The 100 Most Important People in Musical Theatre by Andy Propst

Author:Andy Propst
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781538116197
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

CAROLYN LEIGH

(August 21, 1926–November 19, 1983)

Lyricist

Although she only had three Broadway musicals produced, Leigh, through the concurrent intricacy and directness of her words, shifted a sense of how lyrics could be crafted for the theatre.

In his book Look I Made a Hat, Stephen Sondheim describes this lyricist as the “greatest technician of them all with the possible exception of Cole Porter,” and Carolyn Leigh’s gift with words was evident at an early age. One story goes that in grade school she wrote an essay for a boy on whom she had a crush. When the teacher handed back the papers, she chided the boy—not for having someone else write his work but because she thought that, because it was so good, he must have copied it directly from a book.

Leigh’s higher education included studying at both Queen’s College and New York University. After graduating she took a job as a copywriter for an ad agency, and when a short verse she wrote found its way to the Armo Music Corporation (which was a subsidiary of the Memphis-based King Records), Leigh was offered a one-year contract as a lyric writer. While with the label, she was paired with a variety of composers, most notably Nacio Porter Brown, son of the “Singin’ in the Rain” songwriter, Nacio Herb Brown.

Leigh and the younger Brown collaborated on a number of songs, and two of theirs made inroads with some of the most popular singers of the day, including Jo Stafford. From her period at Armo, Leigh also saw “I’m Waiting Just for You” (with music by Henry Bernard Glover) become one of the top R&B songs of 1951. Leigh’s most important early writing partnership came two years later when she and Johnny Richards wrote “Young at Heart.” Frank Sinatra recorded it, resulting in one of his big hits from the period.

In these songs and others, Leigh’s ability to craft a lyric that was concurrently colloquial and meticulously honed can be heard. Her rhyme schemes don’t always conform to standard patterns, and yet she always satisfies a listener by resolving anticipated rhymes.

“Young at Heart,” which also inspired a Sinatra film of the same name, led to Leigh’s first outing on Broadway. The song caught Mary Martin’s attention as she was preparing for a new production of J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. She suggested that producer Leland Hayward and director Jerome Robbins consider using Leigh as lyricist for the show. The two men agreed and invited Leigh to join the project. She, in turn, brought onboard Mark “Moose” Charlap, another composer with whom she had been working.

While Leigh and Charlap’s full score was ultimately not used and instead was augmented with songs from Jule Styne, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green, the Charlap–Leigh contributions were substantial and include many of its most famous numbers: “I’ve Gotta’ Crow,” “I’m Flying,” and “I Won’t Grow Up.” Critics were generally underwhelmed by both teams’ contributions, but in his October 21, 1954, review for the New York Herald Tribune, Walter Kerr

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