Adolph Green, Betty Comden, and Gene Kelly

February 3, 1996 Gene Kelly, Dancer of Vigor and Grace, Dies By ALBIN KREBS Gene Kelly, the dancer, actor, director and choreographer who brought a vigorous athleticism, casual grace and an earthy masculinity to the high romance of lavish Hollywood musicals, died yesterday at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif. He was 83. Mr. Kelly's highly developed sense of the possibilities of dance on film invigorated classic musicals like "Anchors Aweigh," "On the Town," "An American in Paris" and "Singin' in the Rain." A gifted dancer with his own vibrant style, he also flourished as an innovative choreographer and director in the 1940's and 50's, the heyday of the big, splashy Hollywood musical. Mr. Kelly, who could also put over a song in a high, thin voice, brought to his films an inventive technique that enabled him to create unusual and imaginative dance routines that usually arose directly out of a plot or script situation. Thus millions of moviegoers remember Mr. Kelly dancing merrily in a downpour in "Singin' in the Rain," hoofing with an animated mouse, Jerry, in "Anchors Aweigh," hopping over garbage cans in a sequence in "It's Always Fair Weather" and, with the aid of special process photography, dancing with himself in the "alter ego" number from "Cover Girl." In addition to his movies, which included "The Pirate," "Brigadoon" and the drama "Inherit the Wind," Mr. Kelly was also a star on Broadway, where he created the title role of the heel as hero in "Pal Joey," choreographed "Best Foot Forward" and directed Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Flower Drum Song." "I don't really know why I clicked," Mr. Kelly said many years later. "I didn't want to be a dancer. I just did it to work my way through college. But I was always an athlete and gymnast, so it came naturally. "In the 1930's, when I started, Martha Graham was the only dancer doing anything modern, but she did it all to classical music. I couldn't see myself doing 'Swan Lake' every night, and I wanted to develop a truly American style. The only dancer in the movies at that time with any success was Fred Astaire, but he did very small, elegant steps in a top hat, white tie and tails. I was too big physically for that kind of dancing, and I looked better in a sweatshirt and loafers anyway. It wasn't elegant, but it was me." Eugene Curran Kelly was born on Aug. 23, 1912, in Pittsburgh. His mother insisted that all five of the Kelly children take music and dance lessons, and in high school Mr. Kelly continued dance lessons while also playing on the football and hockey teams. His education at Pennsylvania State College was interrupted by the Depression, and his first job was teaching gymnastics at a summer camp for boys. He was later able to major in economics at the University of Pittsburgh and received a degree in 1933, but jobs were scarce and he went to work for a dancing school partly owned by his mother. Two years later, the school was renamed the Gene Kelly Studio of the Dance and soon a successful branch was opened in Johnstown. Meanwhile, Mr. Kelly directed plays produced locally and formed a dance act with his brother Fred, with whom he performed in a theater for children at the Chicago World's Fair in 1934. In the mid-1930's Mr. Kelly also redirected vaudeville acts that passed through Pittsburgh. Mr. Kelly did not decide to try his luck in New York until 1938, when he was 27 years old. His first job was as a Broadway chorus boy in 1938's "Leave It to Me," dancing while Mary Martin sang "My Heart Belongs to Daddy," but the next year he won critical acclaim for his featured role as the comic hoofer in William Saroyan's play "The Time of Your Life." That success led to his being cast in "Pal Joey," the 1940 Rodgers and Hart musical, in which he played the unscrupulous central character so convincingly that John Martin, a critic for The New York Times, said, "He is not only glib-footed, but he has a feeling for comment and content that give his dancing personal distinction and raise it several notches as a dancing art." Mr. Kelly's ability to meld singing and dancing with characterization and the demands of the play's plot attracted so much notice that David O. Selznick signed him to an exclusive Hollywood contract. At the time, Mr. Kelly was appearing in "Pal Joey" at night and by day choreographing the Broadway musical hit "Best Foot Forward." In 1941, he left for Hollywood, where he was to bring a new vitality to dance on film and help change the whole concept of movie musicals. Mr. Selznick had no musicals planned, however, and lent Mr. Kelly to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the studio most noted for lavish musicals. His first film, in 1942, was "For Me and My Gal," in which he starred as a small-time vaudeville hoofer opposite Judy Garland. It was a huge success, but MGM, after buying the new star's contract from Mr. Selznick, relegated him to relatively minor parts in "DuBarry Was a Lady," "Thousands Cheer," and the wartime drama "Cross of Lorraine." In "Cover Girl," co-starring with Rita Hayworth in 1944 on loan to Columbia Pictures, Mr. Kelly's career took off. With the aid of Stanley Donen, with whom he was to direct and choreograph several movies in years to follow, Mr. Kelly developed the celebrated "alter ego" solo dance with his ectoplasmic self, the character's conscience. Photographed separately, then combined on a single strip of film, the two Kelly images seemed to pursue each other up and down flights of steps, to threaten each other and leap over each other's heads. "For once, a dance on the screen is not merely a specialty but actually develops character and advances plot," wrote a New York Times critic. Mr. Kelly's choreographic inventiveness was credited with the success of the trail-blazing live-dance-with-animation sequence in "Anchors Aweigh" in 1945. He had a hard time persuading MGM officials that they should spend $100,000 and two months shooting an eight-minute number, in which he would dance with Jerry the mouse from the "Tom and Jerry" cartoon series. Simple live action and animation went back to silent-film days, but Mr. Kelly's idea involved color and intricate dance steps for himself and the cartoon characters, and required complex laboratory and processing work. For the charming sequence, Mr. Kelly first danced against a plain blue background, then animators filmed the mouse song-and-dance portion. What audiences saw was a composite picture made from the two separate films, with man and mouse happily dancing and singing. The procedure is common now, even in television commercials, but in the mid-1940's it was hailed as a cinematic breakthrough. After the war, Mr. Kelly's first big picture was "The Pirate," a 1948 spoof of swashbuckling adventures in which he again starred with Judy Garland, with whom he sang the rousing "Be a Clown." James Agee, the critic, found Mr. Kelly's performance "very ambitious, painfully misguided, by John Barrymore out of the elder Douglas Fairbanks." In "The Three Musketeers" (1948), Mr. Kelly did not dance, but as D'Artagnan he used his balletic skills to burlesque some fencing scenes. One of Mr. Kelly's most memorable dance performances came in the seven-minute "Slaughter on 10th Avenue" ballet sequence in "Words and Music," a 1948 movie that was only subliminally based on the lives of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. Most critics agreed that about the only thing to cheer about the film was the Rodgers ballet, in which Mr. Kelly was partnered with Vera-Ellen. In 1949, Mr. Kelly made two films with Frank Sinatra, "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" and one of his all-time hits, "On the Town," which he directed and choreographed with Mr. Donen and filmed mostly on location in New York City. Mr. Kelly, whose co-stars included Betty Garrett, Ann Miller and Vera-Ellen, turned the film into an exhilarating, joyful experience that began with the brassy "New York, New York (It's a Helluva Town)" opening number and never let up in its mood of pervasive effervescence. "This film was a milestone," he said in 1977. "It was the first musical to be shot on location. We took the musical off the sound stage and showed that it could be realistic. But some of Mr. Kelly's most popular and artistically successful films were yet to come. In 1951, "An American in Paris," in which he received sole star billing, won eight Academy Awards, including best picture of the year, and a special Oscar for Mr. Kelly for his contributions to screen choreography. An integral part of the film was a 17-minute ballet conceived by Mr. Kelly and the director, Vincente Minnelli, as a means of showing the impact Paris has on the hero. Costumes, sets and dance movements for the ballet were borrowed from the styles of such artists as Dufy, Renoir, Utrillo, Rousseau, van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec and the music danced to by Mr. Kelly and Leslie Caron was George Gershwin's "American in Paris" suite."Singin' in the Rain," released in 1952, was one of the last of the big MGM musicals and it was, said Vincent Canby, film critic of The New York Times, in a 1975 appraisal, "a movie masterpiece." Again teaming with Mr. Donen, Mr. Kelly helped to direct and choreograph the affectionate spoof of the start of the talkies era in movies. The movie made splendid use of such Arthur Freed-Nacio Herb Brown songs as "You Were Meant for Me," "You Are My Lucky Star" and "All I Do Is Dream of You." In the title number, a love-struck Mr. Kelly, with an umbrella as his principal prop, sang and splashed ecstatically and obliviously through a downpour on an all-but-deserted street. The sequence is widely regarded as a classic piece of cinematic choreography.

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