by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Authors note: To set just the right atmosphere for this article, search any search engine for one of the blockbuster tunes of all time, "Everything's Coming Up Roses". Many great ladies of the theater have given this "take no prisoners" masterpiece their all -- Patty LaPone, Angela Lansbury, Rosalind Russell, and my personal favorite Ethel Merman. Turn one on... and you are ready for the turbulent life and times of Arthur Laurents, the playwright for two immortal productions, "Gypsy" and "West Side Story".
"Nothing's going to stop us 'til we're through".
This is an appreciation for the life of one of the titans of the contemporary American theater; a man who wrote hit after hit and, most importantly, two productions which will never die. This is about a man of talent, a man of energy and drive... a master of the vulgar put-down and sharp remarks designed to wound.
It is the story of a man forgiven every infraction, every crudity, because he could, in the right circumstances, move a nation and deliver to theater audiences worldwide just what they always asked for and demanded, to be touched by the magic of theater, to be taken out of their quotidian miseries and limitations and be transported to another, better place --- a place that would give them, at once, excitement and release...and always something larger than life.
Arthur Laurents trod these boards... and he did so with genius, giving all, demanding all, controlling all, an unstopping piston of a man.
He was at once the appalling, vicious man, malevolent to a degree... who from noisome ingredients (strange alchemy) brought us beauty, glory, and made us feel we were well and truly alive!
Born July 14, 1917, Brooklyn, New York.
July 14th is celebrated in world history as the day the lowest of the low seized the Bastille in Paris (1789), cutting off the head of its aristocratic governor and parading it around the city on a stick. Arthur Laurents chose this day (for one must presume that such a man dictated the time and place of his birth) to make his entrance. He was always the master of timing and presentation and a day when the old world order began to crumble would have appealed; for he, too, presaged a revolution; this one in the theater.
His parents were lax Jews... but they were Jewish notwithstanding. Thus when son Arthur (who rejected the Jewish religion but celebrated his Jewish heritage) went looking for a job, he judged it expedient to change his last name from Levine to the less Jewish- sounding Laurents," to get a job". It was one of the few compromises he ever made; his compromises were few, far between, grudgingly given, usually regretted.
After graduating from Cornell University, Laurents took an evening class in radio writing at New York University. His instructor, a CBS Radio director/producer , submitted his script "Now Playing Tomorrow", a comedic fantasy about clairvoyance, to the network, and it was produced with Shirley Booth in the lead role.. It was Laurents' first professional credit. The show's success led him to being hired to write scripts for various radio shows, among them "Lux Radio Theater". He was on his way... then the nuisance of World War II intervened.
He had what was called in those days a "good war", meaning one that didn't interfere too much with a comfy life and positioned one for post-war success in a new, surgent America where there was success enough and to spare for anyone with the energy and gumption to grab it.
Arthur Laurents was ready to grab with the best of them... and make sure the world understood just who he was and just where he was coming from...
In just 9 consecutive nights in 1945, he wrote a play inspired by a photograph of GIs in a South Pacific jungle. The result was "Home of the Brave", a drama about anti- semitism in the military. It opened on Broadway on December 27, 1945, and ran for 69 performances. Stanley Kramer filmed it in 1949, changing the character from Jewish to black to keep the message timely. Updating productions to keep them fresh and relevant was always something Laurents understood and approved. If changes were required, he made them. The success of the production was always his #1 priority... for only success made people tolerate the bile that spewed from this New York gay man without a particle of restraint or civility. And Laurents was nothing if not a fountainhead of malice with an unequalled propensity for menace until he got his way.
... but success, the kind of awe-inspiring, legend-creating success he craved and had dedicated himself to achieving, eluded him... until one never-to-be-forgotten day he had the inspiration and temerity to revise Shakespeare, to turn those fustian characters of Montague and Capulet into Jets and Sharks, wise cracking, on the edge, pulsating with energy and high octane adolescent sexuality. It was brilliant theater! It was timely theater! It was the best theater there could be... It was "West Side Story", and it took the theater world by storm in 1957. Laurents was on his way to the fame and enduring celebrity he desired; so were his essential colleagues, Jerome Robbins (choregraphy), Leonard Bernstein (music), and a young Stephen Sondheim (lyrics).
Two years later, Laurents teamed up again with Robbins for "Gypsy", based on the memoirs of stripper Gypsy Rose Lee. The music, with a score by Julie Styne and Sondheim, told the story of Rose, a domineering stage mother who pushed her daughter into show business. As Rose, Ethel Merman had the greatest triumph of her long and distnguished career. So did Laurents...
No wonder.
The production was mesmerizing! Energizing! Goose-bump producing, one uplifting, exciting, psychologically revealing moment after another... a production that could rouse the dead, injecting the raw material of real life right into your blood and brain. Yes, all that, and even more...
Laurents now had everything, including a stream of steamy relationships, that included actor Farley Granger and Tom Hatcher, male model, aspiring actor. Laurents' friend Gore Vidal found Hatcher in a Beverly Hills, California department store.. He told Laurents to go check him out. He did... and 52 years later, at Hatcher's death (2006), they were still together. Life with Laurents was always challenging, but it was never dull... as the handsome Hatcher must have known better than anyone.
Now Arthur Laurents is dead, at 93, May 5, 2011, in New York City.
At 8 p.m. sharp, May 5, 2011, just hours after he died more peacefully in his sleep than he had ever lived, the bright lights of Broadway were, in accustomed theater tradition, dimmed for one minute for one of its enduring luminaries -- Arthur Laurents. Now this man of fiery temper, often embarrassing outbursts, and socially unacceptable language -- but always remember, of true genius and originality, was at rest; his truest legacy being the way his audiences felt about his best work....
"Tonight, tonight The world is wild and bright Going mad Shooting sparks into space."
That is what Arthur Laurents at his best did to us all and why we'll miss him.
About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Dr. Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author's permission by Ruthsella Corasol ....http://WorkingAtHome101.com
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