Guy Bolton
Bolton is best known for his early work on the Princess Theatre musicals during the First World War with Wodehouse and the composer Jerome Kern.
"[2] Among his 50 plays and musicals, most of which were considered "frothy confections", additional hits included Primrose (1924), the Gershwins' Lady, Be Good (1924) and especially Cole Porter's Anything Goes (1934).
[5] Bolton studied to be an architect, attending the Pratt Institute School of Architecture and Atelier Masqueray, New York.
[3] Bolton made early progress in his profession, engaged by the government for special work on the rebuilding of the United States Military Academy at West Point,[3] and helping to design the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument and the Ansonia Hotel on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York City,[7] but was drawn to writing.
[8] Bolton quickly became known for his part in moving the American musical away from the European operetta tradition: "No more crown princes masquerading as butlers, no more milkmaids who turn out at the final curtain to be heir to several thrones.
[14] They also collaborated on Miss 1917 (1917) at the Century Theatre, on Bolton's second Kálmán show, The Riviera Girl (1917), and on Kissing Time (1918), the latter two for the New Amsterdam.
Their Polly With a Past (1917) was a success in both New York and London, where its cast included Edna Best, Noël Coward, Edith Evans, Claude Rains and C. Aubrey Smith.
[20] With Thompson, he wrote the book for early musicals by George and Ira Gershwin, Lady, Be Good (1925) and Tip-Toes (1926).
Among his other collaborators in Britain were George Grossmith Jr., with whom he worked on Primrose (1924), Ian Hay with whom he co-wrote A Song of Sixpence (1930) with Weston and Lee, who joined him for Give Me a Ring (1933).
[21] An occasional collaborator in later years was "Stephen Powys", a pseudonym of Bolton's fourth wife, Virginia de Lanty (1906–1979).
[1] Girl Crazy (1930) was a musical, with songs by the Gershwins, starring Ginger Rogers and featuring the debut of Ethel Merman.
[22] During the 1920s and 30s "Bolton worked at a tremendous rate on shows … beautifully constructed, and full of fun and excruciating puns.
"[2] When the Gershwins began to take a more serious tone, with Of Thee I Sing, Bolton persisted with his "frothy confections" for other composers.
He moved to London, where he wrote (or co-wrote, generally with Thompson and sometimes also with Douglas Furber) the book for "a series of highly successful romps" starring London's leading music comedy performers such as Jack Buchanan, Leslie Henson, Bobby Howes, Evelyn Laye and Elsie Randolph, in shows including Song of the Drum (1931), Seeing Stars (1935), At the Silver Swan (1936), This'll Make You Whistle (1935; film version 1936), Swing Along (1936), Going Places (1936), Going Greek (1937), Hide and Seek (1937), The Fleet's Lit Up (1938), Running Riot (1938), Bobby Get Your Gun (1938) and Magyar Melody (1939).
[2][6] Although Bolton worked mostly in the West End in the 1930s, his biggest hit of the decade began on Broadway, a collaboration with his old friend Wodehouse, who had by then largely abandoned the theatre for novel-writing.
[2] Bolton returned to the US during the Second World War to write the librettos for Walk With Music, Hold On to Your Hats, Jackpot (with several contributors) and Follow the Girls (with Eddie Davis).
[6] Bolton's screen credits include The Love Parade (1929), Ambassador Bill (1931), Waltzes from Vienna (1934), The Murder Man (1935), Angel (1937), Week-End at the Waldorf (1945), Ziegfeld Follies (1945), Till the Clouds Roll By (1946), Easter Parade (1948) and the German adaptation of his play Adorable Julia (1962).
[24] With Wodehouse, Bolton wrote the semi-autobiographical book Bring on the Girls!, subtitled, "The Improbable Story of Our Life in Musical Comedy" (1954).
"[25] Other collaborations between the two writers were not acknowledged on title pages or in programmes, but were plays by one turned into novels by the other, or vice versa.
[6] Bolton was "a dapper ladies' man, who, having divorced his first wife, became ensnared in a succession of entanglements with chorus girls and singers.
[31] His main residences were on Long Island, New York, including Great Neck (at the time of the Princess Theatre shows),[32] and Remsenburg, where he and his wife lived in the years after the Second World War.
