With her writing partner Adolph Green, Betty Comden crafted songs and
screenplays for some of Hollywood's most beloved musicals. Born Elizabeth Cohen,
she was attending New York University when she met Green and began a partnership
... morethat lasted six decades. The duo teamed with an unknown Judy Holliday and a
young pianist named Leonard Bernstein in The Revuers, performing a nightclub act
in Greenwich Village, then shifted to writing. Comden and Green tasted their
first Broadway success by expanding Bernstein's ballet, "Fancy Free," into "On
the Town," a jubilant paean to New York itself, then headed west to develop
screen musicals at MGM. Working with the studio's legendary musical production
chief, Arthur Freed, they translated "On the Town" to the screen (ironically,
without the Bernstein music) and then penned a series of other classics
including "Singin' in the Rain" (widely regarded as Hollywood's greatest
musical) and "The Band Wagon." They also returned to Broadway with successful
productions including "Bells Are Ringing" and "Peter Pan," which also became a
perennial TV hit.
