Guy Bolton
Encyclopedia
Guy Reginald Bolton was a British-American playwright and writer of musical comedies
. Born in England and educated in France and the U.S., he trained as an architect but turned to writing. Bolton preferred working in collaboration with others, principally the English writers P. G. Wodehouse
and Fred Thompson
, with whom he wrote 21 and 14 shows respectively, and the American playwright George Middleton
, with whom he wrote ten shows. Among his other collaborators in Britain were George Grossmith Jr., Ian Hay
and Weston and
Lee
. In the U.S., he worked with George
and Ira Gershwin
, Kalmar and Ruby
and Oscar Hammerstein II
.
Bolton is best known for his early work on the Princess Theatre
musicals during World War I
with Wodehouse and the composer Jerome Kern
. These shows moved the American musical away from the traditions of European operetta
to small scale, intimate productions with what the Oxford Encyclopedia of Popular Music calls, "smart and witty integrated books and lyrics, considered to be a watershed in the evolution of the American musical." Among his 50 plays and musicals, most of which were considered "frothy confections", additional hits included Primrose
(1924), the Gershwins' Lady, Be Good (1925), and especially Cole Porter
's Anything Goes
(1935).
Bolton also made stage adaptations of novels by Henry James
and Somerset Maugham, and wrote three novels on his own and a fourth in collaboration with Bernard Newman
. He worked on screenplays for such films as Ambassador Bill
(1931) and Easter Parade (1948), and published four novels, Flowers for the Living (with Bernard Newman, 1958), The Olympians (1961), The Enchantress (1964), and Gracious Living (1966). With Wodehouse, he wrote a joint memoir of their Broadway
years, entitled Bring on the Girls
(1953).
, Hertfordshire
, the older son of an American engineer, Reginald Pelham Bolton, and his wife Kate, née Behenna. His younger brother, Jamie, died young, leaving Guy and his older sister Ivy. The family moved to the U.S., settling in New York City's Washington Heights
. Bolton studied to be an architect, attending the Pratt Institute School of Architecture
and Atelier Masqueray
, New York. He also studied at the École des Beaux-Arts
, Paris.
Bolton made early progress in his profession, engaged by the government for special work on the rebuilding of the United States Military Academy
at West Point
, and helping to design the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument
on the Upper West Side
of Manhattan in New York, but was drawn to writing.
collaboration, Ninety in the Shade, with music by Jerome Kern
, lyrics by Harry B. Smith
and book by Bolton, first produced at the Knickerbocker Theatre
, New York, on 25 January 1915. The same year, he wrote Hit-the-Trail-Holiday with George M. Cohan
. That same year he collaborated with Kern and others on the musicals Nobody Home and the even more successful Very Good Eddie
, the first two "Princess Theatre
musicals". The latter of the two was also a hit in London.
Bolton quickly became known for his part in moving the American musical away from the European operetta tradition: "No more crown princes masquerading as butlers, no more milkmaids who turn out at the final curtain to be heir to several thrones." Nevertheless, he collaborated with one of operetta's last practitioners, Emmerich Kálmán
, in an adaptation of Kálmán's 1915 piece Zsuzsi Kisassony. Miss Springtime, as the American version was called, was produced at the New Amsterdam Theatre
in 1916. Bolton wrote the book; the lyrics were by Herbert Reynolds
and P. G. Wodehouse
, the latter writing with Bolton for the first time in what became a life-long working partnership and personal friendship. Kern, who already knew Wodehouse, introduced him to Bolton at the premiere of Very Good Eddie. Wodehouse admired Bolton's stagecraft, but thought his lyrics weak, and at Kern's urging they decided to write jointly, Wodehouse concentrating on the lyrics and Bolton on the book.
For the Princess Theatre, Bolton and Wodehouse wrote the book and lyrics for Have a Heart (1917), Oh, Boy!
(1917), which ran for 463 performances, Leave It to Jane
(1917), Oh, Lady! Lady!!
(1918), See You Later (1918) and Oh! My Dear (1918). They also collaborated on Miss 1917
(1917) at the Century Theatre
, on Bolton's second Kálmán show, The Riviera Girl (1917), and on Kissing Time
(1918), the latter two for the New Amsterdam. During these years, Bolton also wrote successful plays with George Middleton
and others. But it was the Princess Theatre shows with Kern that made the most impression; some of these shows were so popular that they transferred to the larger Casino Theatre to finish their runs. An anonymous admirer wrote a verse in their praise that begins:
In February 1918, Dorothy Parker
wrote in Vanity Fair
:
, with whom he wrote fourteen. His collaborations with Middleton were non-musical comic plays, produced with success on both sides of the Atlantic. Their Polly with a Past (1917) was a success in both New York and London, where its cast included Edna Best, Noël Coward
, Edith Evans
, Claude Rains
and C. Aubrey Smith. Their Adam and Eva was another favorite that was adapted for film and frequently revived by smaller theatres. With Thompson, he wrote the book for early musicals by George
and Ira Gershwin
, Lady, Be Good (1925) and Tip-Toes
(1926). With the Gershwins and Wodehouse, he wrote Oh, Kay!
(1926). Among his other collaborators in Britain were George Grossmith Jr., with whom he worked on Primrose
(1924), Ian Hay
with whom he co-wrote A Song of Sixpence (1930) and Weston and
Lee
, who joined him for Give Me a Ring (1933). In the U.S., he worked with Oscar Hammerstein II
on Daffy Dill (1922), and with Kalmar and Ruby
on The Ramblers (1926) and She's My Baby (1927). An occasional collaborator in later years was "Stephen Powys", a pseudonym of Bolton's third wife, Virginia. Girl Crazy
(1930) was a musical, with songs by the Gershwins, starring Ginger Rogers
and featuring the debut of Ethel Merman
. It was later adapted by Ken Ludwig
as the sensation Crazy for You
.
During the 1920s and 30s "Bolton worked at a tremendous rate on shows … beautifully constructed, and full of fun and excruciating puns." When the Gershwins began to take a more serious tone, with Of Thee I Sing
, Bolton persisted with his "frothy confections" for other composers. He moved to London, where he wrote (or co-wrote, generally with Thompson and sometimes also with Douglas Furber
) the book for "a series of highly successful romps" starring London's leading music comedy performers such as Jack Buchanan
, Leslie Henson
, Bobby Howes
, Evelyn Laye
and Elsie Randolph
, in shows including Song of the Drum (1931), Seeing Stars (1935), At the Silver Swan (1936), This'll Make You Whistle (1935), Swing Along (1936), Going Places (1936), Going Greek (1937), Hide and Seek (1937), The Fleet's Lit Up (1938), Running Riot (1938), Bobby Get Your Gun (1938) and Magyar Melody (1939).
Although Bolton worked mostly in the West End
in the 1930s, his biggest hit of the decade began on Broadway
, a collaboration with his old friend Wodehouse, who had by then largely abandoned the theatre for novel-writing. When Bolton approached him to co-write the book for Cole Porter
's Anything Goes
(1935), Wodehouse objected, "Cole does his own lyrics. … What pests these lyric-writing composers are! Taking the bread out of a man's mouth". Still, he agreed to join Bolton in writing the book. The show was, in the words of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Popular Music, "a smash hit" in New York and in London.
Bolton returned to the U.S. during World War II
to write the librettos for Walk With Music, Hold On to Your Hats, Jackpot (with several contributors), and Follow The Girls (with Eddie Davis). Bolton's screen credits include Ambassador Bill
(1931), Week-End at the Waldorf
(1945), Ziegfeld Follies
(1945), Till the Clouds Roll By
(1946), Easter Parade (1948) and the German adaptation of his play Adorable Julia
(1962). His last book for Broadway was an adaptation of his and Marcelle Maurete's 1950s play and film, Anastasia
, for the 1967 musical production, Anya.
With Wodehouse, Bolton wrote the semi-autobiographical book Bring on the Girls
, subtitled, "The Improbable Story of Our Life in Musical Comedy" (1954). It is full of anecdotes about the larger-than-life characters who dominated Broadway between 1915 and 1930, but the biographer Frances Donaldson writes that it is to be read as entertainment rather than reliable history: "Guy, having once invented an anecdote, told it so often that it was impossible to know whether in the end he believed it or not." Other collaborations between the two writers were not acknowledged on title pages or in programmes, but were plays by one turned into novels by the other, or vice versa. Bolton's play, Come On, Jeeves centred on one of Wodehouse's best-known characters; Wodehouse later adapted the play as the novel Ring for Jeeves
. Wodehouse's novels French Leave
, The Small Bachelor
and others were adapted from plots by Bolton.
In his later years, Bolton wrote four novels, Flowers for the Living (with Bernard Newman, 1958), The Olympians (1961), The Enchantress (1964), and Gracious Living (1966). The Times
thought his later non-musical stage work notable, including adaptations of works by Somerset Maugham and Sacha Guitry
, and his biographical play The Shelley Story (1947). Another of Bolton's more serious stage works was Child of Fortune (1956), an adaptation of Henry James
's The Wings of the Dove
.
, to whom he was married from 1917 to 1926, he had a daughter Marguerite Pamela ("Peggy"; 1916–2003), who was the only one of his children to outlive him. His third wife was a chorus girl, Marion Redford, whom he married in 1926. Redford had already given birth to Bolton's son, Guy Bolton Jr., known as "Guybo" (1925–1961) before his divorce from Namara. Bolton and Redford divorced in 1932. There were no children of his fourth marriage, to the playwright Virginia de Lanty. This marriage lasted from 1939 until her death in 1979.
Although born of American parents, Bolton was a British subject until 1956, when he took American citizenship. His roots were not deep in any country: like his father, he had a life-long taste for travelling, and he settled from time to time in European towns and cities including London, but never Paris, which he loathed. His main residences were on Long Island
, New York, including Great Neck
(at the time of the Princess Theatre shows), and Remsenburg
, where he and his third wife lived in the years after World War II. In 1952, Wodehouse and his wife bought a house two miles away, and for the rest of Wodehouse's life, he and Bolton would go for a daily walk when the latter was not travelling abroad.
Bolton died in London in 1979 at the age of 94.
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
. Born in England and educated in France and the U.S., he trained as an architect but turned to writing. Bolton preferred working in collaboration with others, principally the English writers P. G. Wodehouse
P. G. Wodehouse
Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE was an English humorist, whose body of work includes novels, short stories, plays, poems, song lyrics, and numerous pieces of journalism. He enjoyed enormous popular success during a career that lasted more than seventy years and his many writings continue to be...
and Fred Thompson
Fred Thompson (writer)
Frederick A. Thompson, usually credited as Fred Thompson was an English writer, best known as a librettist for about fifty British and American musical comedies from World War I to World War II. Among the writers with whom he collaborated were George Grossmith Jr., P. G. Wodehouse, Guy Bolton and...
, with whom he wrote 21 and 14 shows respectively, and the American playwright George Middleton
George Middleton (playwright)
George Middleton was an American playwright, director, and producer.-Career:He was famous for his plays The Failures and Adam and Eva...
, with whom he wrote ten shows. Among his other collaborators in Britain were George Grossmith Jr., Ian Hay
John Hay Beith
Major General John Hay Beith, CBE , from Edinburgh, Scotland, was a schoolmaster and soldier, and, under the pen name Ian Hay, a novelist and playwright.-Background:...
and Weston and
R. P. Weston
Robert Patrick Weston was an English songwriter. He was born and died in London. Among other songs, he co-authored , "With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm", a macabre little ditty about the ghost of Anne Boleyn haunting the Tower of London, seeking revenge on Henry VIII for having her...
Lee
Bert Lee
Bert Lee was an English songwriter. He wrote for music hall and the musical stage, often in partnership with R. P. Weston.Lee was born 11 June 1880 in Ravensthorpe, Yorkshire, England....
. In the U.S., he worked with George
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
and Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs of the 20th century....
, Kalmar and Ruby
Kalmar and Ruby
Kalmar and Ruby refers to the famous songwriting team of the first half of the 20th century of Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby.-Bert Kalmar:Bert Kalmar was born on February 10, 1884 and died on September 18, 1947. He was an American lyricist...
and Oscar Hammerstein II
Oscar Hammerstein II
Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II was an American librettist, theatrical producer, and theatre director of musicals for almost forty years. Hammerstein won eight Tony Awards and was twice awarded an Academy Award for "Best Original Song". Many of his songs are standard repertoire for...
.
Bolton is best known for his early work on the Princess Theatre
Princess Theatre
The Princess Theatre was a joint venture between the Shubert Brothers , producer Ray Comstock, theatrical agent Elisabeth Marbury and actor-director Holbrook Blinn...
musicals during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
with Wodehouse and the composer Jerome Kern
Jerome Kern
Jerome David Kern was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A...
. These shows moved the American musical away from the traditions of European operetta
Operetta
Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
to small scale, intimate productions with what the Oxford Encyclopedia of Popular Music calls, "smart and witty integrated books and lyrics, considered to be a watershed in the evolution of the American musical." Among his 50 plays and musicals, most of which were considered "frothy confections", additional hits included Primrose
Primrose (musical)
Primrose is a musical in three acts with a book by Guy Bolton and George Grossmith Jr., lyrics by Desmond Carter and Ira Gershwin, and music by George Gershwin. It centers on a writer whose story-within-a-story forms the basis of the plot. It was written expressly for the London stage, where it...
(1924), the Gershwins' Lady, Be Good (1925), and especially Cole Porter
Cole Porter
Cole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre...
's Anything Goes
Anything Goes
Anything Goes is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The original book was a collaborative effort by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse, heavily revised by the team of Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. The story concerns madcap antics aboard an ocean liner bound from New York to London...
(1935).
Bolton also made stage adaptations of novels by Henry James
Henry James
Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
and Somerset Maugham, and wrote three novels on his own and a fourth in collaboration with Bernard Newman
Bernard Newman (author)
Bernard Charles Newman was a British author of over 100 books, both fiction and non-fiction. An historian, he was considered an authority on spies, but also wrote travel books and on politics. His fiction included children's books, mystery novels and science fiction.-Biography:Bernard Newman was...
. He worked on screenplays for such films as Ambassador Bill
Ambassador Bill
Ambassador Bill is a 1931 comedy film starring Will Rogers and Marguerite Churchill. Directed by Sam Taylor, the movie also features Greta Nissen and Ray Milland....
(1931) and Easter Parade (1948), and published four novels, Flowers for the Living (with Bernard Newman, 1958), The Olympians (1961), The Enchantress (1964), and Gracious Living (1966). With Wodehouse, he wrote a joint memoir of their Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
years, entitled Bring on the Girls
Bring on the Girls
Bring on the Girls! is a semi-autobiographical collaboration between P. G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton, first published in the United States on October 5, 1953 by Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York, and in the United Kingdom on May 21, 1954 by Herbert Jenkins, London.Subtitled "The Improbable Story of...
(1953).
Early years
Bolton was born in BroxbourneBroxbourne
Broxbourne is a commuter town in the Broxbourne borough of Hertfordshire in the East of England with a population of 13,298 in 2001.It is located 17.1 miles north north-east of Charing Cross in London and about a mile north of Wormley and south of Hoddesdon...
, Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
, the older son of an American engineer, Reginald Pelham Bolton, and his wife Kate, née Behenna. His younger brother, Jamie, died young, leaving Guy and his older sister Ivy. The family moved to the U.S., settling in New York City's Washington Heights
Washington Heights, Manhattan
Washington Heights is a New York City neighborhood in the northern reaches of the borough of Manhattan. It is named for Fort Washington, a fortification constructed at the highest point on Manhattan island by Continental Army troops during the American Revolutionary War, to defend the area from the...
. Bolton studied to be an architect, attending the Pratt Institute School of Architecture
Pratt Institute School of Architecture
The Pratt Institute School of Architecture is ranked in the top ten best Architecture schools in the nation. Alumni include Pritzker Prize Winner Peter Zumthor. Within the Brooklyn campus, the school of architecture is located a block from the main campus in Higgins Hall...
and Atelier Masqueray
Emmanuel Louis Masqueray
Emmanuel Louis Masqueray was a Franco-American preeminent figure in the history of American architecture, both as a gifted designer of landmark buildings and as an influential teacher of the profession of architecture.-Biography:...
, New York. He also studied at the École des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts
École des Beaux-Arts refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The most famous is the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, now located on the left bank in Paris, across the Seine from the Louvre, in the 6th arrondissement. The school has a history spanning more than 350 years,...
, Paris.
Bolton made early progress in his profession, engaged by the government for special work on the rebuilding of the United States Military Academy
United States Military Academy
The United States Military Academy at West Point is a four-year coeducational federal service academy located at West Point, New York. The academy sits on scenic high ground overlooking the Hudson River, north of New York City...
at West Point
West Point, New York
West Point is a federal military reservation established by President of the United States Thomas Jefferson in 1802. It is a census-designated place located in Town of Highlands in Orange County, New York, United States. The population was 7,138 at the 2000 census...
, and helping to design the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument
Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument (New York)
The Soldiers' and Sailors' Memorial Monument commemorates Union Army soldiers and sailors who served in the American Civil War. It is located at 89th Street and Riverside Drive in Riverside Park in the Upper West Side of New York City. It was dedicated on Memorial Day, 1902.The white marble...
on the Upper West Side
Upper West Side
The Upper West Side is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, New York City, that lies between Central Park and the Hudson River and between West 59th Street and West 125th Street...
of Manhattan in New York, but was drawn to writing.
Early writing career
While Bolton was still a student, his stories had been published in magazines. At the age of 26, he wrote his first stage play, The Drone, in collaboration with Douglas J. Wood. His second play, The Rule of Three (1914), was written without a partner, but the following year he embarked on his first musical theatreMusical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
collaboration, Ninety in the Shade, with music by Jerome Kern
Jerome Kern
Jerome David Kern was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A...
, lyrics by Harry B. Smith
Harry B. Smith
Harry Bache Smith was a writer, lyricist and composer. The most prolific of all American stage writers, he is said to have written over 300 librettos and more than 6000 lyrics. Some of his best-known works were librettos for the composer Victor Herbert...
and book by Bolton, first produced at the Knickerbocker Theatre
Knickerbocker Theatre (Broadway)
The Knickerbocker Theatre — previously known as Abbey's Theatre and Henry Abbey's Theatre — was a Broadway theatre located at 1396 Broadway in New York City. It operated from 1893 to 1930...
, New York, on 25 January 1915. The same year, he wrote Hit-the-Trail-Holiday with George M. Cohan
George M. Cohan
George Michael Cohan , known professionally as George M. Cohan, was a major American entertainer, playwright, composer, lyricist, actor, singer, dancer, and producer....
. That same year he collaborated with Kern and others on the musicals Nobody Home and the even more successful Very Good Eddie
Very Good Eddie
Very Good Eddie is a musical with a book by Guy Bolton and Philip Bartholomae, music by Jerome Kern, and lyrics by Schuyler Green and Herbert Reynolds, with additional lyrics by Elsie Janis, Harry B. Smith and John E. Hazzard and additional music by Henry Kailimai. The story was based on the farce...
, the first two "Princess Theatre
Princess Theatre
The Princess Theatre was a joint venture between the Shubert Brothers , producer Ray Comstock, theatrical agent Elisabeth Marbury and actor-director Holbrook Blinn...
musicals". The latter of the two was also a hit in London.
Bolton quickly became known for his part in moving the American musical away from the European operetta tradition: "No more crown princes masquerading as butlers, no more milkmaids who turn out at the final curtain to be heir to several thrones." Nevertheless, he collaborated with one of operetta's last practitioners, Emmerich Kálmán
Emmerich Kalman
Emmerich Kálmán was a Hungarian-born composer of operettas.- Biography :Kálmán was born Imre Koppstein in Siófok, on the southern shore of Lake Balaton, Hungary in a Jewish family.Kálmán initially intended to become a concert pianist, but because of early-onset arthritis, he focused on composition...
, in an adaptation of Kálmán's 1915 piece Zsuzsi Kisassony. Miss Springtime, as the American version was called, was produced at the New Amsterdam Theatre
New Amsterdam Theatre
The New Amsterdam Theatre is a Broadway theater located at 214 West 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues in the Theatre District of Manhattan, New York City, off of Times Square...
in 1916. Bolton wrote the book; the lyrics were by Herbert Reynolds
Herbert Reynolds
Michael Elder Rourke , who assumed the pen name Herbert Reynolds in 1913, was an Irish-American lyricist.Reynolds wrote the lyrics to Jerome Kern's first big hit, "They Didn't Believe Me", interpolated into the 1914 American version of The Girl from Utah, produced by Charles Frohman...
and P. G. Wodehouse
P. G. Wodehouse
Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE was an English humorist, whose body of work includes novels, short stories, plays, poems, song lyrics, and numerous pieces of journalism. He enjoyed enormous popular success during a career that lasted more than seventy years and his many writings continue to be...
, the latter writing with Bolton for the first time in what became a life-long working partnership and personal friendship. Kern, who already knew Wodehouse, introduced him to Bolton at the premiere of Very Good Eddie. Wodehouse admired Bolton's stagecraft, but thought his lyrics weak, and at Kern's urging they decided to write jointly, Wodehouse concentrating on the lyrics and Bolton on the book.
Oh, Boy! (musical)
Oh, Boy! is a musical in two acts, with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse. The story concerns befuddled George, who elopes with Lou Ellen, the daughter of Judge Carter. He must win over her parents and his Quaker aunt...
(1917), which ran for 463 performances, Leave It to Jane
Leave It to Jane
Leave It to Jane is a musical in two acts, with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse, based on the 1904 play College Widow, by George Ade. The story concerns the football rivalry between Atwater College and Bingham College, and satirizes college life in a...
(1917), Oh, Lady! Lady!!
Oh, Lady! Lady!!
Oh, Lady! Lady!! is a musical with music by Jerome Kern, a book by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse and lyrics by Wodehouse. It was written for the Princess Theatre on Broadway, where it played in 1918 and ran for 219 performances. The story concerns an engaged young man, Bill, whose ex-fiancée...
(1918), See You Later (1918) and Oh! My Dear (1918). They also collaborated on Miss 1917
Miss 1917
Miss 1917 is a musical revue with a book by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse, music by Victor Herbert, Jerome Kern and others, and lyrics by Harry B. Smith, Otto Harbach, Henry Blossom and others...
(1917) at the Century Theatre
Century Theatre
The Century Theatre, originally the New Theatre, was a theater located at 62nd Street and Central Park West in New York City. Opened on November 6, 1909, it was noted for its fine architecture but due to poor acoustics and an inconvenient location it was financially unsuccessful...
, on Bolton's second Kálmán show, The Riviera Girl (1917), and on Kissing Time
Kissing Time
thumb|right|[[Leslie Henson]] and [[Phyllis Dare]] Kissing Time, an earlier version of which was titled The Girl Behind the Gun, is a musical comedy with music by Ivan Caryll, book and lyrics by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse, and additional lyrics by Clifford Grey...
(1918), the latter two for the New Amsterdam. During these years, Bolton also wrote successful plays with George Middleton
George Middleton (playwright)
George Middleton was an American playwright, director, and producer.-Career:He was famous for his plays The Failures and Adam and Eva...
and others. But it was the Princess Theatre shows with Kern that made the most impression; some of these shows were so popular that they transferred to the larger Casino Theatre to finish their runs. An anonymous admirer wrote a verse in their praise that begins:
- This is the trio of musical fame,
- Bolton and Wodehouse and Kern.
- Better than anyone else you can name
- Bolton and Wodehouse and Kern.
In February 1918, Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker was an American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist, best known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th century urban foibles....
wrote in Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (American magazine 1913-1936)
Vanity Fair was an American society magazine published from 1913-1936. It was highly successful until the Great Depression led to it becoming unprofitable, and it was merged into Vogue magazine in 1936.-History:...
:
Later writing career
Bolton went on to write more than fifty stage works, mainly in collaboration with others. Besides Wodehouse, his frequent writing partners were the American, George Middleton, with whom he wrote ten shows, and the Englishman, Fred ThompsonFred Thompson (writer)
Frederick A. Thompson, usually credited as Fred Thompson was an English writer, best known as a librettist for about fifty British and American musical comedies from World War I to World War II. Among the writers with whom he collaborated were George Grossmith Jr., P. G. Wodehouse, Guy Bolton and...
, with whom he wrote fourteen. His collaborations with Middleton were non-musical comic plays, produced with success on both sides of the Atlantic. Their Polly with a Past (1917) was a success in both New York and London, where its cast included Edna Best, Noël Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
, Edith Evans
Edith Evans
Dame Edith Mary Evans, DBE was a British actress. She was known for her work on the British stage. She also appeared in a number of films, for which she received three Academy Award nominations, plus a BAFTA and a Golden Globe award.Evans was particularly effective at portraying haughty...
, Claude Rains
Claude Rains
Claude Rains was an English stage and film actor whose career spanned 66 years. He was known for many roles in Hollywood films, among them the title role in The Invisible Man , a corrupt senator in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington , Mr...
and C. Aubrey Smith. Their Adam and Eva was another favorite that was adapted for film and frequently revived by smaller theatres. With Thompson, he wrote the book for early musicals by George
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
and Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs of the 20th century....
, Lady, Be Good (1925) and Tip-Toes
Tip-Toes
Tip-Toes is a musical with a book by Guy Bolton and Fred Thompson , lyrics by Ira Gershwin, and music by George Gershwin. It centers on a vaudeville act known as the Three Kayes - composed of Al, Uncle Hen, and Tip-Toes - who try to pass themselves off as aristocrats in the upper class community of...
(1926). With the Gershwins and Wodehouse, he wrote Oh, Kay!
Oh, Kay!
Oh, Kay! is a musical with music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, and a book by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse. It is based on the play La Presidente by Maurice Hanniquin and Pierre Veber. The plot revolves around the adventures of the Duke of Durham and his sister, Lady Kay, English...
(1926). Among his other collaborators in Britain were George Grossmith Jr., with whom he worked on Primrose
Primrose (musical)
Primrose is a musical in three acts with a book by Guy Bolton and George Grossmith Jr., lyrics by Desmond Carter and Ira Gershwin, and music by George Gershwin. It centers on a writer whose story-within-a-story forms the basis of the plot. It was written expressly for the London stage, where it...
(1924), Ian Hay
John Hay Beith
Major General John Hay Beith, CBE , from Edinburgh, Scotland, was a schoolmaster and soldier, and, under the pen name Ian Hay, a novelist and playwright.-Background:...
with whom he co-wrote A Song of Sixpence (1930) and Weston and
R. P. Weston
Robert Patrick Weston was an English songwriter. He was born and died in London. Among other songs, he co-authored , "With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm", a macabre little ditty about the ghost of Anne Boleyn haunting the Tower of London, seeking revenge on Henry VIII for having her...
Lee
Bert Lee
Bert Lee was an English songwriter. He wrote for music hall and the musical stage, often in partnership with R. P. Weston.Lee was born 11 June 1880 in Ravensthorpe, Yorkshire, England....
, who joined him for Give Me a Ring (1933). In the U.S., he worked with Oscar Hammerstein II
Oscar Hammerstein II
Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II was an American librettist, theatrical producer, and theatre director of musicals for almost forty years. Hammerstein won eight Tony Awards and was twice awarded an Academy Award for "Best Original Song". Many of his songs are standard repertoire for...
on Daffy Dill (1922), and with Kalmar and Ruby
Kalmar and Ruby
Kalmar and Ruby refers to the famous songwriting team of the first half of the 20th century of Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby.-Bert Kalmar:Bert Kalmar was born on February 10, 1884 and died on September 18, 1947. He was an American lyricist...
on The Ramblers (1926) and She's My Baby (1927). An occasional collaborator in later years was "Stephen Powys", a pseudonym of Bolton's third wife, Virginia. Girl Crazy
Girl Crazy
Girl Crazy is a 1930 musical with music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin and book by Guy Bolton and John McGowan. Ethel Merman made her stage debut in this musical production....
(1930) was a musical, with songs by the Gershwins, starring Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers was an American actress, dancer, and singer who appeared in film, and on stage, radio, and television throughout much of the 20th century....
and featuring the debut of Ethel Merman
Ethel Merman
Ethel Merman was an American actress and singer. Known primarily for her powerful voice and roles in musical theatre, she has been called "the undisputed First Lady of the musical comedy stage." Among the many standards introduced by Merman in Broadway musicals are "I Got Rhythm", "Everything's...
. It was later adapted by Ken Ludwig
Ken Ludwig
Ken Ludwig is an American playwright and theatre director.Born in York, Pennsylvania, Ludwig was educated at the York Suburban Senior High School, York PA Haverford College , Harvard Law School, and Trinity College at Cambridge University...
as the sensation Crazy for You
Crazy for You
Crazy for You is a musical with a book by Ken Ludwig, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, and music by George Gershwin. Billed as "The New Gershwin Musical Comedy", it is largely based on the songwriting team’s 1930 musical, Girl Crazy, but interpolates songs from several other productions as well...
.
During the 1920s and 30s "Bolton worked at a tremendous rate on shows … beautifully constructed, and full of fun and excruciating puns." When the Gershwins began to take a more serious tone, with Of Thee I Sing
Of Thee I Sing
Of Thee I Sing is a musical with a score by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin and a book by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind. The musical lampoons American politics; the story concerns John P. Wintergreen, who runs for President of the United States on the "love" platform...
, Bolton persisted with his "frothy confections" for other composers. He moved to London, where he wrote (or co-wrote, generally with Thompson and sometimes also with Douglas Furber
Douglas Furber
Douglas Furber was a British lyricist and playwright.Furber is best known for the lyrics to the 1937 song The Lambeth Walk and the libretto to the musical Me and My Girl, composed by Noel Gay, from which it came. This show made broadcasting history when in 1939 it became the first full length...
) the book for "a series of highly successful romps" starring London's leading music comedy performers such as Jack Buchanan
Jack Buchanan
Walter John "Jack" Buchanan was a British theatre and film actor, singer, producer and director. He was known for three decades as the embodiment of the debonair man-about-town in the tradition of George Grossmith Jr., and was described by The Times as "the last of the knuts." He is best known in...
, Leslie Henson
Leslie Henson
Leslie Lincoln Henson was an English comedian, actor, producer for films and theatre, and film director. He initially worked in silent films and Edwardian musical comedy and became a popular music hall comedian who enjoyed a long stage career...
, Bobby Howes
Bobby Howes
Bobby Howes, born as Charles Robert William Howes on 4 August 1895 in Battersea, England. His parents were Robert William Howes and Rose Marie Butler.- Biography :...
, Evelyn Laye
Evelyn Laye
Evelyn Laye, CBE was an English theatre and film actress.-Early years and career:Born as Elsie Evelyn Lay in Bloomsbury, London, Laye made her first stage appearance in August 1915 at the Theatre Royal, Brighton as Nang-Ping in Mr...
and Elsie Randolph
Elsie Randolph
Elsie Randolph was an English actress, singer and dancer. Randolph was born and died in London.She is best remembered for her partnership with Jack Buchanan in several stage and film musicals...
, in shows including Song of the Drum (1931), Seeing Stars (1935), At the Silver Swan (1936), This'll Make You Whistle (1935), Swing Along (1936), Going Places (1936), Going Greek (1937), Hide and Seek (1937), The Fleet's Lit Up (1938), Running Riot (1938), Bobby Get Your Gun (1938) and Magyar Melody (1939).
Although Bolton worked mostly in the West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
in the 1930s, his biggest hit of the decade began on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
, a collaboration with his old friend Wodehouse, who had by then largely abandoned the theatre for novel-writing. When Bolton approached him to co-write the book for Cole Porter
Cole Porter
Cole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre...
's Anything Goes
Anything Goes
Anything Goes is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The original book was a collaborative effort by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse, heavily revised by the team of Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. The story concerns madcap antics aboard an ocean liner bound from New York to London...
(1935), Wodehouse objected, "Cole does his own lyrics. … What pests these lyric-writing composers are! Taking the bread out of a man's mouth". Still, he agreed to join Bolton in writing the book. The show was, in the words of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Popular Music, "a smash hit" in New York and in London.
Bolton returned to the U.S. during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
to write the librettos for Walk With Music, Hold On to Your Hats, Jackpot (with several contributors), and Follow The Girls (with Eddie Davis). Bolton's screen credits include Ambassador Bill
Ambassador Bill
Ambassador Bill is a 1931 comedy film starring Will Rogers and Marguerite Churchill. Directed by Sam Taylor, the movie also features Greta Nissen and Ray Milland....
(1931), Week-End at the Waldorf
Week-End at the Waldorf
Week-End at the Waldorf is a 1945 American comedy drama film directed by Robert Z. Leonard. The screenplay by Samuel and Bella Spewack is based on Guy Bolton's adaptation of the Vicki Baum novel Menschen im Hotel, which was filmed as Grand Hotel in 1932.-Plot:The film focuses on various guests...
(1945), Ziegfeld Follies
Ziegfeld Follies (film)
Ziegfeld Follies is a 1945 Hollywood musical comedy film directed by Lemuel Ayers, Roy Del Ruth, Robert Lewis, Vincente Minnelli, Merrill Pye, George Sidney and Charles Waters...
(1945), Till the Clouds Roll By
Till the Clouds Roll By
Till The Clouds Roll By is a 1946 American musical film made by MGM. The film is a fictionalized biography of composer Jerome Kern, who was originally involved with the production of the film, but died before it was completed...
(1946), Easter Parade (1948) and the German adaptation of his play Adorable Julia
Adorable Julia
Adorable Julia is a 1962 German comedy film directed by Alfred Weidenmann. It was entered into the 1962 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Lilli Palmer - Julia Lambert* Charles Boyer - Michael Grosselyn* Jean Sorel - Tom Fennel...
(1962). His last book for Broadway was an adaptation of his and Marcelle Maurete's 1950s play and film, Anastasia
Anastasia (1956 film)
Anastasia is a 1956 American historical drama film directed by Anatole Litvak for 20th Century Fox. The film stars Ingrid Bergman, Yul Brynner, and Helen Hayes. Supporting players include Akim Tamiroff, Martita Hunt, and, in a small role, Natalie Schafer...
, for the 1967 musical production, Anya.
With Wodehouse, Bolton wrote the semi-autobiographical book Bring on the Girls
Bring on the Girls
Bring on the Girls! is a semi-autobiographical collaboration between P. G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton, first published in the United States on October 5, 1953 by Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York, and in the United Kingdom on May 21, 1954 by Herbert Jenkins, London.Subtitled "The Improbable Story of...
, subtitled, "The Improbable Story of Our Life in Musical Comedy" (1954). It is full of anecdotes about the larger-than-life characters who dominated Broadway between 1915 and 1930, but the biographer Frances Donaldson writes that it is to be read as entertainment rather than reliable history: "Guy, having once invented an anecdote, told it so often that it was impossible to know whether in the end he believed it or not." Other collaborations between the two writers were not acknowledged on title pages or in programmes, but were plays by one turned into novels by the other, or vice versa. Bolton's play, Come On, Jeeves centred on one of Wodehouse's best-known characters; Wodehouse later adapted the play as the novel Ring for Jeeves
Ring for Jeeves
Ring for Jeeves is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United Kingdom on 22 April 1953 by Herbert Jenkins, London and in the United States on 15 April 1954 by Simon & Schuster, New York, under the title The Return of Jeeves....
. Wodehouse's novels French Leave
French Leave (novel)
French Leave is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United Kingdom on January 20, 1956 by Herbert Jenkins, London and in the United States on September 28, 1959 by Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York....
, The Small Bachelor
The Small Bachelor
The Small Bachelor is a novel by P.G. Wodehouse, first published in the United Kingdom on 28 April 1927 by Methuen & Co., London, and in the United States on 17 June 1927 by George H...
and others were adapted from plots by Bolton.
In his later years, Bolton wrote four novels, Flowers for the Living (with Bernard Newman, 1958), The Olympians (1961), The Enchantress (1964), and Gracious Living (1966). The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
thought his later non-musical stage work notable, including adaptations of works by Somerset Maugham and Sacha Guitry
Sacha Guitry
Alexandre-Pierre Georges Guitry was a French stage actor, film actor, director, screenwriter, and playwright of the Boulevard theatre.- Biography :...
, and his biographical play The Shelley Story (1947). Another of Bolton's more serious stage works was Child of Fortune (1956), an adaptation of Henry James
Henry James
Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
's The Wings of the Dove
The Wings of the Dove
The Wings of the Dove is a 1902 novel by Henry James. This novel tells the story of Milly Theale, an American heiress stricken with a serious disease, and her impact on the people around her...
.
Personal life
Bolton was "a dapper ladies' man, who, having divorced his first wife, became ensnared in a succession of entanglements with chorus girls and singers." He was married four times. With his first wife, Julia née Currey, to whom he was married in 1908, he had one son, Richard M. Bolton (1909–1965) and one daughter, Katherine Louisa "Joan" Bolton (1911–1967). With his second wife, the opera singer Marguerite NamaraMarguerite Namara
Marguerite Namara was a classically trained American lyric soprano whose varied career included serious opera, Broadway musicals, film and theater roles, and vocal recitals, and who counted among her lifelong circle of friends and acquaintances many of the leading artistic figures of the first...
, to whom he was married from 1917 to 1926, he had a daughter Marguerite Pamela ("Peggy"; 1916–2003), who was the only one of his children to outlive him. His third wife was a chorus girl, Marion Redford, whom he married in 1926. Redford had already given birth to Bolton's son, Guy Bolton Jr., known as "Guybo" (1925–1961) before his divorce from Namara. Bolton and Redford divorced in 1932. There were no children of his fourth marriage, to the playwright Virginia de Lanty. This marriage lasted from 1939 until her death in 1979.
Although born of American parents, Bolton was a British subject until 1956, when he took American citizenship. His roots were not deep in any country: like his father, he had a life-long taste for travelling, and he settled from time to time in European towns and cities including London, but never Paris, which he loathed. His main residences were on Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
, New York, including Great Neck
Great Neck, New York
The term Great Neck is commonly applied to a peninsula on the North Shore of Long Island, which includes the village of Great Neck, the village of Great Neck Estates, the village of Great Neck Plaza, and others, as well as an area south of the peninsula near Lake Success and the border of Queens...
(at the time of the Princess Theatre shows), and Remsenburg
Remsenburg, New York
Remsenburg is a hamlet located in the Town of Southhampton, Suffolk County, New York.There are no stoplights and very few commercial businesses.-History:...
, where he and his third wife lived in the years after World War II. In 1952, Wodehouse and his wife bought a house two miles away, and for the rest of Wodehouse's life, he and Bolton would go for a daily walk when the latter was not travelling abroad.
Bolton died in London in 1979 at the age of 94.