Born July 14: Arthur Laurents

Two-time Tony winner Arthur Laurents died in 2011 at ninety-two. Born in the Jewish section of Flatbush, he wrote the book for the musicals West Side Story, Gypsy, Anyone Can Whistle, and Hallelujah, Baby!; the novels and the screenplays for The Way We Were and The Turning Point, the screenplay for Rope (starring his then-lover Farley Granger); the play that became the movie Summertime; and he directed I Can Get It for You Wholesale, La Cage Aux Folles, Anyone Can Whistle, and the Broadway versions of Gypsy in 1974 and the later triple Tony winning revival starring the Patti Lupone. Laurents was openly gay even during the McCarthy era, when he received less work but avoided being blacklisted. Smart people can discuss the obvious and subtle gay substitutes and outsider figures who run through all of Laurents' work. His two memoirs are Original Story By and Mainly on Directing. He and his partner Tom Hatcher lived together fifty-one years, mainly in Quogue, Long Island, until Hatcher's death in 2006. It was Hatcher's idea as he was dying to re-invent West Side Story as a bilingual musical to give Laurents something to do as a new widower. The revival earned four Tony nominations, winning one.

Comments

[Kevin]

Don't forget his final memoir, THE REST OF THE STORY, posthumously published in 2012. It's a testament to his love of his late partner and it also looks back on many of the things he said in ORIGINAL STORY BY in a more forgiving mood. He apologizes for outing Farley Granger at the time and makes amends to many people he feels he may have hurt. There's also a great chapter on Barbra Streisand and her dream of filming GYPSY. They knew each other at the beginning of each other's career and here they are near the end. It's a slim but very heartfelt book.