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162-555: Clive Selsby Revill (born 18 April 1930) is a New Zealand actor, best known for his performances in musical theatre and the London stage. A veteran of the Royal Shakespeare Company , he has also starred in numerous films and television programmes, often in character parts . He is a two-time Tony Award nominee; Best Featured Actor in a Musical for Irma La Douce and Best Actor in a Musical for Oliver! He

324-508: A tragic heroine in film melodramas ), and was popularly and critically acclaimed. With the byline "Garbo Laughs!", it also took Garbo's career in a new direction. The film marked Wilder's first Academy Award nomination, which he shared with co-writer Charles Brackett (although their collaboration on Bluebeard's Eighth Wife and Midnight had been well received). Wilder co-wrote many of his films with Brackett from 1938 to 1950. Brackett described their collaboration process: "The thing to do

486-541: A "rambunctious kid"; inspired by Buffalo Bill's Wild West Shows , which she saw while living briefly in New York, she nicknamed him "Billie", which he changed to "Billy" upon moving to America. Wilder's elder brother, W. Lee Wilder , was also a filmmaker. His parents had a successful cake shop in Sucha's train station that flourished into a chain of railroad cafes. Eugenia and Max Wilder did not persuade their son to join

648-565: A Little Christmas", "I Am What I Am", "Mame", "The Best of Times", "Before the Parade Passes By", "Put On Your Sunday Clothes", "It Only Takes a Moment", "Bosom Buddies" and "I Won't Send Roses", recorded by such artists as Louis Armstrong , Eydie Gormé , Barbra Streisand , Petula Clark and Bernadette Peters. Herman's songbook has been the subject of two popular musical revues, Jerry's Girls (Broadway, 1985) and Showtune (off-Broadway, 2003). The musical started to diverge from

810-579: A book musical are its music , lyrics and book . The book or script of a musical refers to the story, character development and dramatic structure, including the spoken dialogue and stage directions, but it can also refer to the dialogue and lyrics together, which are sometimes referred to as the libretto (Italian for "small book"). The music and lyrics together form the score of a musical and include songs, incidental music and musical scenes, which are "theatrical sequence[s] set to music, often combining song with spoken dialogue." The interpretation of

972-406: A central cross-dressing theme. Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis played musicians disguised as women to escape pursuit by a Chicago gang. Curtis's character courts a singer (Monroe), while Lemmon is wooed by Joe E. Brown  – setting up the film's final joke in which Lemmon reveals that his character is a man and Brown blandly replies "Well, nobody's perfect". A box office success, the film

1134-518: A completely new genre – the musical play as distinguished from musical comedy. Now ... everything else was subservient to that play. Now ... came complete integration of song, humor and production numbers into a single and inextricable artistic entity." As the Great Depression set in during the post-Broadway national tour of Show Boat , the public turned back to mostly light, escapist song-and-dance entertainment. Audiences on both sides of

1296-464: A few exceptions, compared with London runs, until the 1920s. Gilbert and Sullivan were widely pirated and also were imitated in New York by productions such as Reginald De Koven 's Robin Hood (1891) and John Philip Sousa 's El Capitan (1896). A Trip to Coontown (1898) was the first musical comedy entirely produced and performed by African Americans on Broadway (largely inspired by the routines of

1458-402: A few players . Rock musicals usually employ a small group of mostly rock instruments, and some musicals may call for only a piano or two instruments. The music in musicals uses a range of "styles and influences including operetta , classical techniques, folk music , jazz [and] local or historical styles [that] are appropriate to the setting." Musicals may begin with an overture played by

1620-641: A five-minute song than are spoken in a five-minute block of dialogue. Therefore, there is less time to develop drama in a musical than in a straight play of equivalent length, since a musical usually devotes more time to music than to dialogue. Within the compressed nature of a musical, the writers must develop the characters and the plot. The material presented in a musical may be original, or it may be adapted from novels ( Wicked and Man of La Mancha ), plays ( Hello, Dolly! and Carousel ), classic legends ( Camelot ), historical events ( Evita and Hamilton ) or films ( The Producers and Billy Elliot ). On

1782-517: A love relationship sanctioned and restricted by Protestant ideals of marriage; that a married couple should make a moral home with children away from the city in a suburb or small town; that the woman's function was as homemaker and mother; and that Americans incorporate an independent and pioneering spirit or that their success is self-made. The 1950s were crucial to the development of the American musical. Damon Runyon 's eclectic characters were at

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1944-478: A major hit when he, Charles Brackett and Walter Reisch wrote the screenplay for the Academy Award -nominated film Ninotchka (1939). Wilder established his directorial reputation and received his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director with the film noir Double Indemnity (1944), based on the novel by James M. Cain with a screenplay by Wilder and Raymond Chandler . Wilder won

2106-510: A musical adaptation of Oscar Wilde 's 1895 hit The Importance of Being Earnest . West Side Story (1957) transported Romeo and Juliet to modern day New York City and converted the feuding Montague and Capulet families into opposing ethnic gangs, the Jets and the Sharks. The book was adapted by Arthur Laurents , with music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by newcomer Stephen Sondheim . It

2268-416: A musical generally became more expensive. Shuffle Along (1921), an all-African American show, was a hit on Broadway. A new generation of composers of operettas also emerged in the 1920s, such as Rudolf Friml and Sigmund Romberg , to create a series of popular Broadway hits. In London, writer-stars such as Ivor Novello and Noël Coward became popular, but the primacy of British musical theatre from

2430-497: A musical is the responsibility of its creative team, which includes a director, a musical director, usually a choreographer and sometimes an orchestrator . A musical's production is also creatively characterized by technical aspects, such as set design , costumes , stage properties (props) , lighting and sound . The creative team, designs and interpretations generally change from the original production to succeeding productions. Some production elements, however, may be retained from

2592-467: A musical style more aptly suited to twentieth-century society and its vernacular idiom. It was from America that the more direct style emerged, and in America that it was able to flourish in a developing society less hidebound by nineteenth-century tradition." In France, comédie musicale was written between in the early decades of the century for such stars as Yvonne Printemps . Progressing far beyond

2754-547: A new Broadway record. In Britain, Me and My Girl ran for 1,646 performances. Still, a few creative teams began to build on Show Boat ' s innovations. Of Thee I Sing (1931), a political satire by the Gershwins, was the first musical awarded the Pulitzer Prize . As Thousands Cheer (1933), a revue by Irving Berlin and Moss Hart in which each song or sketch was based on a newspaper headline, marked

2916-546: A number of British films of the 1960s and 1970s such as Kaleidoscope (1966), Modesty Blaise (1966), The Double Man (1967), Fathom (1967), The Assassination Bureau (1969), A Severed Head (1970), The Black Windmill (1974) and One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing (1975). He also had notable supporting turns in Otto Preminger 's Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965) opposite Laurence Olivier , and his American film debut A Fine Madness (1966), as well as

3078-464: A number of blockbusters, like Fiddler on the Roof (1964; 3,242 performances), Hello, Dolly! (1964; 2,844 performances), Funny Girl (1964; 1,348 performances) and Man of La Mancha (1965; 2,328 performances), and some more risqué pieces like Cabaret , before ending with the emergence of the rock musical . In Britain, Oliver! (1960) ran for 2,618 performances, but the long-run champion of

3240-569: A part of dramatic presentations since ancient times, modern Western musical theatre emerged during the 19th century, with many structural elements established by the light opera works of Jacques Offenbach in France, Gilbert and Sullivan in Britain and the works of Harrigan and Hart in America. These were followed by Edwardian musical comedies , which emerged in Britain, and the musical theatre works of American creators like George M. Cohan at

3402-447: A rare leading role in the horror film The Legend of Hell House (1973). He was often cast as humorous foreign characters (he has played everything from Chinese to Russian). Two of his highest profile roles of this kind were in two films for Billy Wilder : The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) and Avanti! (1972), for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for his part as put-upon hotel manager Carlo Carlucci. In

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3564-476: A reclusive silent film actress ( Gloria Swanson ), who dreams of a comeback with delusions of her greatness from a bygone era. She accompanies an aspiring screenwriter ( William Holden ), who becomes her gigolo partner. This critically acclaimed film was the final film Wilder collaborated with Brackett. The film was nominated for eleven Academy Awards; together Wilder and Brackett won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay . In 1951, Wilder directed Ace in

3726-678: A record until 1997 when Woody Allen received a 13th nomination for Deconstructing Harry . In 2017, Vulture.com named Wilder the greatest screenwriter of all time. He directed fourteen actors in Oscar-nominated performances. Wilder's epitaph, a paraphrase of the last line of Some Like It Hot , is "I'm a writer but then nobody's perfect." Wilder received twenty-one nominations at the Academy Awards , winning six. In total, he received twelve nominations for his screenwriting, eight for his direction, and one for producing. He won both

3888-468: A river ... with lots of obstacles and mishaps along the way". As transportation improved, poverty in London and New York diminished, and street lighting made for safer travel at night, the number of patrons for the growing number of theatres increased enormously. Plays ran longer, leading to better profits and improved production values, and men began to bring their families to the theatre. The first musical theatre piece to exceed 500 consecutive performances

4050-497: A run of 931 performances. Gilbert and Sullivan's influence on later musical theatre was profound, creating examples of how to "integrate" musicals so that the lyrics and dialogue advanced a coherent story. Their works were admired and copied by early authors and composers of musicals in Britain and America. A Trip to Chinatown (1891) was Broadway's long-run champion (until Irene in 1919), running for 657 performances, but New York runs continued to be relatively short, with

4212-544: A series of 2.5D musicals based on popular anime and manga comics has developed in recent decades. Shorter or simplified "junior" versions of many musicals are available for schools and youth groups, and very short works created or adapted for performance by children are sometimes called minimusicals . The antecedents of musical theatre in Europe can be traced back to the theatre of ancient Greece , where music and dance were included in stage comedies and tragedies during

4374-547: A series of successful Broadway shows, including On Your Toes (1936, with Ray Bolger , the first Broadway musical to make dramatic use of classical dance), Babes in Arms (1937) and The Boys from Syracuse (1938). Porter added Du Barry Was a Lady (1939). The longest-running piece of musical theatre of the 1930s in the US was Hellzapoppin (1938), a revue with audience participation, which played for 1,404 performances, setting

4536-789: A story-telling device in On Your Toes in 1936, which was followed by Agnes de Mille 's ballet and choreography in Oklahoma! . After Abbott collaborated with Jerome Robbins in On the Town and other shows, Robbins combined the roles of director and choreographer, emphasizing the story-telling power of dance in West Side Story , A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962) and Fiddler on

4698-474: A vote by show of hands. Only John Huston and Wilder opposed. Huston said, "I am sure it was one of the bravest things that Billy, as a naturalized German, had ever done. There were 150 to 200 directors at this meeting, and here Billy and I sat alone with our hands raised in protest against the loyalty oath." Wilder was not affected by the Hollywood blacklist. Of the blacklisted ' Hollywood Ten ' he said, "Of

4860-529: Is Wilder's casting of Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity and The Apartment . MacMurray had become Hollywood's highest-paid actor portraying a decent, thoughtful character in light comedies, melodramas, and musicals; Wilder cast him as a womanizing schemer. Humphrey Bogart shed his tough-guy image to give one of his warmest performances in Sabrina . James Cagney , not usually known for comedy,

5022-490: Is a fast-paced, high-pitched, hard-hitting, lighthearted farce crammed with topical gags and spiced with satirical overtones. Story is so furiously quick-witted that some of its wit gets snarled and smothered in overlap." It was followed by the romantic comedy Irma la Douce (1963) starring Lemmon and MacLaine. The film was the fifth highest-grossing film of the year. Wilder received a Writers Guild of America Award nomination for his screenplay. Wilder then wrote and directed

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5184-451: Is frequently longer than the second. The first act generally introduces nearly all of the characters and most of the music and often ends with the introduction of a dramatic conflict or plot complication while the second act may introduce a few new songs but usually contains reprises of important musical themes and resolves the conflict or complication. A book musical is usually built around four to six main theme tunes that are reprised later in

5346-477: Is often difficult to distinguish among the various kinds of musical theatre, including "musical play", "musical comedy", "operetta" and "light opera". Like opera, the singing in musical theatre is generally accompanied by an instrumental ensemble called a pit orchestra , located in a lowered area in front of the stage. While opera typically uses a conventional symphony orchestra , musicals are generally orchestrated for ensembles ranging from 27 players down to only

5508-464: Is primarily a singer and only secondarily an actor (and rarely needs to dance), a musical theatre performer is often an actor first but must also be a singer and dancer. Someone who is equally accomplished at all three is referred to as a "triple threat". Composers of music for musicals often consider the vocal demands of roles with musical theatre performers in mind. Today, large theatres that stage musicals generally use microphones and amplification of

5670-663: Is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Classic Hollywood cinema . He received seven Academy Awards (among 21 nominations), a BAFTA Award , the Cannes Film Festival 's Palme d'Or and two Golden Globe Awards . Wilder became a screenwriter while living in Berlin. The rise of the Nazi Party and antisemitism in Germany saw him move to Paris. He then moved to Hollywood in 1934, and had

5832-1005: The AFI Life Achievement Award in 1986, the Kennedy Center Honors in 1990, the National Medal of Arts in 1993 and the BAFTA Fellowship Award in 1995. He also received the Directors Guild of America 's Lifetime Achievement Award, the Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement and the Producers Guild of America 's Lifetime Achievement Award. Seven of his films are preserved in the United States National Film Registry of

5994-594: The Academy Award for Best Director and the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for both The Lost Weekend (1945) and The Apartment (1960). The former was awarded the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film at the Cannes Film Festival , and the latter also won him the BAFTA Award for Best Film . Wilder garnered eight Directors Guild of America Award nominations, with the sole win for his work on The Apartment . He received seven nominations at

6156-621: The Best Director and Best Screenplay Academy Awards for The Lost Weekend (1945), which also won the Academy Award for Best Picture . In the 1950s, Wilder directed and co-wrote a string of critically acclaimed films, including the Hollywood drama Sunset Boulevard (1950), for which he won his second screenplay Academy Award; Ace in the Hole (1951), Stalag 17 (1953) and Sabrina (1954). Wilder directed and co-wrote three films in 1957: The Spirit of St. Louis , Love in

6318-737: The Golden Globe Awards , winning Best Director for The Lost Weekend and Sunset Boulevard (1950). He won seven Writers Guild of America Awards including two Laurel Awards for Screenwriting Achievement . He garnered a number of lifetime achievement awards including the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award , the BAFTA Fellowship , the David O. Selznick Achievement Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures , and

6480-517: The Holocaust . He praised Steven Spielberg's adaptation, Schindler's List . To those who denied the Holocaust , Wilder wrote in a German newspaper, "If the concentration camps and the gas chambers were all imaginary, then please tell me—where is my mother?" Wilder's directorial choices reflected his belief in the primacy of writing. He avoided, especially in the second half of his career,

6642-434: The Holocaust . For decades it was assumed that it happened at Auschwitz Concentration Camp , but while researching Polish and Israeli archives, his Austrian biographer Andreas Hutter discovered in 2011 that they were murdered in different locations: his mother, Eugenia "Gitla" Siedlisker, in 1943 at Plaszow ; his stepfather, Bernard "Berl" Siedlisker, in 1942 at Belzec ; and his grandmother, Balbina Baldinger, died in 1943 in

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6804-704: The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). He co-created the Committee for the First Amendment , of 500 Hollywood personalities and stars to "support those professionals called upon to testify before the HUAC who had classified themselves as hostile with regard to the interrogations and the interrogators". Some anti-Communists wanted those in the cinema industry to take oaths of allegiance. The Screen Directors Guild had

6966-872: The Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant". Samuel Wilder ( Yiddish : שמואל װילדער Shmuel Vilder ) was born on June 22, 1906, to a Jewish family in Sucha , a small town in Galicia, present-day Poland, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire . Years later in Hollywood, he would describe it as being "Half an hour from Vienna. By telegraph." His parents were Eugenia ( née Dittler), from Zakopane , and Max Wilder, from Stanislawczyk ; they met in Kraków where Billy spent his early years. His mother described him as

7128-594: The Marx Brothers , he leads the list of films on the American Film Institute 's AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs and he earned the top spot on it with Some Like It Hot . Also on the list are The Apartment and The Seven Year Itch , which he directed, and Ball of Fire and Ninotchka , which he co-wrote. The AFI listed Double Indemnity , Sunset Boulevard , Some Like It Hot and The Apartment on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies . Wilder

7290-1117: The Old Vic Theatre . He appeared in The Shakespeare Memorial Theatre Company 's celebrated 1956–1958 season of productions in Stratford , which included Hamlet , Love's Labour's Lost , The Merchant of Venice , Julius Caesar and The Tempest . He went on to have such varied stage roles as Bob (narrator) in Irma la Douce , Ratty in Toad of Toad Hall and Jean-Paul Marat in Marat/Sade . He made his Broadway debut in 1952, playing Sam Weller in The Pickwick Papers , and subsequently appeared in Irma La Douce , The Incomparable Max and Oliver! , for which his Fagin

7452-687: The Palme d'Or , and four Academy Awards including for Best Picture . Wilder earned the Oscars for Best Director and Best Screenplay and Milland won Best Actor . The film remained to be one of the three films, winning both the Academy Award for Best Picture and the Cannes Film Festival's Palme d' Or, alongside Marty and Parasite . In 1950, Wilder co-wrote and directed the cynical noir comedy film Sunset Boulevard . It follows

7614-640: The Roaring Twenties , borrowing from vaudeville, music hall and other light entertainments, tended to emphasize big dance routines and popular songs at the expense of plot. Typical of the decade were lighthearted productions like Sally ; Lady, Be Good ; No, No, Nanette ; Oh, Kay! ; and Funny Face . Despite forgettable stories, these musicals featured stars such as Marilyn Miller and Fred Astaire and produced dozens of enduring popular songs by Kern, George and Ira Gershwin , Irving Berlin , Cole Porter and Rodgers and Hart . Popular music

7776-491: The Tudor period that involved music, dancing, singing and acting, often with expensive costumes and a complex stage design . These developed into sung plays that are recognizable as English operas, the first usually being thought of as The Siege of Rhodes (1656). In France, meanwhile, Molière turned several of his farcical comedies into musical entertainments with songs (music provided by Jean-Baptiste Lully ) and dance in

7938-406: The film noir Double Indemnity , starring Fred MacMurray , Barbara Stanwyck and Edward G. Robinson , was a major hit. It was nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, Director, Screenplay and Actress; Wilder co-wrote it with Raymond Chandler . The film not only set conventions for the noir genre (such as "venetian blind" lighting and voice-over narration), but is a landmark in

8100-557: The minstrel shows ), followed by ragtime -tinged shows. Hundreds of musical comedies were staged on Broadway in the 1890s and early 20th century, composed of songs written in New York's Tin Pan Alley , including those by George M. Cohan , who worked to create an American style distinct from the Gilbert and Sullivan works. The most successful New York shows were often followed by extensive national tours. Meanwhile, musicals took over

8262-543: The "Golden Age" of American musical theatre. Americana was displayed on Broadway during the "Golden Age", as the wartime cycle of shows began to arrive. An example of this is On the Town (1944), written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green , composed by Leonard Bernstein and choreographed by Jerome Robbins . The story is set during wartime and concerns three sailors who are on a 24-hour shore leave in New York City, during which each falls in love. The show also gives

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8424-622: The 1850s to the 1870s and Johann Strauss II in the 1870s and 1880s. Offenbach's fertile melodies, combined with his librettists' witty satire, formed a model for the musical theatre that followed. Adaptations of the French operettas (played in mostly bad, risqué translations), musical burlesques , music hall, pantomime and burletta dominated the London musical stage into the 1870s. In America, mid-19th century musical theatre entertainments included crude variety revue , which eventually developed into vaudeville , minstrel shows , which soon crossed

8586-504: The 1910s, the team of P. G. Wodehouse , Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern , following in the footsteps of Gilbert and Sullivan , created the " Princess Theatre shows" and paved the way for Kern's later work by showing that a musical could combine light, popular entertainment with continuity between its story and songs. Historian Gerald Bordman wrote: These shows built and polished the mold from which almost all later major musical comedies evolved. ... The characters and situations were, within

8748-666: The 1930 film People on Sunday . Eschewing the German Expressionist styles of F. W. Murnau and Fritz Lang , People on Sunday was considered as a groundbreaking example of the Neue Sachlichkeit or New Objectivity movement in German cinema. Furthermore, this genre of Strassenfilm ("street film") paved way to the birth of Italian neorealism and the French New Wave . He wrote the screenplay for

8910-906: The 1931 film adaptation of a novel by Erich Kästner , Emil and the Detectives , also screenplays for the comedy The Man in Search of His Murderer (1931), the operetta Her Grace Commands (1931) and the comedy A Blonde Dream (1932), all of them produced in the Babelsberg Studios in Potsdam near Berlin. In 1932 Wilder collaborated with the writer and journalist Felix Salten on the screenplay for "Scampolo". After Adolf Hitler's rise to power , Wilder went to Paris, where he made his directorial debut film Mauvaise Graine (1934). He relocated to Hollywood prior to its release. Wilder's mother, grandmother and stepfather were all victims of

9072-1114: The 1978 television miniseries Centennial , he played the Scottish accountant Finlay Perkin. He played both Ko-Ko (the starring role) in The Mikado , and the title character, John Wellington Wells, in The Sorcerer for the Brent Walker television series of Gilbert and Sullivan productions, shown by the BBC in 1983. After relocating to the United States, he guest-starred in many television series, such as Columbo (1978, "The Conspirators"); Hart to Hart ; Dynasty ; Magnum, P.I. ; The Love Boat (S9 E22 as Slade 1986); Remington Steele ; Murder, She Wrote ; Babylon 5 ; The Feather and Father Gang ; Newhart ; MacGyver ; Dear John ; The Fall Guy ; Maude ; and Star Trek: The Next Generation . He starred as

9234-555: The 19th century through 1920 was gradually replaced by American innovation, especially after World War I, as Kern and other Tin Pan Alley composers began to bring new musical styles such as ragtime and jazz to the theatres, and the Shubert Brothers took control of the Broadway theatres. Musical theatre writer Andrew Lamb notes, "The operatic and theatrical styles of nineteenth-century social structures were replaced by

9396-412: The 19th century, such as music hall , melodrama and burletta , which were popularized partly because most London theatres were licensed only as music halls and not allowed to present plays without music. Colonial America did not have a significant theatre presence until 1752, when London entrepreneur William Hallam sent a company of actors to the colonies managed by his brother Lewis . In New York in

9558-415: The 43rd best movie ever made, and the second-highest-ranking comedy. In 1960, Wilder directed the comedy romance film The Apartment . It follows an insurance clerk (Lemmon), who allows his coworkers to use his apartment to conduct extramarital affairs until he meets an elevator woman ( Shirley MacLaine ). The film was a critical success with The New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther , who called

9720-810: The 5th century BCE. The music from the ancient forms is lost, however, and they had little influence on later development of musical theatre. In the 12th and 13th centuries, religious dramas taught the liturgy . Groups of actors would use outdoor Pageant wagons (stages on wheels) to tell each part of the story. Poetic forms sometimes alternated with the prose dialogues, and liturgical chants gave way to new melodies. The European Renaissance saw older forms evolve into two antecedents of musical theatre: commedia dell'arte , where raucous clowns improvised familiar stories, and later, opera buffa . In England, Elizabethan and Jacobean plays frequently included music, and short musical plays began to be included in an evenings' dramatic entertainments. Court masques developed during

9882-634: The Afternoon and Witness for the Prosecution . During this period, Wilder also directed Marilyn Monroe in two films, The Seven Year Itch (1955) and Some Like It Hot (1959). In 1960, Wilder co-wrote, directed and produced the critically acclaimed film The Apartment . It won Wilder Academy Awards for Best Picture , Best Director and Best Original Screenplay . Other notable films Wilder directed include One, Two, Three (1961), Irma la Douce (1963), Kiss Me, Stupid (1964), The Fortune Cookie (1966) and Avanti! (1972). Wilder received various honors for his distinguished career including

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10044-492: The Angry Inch and other shows in recent decades. Parade is a sensitive exploration of both anti-Semitism and historical American racism, and Ragtime similarly explores the experience of immigrants and minorities in America. After the success of Hair , rock musicals flourished in the 1970s, with Jesus Christ Superstar , Godspell , The Rocky Horror Show , Evita and Two Gentlemen of Verona . Some of those began as " concept albums " which were then adapted to

10206-562: The Atlantic had little money to spend on entertainment, and only a few stage shows anywhere exceeded a run of 500 performances during the decade. The revue The Band Wagon (1931) starred dancing partners Fred Astaire and his sister Adele , while Porter's Anything Goes (1934) confirmed Ethel Merman 's position as the First Lady of musical theatre, a title she maintained for many years. Coward and Novello continued to deliver old fashioned, sentimental musicals, such as The Dancing Years , while Rodgers and Hart returned from Hollywood to create

10368-425: The Atlantic to Britain, and Victorian burlesque, first popularized in the US by British troupes. A hugely successful musical entertainment that premiered in New York in 1866, The Black Crook , combined dance and some original music that helped to tell the story. The spectacular production, famous for its skimpy costumes, ran for a record-breaking 474 performances. The same year, The Black Domino/Between You, Me and

10530-430: The Best Actor Academy Award, romantic comedy Sabrina , for which Audrey Hepburn was nominated for Best Actress, and romantic comedy The Seven Year Itch , which features the iconic image of Marilyn Monroe standing on a subway grate as her white dress is blown upwards by a passing train. Wilder was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director for the first two films and shared a nomination for Best Screenplay for

10692-467: The Egyptian queen wrapped à la Christo , or splattered à la Jackson Pollock , or sporting a Campbell's soup can in homage to Andy Warhol . Wilder married Judith Coppicus on December 22, 1936. The couple had twins, Victoria and Vincent (born 1939), but Vincent died shortly after birth. They divorced in 1946. Wilder met Audrey Young while filming The Lost Weekend . They were married on June 30, 1949. Wilder died of pneumonia on March 27, 2002. He

10854-579: The English-speaking stage by competition from the ubiquitous Edwardian musical comedies, operettas returned to London and Broadway in 1907 with The Merry Widow , and adaptations of continental operettas became direct competitors with musicals. Franz Lehár and Oscar Straus composed new operettas that were popular in English until World War I. In America, Victor Herbert produced a string of enduring operettas including The Fortune Teller (1898), Babes in Toyland (1903), Mlle. Modiste (1905), The Red Mill (1906) and Naughty Marietta (1910). In

11016-468: The Golden Age, automotive companies and other large corporations began to hire Broadway talent to write corporate musicals , private shows only seen by their employees or customers. The 1950s ended with Rodgers and Hammerstein 's last hit, The Sound of Music , which also became another hit for Mary Martin. It ran for 1,443 performances and shared the Tony Award for Best Musical. Together with its extremely successful 1965 film version , it has become one of

11178-435: The Hole (a.k.a. The Big Carnival ) starring Kirk Douglas in a tale of media exploitation of a caving accident. The idea had been pitched over the phone to Wilder's secretary by Victor Desny . Desny sued Wilder for breach of an implied contract in the California copyright case Wilder v Desny , ultimately receiving a settlement of $ 14,350. Although a critical and commercial failure at the time, its reputation has grown over

11340-420: The London stage in the Gay Nineties , led by producer George Edwardes , who perceived that audiences wanted a new alternative to the Savoy -style comic operas and their intellectual, political, absurdist satire. He experimented with a modern-dress, family-friendly musical theatre style, with breezy, popular songs, snappy, romantic banter, and stylish spectacle at the Gaiety and his other theatres. These drew on

11502-452: The Mountains (1,352 performances) and especially Chu Chin Chow . Its run of 2,238 performances was more than twice as long as any previous musical, setting a record that stood for nearly forty years. Even a revival of The Beggar's Opera held the stage for 1,463 performances. Revues like The Bing Boys Are Here in Britain, and those of Florenz Ziegfeld and his imitators in America, were also extraordinarily popular. The musicals of

11664-612: The Opera (1986), Rent (1996), Wicked (2003) and Hamilton (2015). Musicals are performed around the world. They may be presented in large venues, such as big-budget Broadway or West End productions in New York City or London. Alternatively, musicals may be staged in smaller venues, such as off-Broadway , off-off-Broadway , regional theatre , fringe theatre , or community theatre productions, or on tour . Musicals are often presented by amateur and school groups in churches, schools and other performance spaces. In addition to

11826-655: The Post was the first show to call itself a "musical comedy." In 1874, Evangeline or The Belle of Arcadia , by Edward E. Rice and J. Cheever Goodwin , based loosely on Longfellow’s Evangeline , with an original American story and music, opened successfully in New York and was revived in Boston, New York, and in repeated tours. Comedians Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart produced and starred in musicals on Broadway between 1878 ( The Mulligan Guard Picnic ) and 1885. These musical comedies featured characters and situations taken from

11988-807: The Prosecution , Elsa Lanchester in Witness for the Prosecution , Jack Lemmon in Some Like It Hot and The Apartment , Jack Kruschen in The Apartment , Shirley MacLaine in The Apartment and Irma la Douce and Walter Matthau in The Fortune Cookie . Wilder mentored Lemmon, and was the first director to pair him and Matthau in The Fortune Cookie . Wilder and Lemmon worked on seven films. Wilder opposed

12150-495: The Prosecution , featuring Tyrone Power , Marlene Dietrich and Charles Laughton . Wilder received an Academy Award nomination for Best Director for the last film. In 1959, Wilder reunited with Monroe in the United Artists released Prohibition-era farce film Some Like It Hot . It was released, however, without a Production Code seal of approval, which was withheld due to the film's unabashed sexual comedy, including

12312-582: The Roof (1964). Bob Fosse choreographed for Abbott in The Pajama Game (1956) and Damn Yankees (1957), injecting playful sexuality into those hits. He was later the director-choreographer for Sweet Charity (1968), Pippin (1972) and Chicago (1975). Other notable director-choreographers have included Gower Champion , Tommy Tune , Michael Bennett , Gillian Lynne and Susan Stroman . Prominent directors have included Hal Prince , who also got his start with Abbott, and Trevor Nunn . During

12474-522: The Shrew for Kiss Me, Kate (1948, 1,077 performances). The American musicals overwhelmed the old-fashioned British Coward/Novello-style shows, one of the last big successes of which was Novello's Perchance to Dream (1945, 1,021 performances). The formula for the Golden Age musicals reflected one or more of four widely held perceptions of the "American dream": That stability and worth derives from

12636-497: The Times Square area until the 1920s and 1930s. New York runs lagged far behind those in London, but Laura Keene 's "musical burletta" Seven Sisters (1860) shattered previous New York musical theatre record, with a run of 253 performances. Around 1850, the French composer Hervé was experimenting with a form of comic musical theatre he called opérette . The best known composers of operetta were Jacques Offenbach from

12798-414: The United States and Britain, there are vibrant musical theatre scenes in continental Europe, Asia, Australasia, Canada and Latin America. Since the 20th century, the "book musical" has been defined as a musical play where songs and dances are fully integrated into a well-made story with serious dramatic goals and which is able to evoke genuine emotions other than laughter. The three main components of

12960-486: The West End in the 21st century have been presented in one act. Moments of greatest dramatic intensity in a book musical are often performed in song. Proverbially, "when the emotion becomes too strong for speech, you sing; when it becomes too strong for song, you dance." In a book musical, a song is ideally crafted to suit the character (or characters) and their situation within the story; although there have been times in

13122-507: The actors' singing voices in a way that would generally be disapproved of in an operatic context. Some works, including those by George Gershwin , Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim , have been made into both musical theatre and operatic productions. Similarly, some older operettas or light operas (such as The Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan ) have been produced in modern adaptations that treat them as musicals. For some works, production styles are almost as important as

13284-723: The battle against Hollywood censorship. Based on James M. Cain 's novel, it featured two love triangles and a murder plotted for insurance money. While the book was popular with the reading public, it had been considered unfilmable under the Hays Code because adultery was central to the plot. In 1945, the Psychological Warfare Department of the United States Department of War produced an American documentary film directed by Wilder. The film known as Death Mills , or Die Todesmühlen ,

13446-474: The characters express their ideas. It defied musical conventions by raising its first act curtain not on a bevy of chorus girls, but rather on a woman churning butter, with an off-stage voice singing the opening lines of Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin' unaccompanied. It drew rave reviews, set off a box-office frenzy and received a Pulitzer Prize . Brooks Atkinson wrote in The New York Times that

13608-439: The characters seriously, or at least as seriously as the material allowed, and got a lot of the laughs by playing scenes straight." For Stalag 17 , Wilder squeezed an Oscar-winning performance out of a reluctant William Holden (Holden had wanted to make his character more likable; Wilder refused). At a casting meeting, Wilder reportedly said, "I'm tired of clichéd typecasting—the same people in every film." An example of this

13770-557: The comparatively frivolous musicals and sentimental operettas of the decade, Broadway's Show Boat (1927) represented an even more complete integration of book and score than the Princess Theatre musicals, with dramatic themes told through the music, dialogue, setting and movement. This was accomplished by combining the lyricism of Kern's music with the skillful libretto of Oscar Hammerstein II . One historian wrote, "Here we come to

13932-508: The continent, singspiel , comédie en vaudeville , opéra comique , zarzuela and other forms of light musical entertainment were emerging. The Beggar's Opera was the first recorded long-running play of any kind, running for 62 successive performances in 1728. It would take almost a century afterwards before any play broke 100 performances, but the record soon reached 150 in the late 1820s. Other musical theatre forms developed in England by

14094-452: The controversy surrounding it, ran for 108 performances. Rodgers and Hart's I'd Rather Be Right (1937) was a political satire with George M. Cohan as President Franklin D. Roosevelt , and Kurt Weill 's Knickerbocker Holiday depicted New York City's early history while good-naturedly satirizing Roosevelt's good intentions. The motion picture mounted a challenge to the stage. Silent films had presented only limited competition, but by

14256-548: The core of Frank Loesser 's and Abe Burrows ' Guys and Dolls , (1950, 1,200 performances); and the Gold Rush was the setting for Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe 's Paint Your Wagon (1951). The relatively brief seven-month run of that show did not discourage Lerner and Loewe from collaborating again, this time on My Fair Lady (1956), an adaptation of George Bernard Shaw 's Pygmalion starring Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews , which at 2,717 performances held

14418-407: The day after and told him: "Fernando, it's God." French filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius thanked Billy Wilder in the 2012 Best Picture Oscar acceptance speech for The Artist : "I would like to thank the following three people, I would like to thank Billy Wilder, I would like to thank Billy Wilder, and I would like to thank Billy Wilder." Wilder's 12 Academy Award nominations for screenwriting were

14580-494: The decade was The Black and White Minstrel Show (1962), which played for 4,344 performances. Two men had considerable impact on musical theatre history beginning in this decade: Stephen Sondheim and Jerry Herman . The first project for which Sondheim wrote both music and lyrics was A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962, 964 performances), with a book based on the works of Plautus by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart , starring Zero Mostel . Sondheim moved

14742-459: The earlier musical forms of comic opera and operetta. The Geisha (1896) was one of the most successful in the 1890s, running for more than two years and achieving great international success. The Belle of New York (1898) became the first American musical to run for over a year in London. The British musical comedy Florodora (1899) was a popular success on both sides of the Atlantic, as

14904-554: The early '90s, Wilder had amassed many plastic-artistic constructions, many of which were made in collaboration with artist Bruce Houston. In 1993, art dealer Louis Stern , a longtime friend, helped organize an exhibition of Wilder's work at his Beverly Hills gallery. The exhibition was titled Billy Wilder's Marché aux Puces and the Variations on the Theme of Queen Nefertete segment was notably popular. This series featured busts of

15066-469: The end of the 1920s, films like The Jazz Singer could be presented with synchronized sound. "Talkie" films at low prices effectively killed off vaudeville by the early 1930s. Despite the economic woes of the 1930s and the competition from film, the musical survived. In fact, it continued to evolve thematically beyond the gags and showgirls musicals of the Gay Nineties and Roaring Twenties and

15228-544: The end of the Golden Age, several shows tackled Jewish subjects and issues, such as Fiddler on the Roof , Milk and Honey , Blitz! and later Rags . The original concept that became West Side Story was set in the Lower East Side during Easter-Passover celebrations; the rival gangs were to be Jewish and Italian Catholic . The creative team later decided that the Polish (white) vs. Puerto Rican conflict

15390-409: The everyday life of New York's lower classes. They starred high quality singers ( Lillian Russell , Vivienne Segal and Fay Templeton ) instead of the ladies of questionable repute who had starred in earlier musical forms. In 1879, The Brook by Nate Salsbury was another national success with contemporary American dance styles and an American story about "members of an acting company taking a trip down

15552-513: The exuberant cinematography of Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles because, in Wilder's opinion, shots that called attention to themselves would distract the audience from the story. Wilder's films have tight plotting and memorable dialogue. Despite his conservative directorial style, his subject matter often pushed the boundaries of mainstream entertainment. Once a subject was chosen, he would begin to visualize in terms of specific artists. His belief

15714-536: The family business. Max moved to Kraków to manage a hotel before moving to Vienna and dying when Billy was 22 years old. After the family moved to Vienna, Wilder became a journalist instead of attending the University of Vienna . In 1926, jazz band leader Paul Whiteman was on tour in Vienna where he was interviewed by Wilder. Whiteman liked young Wilder enough that he took him with the band to Berlin , where Wilder

15876-481: The film "gleeful, tender, and even sentimental" and Wilder's direction "ingenious". The film received ten Academy Awards nominations and won five awards, including three for Wilder: Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay. Wilder directed the Cold War political farce film One, Two, Three (1961), starring James Cagney , which won critical praise with Variety writing, "Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three

16038-519: The film "pitifully unfunny". Wilder gained his final Academy Award nomination and a Writers Guild of America Award nomination for the screenplay of The Fortune Cookie . It was the first film pairing Jack Lemmon with Walter Matthau . (The film was titled Meet Whiplash Willie in the United Kingdom.) In 1970, he directed The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes , which was intended as a major roadshow theatrical release , but to Wilder's dismay

16200-438: The first Broadway show in which an African-American, Ethel Waters , starred alongside white actors. Waters' numbers included " Supper Time ", a woman's lament for her husband who has been lynched. The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess (1935) featured an all African-American cast and blended operatic, folk and jazz idioms. The Cradle Will Rock (1937), directed by Orson Welles , was a highly political pro- union piece that, despite

16362-515: The founding of the state of Israel, and continuing with the blockbuster hits Hello, Dolly! (1964, 2,844 performances), Mame (1966, 1,508 performances), and La Cage aux Folles (1983, 1,761 performances). Even his less successful shows like Dear World (1969) and Mack and Mabel (1974) have had memorable scores ( Mack and Mabel was later reworked into a London hit). Writing both words and music, many of Herman's show tunes have become popular standards, including " Hello, Dolly! ", "We Need

16524-668: The ghetto in Nowy Targ . After arriving in Hollywood in 1934, Wilder continued working as a screenwriter. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1939, having spent time in Mexico waiting for the government after his six-month card expired in 1934, an episode reflected in his 1941 Hold Back the Dawn . Wilder's first significant success was Ninotchka , a collaboration with fellow German immigrant Ernst Lubitsch . The romantic comedy starred Greta Garbo (generally known as

16686-472: The history of the musical (e.g. from the 1890s to the 1920s) when this integration between music and story has been tenuous. As The New York Times critic Ben Brantley described the ideal of song in theatre when reviewing the 2008 revival of Gypsy : "There is no separation at all between song and character, which is what happens in those uncommon moments when musicals reach upward to achieve their ideal reasons to be." Typically, many fewer words are sung in

16848-527: The impression of a country with an uncertain future, as the sailors and their women also have. Irving Berlin used sharpshooter Annie Oakley 's career as a basis for his Annie Get Your Gun (1946, 1,147 performances); Burton Lane , E. Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy combined political satire with Irish whimsy for their fantasy Finian's Rainbow (1947, 725 performances); and Cole Porter found inspiration in William Shakespeare 's The Taming of

17010-447: The interplay of lyrics and music in his shows. Some of Sondheim's notable innovations include a show presented in reverse ( Merrily We Roll Along ) and the above-mentioned Anyone Can Whistle , in which the first act ends with the cast informing the audience that they are mad. Jerry Herman played a significant role in American musical theatre, beginning with his first Broadway production, Milk and Honey (1961, 563 performances), about

17172-548: The late 17th century. These influenced a brief period of English opera by composers such as John Blow and Henry Purcell . From the 18th century, the most popular forms of musical theatre in Britain were ballad operas , like John Gay 's The Beggar's Opera , that included lyrics written to the tunes of popular songs of the day (often spoofing opera), and later pantomime , which developed from commedia dell'arte, and comic opera with mostly romantic plot lines, like Michael Balfe 's The Bohemian Girl (1845). Meanwhile, on

17334-479: The lexicon of moviegoing" and that Some Like It Hot is a "national treasure." Roger Ebert asked, "Of all the great directors of Hollywood's golden age, has anybody made more films that are as fresh and entertaining to this day as Billy Wilder's?...And who else can field three contenders among the greatest closing lines of all time?", citing the closing lines of Sunset Boulevard , Some Like it Hot , and The Apartment . Ron Shelton recalls encountering Wilder: I

17496-402: The limitations of musical comedy license, believable and the humor came from the situations or the nature of the characters. Kern's exquisitely flowing melodies were employed to further the action or develop characterization. ... [Edwardian] musical comedy was often guilty of inserting songs in a hit-or-miss fashion. The Princess Theatre musicals brought about a change in approach. P. G. Wodehouse,

17658-505: The long-run record for many years. Popular Hollywood films were made of all of these musicals. Two hits by British creators in this decade were The Boy Friend (1954), which ran for 2,078 performances in London and marked Andrews' American debut, and Salad Days (1954), which broke the British long-run record with a run of 2,283 performances. Another record was set by The Threepenny Opera , which ran for 2,707 performances, becoming

17820-535: The longest-running off-Broadway musical until The Fantasticks . The production also broke ground by showing that musicals could be profitable off-Broadway in a small-scale, small orchestra format. This was confirmed in 1959 when a revival of Jerome Kern and P. G. Wodehouse 's Leave It to Jane ran for more than two years. The 1959–1960 off-Broadway season included a dozen musicals and revues including Little Mary Sunshine , The Fantasticks and Ernest in Love ,

17982-401: The mid-80s, "It's a sickness. I don't know how to stop myself. Call it bulimia if you want – or curiosity or passion. I have some Impressionists , some Picassos from every period, some mobiles by Calder . I also collect tiny Japanese trees, glass paperweights, and Chinese vases. Name an object and I collect it." Wilder's artistic ambitions led him to create a series of works of his own. By

18144-445: The most observant, literate and witty lyricist of his day, and the team of Bolton, Wodehouse and Kern had an influence felt to this day. The theatre-going public needed escapist entertainment during the dark times of World War I , and they flocked to the theatre. The 1919 hit musical Irene ran for 670 performances, a Broadway record that held until 1938. The British theatre public supported far longer runs like that of The Maid of

18306-585: The most popular musicals in history. In 1960, The Fantasticks was first produced off-Broadway. This intimate allegorical show would quietly run for over 40 years at the Sullivan Street Theatre in Greenwich Village , becoming by far the longest-running musical in history. Its authors produced other innovative works in the 1960s, such as Celebration and I Do! I Do! , the first two-character Broadway musical. The 1960s would see

18468-423: The music for a story about Rose Thompson Hovick , the mother of the titular stripper Gypsy Rose Lee . Although directors and choreographers have had a major influence on musical theatre style since at least the 19th century, George Abbott and his collaborators and successors took a central role in integrating movement and dance fully into musical theatre productions in the Golden Age. Abbott introduced ballet as

18630-480: The musical beyond its concentration on the romantic plots typical of earlier eras; his work tended to be darker, exploring the grittier sides of life both present and past. Other early Sondheim works include Anyone Can Whistle (1964, which ran only nine performances, despite having stars Lee Remick and Angela Lansbury ), and the successful Company (1970), Follies (1971) and A Little Night Music (1973). Later, Sondheim found inspiration in unlikely sources:

18792-513: The name " Franco ". Wilder received the American Film Institute (AFI) Life Achievement Award in 1986. He received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1988, the Kennedy Center Honors in 1990 and the National Medal of Arts in 1993. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame . Wilder became well known for owning one of the finest and most extensive art collections in Hollywood, mainly collecting modern art. As he described it in

18954-418: The necessary encouragement for other gifted writers to create musical plays of their own". The two collaborators created an extraordinary collection of some of musical theatre's best loved and most enduring classics, including Carousel (1945), South Pacific (1949), The King and I (1951) and The Sound of Music (1959). Some of these musicals treat more serious subject matter than most earlier shows:

19116-766: The opening of Japan to Western trade for Pacific Overtures (1976), a legendary murderous barber seeking revenge in the Industrial Age of London for Sweeney Todd (1979), the paintings of Georges Seurat for Sunday in the Park with George (1984), fairy tales for Into the Woods (1987), and a collection of presidential assassins in Assassins (1990). While some critics have argued that some of Sondheim's musicals lack commercial appeal, others have praised their lyrical sophistication and musical complexity, as well as

19278-502: The orchestra that "weav[es] together excerpts of the score's famous melodies." There are various Eastern traditions of theatre that include music, such as Chinese opera , Taiwanese opera , Japanese Noh and Indian musical theatre , including Sanskrit drama , Indian classical dance , Parsi theatre and Yakshagana . India has, since the 20th century, produced numerous musical films, referred to as " Bollywood " musicals, and in Japan

19440-464: The original production, for example, Bob Fosse 's choreography in Chicago . There is no fixed length for a musical. While it can range from a short one-act entertainment to several acts and several hours in length (or even a multi-evening presentation), most musicals range from one and a half to three hours. Musicals are usually presented in two acts, with one short intermission , and the first act

19602-643: The other hand, many successful musical theatre works have been adapted for musical films , such as West Side Story , My Fair Lady , The Sound of Music , Oliver! and Chicago . Musical theatre is closely related to the theatrical form of opera, but the two are usually distinguished by weighing a number of factors. First, musicals generally have a greater focus on spoken dialogue. Some musicals, however, are entirely accompanied and sung-through, while some operas, such as Die Zauberflöte , and most operettas , have some unaccompanied dialogue. Second, musicals usually include more dancing as an essential part of

19764-764: The relatively narrow confines of the 1950s. Rock music would be used in several Broadway musicals, beginning with Hair , which featured not only rock music but also nudity and controversial opinions about the Vietnam War , race relations and other social issues. After Show Boat and Porgy and Bess , and as the struggle in America and elsewhere for minorities' civil rights progressed, Hammerstein, Harold Arlen , Yip Harburg and others were emboldened to write more musicals and operas that aimed to normalize societal toleration of minorities and urged racial harmony. Early Golden Age works that focused on racial tolerance included Finian's Rainbow and South Pacific . Towards

19926-451: The revolution begun by Show Boat , by tightly integrating all the aspects of musical theatre, with a cohesive plot, songs that furthered the action of the story, and featured dream ballets and other dances that advanced the plot and developed the characters, rather than using dance as an excuse to parade scantily clad women across the stage. Rodgers and Hammerstein hired ballet choreographer Agnes de Mille , who used everyday motions to help

20088-631: The same time, Stephen Sondheim found success with some of his musicals, as mentioned above. Billy Wilder Billy Wilder ( / ˈ w aɪ l d ər / ; German: [ˈvɪldɐ] ; born Samuel Wilder ; June 22, 1906 – March 27, 2002) was an American filmmaker and screenwriter. He was born in Sucha Beskidzka , Poland, a town in Austria-Hungary at the time of his birth. His career in Hollywood spanned five decades, and he

20250-815: The second. He was interested in doing a film with one of the classic slapstick comedy acts of the Hollywood Golden Age. He first considered, and rejected, a project to star Laurel and Hardy . He held discussions with Groucho Marx concerning a new Marx Brothers comedy, tentatively titled A Day at the U.N . The project was abandoned after Chico Marx died in 1961. In 1957, three films Wilder directed were released: biopic The Spirit of St. Louis , starring James Stewart as Charles Lindbergh , romantic comedy Love In The Afternoon —Wilder's first screenplay with I. A. L. Diamond , who would become his regular partner—featuring Gary Cooper , Maurice Chevalier and Audrey Hepburn, and courtroom drama Witness for

20412-415: The sentimental romance of operetta, adding technical expertise and the fast-paced staging and naturalistic dialogue style led by director George Abbott . The 1940s began with more hits from Porter, Irving Berlin , Rodgers and Hart, Weill and Gershwin, some with runs over 500 performances as the economy rebounded, but artistic change was in the air. Rodgers and Hammerstein 's Oklahoma! (1943) completed

20574-473: The sex comedy film Kiss Me, Stupid starring Dean Martin , Kim Novak , and Ray Walston , who was a last minute replacement for ailing Peter Sellers . The film was criticized by some critics for vulgarity, with Bosley Crowther blaming the film for giving American movies the reputation of "deliberate and degenerate corruptors of public taste and morals". A. H. Weiler of the New York Times called

20736-420: The show's opening number changed the history of musical theatre: "After a verse like that, sung to a buoyant melody, the banalities of the old musical stage became intolerable." It was the first "blockbuster" Broadway show, running a total of 2,212 performances, and was made into a hit film. It remains one of the most frequently produced of the team's projects. William A. Everett and Paul R. Laird wrote that this

20898-407: The show, although it sometimes consists of a series of songs not directly musically related. Spoken dialogue is generally interspersed between musical numbers, although "sung dialogue" or recitative may be used, especially in so-called " sung-through " musicals such as Jesus Christ Superstar , Falsettos , Les Misérables , Evita and Hamilton . Several shorter musicals on Broadway and in

21060-476: The stage, most notably Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita . Others had no dialogue or were otherwise reminiscent of opera, with dramatic, emotional themes; these sometimes started as concept albums and were referred to as rock operas . Shows like Raisin , Dreamgirls , Purlie and The Wiz brought a significant African-American influence to Broadway. More varied musical genres and styles were incorporated into musicals both on and especially off-Broadway. At

21222-402: The standard for what was considered a successful show. These shows were designed for family audiences, a marked contrast from the risqué burlesques, bawdy music hall shows and French operettas that sometimes drew a crowd seeking less wholesome entertainment. Only a few 19th-century musical pieces exceeded the run of The Mikado , such as Dorothy , which opened in 1886 and set a new record with

21384-570: The storytelling, particularly by the principal performers as well as the chorus. Third, musicals often use various genres of popular music or at least popular singing and musical styles. Finally, musicals usually avoid certain operatic conventions. In particular, a musical is almost always performed in the language of its audience. Musicals produced on Broadway or in the West End, for instance, are invariably sung in English, even if they were originally written in another language. While an opera singer

21546-623: The summer of 1753, they performed ballad-operas, such as The Beggar's Opera , and ballad-farces. By the 1840s, P. T. Barnum was operating an entertainment complex in lower Manhattan. Other early musical theatre in America consisted of British forms, such as burletta and pantomime, but what a piece was called did not necessarily define what it was. The 1852 Broadway extravaganza The Magic Deer advertised itself as "A Serio Comico Tragico Operatical Historical Extravaganzical Burletical Tale of Enchantment." Theatre in New York moved from downtown gradually to midtown from around 1850 and did not arrive in

21708-459: The ten, two had talent, and the rest were just unfriendly." In general, Wilder disliked formula and genre films. Wilder reveled in poking fun at those who took politics too seriously. In Ball of Fire , his burlesque queen 'Sugarpuss' points at her sore throat and complains "Pink? It's as red as the Daily Worker and just as sore." Later, she gives the overbearing and unsmiling housemaid

21870-679: The traditions of comic opera and used elements of burlesque and of the Harrigan and Hart pieces. He replaced the bawdy women of burlesque with his "respectable" corps of Gaiety Girls to complete the musical and visual fun. The success of the first of these, In Town (1892) and A Gaiety Girl (1893) set the style for the next three decades. The plots were generally light, romantic "poor maiden loves aristocrat and wins him against all odds" shows, with music by Ivan Caryll , Sidney Jones and Lionel Monckton . These shows were immediately widely copied in America, and Edwardian musical comedy swept away

22032-508: The turn of the 20th century. The Princess Theatre musicals (1915–1918) were artistic steps forward beyond the revues and other frothy entertainments of the early 20th century and led to such groundbreaking works as Show Boat (1927), Of Thee I Sing (1931) and Oklahoma! (1943). Some of the most famous musicals through the decades that followed include My Fair Lady (1956), The Fantasticks (1960), Hair (1967), A Chorus Line (1975), Les Misérables (1985), The Phantom of

22194-449: The villain in Oklahoma! is a suspected murderer and psychopath; Carousel deals with spousal abuse, thievery, suicide and the afterlife; South Pacific explores miscegenation even more thoroughly than Show Boat ; the hero of The King and I dies onstage; and the backdrop of The Sound of Music is the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938 . The show's creativity stimulated Rodgers and Hammerstein's contemporaries and ushered in

22356-419: The voice of Emperor Palpatine / Darth Sidious in the original 1980 version of The Empire Strikes Back (he was later replaced by Ian McDiarmid in the 2004 DVD version though Revill is still credited) numerous cartoons such as The Transformers and DuckTales and more video games, including Marvel: Ultimate Alliance and Conquest: Frontier Wars . Musical theatre Although music has been

22518-520: The wizard Vector in the short-lived series Wizards and Warriors . Revill is known for his proficiency with accents. He is also known for his voice work in feature-length films and animated series, which includes Alfred Pennyworth in the first three episodes of Batman: The Animated Series , the voice of Chico in the seven episodes of Chico the Rainmaker (The Boy with the Two Heads) (1974),

22680-464: The work's musical or dramatic content in defining into which art form the piece falls. Sondheim said, "I really think that when something plays Broadway it's a musical, and when it plays in an opera house it's opera. That's it. It's the terrain, the countryside, the expectations of the audience that make it one thing or another." There remains an overlap in form between lighter operatic forms and more musically complex or ambitious musicals. In practice, it

22842-578: The years. The following year, Wilder announced plans to direct and produce a film version of the Sophocles tragedy Oedipus Rex , adapted for the screen by Walter Reisch . They planned to shoot the film on location in Greece in Technicolor , but it never went into production. Subsequently, Wilder directed three adaptations of Broadway plays, war drama Stalag 17 , for which William Holden won

23004-420: Was A Chinese Honeymoon (1901), which ran for a record-setting 1,074 performances in London and 376 in New York. After the turn of the 20th century, Seymour Hicks joined forces with Edwardes and American producer Charles Frohman to create another decade of popular shows. Other enduring Edwardian musical comedy hits included The Arcadians (1909) and The Quaker Girl (1910). Virtually eliminated from

23166-420: Was a "show, that, like Show Boat , became a milestone, so that later historians writing about important moments in twentieth-century theatre would begin to identify eras according to their relationship to Oklahoma! ". "After Oklahoma! , Rodgers and Hammerstein were the most important contributors to the musical-play form... The examples they set in creating vital plays, often rich with social thought, provided

23328-435: Was a significant financial success with low budget. His final films, Fedora and Buddy Buddy , failed to impress critics or the public, although Fedora has since been re-evaluated and is now considered favorably. Wilder had hoped to make Thomas Keneally 's Schindler's Ark as his final film, saying "I wanted to do it as a kind of memorial to my mother and my grandmother and my stepfather," who had all been murdered in

23490-474: Was able to make more connections in entertainment. Before achieving success as a writer, he was a taxi dancer in Berlin. After writing crime and sports stories as a stringer for local newspapers, he was eventually offered a regular job at a Berlin tabloid . Developing an interest in film, he began working as a screenwriter. From 1929 to 1933 he produced twelve German films. He collaborated with several other novices ( Fred Zinnemann and Robert Siodmak ) on

23652-985: Was also nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Billy Wilder 's Avanti! (1972). His roles also include voicing the Emperor in the original theatrical edition of The Empire Strikes Back (1980). Revill was born on 18 April 1930 in Wellington , the son of Eleanor May (née Neel) and Malet Barford Revill. He attended Rongotai College . He originally trained to be an accountant in New Zealand, but decided to change his career path in 1950 when he made his stage debut as Sebastian in Twelfth Night . He moved to London in 1950 and studied acting there at

23814-530: Was buried at Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park and Mortuary . A French newspaper, Le Monde , titled the front-page obituary: "Billy Wilder is dead. Nobody is perfect", a reference to the last line of Some Like It Hot . "Don't be boring". — Billy Wilder Wilder holds a significant place in the history of Hollywood censorship for expanding the range of acceptable subject matter. He directed two of film noir 's definitive films, Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard . Along with Woody Allen and

23976-468: Was dominated by musical theatre standards, such as " Fascinating Rhythm ", " Tea for Two " and " Someone to Watch Over Me ". Many shows were revues , series of sketches and songs with little or no connection between them. The best-known of these were the annual Ziegfeld Follies , spectacular song-and-dance revues on Broadway featuring extravagant sets, elaborate costumes and beautiful chorus girls. These spectacles also raised production values, and mounting

24138-586: Was fresher. Tolerance as an important theme in musicals has continued in recent decades. The final expression of West Side Story left a message of racial tolerance. By the end of the 1960s, musicals became racially integrated, with black and white cast members even covering each other's roles, as they did in Hair . Homosexuality has also been explored in musicals, starting with Hair , and even more overtly in La Cage aux Folles , Falsettos , Rent , Hedwig and

24300-466: Was heavily cut by the studio. He directed the comedy film Avanti! , which follows a businessman (Lemmon) attempting to retrieve the body of his deceased father from Italy. Wilder received two Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Director and Best Screenplay , and a Writers Guild of America Award nomination. Wilder directed The Front Page based on the Broadway play of the same name. It

24462-714: Was in a restaurant about six months after Bull Durham came out. And a man came over and said "Somebody would like to see you." And I looked over and it was Billy Wilder. And I went over and he said, "Great fuckin' picture, kid!" And I thought that was as good a review as you could have." When Belle Époque won the 1993 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Spanish filmmaker Fernando Trueba said in his acceptance speech: "I would like to believe in God in order to thank him. But I just believe in Billy Wilder... so thank you, Mr. Wilder." According to Trueba, Wilder called him

24624-531: Was intended for German audiences to educate them about the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime. For the German version, Die Todesmühlen , Hanuš Burger is credited as the writer and director, while Wilder supervised the editing. Wilder is credited with the English-language version. Two years later, Wilder adapted from Charles R. Jackson 's novel The Lost Weekend into a film of the same name . It

24786-494: Was lightly regarded by film critics during its original release, although it did receive six Academy Award nominations, including for Best Director and Best Screenplay. But its critical reputation grew prodigiously; in 2000, the American Film Institute selected it as the best American comedy ever made. In 2012, the British Film Institute decennial Sight and Sound poll of the world's film critics rated it as

24948-972: Was memorable in a high-octane comic role for Wilder's One, Two, Three . Wilder coaxed a very effective performance out of Monroe in Some Like It Hot . In total, he directed fourteen different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity , Ray Milland in The Lost Weekend , William Holden in Sunset Boulevard and Stalag 17 , Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim and Nancy Olson in Sunset Boulevard , Robert Strauss in Stalag 17 , Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina , Charles Laughton in Witness for

25110-515: Was nominated for a Tony Award . He is also known for his roles in the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan , on both stage and television. He starred in the first national tour of the musical Drood , replacing George Rose , who was murdered during the run. He also participated in the workshop production of Tom Jones: The Musical , playing the role of Squire Western and reprising it on the cast recording. His red hair and distinctive Mr. Punch -like features often saw him cast as comic eccentrics in

25272-510: Was praised by critics for its innovations in music and choreography but was less commercially successful than the same year's The Music Man , written and composed by Meredith Willson , which won the Tony Award for Best Musical that year. West Side Story would get a film adaptation in 1961, which proved successful both critically and commercially. Laurents and Sondheim teamed up again for Gypsy (1959), with Jule Styne providing

25434-419: Was ranked 6th in director's poll on Sight & Sound 's 2002 list of The Greatest Directors of All Time . In 1996, Entertainment Weekly ranked Wilder at No. 24 in its "50 Greatest Directors" list. Wilder was ranked at No. 19 on Empire 's "Top 40 Greatest Directors of All-Time" list in 2005. In 2007, Total Film magazine ranked Wilder at No. 13 on its "100 Greatest Film Directors Ever" list. Wilder

25596-466: Was suggest an idea, have it torn apart and despised. In a few days it would be apt to turn up, slightly changed, as Wilder's idea. Once I got adjusted to that way of working, our lives were simpler." "Wilder followed Ninotchka with a series of box office hits in 1942, including Hold Back the Dawn , Ball of Fire , and his directorial debut film The Major and the Minor . His third film as director,

25758-507: Was that no matter how talented the actor, none were without limitations and the result would be better if you bent the script to their personality rather than force a performance beyond their limitations. Wilder was skilled at working with actors, coaxing silent era legends Gloria Swanson and Erich von Stroheim out of retirement for roles in Sunset Boulevard . Regarding Wilder's more comedic films, Roger Ebert wrote: "he took

25920-482: Was the French operetta The Chimes of Normandy in 1878 (705 performances). English comic opera adopted many of the successful ideas of European operetta, none more successfully than the series of more than a dozen long-running Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas, including H.M.S. Pinafore (1878) and The Mikado (1885). These were sensations on both sides of the Atlantic and in Australia and helped to raise

26082-520: Was the first major American film with a serious examination of alcoholism, another difficult theme under the Production Code . It follows an alcoholic writer ( Ray Milland ) opposing the protestations of his girlfriend ( Jane Wyman ). The film earned critical acclaim after it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and competed in the main competition, where it received the Festival's top prize,

26244-420: Was voted at No. 4 on the "Greatest Directors of 20th Century" poll conducted by Japanese film magazine Kinema Junpo . Seven of his films are preserved in the United States National Film Registry of the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant". Anthony Lane writes that Double Indemnity , The Seven Year Itch , Sunset Boulevard and The Apartment are "part of

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