As literate and witty as a Comden-and-Green lyric, the noted
Broadway and Hollywood wordsmith's memoir concentrates on her
non-working life, with a few nods to famous friends thrown in as a
bonus. Comden's evocative account of growing up in Brooklyn during
the 1920s captures a world in transition: A hallway light fixture
has an electric bulb on the bottom and a gas fixture ("cheaper to
run") on top; her well-to-do grandfather still has nightmares about
hiding from the Cossacks back in Russia; her relatives shake their
head when Uncle David marries a 19-year-old flapper who smokes,
wears red nail polish, and (worst of all) is Rumanian. As the
lively anecdotes accumulate, we become acquainted with Comden's
dignified, ladylike mother; her warm, nurturing father; and the
author herself - smart, not so pretty, fascinated with words even
as a child. The chapter on her late husband, Steve Kyle, is less
compelling, though obviously heartfelt, and the obligatory sketches
of buddies like Leonard Bernstein, Lauren Bacall, and James Jones
seem rather perfunctory, though there is a marvelous, faintly
malicious tale of Charlie Chaplin giving an impromptu performance
with Comden at a party and feeling obliged to upstage her even in
that casual setting. The author dulls the impact of genuinely funny
lines like "I got my decorator through my therapist. Doesn't
everyone?" by descending on occasion into archness; the fact that
she discovered a largely French-speaking congregation at an Upper
East Side synagogue hardly justifies the crack" 'Vous ne pouvez
jamais revenir chez vous,' as Tomas Loup (Thomas Wolfe) once
wrote." Her painful, honest depiction of son Alan's descent into
drug addiction and eventual death from AIDS in 1990 is more
representative of the book's better moments, as is her brisk
chronicle, both amused and outraged, of the indignities her aging
body has visited on her. Despite some glib patches, surprisingly
sincere and moving. (Kirkus Reviews)
With her lifelong collaborator, Adolph Green, Betty Comden has
enjoyed the kind of glory known only to the greatest of Broadway
and Hollywood's luminaries. Their many successes as lyricists were
written with some of the theater's greatest composers: On the Town
and Wonderful Town with Leonard Bernstein; Bells Are Ringing and
Hallelujah Baby, among others, with Jule Styne; and On the
Twentieth Century and The Will Rogers Follies with Cy Coleman.
These shows have won them six Tony awards. In addition, Betty has
written, always with Adolph Green, the screenplays for numerous
films, including the legendary screen musicals Singin' in the Rain
and The Band Wagon. Hers is a career that has spanned many decades,
and known countless triumphs. Her early success in the worlds of
theater and film brought her friendship and collaboration with
great stars such as Gene Kelly and Lauren Bacall, and warm
relationships with idols of her childhood like Charles Chaplin,
Fred Astaire, and Groucho Marx. But offstage and behind the scenes,
her life has not always gone the way she might have scripted it.
Acknowledging that there are no rewrites in life, this very
intimate book is a personal remembrance - a humorous and moving
trip through an extraordinary lifetime - from her childhood in
Brooklyn and her close relationship with her family to her exodus
into the Big City, Manhattan, where the "fearful, aspiring theater
nut" attended N.Y.U., and shortly after met Steven Kyle, the man
she married and loved for life. In Off Stage she describes her life
as an intricate balancing act, juggling home and career and not
always providing the happy endings her shows offered. She writes of
the lessons she has learned as awife and mother - about her early
difficulties with her daughter and the loss of her son to the
ravages of drugs. Informed by the experience of working in the
theater, and in musical films when they were a fine art form, this
book is not only of special interest for theater and movie buffs,
but also the inspirational story of a woman of many talents and
interests who tried to have it all - and very nearly succeeded.
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