Comden and Green

Comden and Green, songwriting team. Betty Comden (b. 1915) and Adolph Green (1915–2002) were both born in New York and began their professional careers performing in night clubs with Judy Holliday. As co‐librettists and/or co‐lyricists their partnership was ultimately to become the longest‐lived in Broadway history, beginning with On the Town (1944). Their subject was almost always their native New York, whose idioms and attitudes they mirrored accurately and affectionately. Other musicals that bore their stamp were Billion Dollar Baby (1945), Two on the Aisle (1951), Wonderful Town (1953), Peter Pan (1954), Bells Are Ringing (1956), Say, Darling (1958), Do Re Mi (1960), Subways Are for Sleeping (1961), Fade Out—Fade In (1964), Hallelujah, Baby! (1967), Applause (1970), On the Twentieth Century (1978), A Doll's Life (1982), Singin' in the Rain (1985), and The Will Rogers Follies (1991). Both have also been excellent performers, appearing together in On the Town and in a special revue, A Party with Betty Comden and Adolph Green (1958). Among the composers with whom they collaborated were Leonard Bernstein, Jule Styne, and Cy Coleman. Autobiography (Comden): Off Stage, 1995.