Guy Bolton

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Guy Reginald Bolton (born November 23, 1884 in Broxbourne , England , † September 5, 1979 in London ) was an American theater writer who was very successful with musicals in the second and third decades of the 20th century. The greats Guy Bolton worked closely with include the composer Jerome Kern and the British-American humorist PG Wodehouse .

Life

Guy Bolton was born in England to a wealthy American family from Delaware . The father was an engineer who frequently shuttled back and forth between the United States and Great Britain. Guy Bolton began his professional career with a degree in architecture before turning to the theater in the early 1910s.

During the First World War, wrote Guy Bolton several books on Broadway - spectacles and - Musical Comedies , for the so-called "Princess Theater Shows". He worked among others with composer Jerome Kern and the playwright PG Wodehouse together: By the end of 1915 met Wodehouse composer Jerome Kern again, with whom he had worked in the short term in London when he the lyrics for Put Me in My Little Cell written would have. Both Jerome Kern and Guy Bolton and Wodehouse happened to be attending the premiere of the musical comedy Very Good Eddie on December 23, 1915 . Both Bolton and Kern were dissatisfied with the lyrics of the comedy and came up with ideas for a future collaboration at another meeting with Wodehouse the next day. From this collaboration, among others, Very Good Eddie from 1915 and Leave It to Jane from 1917, and in 1920 the musical Sally was created . A close friendship developed between Bolton and Wodehouse, which lasted until Wodehouse's death in 1975.

The collaboration between the three shaped the musical scene in New York, especially in the 1910s. In the American Musical Theater encyclopedia, critic Gerald Bordman talks about the musical Oh, Boy! (1915) states that the plot is quick, the characters are well drawn, and the humor develops logically from the characters and situations. The Lisette, who came from Wodehouse, are natural and find the right balance between humor and emotion. Bordman is similarly positive about the musical Have a Heart (1917). Bolton and Wodehouse had developed a logical plot, Wodehouse had written excellent lyrics and Kern's music combined all of this. Dorothy Parker , at the time a critic for Vanity Fair magazine, is similarly positive about the musical Oh, Lady! Lady! and particularly emphasizes how the songs developed out of the plot. Despite this success, the musicals were seldom performed again in London after their successful season in New York and have since completely disappeared from the stage.

From the 1924 musical Lady, Be Good , Bolton worked repeatedly with producer Alex. A. Aarons and Vinton Freedley , with the playwright Fred Thompson, and with the Gershwin brothers ; the musicals Tip-Toes (1925), Oh, Kay! (1926), Rosalie (1928) and Girl Crazy (1930). Bolton also appeared on the 1934 Cole Porter musical Anything Goes .

From the end of the 1920s Bolton worked like many playwrights for the film (for example Liebesparade by Ernst Lubitsch ). In the early 1940s he began writing again for Broadway; it emerged books for musicals by Hoagy Carmichael , Burton Lane and Vernon Duke . The most successful was the musical Follow the Girls from 1944. In the second half of the 1940s he was involved in the scripts for the music films Ziegfeld Follies (1946) , Till the Clouds Roll By (1946) and Words and Music (1948).

In 1953, Bolton and PG Wodehouse published the memoir Bring on the Girls! (Subtitles: The Improbable Story of Our Life in Musical Comedy, With Pictures To Prove It ).

With the English adaptation of the piece Anastasia by Marcelle Maurette he drew attention again in 1954.

Musical Comedies in cooperation with Jerome Kern and PG Wodehouse

The collaboration with Jerome Kern and PG Wodehouse resulted in the following musicals, among others:

    • Miss Springtime (New York, 1916)
    • Have a Heart (New York, 1917)
    • Oh Boy (New York, 1917; re-performed in London in 1919 under the title Oh, Joy )
    • Leave it to Jane (New York, 1917)
    • The Riviera Girl (New York, 1917)
    • Oh lady Lady! (New York, 1918)
    • Sally (New York, 1920 and London, 1921)
    • Sitting Pretty (New York, 1924)

literature

Web links

Commons : Guy Bolton  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Single receipts

  1. ^ F. Donaldson: PG Wodehouse: A Biography. 1982, p. 110.
  2. ^ A b c F. Donaldson: PG Wodehouse: A Biography. 1982, p. 111.
  3. ^ A b F. Donaldson: PG Wodehouse: A Biography. 1982, p. 112.
  4. ^ F. Donaldson: PG Wodehouse: A Biography. 1982, p. 110 and p. 111.
personal data
SURNAME Bolton, Guy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bolton, Guy Reginald (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American playwright
DATE OF BIRTH November 23, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Broxbourne , Hertfordshire , England , United Kingdom
DATE OF DEATH 5th September 1979
Place of death London , England , UK