Obit

'West Side Story' Writer Dies at 93

Arthur Laurents wrote for Broadway, big screen.

Arthur Laurents, the screenwriter and Broadway playwright and director who wrote the iconic musicals West Side Story and Gypsy, as well as the movie The Way We Were, died Thursday in New York from pneumonia. He was 93. Laurents wrote for the stage for 65 years, once describing writers as the “chosen people.” He wrote the book for 1957’s West Side Story, teaming up with director and choreographer Jerome Robbins and composer Leonard Bernstein—a successful team that would later include Stephen Sondheim and go on to create many more plays. Laurents also wrote the films The Way We Were, Anastasia, The Turning Point and Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope. A native of New York, Laurents was openly gay and was investigated during the Hollywood Red Scare of the 1940s due to suspected ties to the Communist Party.