It isn’t often you pick up some juicy gossip coming out of the Library of Congress.
But here’s the dish: Arthur Laurents, who wrote “West Side Story” and “Gypsy,” left his papers to the library with unrestricted access.
And what a cache it is!
Laurents, it seems, saved everything he ever wrote, including a journal detailing foursomes he had with his boyfriend Tom Hatcher out in Quogue in the 1960s.
He named all the participants — how thoughtful, Arthur! — but I’m not Hollywood Confidential, so we’ll leave that stuff in the library.
For my money, the most interesting correspondence is between Laurents and Stephen Sondheim, his collaborator on “West Side Story” and “Gypsy.”
The exchanges date back to the 1950s and carry right on through, in e-mails, to 2011, the year Laurents died at 93.
Kurt Jensen, an academic, stumbled on this treasure trove while researching a book on director Rouben Mamoulian. He thought Laurents’ letters would make an interesting book themselves, and I heartily agree.
Unfortunately, Laurents’ estate and Sondheim do not.
Jensen and Sondheim had a testy exchange of letters (the originals have fallen into my clutches), leading to a nasty letter from Sondheim’s lawyer, Richard Pappas, threatening Jensen with legal action should he publish anything Sondheim wrote.
(Agents for the Laurents estate were more polite in their refusal, saying the estate would likely publish the letters itself at some point.)
Jensen has washed his hands of the whole matter, but I was able to obtain copies of many of the exchanges between Laurents and Sondheim.
“I don’t mind if someone cares enough to go down to the Library of Congress to read them,” Sondheim wrote in an e-mail to me, “but because things I wrote about theater and friends and events — the kind of trivial gossip everyone indulges in in private correspondence — [the letters] could hurt the feelings of people involved if they were published . . . I’ve refused permission.”
He added he was “surprised” Laurents was such a pack rat, but was glad all that history is there because of what it reveals about Laurents’ “working methods.”
Others aren’t quite so generous.
“Typical of Arthur,” says a producer. “He’s getting his revenge on everybody, even in death.”
Sondheim asked me not to quote from his letters, and I’m obligated to honor that request. However, I can describe the contents, and since Sondheim and Laurents are among the most important figures in Broadway history, I believe their exchanges are noteworthy.
And so, in upcoming columns, I’ll lift the veil on one of the most significant relationships in musical theater history.
It’s too bad Sondheim holds gossip in such disdain because he was damn good at it.
In fact, as his letters reveal, he’s better at it than I am!
Typical is a letter he wrote to Laurents in 1965 from the Dorchester Hotel in London.
If you’ve read Meryle Secrest’s fawning biography of Sondheim, you’ll recall that he and his mother, Foxy, were hardly on the best of terms. Sondheim reports that Foxy, whom he likens to a gorgon, had arrived in London from Capri. She booked a room at the Dorchester but decided to stay with her friend Helen Parnell, whose husband, Valentine, ran the Palladium.
Sondheim, who was having trouble finding suitable digs, inherited her room. When he moved in, he was amused to find she had left photographs of herself all over the place to remind him that, yet again, she’s the one providing the roof over his head.
(Foxy didn’t last long at her friend’s house. Shocked to discover Helen had a 21-year-old male lover, she decamped to Dorothy Hammerstein’s small flat.)
Sondheim then goes on to describe a boozy lunch the set designer Oliver Messel hosted for Princess Margaret and her husband, Lord Snowdon, who Sondheim suggests is a bit light in the loafers.
Mary Lee Fairbanks, wife of Douglas, bows so low when Princess Margaret enters the room that Dorothy Hammerstein has to help her get up.
Margaret makes funny, rude comments about her sister, Queen Elizabeth.
Rex Harrison’s tipsy daughter-in-law spills dark red wine all over Lord Snowdon, who handles it with grace.
And Lionel Bart, who wrote “Oliver!,” yaps on and on about “Twang!,” his new musical about Robin Hood. (The show would turn out to be a disaster and bankrupt him.)
Sondheim tells Laurents he enjoyed the lunch and is amused that, as he’s leaving, Messel’s lover makes a pass at him in the hall. This, Sondheim thinks, is a good sign that he’ll be invited back.
The tone of the letter is fun and light, revealing a playful side of the composer we don’t see much of anymore now that he’s on the Mount Rushmore of Broadway personalities.
As time goes on, the letters — and Sondheim’s relationship with Laurents — get testier.
Next up: Steve has some choice things to say about Barbra Streisand.