Бетти Компден: Американская драматург и автор песен

American dramatist

Betty Comden (May 3, 1917 – November 23, 2006) was an American lyricist, playwright, and screenwriter who contributed to numerous Hollywood musicals and Broadway shows of the mid 20th century. Her writing partnership with Adolph Green spanned six decades: "the longest running creative partnership in theatre history." The musical comedy duo of Comden and Green collaborated most notably with composers Jule Styne and Leonard Bernstein, as well enjoyed success with Singin' in the Rain, as part of the famed "Freed unit" at MGM.

Betty Comden was born Basya Cohen in Brooklyn, New York in 1917, the younger child of Leo Cohen (originally Astershinsky), a lawyer, and Rebecca ( Sadvoransky) Cohen, an English teacher. Both were Russian immigrants and observant Jews. She had an older brother, Nathaniel ("Nat"), born c. 1915. Basya "attended Erasmus Hall High School and studied drama at New York University, graduating in 1938," according to The New York Times. Due to the act's success, the Revuers appeared in the 1944 film Greenwich Village, but their roles were so small they were barely noticed, and they returned to New York. Comden and Green's first Broadway show was in 1944, with On the Town, a musical 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 book and lyrics, which included sizable parts for themselves (as "Claire" and "Ozzie"). Their next musical, Billion Dollar Baby in 1945, with music by Morton Gould was not a success, and their 1947 show Bonanza Bound closed out of town and never reached Broadway.

Comden and Green headed to California and soon found work at MGM. They wrote the screenplays for Good News and The Barkleys of Broadway (which reunited Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers), and then adapted On the Town for Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly, scrapping most of Bernstein's music at the request of Arthur Freed, who did not care for the Bernstein score. The duo reunited with Gene Kelly for their most successful project, the classic Singin' in the Rain, about Hollywood in the final days of the silent film era. Comden and Green provided the story and screenplay; the songs were hits from the late 1920s and early 1930s by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown. They followed this with another hit, The Band Wagon, in which the characters of Lester and Lily, a husband and wife musical writing team, were patterned after themselves. As with Singin' in the Rain, the real life team did not write the songs. They were Oscar nominated twice, for their screenplays for The Band Wagon and It's Always Fair Weather. Both films also received Screen Writers Guild Awards; On the Town did too. Comden and Green's Broadway work in the 1960s included four collaborations with Jule Styne. They wrote the lyrics for Do Re Mi, and the book and lyrics for Subways Are For Sleeping, Fade Out – Fade In, and Hallelujah, Baby! Their Hallelujah, Baby! score won a Tony Award. In 1980, Comden was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In the early 1980s, Comden acted in Wendy Wasserstein's play Isn't It Romantic, portraying the lead character's mother. In 1984, filmmaker Sidney Lumet directed a film about Greta Garbo, Garbo Talks, starring Anne Bancroft and Ron Silver. The producers of the film were sure that the real Garbo either could not be located or would refuse flatly to appear in a cameo. They asked a known associate of Garbo to ask the great actress if she would appear in the film, but received no response. So, Comden was asked to appear in the film for the brief, pivotal "over the shoulder" scenes. Comden and Green received Kennedy Center Honors in 1991. In 1994, Comden and Green were guest callers, "Linda" and "Walter", on the long running sit com Frasier in the episode entitled "Burying a Grudge."

Comden and Green were a creative partnership, not a romantic couple. In 1942, Comden married Siegfried Schutzman, a designer and businessman, who changed his name to Steven Kyle. He died in 1979 of acute pancreatitis. They had two children, a daughter, Susanna, and a son, Alan, who died in 1990. She never remarried.

Betty Comden died of heart failure following an undisclosed illness of several months at New York Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan on Thanksgiving Day, November 23, 2006, aged 89. She was buried in Mount Carmel Cemetery in Glendale, New York.