Adolph Green

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Adolph Green
Green wearing the Kennedy Center Honors
Born(1914-12-02)December 2, 1914
DiedOctober 23, 2002(2002-10-23) (aged 87)
Occupation(s)Playwright, songwriter
Years active1944–2002
Spouses
Elizabeth Reitell
(m. 1941, divorced)
(m. 1945; div. 1953)
(m. 1960)
ChildrenAdam Green
Amanda Green

Adolph Green (December 2, 1914 – October 23, 2002) was an American

Kennedy Center Honor
in 1991.

They started their career alongside Leonard Bernstein on stage where they received the New York Drama Critics' Circle for Best Musical for Wonderful Town (1953). On Broadway they wrote the music and lyrics to musicals such as On the Town (1944), Two on the Aisle (1951), Peter Pan (1954), Bells Are Ringing (1956), and Applause (1970). They won four Tony Awards as composter and lyricist for Hallelujah, Baby! (1967), On the Twentieth Century (1978), and The Will Rogers Follies (1991). As performers they starred in A Party with Betty Comden and Adolph Green (1958).

They gained notoriety in film collaborating with

Academy Award nominations for screenplays for the musicals The Band Wagon (1953), and It's Always Fair Weather (1955). They also wrote the scripts for the classic movie musicals The Barkleys of Broadway (1949), On the Town (1949), Auntie Mame (1958), and Bells Are Ringing
(1960).

Early life and education

Green was born in

Jewish immigrants Helen (née Weiss) and Daniel Green. He was the youngest of three sons and had two older brothers, Louis (circa 1907-?) and William (circa 1910-?).[citation needed] After high school, he worked as a runner on Wall Street
while he tried to make it as an actor.

Career

1938–1947

Comden and Green collaborated with Leonard Bernstein on Wonderful Town

He met 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, whom he had met in 1937 at Camp Onota (a summer camp in Pittsfield MA where Bernstein was the music counselor), frequently accompanied them on the piano. Together, Comden and Green's act earned success and a movie offer. The Revuers traveled west in hopes of finding fame in

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.

1948–1969

They wrote the screenplay for

Writers Guild of America Award for Best Written Musical. Considered by many film historians to be the best movie musical of all time, it ranked No. 10 on the list of the 100 best American movies of the 20th century compiled by the American Film Institute
in 1998.

Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain

They followed this with another hit, and another musical

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 (1951), starring Bert Lahr and Dolores Gray, Wonderful Town (1953), 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 (1956), 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.

Comden and Green returned to films with Morton DaCosta's Auntie Mame (1958) starring Rosalind Russell and Minnelli's Bells Are Ringing (1961) starring Judy Holliday and Dean Martin. 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. In 1964 they wrote the screenplay for the black comedy What a Way to Go! starring Shirley MacLaine, Paul Newman, Robert Mitchum, Dean Martin, Gene Kelly, and Dick Van Dyke. The film was a commercial success but received mixed reviews.

1970–2002

Among their other credits are the

Tony Award nominations including for Best Book of a Musical
for Comden and Green.

In 1989 he appeared as Dr. Pangloss in Bernstein's

humorist and performer Will Rogers, using as a backdrop the Ziegfeld Follies. The production earned six Tony Awards including the Tony Award for Best Musical and the Tony Award for Best Original Score
for Comden and Green.

Personal life

Green was married to actress Allyn Ann McLerie[4] from 1945 to 1953.[5]

Green's third wife was actress Phyllis Newman, who had understudied Holliday in Bells Are Ringing. They married in 1960, and remained so until Green's death in 2002. The couple had two children, Adam and Amanda, both of whom are songwriters.[6]

His Broadway memorial, with Lauren Bacall, Kevin Kline, Joel Grey, Kristin Chenoweth, Arthur Laurents, Peter Stone, and Betty Comden in attendance was held at the Shubert Theater on December 4, 2002.[7]

Credits

Broadway

Hollywood

Acting credits

Awards and nominations

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 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

Notes

  1. ^ The New York Times, March 3, 1981 – 26 Elected to the Theater Hall of Fame
  2. ^ "Adolph Green at the Songwriters Hall of Fame". Archived from the original on May 15, 2014. Retrieved November 6, 2010.
  3. ^ The New York Times, March 3, 1981 – 26 Elected to the Theater Hall of Fame
  4. . Retrieved May 16, 2011.
  5. ^ McPhee, Ryan. "Stage and Screen Star Allyn Ann McLerie Dies at 91" Playbill, June 3, 2018
  6. ^ "Adolph Green, Playwright and Lyricist Who Teamed With Comden, Dies at 87"The New York Times, October 25, 2002
  7. ^ "A Broadway Memorial? That's Entertainment"The New York Times, December 4, 2002

References

  • Off Stage, a memoir by Betty Comden published in 1995

External links