- Born
- Best known for his songs for "Bye Bye Birdie", but also a prolific composer for Broadway's "All American", "Golden Boy", and "It's a Bird ... It's a Plane ... It's Superman", and off-Broadway revues "The Littlest Revue" and "Shoestring '57". He was educated at Ohio State University (BA), and Columbia Grad. School of Journalism (M.Sc.J). He wrote summer-camp shows at Green Mansions. His song credits include "The Arts", "Put On a Happy Face", "The Telephone Hour", "One Boy", "A Lot of Livin' To Do", "Kids", "How Lovely to Be a Woman", "Once Upon a Time", "What A Country", "Night Life", "Night Song", "I Want to Be With You", "Lorna's Here", "While The City Sleeps", "Yes I Can", and "You've Got Possibilities".- IMDb Mini Biography By: Hup234!
- Lee Adams, the Tony Award-winning lyricist who made his name in the musical theater in the 1950s and '60s, was born in Mansfield, Ohio on August 14, 1924. He studied journalism as an undergraduate at Ohio State University and then at the graduate level at Columbia University's Pulitzer School of Journalism, then worked on newspapers and periodicals in the 1940s.
In 1949, Adams partnered with composer Charles Strouse and during the 1950s, they worked on revues for summer resorts. Separately, he made his Broadway debut in 1955, contributing material to the revue "Catch a Star!", which also featured sketches by Danny Simon and Neil Simon. The show flopped, lasting only 23 performances. The following year, the team of Adams and Strouse worked on "The Littlest Revue", providing additional music and lyrics. Despite featuring music and lyrics by Ogden Nash and the talents of Joel Grey, Tammy Grimes and Larry Storch, it too was a flop, putting out its lights on Broadway after 32 performances.
In 1960, they had a huge hit with Bye Bye Birdie (1963), the musical satire on the cult of rock 'n' roll celebrity in the TV age. With lyrics by Adams and music by Charles Strouse, the show not only ran for 607 performances and made a star out of Dick Van Dyke, it became a classic of American musical theater. The show won the 1961 Tony Award for Best Musical, while did Van Dyke won a Tony for his performance. Co-star Chita Rivera won the first of her nine Tony Award nominations playing Van Dyke's girlfriend Rose, which launched her on her path towards becoming a Broadway musical institution.
Their next show, 1962's "All American", bombed, lasting only 80 performances, though headliner Ray Bolger and director Joshua Logan, two Broadway legends, were nominated for Tony Awards. The year 1964 was good to them: not only was a song they wrote with Jerry Herman, "Before the Parade Passes By", featured in the hit Hello, Dolly! (1969), they had their own hit with their musical adaptation of Clifford Odets's Golden Boy (1939), starring Sammy Davis Jr.. The show ran for 568 performances and was nominated for four Tonies, including Best Musical.
Their next show, "It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman" (1966) was a disappointment, with the curtain being raised and lowered only 129 times, but 1970's "Applause" (1970) featuring Lauren Bacall was their biggest hit yet on Broadway, running for 869 performances. Adams and Strouse won their second Tony Awards for Best Musical, and the show won a total of four Tonies on 11 nominations.
What Adams and Strouse did not know was that they had reached the high point of their career the night of the 1970 Tony Award ceremony. They would never again drink from the cup of success, even when they went back to the well with a sequel to "Bye Bye Birdie".
"I and Albert", their musical about Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, was staged in London's West End in a production helmed by Oscar-winning director John Schlesinger in 1972. It was a disappointment, lasting only 120 performances and failing to transfer to Broadway. Eight years later, their "A Broadway Musical; A Musical about a Broadway Musical" had the ignominious distinction of being one those accursed shows that opened and closed the same night, December 21, 1978.
Playing it safe, the partnership tried to recycle their greatest show. Incredibly, "Bring Back Birdie", with Donald O'Connor taking over the Dick Van Dyke part, did barely better than "A Broadway Musical", lasting but four performances in 1981. This dog did fetch Chita Rivera her second Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Musical playing Rose.
Adams and Strouse split. With his new partner, Man of La Mancha (1972) composer Mitch Leigh, he created a musical based on the life of the larger-than-life Broadway and motion picture producer Mike Todd. "Mike" didn't even make it to the Great White Way, closing during its out-of-town tryouts in 1988. When it was re-staged to mimic one of Todd's own Broadway revues, "Ain't Broadway Grand; A Brand-New 1948 Musical Comedy" closed after 25 performances. Lee Adams' Broadway career was over.
He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1989.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Jon C. Hopwood
- Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1989.
- Won Broadway's Tony Award twice: in 1961, his lyrics as part of a Best Musical win for "Bye, Bye Birdie;" and in 1970, his lyrics as part of a Best Musical win for "Applause." He was also nominated in 1965 for his lyrics as part of a Best Musical nomination for "Golden Boy."
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