- unitid
-
{"value"=>"*T-Mss 1986-004", "type"=>"local_call"}
{"value"=>"21757", "type"=>"local_mss"}
- unitdate
-
{"value"=>"1933-2003", "type"=>"inclusive", "normal"=>"1933/2003"}
- unittitle
-
{"value"=>"Comden and Green papers"}
- physdesc
-
{"format"=>"structured", "physdesc_components"=>[{"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"12 linear feet", "unit"=>"linear feet"}, {"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"29 boxes", "unit"=>"containers"}], "supress_display"=>true}
- repository
-
{"value"=>"<span class=\"corpname\">The New York Public Library. Billy Rose Theatre Division.</span><div class=\"address\"> <span class=\"addressline\">New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center</span><span class=\"addressline\">40 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023-7498</span></div>"}
- abstract
-
{"value"=>"Betty Comden and Adolph Green were lyricists, librettists, screenwriters and performers. This collection consists of scripts, production files, office files, financial records, awards, photographs and programs from 1933 to 2003."}
- langmaterial
-
{"value"=>"English"}
- prefercite
-
{"value"=>"<p>Comden and Green Papers, *T-Mss 1986-004. Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.</p>"}
- origination
-
{"value"=>"Comden, Betty", "type"=>"persname"}
- bioghist
-
{"value"=>"<p>Adolph Green was born in the Bronx, New York on December 2, 1915. After a brief stint as a runner on Wall Street, Green began his theatrical career as an actor and soon found himself writing and performing satirical sketches with the nightclub act, The Revuers. Green’s fellow Revuers included Judy Holiday and Betty Comden, who became his lifelong writing partner. Betty Comden was born Elizabeth Cohen on May 3, 1919 in Brooklyn, NY. Comden attended New York University, where she studied drama, receiving a Bachelor of Science degree from the School of Education in 1938. The Revuers played at the Village Vanguard and the Rainbow Room in the late 1930s and made regular appearances on radio and one brief appearance in the Fox film, <span class=\"title\">Greenwich Village</span> (1944). The team of Comden and Green scored a hit with their Broadway debut, <span class=\"title\">On The Town</span> (1944), for which they provided the book and lyrics to Leonard Bernstein’s score as well as appearing in the original Broadway cast.</p> <p>After their second show, <span class=\"title\">Billion Dollar Baby</span> (1945), written with composer Morton Gould, Comden and Green signed with Metro-Goldwin-Mayer and began working for the Arthur Freed Unit. Their first project was a screenplay and additional lyrics for <span class=\"title\">Good News</span> (1947). They went on to write original screenplays for several classic movie musicals, including <span class=\"title\">Singin’ In The Rain</span> (1952), <span class=\"title\">The Bandwagon</span> (1953), <span class=\"title\">It’s Always Fair Weather</span> (1955) and the final film of the legendary partnership between Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, <span class=\"title\">The Barkleys of Broadway</span> (1949). They also adapted the screenplay and provided lyrics to new songs for their own <span class=\"title\">On The Town</span> (1949).</p> <p>In the early 1950s Comden and Green resumed their Broadway career with the revue <span class=\"title\">Two On The Aisle</span> (1951), the first of many collaborations with their most frequent composer, Jule Styne. Their next project, <span class=\"title\">Wonderful Town</span> (1953), reunited them with Leonard Bernstein and won the Tony Award as Best Musical. Their next seven Broadway musicals were collaborations with Styne, including additional songs for <span class=\"title\">Peter Pan</span> (1954), <span class=\"title\">Say, Darling</span> (1958), <span class=\"title\">Do-Re-Mi</span> (1960), <span class=\"title\">Subways Are For Sleeping</span> (1961), <span class=\"title\">Fade Out-Fade In</span> (1964) and Best Musical Tony Award winner, <span class=\"title\">Hallelujah, Baby!</span> (1968). The most successful show from Comden and Green’s collaboration with Jule Styne was <span class=\"title\">Bells Are Ringing</span> (1956), which was written as a vehicle for Comden and Green’s old friend, Judy Holliday, now an Academy Award winning actress.</p> <p>During this period of high productivity on Broadway, Comden and Green also continued work on various film projects, adapting <span class=\"title\">Bells Are Ringing</span> for the screen in 1960. They also did the 1958 screen adaptation of Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s play <span class=\"title\">Auntie Mame</span>, which starred <span class=\"title\">Wonderful Town’s</span> Rosalind Russell. Though their last produced film was the comedy with songs, <span class=\"title\">What A Way To Go!</span> (1964), they continued to work on screenplays for the rest of their careers. Comden and Green also continued their performing careers in 1959, with the first version of their successful revue, <span class=\"title\">A Party With Betty Comden and Adolph Green</span>, which they performed several times on Broadway and around the country over the following thirty years.</p> <p>In 1970 Comden and Green provided the book for Charles Strouse and Lee Adams’ score for <span class=\"title\">Applause</span>, a musical version of the classic film, <span class=\"title\">All About Eve</span>, (1950) which won the Tony Award for Best Musical. Another Comden and Green show won the Tony later in the decade: <span class=\"title\">On The Twentieth Century</span> in 1978, which also won them and their composer, Cy Coleman, the Tony for Best Score. Comden and Green’s next project was a departure from the witty, urbane style that had characterized their previous work when they tackled nineteenth century feminism in a collaboration with composer Larry Grossman and director Harold Prince. <span class=\"title\">A Doll’s Life</span> (1982) investigates what might have happened to Nora from Ibsen’s <span class=\"title\">A Doll’s House</span> after she slams the door and leaves her family. This ambitious project was unsuccessful, but demonstrated Comden and Green’s versatility. Their last original musical, however, was a triumph, both artistically and financially. <span class=\"title\">The Will Rogers Follies</span> (1991), another collaboration with Cy Coleman, ran 981 performances and brought Comden, Green and Coleman another Best Score Tony Award.</p> <p>Throughout their career as writers, Comden and Green continued to work as performers in such films as <span class=\"title\">My Favorite Year</span> (1982), <span class=\"title\">I Want to Go Home</span> (1989) and <span class=\"title\">Garbo Talks</span> (1984). They also appeared in countless tributes and concerts including <span class=\"title\">Follies in Concert</span>, performed at Avery Fisher Hall in 1985 and Green appeared as Dr. Pangloss in the London Symphony Orchestra’s Candide, conducted by Leonard Bernstein in 1989.</p> <p>Betty Comden was married to artist Steven Kyle from 1942, until his death in 1979. They had two children, Alan Kyle and Suzanne Kyle. Adolph Green’s first marriage in 1941, to actress/painter Elizabeth Reitell ended in divorce, as did his second marriage to actress Allyn Ann McLerie from 1945-1953. In 1960 he married actress Phyllis Newman, with whom he had two children, Amanda Green and Adam Green, and to whom he remained married until his death on October 23, 2002.</p>"}
- scopecontent
-
{"value"=>"<p>This collection contains scripts, production files, office files, financial records, awards, photographs and programs from as early as 1933 and as late as 2003. The strengths of this collection are several scripts for unproduced or incomplete works by Comden and Green as well as other writers, and the multiple drafts of certain shows, reflecting the process of revising a script and extensive business correspondence and office records. Of special interest are various drafts and handwritten sheet music for songs from collaboration with Leonard Bernstein on a musical adaptation of Thornton Wilder’s <span class=\"title\">The Skin of Our Teeth</span>, which was never finished, scripts for episodes of a proposed television adaptation of <span class=\"title\">Bells Are Ringing</span>, the transcript of an oral history interview with Fanny Brice, conducted in preparation for an autobiography which was never written, called <span class=\"title\">Don’t Pick Up Your Money Till You’ve Finished Singing</span>, and various parody lyrics written for political campaigns and tributes. This is a collection of professional materials and its scope does not extend to personal materials, which are only minimally represented here.</p>"}
{"value"=>"<p class='list-head'>The Comden and Green papers are arranged in seven series:</p>\n<ul class='arrangement series-descriptions'>\n<li><div class='series-title'><a href='/the/21757#c452245'>Series I: Scripts</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1933 - 1979</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>11 boxes</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p> This series consists of complete scripts written for theatre, film, television and radio, produced and unproduced. Betty Comden and Adolph Green wrote the majority of these scripts. Some of these scripts are for projects written by various associates and friends of Comden and Green’s.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/the/21757#c452358'>Series II: Production Files</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1944 - 2003</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>10 boxes</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series consists of various materials pertaining to the productions of projects written by Comden and Green, as well as projects they considered, such as musical adaptations of the films <span class=\"title\">The Apartment</span> and <span class=\"title\">Sunset Boulevard</span> and projects by other authors, to which they contributed advice, such as Neil Simon’s <span class=\"title\">Come Blow Your Horn</span> (1961). Types of materials represented are business correspondence, notes, congratulatory messages, schedules, incomplete script materials, sheet music, technical plots and official financial and legal documents (box office statements, contracts, etc.) that pertain to specific productions.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/the/21757#c452545'>Series III: Office Files</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1933 - 1986</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>4 boxes</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p> This series consists of materials pertaining to Comden and Green’s career in general, and not to specific production, to the running of their office and outside activities, such as fund-raising, political campaigns, newspaper and magazine articles. Materials included are correspondence, fan mail, personal items, steno books, publicity materials and notebooks.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/the/21757#c452605'>Series IV: Financial Records</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1947 - 1981</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>2 boxes</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p> This series consists of financial records that do not pertain to individual shows, but to various companies Comden and Green were involved with, as well as their general finances. Materials included are royalty statements, correspondence contracts, agreements and financial statements.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/the/21757#c452637'>Series V: Awards</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1949 - 1985</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>2 boxes</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p> Arrangement: Alphabetical. This series consists of materials pertaining to awards and honors for which Comden and Green were nominated. Materials include certificates, nomination plaques, correspondence and photographs pertaining to those awards.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/the/21757#c452672'>Series VI: Photographs</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1943 - 1981</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>1 box</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series consists of photographs and contact sheets of Comden and Green and their collaborators and friends, many relating to their theatrical productions, others to television appearances and films. Their years with The Revuers are particularly well represented. The photographs of shows do not contain production shots, but include backstage, rehearsals, opening night parties and cast album recording sessions.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/the/21757#c452707'>Series VII: Programs</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1942 - 1989</div>\n<div class='series-extent'>1 box</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series consists of programs, most of which do not pertain to Comden and Green’s career, with the exception of a program for the 1975 New York Shakespeare Festival production of A Doll’s House, on which Comden and Green’s subsequent A Doll’s Life was based. Most of these programs are for international theater from various nations, and some are for retrospective exhibitions. Also included are a commemorative calendar, a magazine and an annual report.</p></div></li></ul>\n", "type"=>"arrangement"}
- arrangement
-
{"value"=>"<p>The collection is organized into 7 series. They are: <ul class=\"list\"> <li>Series I: Scripts, 1933-1979</li> <li>Series II: Production Files, 1944-2003</li> <li>Series III: Office Files, 1933-1986</li> <li>Series IV: Financial Records, 1947-1981</li> <li>Series V: Awards, 1949-1985</li> <li> Series VI: Photographs, 1943-1981</li> <li>Series VII: Programs, 1942-1989</li></ul></p>", "supress_display"=>true}
- acqinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>The Comden and Green Papers were predominantly donated to the Billy Rose Theatre Division in 1986 by Betty Comden and Adolph Green.</p>"}
- processinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>Originally processed before 1991, re-processed by Diana Bertolini; Machine-readable finding aid created by Diana Bertolini.</p>"}
- userestrict
-
{"value"=>"<p>For permission to publish, contact the Curator, Billy Rose Theatre Division.</p>"}
- relatedmaterial
-
{"value"=>"<p>Scripts and programs pertaining to Betty Comden and Adolph Green can also be found in the Adolph Green Papers (call number *T-Mss 2004-023 in the Billy Rose Theatre Division).</p>"}
- note
-
{"value"=>"The Comden and Green papers were reprocessed in 2005"}
- date_start
-
1933
- keydate
-
1933
- date_end
-
2003
- date_inclusive_start
-
1933
- date_inclusive_end
-
2003
- extent_statement
-
12 linear feet (29 boxes)