Broadway legend Arthur Laurents dies at 93
Composer Richard Rodgers, at the piano, Stephen Sondheim, right, and playwright Arthur Laurents working on "Do I Hear a Waltz?" in New York. (Dec. 28, 1964) Credit: AP
If Arthur Laurents had done nothing but write two of Broadway's best musicals, "West Side Story" (1957) and "Gypsy" (1959), he would have been a legend of the American musical theater.
But Laurents, who died in his Manhattan home Thursday at 93 after a short illness, was one of only a few writers with major successes both on Broadway and in Hollywood. An opinionated man with a take-no-prisoners style, he was also a playwright, author of two autobiographies and screenwriter for his 1972 novel, "The Way We Were." The movie starred Barbra Streisand, who also made her Broadway debut in his staging of the 1962 musical "I Can Get It For You Wholesale."
He was also a director who, in his later years, staged an acclaimed revival of "Gypsy" with Patti LuPone (who won a Tony as Mama Rose) and a less successful "West Side Story" in which the Puerto Rican gang sometimes spoke Spanish.
LuPone recalled working on "Gypsy" with the man who wrote it. "We knew how lucky we were in the initial readings," she told The Associated Press on Friday. "Not only would he illuminate the text for us, but then there were the accompanying stories."
Laurents won Tony Awards for his book for "Hallelujah Baby!" in 1968 and for his direction of "La Cage aux Folles" in 1984. He also got an Oscar nomination for his screenplay for "The Turning Point." In 1991, he directed one of the most notorious Broadway failures, "Nick and Nora," which he called "the biggest and most public flop of my career."
"His name is synonymous with the great Broadway musicals and plays of our time," Charlotte St. Martin, executive director of The Broadway League, said Friday.
Laurents was born in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn. He was taken to the theater often by parents and later wrote training films and military radio news as a soldier during World War II. His first Broadway play, the 1945 "Home of the Brave," was about anti-Semitism in the military.
In "Original Story By," his 2000 autobiography, he wrote about his life as a gay man and his relationship with Tom Hatcher, a former actor and real estate developer, who was his partner for 52 years until his death in 2006.
It was Hatcher's belief in Laurents as a director that inspired him to embark on his late-life reclamations of "West Side Story" and "Gypsy," explained the author in "Mainly on Directing," the 2009 memoir in which he settled scores with many past collaborators. Many of Laurents' Broadway successes were turned into films, among them "The Time of the Cuckoo," (1952), which became "Summertime," starring Katharine Hepburn. He also turned "Cuckoo" into a musical, "Do I Hear a Waltz?," with music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.
According to Playbill.com, Laurents had recently finished a new play and had concluded negotiations with a major studio for a new movie version of "Gypsy." Earlier this year, it was reported that Streisand was interested in playing Mama Rose, the theater's ultimate backstage mother.
A look at Laurent's major works
BROADWAY
"The Time of the Cuckoo" 1952
"West Side Story" 1957
"Gypsy" 1959
"Anyone Can Whistle" 1964
"Do I Hear a Waltz?" 1966
"Hallelujah, Baby" 1967
"Nick and Nora" 1991
FILM
"Rope" 1948
"Anastasia" 1956
"Bonjour Tristesse" 1958
"The Way We Were" 1973
"The Turning Point" 1977
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