Each month, Jason Fortner spotlights one or more musical theatre composers and/or lyricists, offering his own unique perspective on the songwriting legends of musical theatre. Send your comments/questions on this column to happgood@aol.com.

With all the talk of adapting movies into Broadway shows of late, I got to think about Broadway’s love/hate relationship with Hollywood. Though in the past Hollywood studios’ attempts at producing new musicals in New York were met with disdain (see the Jack L. Warner 1969 flop JIMMY) nowadays it is quite common for the media conglomerates to underwrite a new show and nobody bat an eye. But for every occasional hit, there’s lots of road-kill along the way… Here we go…

Since the movies started with silents, that’s where we’ll begin as well. Several notable Broadway musicals were based on the filming of silent movies. First and foremost would be Jerry Herman & Michael Stewart’s MACK & MABEL, a musical dramedy look at the lives of Mack Sennett, creator of the Keystone Cops, and Mabel Normand, the comedy queen of the early silent screen. Similar territory was covered in the regionally produced musical KEYSTONE, while across the pond in London the musical THE BIOGRAPH GIRL visited the days of the early silents as well. Silent superstar Charlie Chaplin has been musicalized a few times, most notably the 1983 Anthony Newley vehicle that died on the road to Broadway, while various attempts have been made around the globe to musicalize the brief life of silent star Rudolph Valentino.

The travails of making silent films were explored in such light fare as the Elaine Stritch vehicle GOLDILOCKS, a 1958 Leroy Anderson/Joan Ford/Jean Kerr/Walter Kerr flop as well as in THE VAMP/DELILAH, a short lived 1955 musical starring Carol Channing and written by James Mundy & John La Touche. Channing was also featured in the 1948 revue LEND AN EAR, which featured a comic tribute to the femme fatales of the Silent Screen. Finally no look at the silent screen on Broadway would be complete without mentioning the Keystone Kops Ballet from HIGH BUTTON SHOES, a true Jerome Robbins showstopper with music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Sammy Cahn.

Movie stars have often inspired musicals, some fictional and some real. Marilyn Monroe was musicalized on both sides of the Atlantic, with the 1983 productions of MARILYN-AN AMERICAN FABLE in New York and MARILYN!, starring Stephanie Lawrence, in London. The Hugh Martin/Ralph Blane musical BEST FOOT FORWARD concerned the efforts of a small college to entertain a Hollywood B movie star while Charity Hope Valentine has an encounter with Italian film star "Vittorio Vidal" in Cy Coleman & Dorothy Field’s SWEET CHARITY. Stephen Sondheim’s FOLLIES had an aging movie star in "Carlotta" and her showstopper I’m Still Here travels the territory of one who’s been there and done that. "Margo Channing" in APPLAUSE was a former movie star now playing Broadway while eight years later Alexis Smith played a former screen star making her comeback in the music business in the short lived 1978 musical PLATINUM, known as SUNSET in its earlier incarnation. That same season "Lily Garland" was a movie star contemplating working with her former director/lover again in the Cy Coleman/Betty Comden/Adolph Green musical ON THE 20^th CENTURY.

1973’s mega flop RACHAEL LILY ROSENBLOOM AND DON’T YOU EVER FORGET IT featured an over the top Movie Actress and the tunes of composer Paul Jabara. In Act 3 of Bock & Harnick’s THE APPLE TREE chimney sweep Ella longs to be a Movie Star, and is transformed into buxom Hollywood star "Passionella" to mixed results. Speaking of buxom blondes, the autobiographical star of LITTLE ME is "Belle Poitrine", who has an ill-fated Act Two stint as a Poor Little Hollywood Star.

Folks behind the scenes are featured in several musicals as well, most notably in the Cy Coleman/David Zippel score to CITY OF ANGELS, where writer and producer clash over the outcome of the film noir subplot. Hollywood characters abound in NICK & NORA as well, the doomed musical version of THE THIN MAN created by Charles Strouse, Richard Maltby Jr. and Arthur Laurents that previewed endlessly at the Marquis Theater in 1991. Maury Yeston’s score to NINE tells the tale of famed film director "Guido Contini" and his efforts to create his next opus while balancing the many women in his life. Ervin Drake’s 1964 effort WHAT MAKES SAMMY RUN? takes place in and around the Hollywood studio system, and it’s Lights! Camera! Platitude! number is a sort of sister number to I Love a Film Cliché in A DAY IN HOLLYWOOD. Another song about the ways of the movies can be found in Stephen Sondheim’s SATURDAY NIGHT, in a song called In The Movies.

Yes the movies & Hollywood have been featured in many musicals, and as long as writers continue to adapt films into Broadway musicals we will continue to see Hollywood represented on the stage in one form or another. So whether you’re happy to see LEGALLY BLONDE, or shows like HIGH FIDELITY or THE WEDDING SINGER come and go, remember that in years past flop musicals were made from such unlikely film sources as THE YEARLING, MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY, EXODUS (ARI) and even GONE WITH THE WIND.