American writer/composer/actor
Adolph Green first attracted attention as a member of the Revuers, a satirical musicomedy troupe which performed at New York's Village Vanguard nightclub in the early '40s. The group couldn't afford the royalties on previously written material, so
Green and fellow Revuer
Betty Comden took to writing their own songs and routines. The Revuers were invited to Hollywood for the 1944
Betty Grable musical Greenwich Village, but the only member of the group that the movies were truly interested in was young
Judy Holliday.
Green and
Comden remained in New York to write the libretto for and co-star in the
Leonard Bernstein musical On the Town (which they later adapted for the screen).
Green and
Comden continued collaborating, spending less performance time as they became busier writers. The pair returned to Hollywood in 1947 as members of the
Arthur Freed musical unit at MGM, where they worked on the scripts (and occasionally the songs) for such film hits as Take Me Out to the Ballgame (1948), The Barkeleys of Broadway (1949), The Band Wagon (1953) (which featured an ersatz
Adolph Green-
Betty Comden team in the form of
Oscar Levant and
Nanette Fabray) and the immortal Singin' in the Rain (1956). For the Broadway stage,
Green and
Comden concocted a musical vehicle for their old Revuers cohort
Judy Holliday, Bells are Ringing (1956), and also wrote the non-musical success Auntie Mame (1958). The white-maned
Adolph Green occasionally returned to movie acting with supporting roles in such films as My Favorite Year (1982); he also played the leading role of an elderly cartoonist in director Alain Resnais' I Want to Go Home (1989). On October 24, 2002,
Green passed away in his sleep at his home in New York. ~ Hal Erickson, All Music Guide
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