Although less well-known than other openly gay post-WWII writers Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, William Inge and James Baldwin, Arthur Laurents (1917-2011) was equally influential. A successful dramatist for radio, stage, screen, and television, librettist for two landmark Broadway musicals, novelist, theatre director, and author of a terrific memoir, Original Story, he was prolific. Compelled by the conventions of the era, he often transformed his homosexual experiences into heterosexual situations, proving that many emotions are universal.
Born Arthur Levine in Brooklyn to an upper-middle-class Jewish family, he felt the prevalent anti-Semitism in American society, making him a double outsider. He had his first homosexual experiences as a teenager, continued them in college with an athletic classmate, then enjoyed the relatively open gay scene that thrived in the Army during the Second World War, and subsequently in Manhattan.
His radio-writing credits kept him out of combat. He authored training films, working with openly gay Hollywood director George Cukor in Astoria, Queens, a friendship that would be rekindled when Laurents moved to Tinseltown. In 1945, his first play, Home of the Brave , about anti-Semitism in the army, was produced in Manhattan and earned good reviews. In 1949, he wrote the film version, changing the protagonist to African-American.
Rope (1948), his first screenplay, was a gay romance based on the notorious real-life lovers and killers Nathan Leopold and Arthur Loeb. Alfred Hitchcock directed. Classically handsome Farley Granger, one of the film's stars, was gay, and he and Laurents were living together, a relationship that lasted several years. Uncredited, he contributed to The Snake Pit (1948), a searing story about mental illness starring Olivia de Havilland. He wrote the suspenseful Caught, directed by the great Max Ophuls, and starring James Mason and Barbara Bel Geddes as a woman whose husband (Robert Ryan) is insane. Anna Lucasta (1949) was a sympathetic look at an exploited prostitute (Paulette Goddard).
In 1950, he was blacklisted. He and Granger spent 18 months living in Paris, and traveling in Europe and Morocco. Two years later, he triumphed on Broadway with The Time of the Cuckoo, starring the great Shirley Booth (years before television's Hazel ) in a Tony-winning performance as a spinster vacationing in Venice who finds love with a married man. Overcome by guilt and fear, she returns to her dull life. He authored the screenplay for the movie version, Summertime (1955), directed by David Lean, with Katherine Hepburn in an Oscar-nominated performance. Laurents would later admit that his heroine's sexual hysteria was based on his own anxieties about living with Granger, because doing so confirmed his homosexuality.
His screenplay for Anastasia (1956) helped Ingrid Bergman cap a sensational comeback with an Oscar. His wrote the book for West Side Story (1957), perhaps the gayest Broadway musical ever, despite its heterosexual plot. Directed by closeted Jerome Robbins, it had music by bisexual Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by gay Stephen Sondheim, and starred gay singer/dancer Larry Kert as Tony. Its impact was enormous. He adapted Francoise Sagan's scandalous novel Bonjour Tristesse (1958) for Otto Preminger's hit picture, starring David Niven, Deborah Kerr and Jean Seberg.
Many critics and historians of the Broadway musical hail Gypsy (1959) as its greatest example, in large part because of Laurents' uncompromising libretto. With music by Jules Styne and lyrics by Sondheim, it gave Ethel Merman the finest role of her incomparable career. Laurents warned, "Rose is a monster." "I'll do anything you want," she replied. Angela Lansbury, Tyne Daly, Bernadette Peters and Patti LuPone starred in successful Broadway revivals. He directed the Daly (1974) and LuPone (2008) productions, earning a Tony nomination each time.
In 1962, he helmed Barbra Streisand and Elliot Gould in I Can Get It for You Wholesale, the Broadway musical that launched their careers and led to their marriage. He authored screenplays for West Side Story (1961) and Gypsy (1962), directed and wrote Sondheim's failed Anyone Can Whistle (1964), adapted Cuckoo for the Richard Rogers musical Do I Hear a Waltz? (1965), and penned Hallelujah Baby! (1967), which won the Tony for Best Musical and earned him that award for his libretto.
His screenplay for The Way We Were (1973) drew upon his life. The reaction of the Jewish heroine (Streisand) to attracting and marrying the classic WASP dreamboat (Robert Redford) was based on Laurents' own feelings about Granger. It incorporated his blacklisting experiences and liberal politics. During filming, Redford reportedly had Laurents briefly removed because his part was subservient to Streisand's. Pauline Kael dismissed it as star-driven "entertainment," and David Thomson loathed it. Audiences, however, made it a smash. Laurents adapted his novel The Turning Point for the commercially successful 1977 movie, which earned him an Oscar nomination. Based loosely on his relationship with ballerina Nora Kaye and directed by her husband, choreographer Herbert Ross, it featured a dreadful performance by a miscast Anne Bancroft. Co-star Shirley MacLaine fared better, but the movie is bathetic high camp. Blame for that, however, lies mainly with Ross.
In 1983, he won a second Tony for directing Jerry Herman's La Cage Aux Folles, another milestone musical about gay lovers. In 1993, Bette Midler starred on television in Gypsy, but unlike Merman, she softened Rose, with disappointing results. Streisand, meanwhile, is reportedly negotiating to remake the movie. At 90, Laurents guided the hit Broadway revival of West Side Story, changing his script to include Spanish-language dialogue.
After his relationship with Granger ended, Vidal suggested he seek out aspiring actor/Beverly Hills clothing store manager Tom Hatcher. Their 52-year relationship ended with Hatcher's 2006 death �" the same year Granger's partner of over 30 years, Robert Calhoun, died.
On May 6, 2011, the day after his death, Broadway theatres dimmed their lights for one minute in Laurents' honor �" a fitting tribute to a versatile talent.