a 1991 Ziegfeld-style extravaganza with music by Mr. Coleman, book by Peter Stone and direction and choreography by Tommy Tune. Keith Carradine starred as the folksy humorist-philosopher. Despite mixed reviews the show won six Tony Awards, including one for the music and lyrics, and enjoyed a run of two and a half years. By the time “Will Rogers” came along, Ms. Comden and Mr. Green had worked together for more than a half-century. On Broadway, starting with “On the Town” in 1944, they had won a shelf full of Tony Awards. In 1991 they were among the recipients of that year’s Kennedy Center honors for their contributions to American musical theater. Their early Hollywood credits included “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” (1949), with Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Esther Williams, and “It’s Always Fair Weather” (1955), with Mr. Kelly, Dan Dailey, Michael Kidd and Ms. Charisse, for which their screenplay received an Academy Award nomination. A bittersweet sequel of sorts to “On the Town,” the plot of “It’s Always Fair Weather” revolved around the reunion a decade after World War II of three former G.I. companions who find that time has altered their friendship for the worse. “I don’t think there’s ever been a musical quite like it,” Ms. Comden said in a 1999 interview with The Times. “The corrosive effect that time has on friendships — that’s a very unusual subject for a musical.” She and Mr. Green said it was one of their favorites. After their stage debut in “On the Town,” they didn’t perform on Broadway again until 1958, when they appeared in “A Party with Betty Comden and Adolph Green,” a revue that included some of their early favorites like “The Baroness Bazuka,” which they described as a tribute to the Shubert brothers (“J. J., O. O., and Uh-Uh.”). The revue was well received and they brought an updated version back to Broadway in 1977. In 1999 Ms. Comden and Mr. Green were saluted by their peers in a two-night program at Carnegie Hall. Elaine Stritch and Brian Stokes Mitchell were among the performers who sang numbers from the Comden-Green repertoire. Recent Broadway revivals of their work included a 2001 production of “Bells Are Ringing” starring Faith Prince, which closed after a brief run, and the 2003 revival of “Wonderful Town” with Donna Murphy, which settled in for a long stay at the Al Hirschfeld Theater. After Mr. Green’s death in October 2002, Broadway turned out in force two months later for a memorial program at the Shubert Theater. Kevin Kline, Joel Grey, Ms. Bacall and others paid affectionate tribute to Mr. Green in song and story. At one point during her own reminiscence about Mr. Green, Ms. Comden paused and said to the audience, “It’s lonely up here.” After six decades, the perfect relationship was over.

Adolph Green Born December 2, 1914 The Bronx, New York, U.S. Died October 23, 2002 (aged 87) New York City, New York, U.S. Occupation Playwright/Songwriter Years active 1944–2002 Adolph Green (December 2, 1914 – October 23, 2002) was an American lyricist and playwright who, with long-time collaborator Betty Comden, penned the screenplays and songs for some of the most beloved movie musicals, particularly as part of Arthur Freed's production unit at Metro Goldwyn Mayer, during the genre's heyday. Many people thought the pair were married, but in fact they were not a romantic couple at all. Nevertheless, they shared a unique comic genius and sophisticated wit that enabled them to forge a six-decade-long partnership that produced some of Hollywood and Broadway's greatest hits. Biography Green was born in the Bronx to Hungarian Jewish immigrants Helen (née Weiss) and Daniel Green. After high school, he worked as a runner on Wall Street while he tried to make it as an actor. He met Betty Comden through mutual friends in 1938 while she was studying drama at New York University. They formed a troupe called the Revuers, which performed at the Village Vanguard, a club in Greenwich Village. Among the members of the company was a young comedian named Judy Tuvim, who later changed her name to Judy Holliday, and Green's good friend, a young musician named Leonard Bernstein, who he had met in 1937 at a summer camp where Bernstein was the music counselor, frequently accompanied them on the piano. The act's success earned them a movie offer and the Revuers traveled west in hopes of finding fame in Greenwich Village, a 1944 movie starring Carmen Miranda and Don Ameche, but their roles were so small they barely were noticed, and they quickly returned to New York. Their first Broadway effort teamed them with Bernstein for On the Town, a musical romp about three sailors on leave in New York City that was an expansion of a ballet entitled Fancy Free on which Bernstein had been working with choreographer Jerome Robbins. Comden and Green wrote the lyrics and book, which included sizeable parts for themselves. Their next two musicals, Billion Dollar Baby (1945) and Bonanza Bound (1947) were not successful, and once again they headed to California, where they immediately found work at MGM. They wrote the screenplay for Good News, starring June Allyson and Peter Lawford, The Barkleys of Broadway for Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, and then adapted On the Town for Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly, scrapping much of Bernstein's music at the request of Arthur Freed, who did not care for the Bernstein score. They reunited with Kelly for their most successful project, the classic Singin' in the Rain, about Hollywood in the final days of the silent film era. Considered by many film historians to be the best movie musical of all time, it ranked #10 on the list of the 100 Best American Movies of the 20th Century, compiled by the American Film Institute in 1998. They followed this with another hit, The Band Wagon, in which the characters of Lester and Lily, a husband-and-wife team that writes the play for the show-within-a-show, were patterned after themselves. They were Oscar-nominated twice, for their screenplays for The Band Wagon and It's Always Fair Weather, both of which earned them a Screen Writers Guild Award, as did On the Town. Their stage work during the next few years included the revue Two on the Aisle, starring Bert Lahr and Dolores Gray, Wonderful Town, an adaptation of the comedy hit My Sister Eileen, with Rosalind Russell and Edie Adams as two sisters from Ohio trying to make it in the Big Apple, and Bells Are Ringing, which reunited them with Judy Holliday as an operator at a telephone answering service. The score, including the standards "Just in Time", "Long Before I Knew You," and "The Party’s Over" proved to be one of their richest. In 1958, they appeared on Broadway in A Party with Betty Comden and Adolph Green, a revue that included some of their early sketches. It was a critical and commercial success, and they brought an updated version back to Broadway in 1977. Among their other credits are the Mary Martin version of Peter Pan for both Broadway and television, a streamlined Die Fledermaus for the Metropolitan Opera, and stage musicals for Carol Burnett, Leslie Uggams, and Lauren Bacall, among others. Their many collaborators included Garson Kanin, Cy Coleman, Jule Styne, and André Previn. The team was not without its failures. In 1982, A Doll's Life, an exploration of what Nora did after she abandoned her husband in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House, ran for only five performances, although they received Tony Award nominations for its book and score. In 1980, Green was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.[1] And, in 1981, he was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.[2] In 1989 he appeared as Dr. Pangloss in Bernstein's Candide. Comden and Green received Kennedy Center Honors in 1991. Green's third wife was actress Phyllis Newman, who had understudied Holliday in Bells Are Ringing. They had two children, Adam and Amanda, both of whom are songwriters. His Broadway memorial, with such luminaries as Lauren Bacall, Kevin Kline, Joel Grey, Kristin Chenoweth, Arthur Laurents, Peter Stone, and, of course, Betty Comden in attendance was held at the Shubert Theater on December 4, 2002. Broadway credits These shows are collated from the biography above. A Doll's Life (1982) Die Fledermaus (1954) Peter Pan (1954) Broadway in A Party with Betty Comden and Adolph Green (1958) Bells Are Ringing (1956) Wonderful Town (1953) Two on the Aisle (1951) Bonanza Bound (1947) Billion Dollar Baby (1945) On the Town (1944) Additional Broadway credits[edit] The Will Rogers Follies (1991) Singin' in the Rain (1985) The Madwoman of Central Park West (1979) On the Twentieth Century (1978) Lorelei (1974) Applause (1970) Hallelujah, Baby! (1967) Fade Out – Fade In (1964) Subways Are For Sleeping (1961) Do Re Mi (1960) Say, Darling (1958) Acting credits[edit] Greenwich Village (1944) as Revuer (uncredited) Simon (1980) as Commune Leader My Favorite Year (1982) as Leo Silver Lily in Love (1984) as Jerry Silber I Want to Go Home (1989) as Joey Wellman Candide (1991) (TV) as Dr. Pangloss / Martin Frasier (1994) (TV) as Walter (episode: Burying a Grudge) The Substance of Fire (1996) as Mr. Musselblatt Awards and nominations[edit] Year Award Category Work Result 1950 WGA Award Best Written American Musical The Barkleys of Broadway Nominated On the Town Won 1953 Singin' in the Rain Won New York Drama Critics' Circle Award Best Musical Wonderful Town Won 1954 Academy Awards Best Writing, Story and Screenplay The Band Wagon Nominated WGA Award Best Written American Musical Nominated 1956 Academy Awards Best Writing, Story and Screenplay It's Always Fair Weather Nominated WGA Award Best Written American Musical Nominated 1961 Bells Are Ringing Won Grammy Award Best Soundtrack Album or Recording of Original Cast from a Motion Picture or TV Nominated 1968 Tony Award Best Composer and Lyricist Hallelujah, Baby! Won 1978 Best Book of a Musical On the Twentieth Century Won Best Original Score Won 1983 Best Book of a Musical A Doll's House Nominated Best Original Score Nominated 1986 Best Book of a Musical Singin' in the Rain Nominated 1991 Best Original Score The Will Rogers Follies Won New York Drama Critics' Circle Award Best Musical Won 1995 National Board of Review Award Distinction in Screenwriting Won 2001 WGA Award Laurel Award for Screen Writing Achievement Won