Betty Comden (May 3, 1917 – November 23, 2006) was an American lyricist, playwright, and screenwriter who contributed to numerous Hollywood musicals and Broadway shows of the mid-20th century.

"[1] The musical-comedy duo of Comden and Green collaborated most notably with composers Jule Styne and Leonard Bernstein, as well enjoyed success with Singin' in the Rain, as part of the famed "Freed unit" at MGM.

[7] Due to the act's success, the Revuers appeared in the 1944 film Greenwich Village,[8][9] but their roles were so small they were barely noticed, and they returned to New York.

Comden and Green's first Broadway show was in 1944, with On the Town, a musical about three sailors on leave in New York City that was an expansion of a ballet entitled Fancy Free on which Bernstein had been working with choreographer Jerome Robbins.

The duo reunited with Gene Kelly for their most successful project, the classic Singin' in the Rain, about Hollywood in the final days of the silent film era.

Comden and Green provided the story and screenplay; the songs were hits from the late 1920s and early 1930s by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown.

[11] The duo contributed additional lyrics to the 1954 musical Peter Pan, translated and streamlined Die Fledermaus for the Metropolitan Opera, and collaborated with Styne on songs for the play-with-music Say, Darling.

The New York Times movie review from that year lays it out as follows: In its superficial racing across several strata of rich society, it does catch some glimpses of behavior that flash a few glints of irony.

Actually, the stage play, as written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee from the novel of Patrick Dennis, was more like a movie script in its pile-up of pictorial business and its multiplicity of scenes.

Now it has been accepted by screenwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green and by the director, Morton DaCosta, who has reveled in the greater physical range.

[6] Betty Comden died of heart failure following an undisclosed illness of several months at New York Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan on Thanksgiving Day, November 23, 2006, aged 89.