Arthur Laurents

The name of Arthur Laurents is linked to legendary works, theater and cinema. He considered himself closer to the scene, where he won 3 Tony Awards. But the truth is that his name is also linked to excellent films of many different kinds, which give an idea of ​​his versatility. It is obligatory to mention, from the outset, the musical  West Side Story , from 1957, an update of the classic Shakespearean story “Romeo and Juliet” that he prepared with Jerome Robbins , Leonard Berstein and Stephen Sondheim . Another legendary musical was “Gipsy”, which would lead to a film,  The Queen of Vaudeville , which does not enjoy the same fame.

Arthur Laurents was born in New York on July 14, 1917. He studied at Cornell University, and at that time read a lot of plays, which he loved, but he didn’t start writing his own plays until after he finished his studies. He taught at New York University, and his first work was sold to CBS radio. In the war years, when he was in the army, he wrote scripts for training and propaganda films. He developed a promiscuous homosexuality at that time, according to his own admission, although he would later achieve stability with Tom Hatcher, an actor turned real estate businessman, with whom he was linked for 52 years.

Laurents debuted in 1945 with “Home of the Brave,” about a soldier traumatized by seeing a comrade die in combat. It would be made into a film in 1949 by Mark Robson . In cinema, she highlights her collaboration with Alfred Hitchock in The Rope  (1948), which was followed by the script for  Anna Lucasta  (1949). Her flirtation with communism led to her being blacklisted, so she devoted her best efforts to theater at that time, with plays like “The Bird Cage” and “The Time of the Cuckoo.” One of them,  Summer Follies , would be brought to the screens by David Lean with Katharine Hepburn in the lead role.

Back in the movies, his work on the script for  Anastasia  (1956) helped Ingrid Bergman win the Oscar. She also adapted a novel by Françoise Sagan for  Good Morning, Sadness  (1958), by Otto Preminger . The other two great titles by Laurents for the cinema are  As We Were  (1973), a romantic film by Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand directed by Sidney Pollack, and  Decisive Step  ( Herbert Ross , 1977), a look at the world of dance that despite after achieving 11 Oscar nominations, including the script, he was left without awards.

In the last years of his life, Laurents remained linked to the theater, premiering new plays, including one related to the 9/11 attacks, or supervising new productions of his classics “West Side Story” and “Gipsy.” Precisely with Barbra Streisand he had spoken in January about her possible intervention in a revival of this latest work.