Arthur Laurents, 1917-2011

Mensch.
With his last "Gypsy", 2007.

Author of West Side Story, Gypsy, The Way We Were. He is also the author of the single best show business and Hollywood autobiography I've ever read, and a black list survivor. He did it longer than anybody else and on both coasts with all genders; in 1963, he cast as Miss Marmelstein the unknown Barbra Streisand, who turned a minor part into an incredible 50-year show biz career. They were in talks in January to have Streisand star in a revival of "Gypsy", one of the musical theater's immortal plays. Streisand did not win.

He was there, giving the best account of how Hollywood works, when Ray Stark, Redford and Streisand went to the mat over "The Way We Were". Streisand did not win. Stark and Redford were pigs of the first water. And Laurents, born in Flatbush, slept his way to the bottom and the top during all those years and knows where the skeletons are buried. Streisand did indeed have a thing for Redford. Which is why she didn't win.

He also discovered Sondheim, among many others, and got him his first job as lyricist of "West Side Story." When you're a Jet, you stay a jet.

His partner of decades died in 2006.