Sandy Wilson, born Alexander Galbraith Wilson,
was born on May 19, 1924, in Sale, Manchester, England.
That made him too young to experience the Roaring Twenties in all their glory,
but that's the musical style he gravitated to.
"I was brought up with my cradle being rocked to the Charleston"!
While attending Oxford, he (of course) wrote and produced student shows, later studied at the Old Vic Theater School,
and followed that up with song-writing for revues in the West End.
His first (and best known) hit was The Boy Friend...which ran for over 2,0000 performances in the West End, christened "as English as muffins and monocles". It crossed the great pond in 1954, where it starred Julie Andrews and John Hewer, above.
According to the New York Times, it got everybody Charleston-ing again!
Best known songs from the show:
I Could Be Happy With You, A Room In Bloomsbury, and
Won't You Charleston With Me?
Sandy wrote “Divorce Me, Darling!” in 1964, a sequel to The Boy Friend,
now a spoof of 1930s musicals, and a look-back at the same characters, now old/wiser/sadder(??) in the Depression.
It didn't fair quite so well (one critic called it "relentlessly incomprehensible").
Never got to Broadway, but it did get a production in the West End,
and a lovely cast recording in 1997, after it was produced
at the Chichester Festival.
Sandy also wrote the musical "Valmouth", "As Dorothy Parker Once Said", and "Caprice"...
and contributed material for revues like Hermoine Gingold's "Slings and Arrows" and "Oranges And Lemons."
His autobiography is titled "I Could Be Happy".
He passed away in August of 2014, at the age of 90.
Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty
have written great music for the likes of Ragtime, Once On This Island,
Lucky Stiff, My Favorite Year, Anastasia...and A Man Of No Importance.
This last one is a "new to 2 on the Aisle" show,
which, though it did not make it to Broadway,
had a successful debut at Lincoln Center back in 2002.
It starred Roger Rees as bus conductor Alfie Byrne,
and has some delightful, Irish-flavored melodies, IMHO.
The supporting cast: Faith Prince, Steve Pasquale, Jessica Molasky,
Ronn Carroll, and Charles Keating.
In researching this musical, I found out that Roger passed away in 2015...I knew him from films like Frida (below), Robin Hood: Men In Tights,, and television (Cheers, West Wing),
but of course he was a stage actor, first and foremost.
Case in point: An Olivier AND a Tony for his work in
The Life And Advertures Of Nicholas Nickleby.
With Selma Hayak in Frida...
...and with Ian McKellen in Waiting For Godot.
1944-2015
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