| Issue #36, December 1, 2006 |
BETTY COMDEN, 1917-2006
By Jan Silver
“The party’s over, it’s all over, my friend.” That famous lyric from Bells Are Ringing was written in 1956 by Betty Comden and her professional partner of more than 60 years, Adolph Green. Green died in 2002. Last week, Betty Comden passed away in Manhattan of heart failure, on November 23 at 89.
Comden and Green (always listing themselves in alphabetical order) were a quadruple threat — lyricists, playwrights, screenwriters and performers —and a force majeure in 20th century American musicals. They are best know for the stage shows On the Town, Wonderful Town, Bells Are Ringing, On the Twentieth Century, The Will Rogers Follies and the Hollywood musicals Singin’ in the Rain and The Band Wagon. They won numerous Tony Awards, garnered several Academy Award nominations, and received the United States’ highest accolade, the Kennedy Center Honors, in 1991.
Comden was born May 3, 1917, in Brooklyn, to Rebecca and Leo Cohen. Her father was an attorney and her mother, a teacher. She graduated from Brooklyn’s Erasmus Hall High School and then studied drama at New York University. After graduating in 1938, she changed her last name, had nose surgery to become a more appealing stage presence, and joined a young theater troupe called the Washington Square Players.
Betty Comden was an attractive, slender, vivacious brunette. She married Steven Kyle, a designer, in 1942. They had two children: Susanna, who survives her, and Alan, who died in 1990. Her husband died in 1979 and she never remarried, but continued on with her very successful career. (Adolph Green was married to Phyllis Newman.)
Comden and Green were a witty, dynamic duo who performed in and wrote their first Broadway show, On the Town (music by good friend Leonard Bernstein), in 1944. The show won many Tony Awards. They continued their successful writing career and did not perform again until 1958 when their unique and amusing musical revue, “A Party with Betty Comden and Adolph Green,” charmed Broadway audiences. The revue was updated and brought back to Broadway in 1977 and later broadcast on television.
Comden first met Green, another member of the young, aspiring Greenwich Village theater crowd, in 1939. To earn money, they formed a group called The Revuers for which they wrote and performed musical skits at a small Greenwich Village club called The Village Vanguard. The act was a great success. Another member of The Revuers was Judy Holliday, who would later become a star in their show Bells Are Ringing, and the young Leonard Bernstein often acted as the piano accompanist for the group.
When Bernstein wrote the music for Jerome Robbins’ successful ballet Fancy Free about three sailors on leave from World War II in Manhattan, the two men felt the ballet could become a Broadway show. They asked Comden and Green to write the book and lyrics. The partners jumped at the chance and the 1944 show, On the Town, was a smash hit.
Comden and Green met every weekday to work, whether they had a project going or not. In a 1977 New York Times interview, Comden said, “There are long periods when nothing happens and it’s just boring and disheartening. But we have a theory that nothing’s wasted, even those long days of staring at one another.” They both claimed they never remembered who wrote what in their partnership, and they often finished one another’s sentences.
They worked with many composers including Cy Coleman, Jule Styne, Arthur Schwartz, Howard Dietz and André Previn as well as Leonard Bernstein. Stars of their stage and film musicals included Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Frank Sinatra, Cyd Charisse, Nanette Fabray, Phil Silvers, and Lauren Bacall.
Comden and Green lyrics run the gamut from clever and witty, to brash, buoyant, moody and romantic but, as Comden said in the 1977 interview, “The book [story] comes first.” They both had second homes in the Hamptons and enjoyed their work and playtime here. I believe they are working together now on a celestial project!
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