The Body Beautiful is a musical

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...

 with a book by Joseph Stein

Joseph Stein

Joseph Stein was an American playwright best known for writing the books for such musicals as Fiddler on the Roof and Zorba.-Biography:...

 and Will Glickman

Will Glickman

Will Glickman Born: March 07, 1910/March 1983 was an American playwright who frequently collaborated with Joseph Stein.Glickman made his Broadway debut in 1948 with sketches he and Stein wrote for the revue Lend an Ear. The two went on to collaborate on Mrs. Gibbons' Boys, Alive and Kicking, Mr...

, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick

Sheldon Harnick

Sheldon Harnick is an American lyricist best known for his collaborations with composer Jerry Bock on hit musicals such as Fiddler on the Roof....

, and music by Jerry Bock

Jerry Bock

Jerrold Lewis "Jerry" Bock was an American musical theater composer. He received the Tony Award for Best Musical and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama with Sheldon Harnick for their 1959 musical Fiorello! and the Tony Award for Best Composer and Lyricist for the 1964 musical Fiddler on the Roof with...

.

The first collaboration by Harnick and Bock, and the only one to have a contemporary setting, its plot focuses on a wealthy Dartmouth College

Dartmouth College

Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...

 graduate who aspires to be a prize-winning boxer and the girl he loves who disapproves of his ambitions. His fight manager must cope with uninspired fighters, two ex-wives and a new girlfriend.

After a tryout at the Erlanger Theatre in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...

, the 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...

 production, directed by George Schaefer

George Schaefer (director)

George Louis Schaefer was a director of television and Broadway theatre from the 1950s to the 1990s.-Life and career:...

 and choreographed by Herbert Ross

Herbert Ross

Herbert Ross was an American film director, producer, choreographer and actor.-Early life and career:Born Herbert David Ross in Brooklyn, New York, he made his stage debut as Third Witch with a touring company of Macbeth in 1942...

, opened on January 23, 1958 at The Broadway Theatre

The Broadway Theatre

The Broadway Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 1681 Broadway in midtown-Manhattan....

, where it ran for 60 performances. The cast included Mindy Carson, Steve Forrest, Jack Warden

Jack Warden

Jack Warden was an American character actor.-Early life:Warden was born John Warden Lebzelter in Newark, New Jersey, the son of Laura M. and John Warden Lebzelter, who was an engineer and technician. He was of Irish and Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry...

, Barbara McNair

Barbara McNair

Barbara McNair was an African American singer and actress.Born Barbara Jean McNair in Chicago, Illinois and raised in Racine, Wisconsin, McNair studied music at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago...

, William Hickey

William Hickey (actor)

William Edward Hickey was an American actor. He was best known for his Oscar-nominated role as Don Corrado Prizzi in the John Huston 1985 film Prizzi's Honor, as well as the voice of Dr...

, and Brock Peters

Brock Peters

Brock Peters was an American actor, best known for playing the role of Tom Robinson in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird...

.

Journalist Dorothy Kilgallen

Dorothy Kilgallen

Dorothy Mae Kilgallen was an American journalist and television game show panelist. She started her career early as a reporter for the Hearst Corporation's New York Evening Journal after spending only two semesters at The College of New Rochelle in New Rochelle, New York...

 and her husband Dick Kollmar, co-produced the short-run musical, along with Albert W. Selden. Kilgallen, known primarily at the time for her appearances as a panelist on TV's What's My Line, and her fellow panelists made mention of The Body Beautiful on various episodes of the game show during this time period. In fact, on one episode of the Sunday-night staple on CBS

CBS

CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

, one of the cast members of the ill-fated musical (a well-built young man, billed as a "chorus boy" in the episode) appeared as a contestant and stumped Ms. Kilgallen and the rest of the panel, much to the delight of host, John Charles Daly

John Charles Daly

John Charles Patrick Croghan Daly John Charles Patrick Croghan Daly John Charles Patrick Croghan Daly (generally known as John Charles Daly or simply John Daly (February 20, 1914 – February 24, 1991) was an American journalist, game show host and radio personality, probably best known for hosting...

.

Despite the show's failure, its score captured the attention of director George Abbott

George Abbott

George Francis Abbott was an American theater producer and director, playwright, screenwriter, and film director and producer whose career spanned more than nine decades.-Early years:...

 and producer Hal Prince

Hal Prince

Harold Smith Prince is an American theatrical producer and director associated with many of the best-known Broadway musical productions of the past half-century...

, who hired the songwriting team for their next project, the politically-themed Fiorello!

Fiorello!

Fiorello! is a musical about New York City mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia, a reform Republican who took on Tammany Hall. The book is by Jerome Weidman and George Abbott, drawn substantially from the 1955 volume Life With Fiorello by Ernest Cuneo, with lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and music by Jerry Bock...

, which proved to be a hit.

Song list

Act I

• Where Are They?
• The Body Beautiful
• Pffft!
• Fair Warning
• Leave Well Enough Alone
• Blonde Blues
• Blonde Blues Dance
• Uh-Huh, Oh Yeah!
• All of These and More
• Nobility
• The Body Beautiful (Reprise)

Act II

• Summer Is
• The Honeymoon is Over
• Just My Luck
• All of These and More (Reprise)
• Art of Conversation
• Gloria
• A Relatively Simple Affair
• Finale