The Death Of A Broadway Great

Betty Comden, one half of the famous Broadway composing duo of Comden and Green, passed away today at the age of 89. This greatly saddens me because, little-by-little, all the great Broadway performers, composers, lyricists and legends are dying off... and who are replacing them?

This obit was taken from Playbill.com:

"Betty Comden, the award-winning lyricist and librettist who — with writing partner Adolph Green — created such musicals as Bells Are Ringing, Wonderful Town and On the Town — died Nov. 23 at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. She was 89.

The New York Times reports that the cause of Ms. Comden’s death was heart failure.

Born Elizabeth Cohen on May 3, 1919, in Brooklyn, NY, Comden — with the late Green — would go on to write several musicals that were love letters to her native city. She and Green first hit the town in a sketch-comedy group called The Revuers, which also featured the late Judy Holliday. It was for Holliday that the duo created the 1956 musical Bells Are Ringing; Holliday won a Tony Award for her performance and later repeated her role as Ella Peterson in the screen version of the classic musical.

Comden and Green also worked closely with their friend Leonard Bernstein. With Bernstein they created two of their best-known works, On the Town — a tale of three sailors on leave in Manhattan that boasted such tunes as “New York, New York,” “Lucky to Be Me” and “Lonely Town” — and Wonderful Town — the story of two sisters from Ohio who find themselves over their heads in Greenwich Village. That musical gave the world such songs as “Ohio,” “A Little Bit in Love,” “A Quiet Girl” and “It’s Love.”

The other musicals for which the writing team — who also performed an acclaimed specialty act throughout the years entitled A Party With Betty Comden and Adolph Green — penned book and/or lyrics include Bells Are Ringing; On the Twentieth Century; Hallelujah, Baby!; Applause; Peter Pan; A Doll's Life; Do Re Mi and The Will Rogers Follies. Among their film credits are "Singin’ in the Rain" and "The Band Wagon."

In 1991 Comden and Green were both awarded the Kennedy Center Honors. The duo also racked up numerous Tony Awards: 1953 (Wonderful Town wins Best Musical Tony), 1968 (Hallelujah, Baby! wins Tonys for Best Musical and Best Composer and Lyricist), 1970 (Applause wins Tony for Best Musical), 1978 (On the Twentieth Century wins Tonys for Best Original Score and Best Book of a Musical) and 1991 (The Will Rogers Follies wins Tony for Best Original Score).

Among the plethora of songs that came from the pens of Comden and Green are "Make Someone Happy," "Just in Time," "The Party's Over," "Long Before I Knew You," "Never Never Land," "Comes Once in a Lifetime," "I'm Just Taking My Time," "My Own Morning," "Never Met a Man I Didn't Like" and "Look Around.”

Ms. Comden married designer Steven Kyle in 1942. After his death in 1979, she never remarried. The couple had two children: a son Alan, who died in 1990, and a daughter Susanna Kyle, who survives her.