He meant a great deal to me, one of my favorite show biz creatures: cranky, candid, & curt. He was part of the team that created my favorite musical, writing the book of Gypsy, one of the best librettos ever. It has character; it has a flavor of the period of the various theater styles of the time, a feeling of being transported back to the world of second-rate vaudeville & burlesque. It's amazing that the script actually does that. It is a great, great vehicle for a certain kind of actress, who is bigger than the sum of her parts.
He was the screenwriter of my favorite Hollywood Romance- The Way We Were, based on his own novel, which was based on his own life,with his long time partner Tom Hatcher as the Robert Redford character & Barbra Streisand as a stand in for himself.
I made note on this little spot on the Internet of news that Streisand wished to play Rose & direct a new film version of Gypsy. This spring Arthur Laurents’s had conversation with the musical's lyricist, Stephen Sondheim, that convinced him there shouldn't be another Gypsy movie. Laurnets: "He said, 'What is the point of it?' & I said, 'They have this terrible version with Rosalind Russell wearing those black & white shoes.' & then Sondheim told me something that he got from the British… & it's wonderful. He said, 'You want a record because the theater is ephemeral. But it's wrong. The theater's greatest essence is that it is ephemeral. You don't need a record. The fact that it's ephemeral means you can have different productions, different Roses on into infinity. So I don't want it now. I don't want a definitive record. I want it to stay alive."
He was role model to me in so many ways, he planned ahead for his death, giving directions to his agent Jonathan Lomma that when he died that he wanted it noted: "he was predeceased by his partner, Tom Hatcher, with whom he had lived in happiness for more than 50 years.”
In his engaging memoir from 2000- Original Story By, he was straightforward about his liaisons with gentlemen, referring to his partners as “those unremembered hundreds.... I think that people who are healthy have good sex, with a lot of variety to it."
Tom Hatcher, a former actor & real estate developer, would be his partner for 52 years. Hatcher died in 2006.
Laurents: “Writers are ‘the chosen people’ & I have been the happiest when sitting alone & putting my daydreams & fantasies down on paper.”
Laurents: "Gypsy is about the need for recognition. ... a need everyone has in one way or another."
I found him to be attractive, especially in his younger years, a small, compact man, like a cross between a Roman emperor on a coin & a hot gym teacher, difficult, diffident & Jewish… all plusses in my book.
Laurents:" They say I'm mean. They say this for 2 reasons. I I think too fast & I talk as fast as I think, & I'm often acerbic. But I say mean things as a defense. People who get their feelings hurt don't realize I have a very developed set of defenses. But also I will not suffer fools & amateurs. What that has cost me is a ... reputation. So?"
For more about his life, see my post on his birthday here.
He left this existence today at 93 years of age. He was still working up until March 2011.Mr. Laurents, I hope to see you at the big curtain call some day.
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