It's impossible to imagine either Broadway's golden age or its past four years without Arthur Laurents, the writer/director who died Thursday of pneumonia at 93.
By AP
Composer Richard Rodgers, left, playwright Arthur Laurents and lyricist Stephen Sondheim are shown as they begin work on the musical Do I Hear a Waltz? in New York in 1964.
By AP
Composer Richard Rodgers, left, playwright Arthur Laurents and lyricist Stephen Sondheim are shown as they begin work on the musical Do I Hear a Waltz? in New York in 1964.
In the 1950s, Laurents wrote the books for two of the most beloved musicals of all time, West Side Story and Gypsy. He distinguished himself as a screenwriter as well, with credits ranging from Alfred Hitchcock's Rope in 1948 to '70s Hollywood hits The Way We Were and The Turning Point.
But what assured Laurents' career longevity was his flair for directing actors onstage, in both his own and others' work. Where his libretti didn't always take the theater world by storm — 1991's Nick & Nora held the record for most previews of a musical before Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, then closed about a week after opening — he directed hit revivals of Gypsy in 1974 and 1989, with Angela Lansbury and Tyne Daly, as well as the original La Cage Aux Folles in 1983.
Yet another Gypsy, this one starring Patti LuPone as stage mother nonpareil Momma Rose, brought Laurents' triumphant return to Broadway in 2008. LuPone and co-stars Laura Benanti and Boyd Gaines won Tony Awards for their performances.
"He was 89 when he directed us," LuPone notes. "But the more involved he became with the company and the material, the younger he became, until he had more energy than all of us combined. We all had a loving, creative, humorous time with him."
The following year, Laurents oversaw a new production of West Side Story that incorporated Spanish lyrics in an effort to bring fresh perspective to the cultural conflict between the Sharks and the Jets. Karen Olivo, cast as head Shark Bernardo's feisty girlfriend Anita, won a supporting-actress Tony under his direction.
Benanti, another young star who flourished under Laurents' guidance, says, "He made me a better actor by teaching me that I didn't have to rely on tricks. He always wanted to get to the truth, so that there was nothing between you and your character, and nothing between the audience and the piece. He was incredibly passionate."
That passion could take on a critical and even abrasive edge, evident in his dishy 2009 book Mainly On Directing. (He also wrote Arthur Laurents: A Memoir of Broadway and Hollywood, published in 2000.) In it, he found fault with director Sam Mendes' own acclaimed Broadway revival of Gypsy, and was even harder on film adaptations of West Side Story and The Sound of Music.
"Arthur would say whatever came into his head," says press agent Shirley Herz, who had known Laurents since the 1940s, when his first stage effort (a non-musical play, of which he wrote several) appeared on Broadway. "He wasn't one to say something was lovely when he thought it was a piece of you-know-what."
But Herz stresses that Laurents was a generous and nurturing collaborator: "Working on La Cage, he made everyone feel like a big family. His friends knew the other side, of course. You could be in or out with him; if you were out, he would keep his picture of you in a box until everything was patched up."
Broadway and film director/choreographer Rob Marshall knew Laurents well and says simply, "He was a genius. He was a very critical person, so it wasn't like he was the sweetest man on the block. But he was honest. He was very kind to me and very supportive."
And Laurents had shown no signs of slowing down. He had recently planned to do another film version of Gypsy, this time with Barbra Streisand — whom he directed in her Broadway debut, 1962's I Can Get It For You Wholesale, and later worked with on The Way We Were— as Rose.
"He created people you care about because he cared about people," Streisand said in a statement. "I spoke to him a few weeks ago and he sounded so strong, as always. He was lucky to have lived a full and creative life up till the very end. I'll miss working with him again."
Contributing: Donna Freydkin
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