Betty Comden and Adolph Green have always been officially billed as a team, and there is not a single credit in their professional lives which they do not share. Native New Yorkers born within six months of one another, they have celebrated their hometown in musicals from On the Town (1944) to Subways Are for Sleeping (1961). Indeed, their real milieu is less Hollywood than Broadway, where, collaborating with several composers, they have provided books and/or lyrics for such full-scale Broadway musicals as: On the Town (1944), Billion Dollar Baby (1945), Wonderful Town (1953), Peter Pan (1954), Bells Are Ringing (1956), Say, Darling (1958), Do Re Mi (1960), Subways Are for Sleeping (1961), Hallelujah, Baby (1967), Applause (1970), and On the Twentieth Century (1978). They have also been responsible for three Broadway revues: Two on the Aisle (1951), A Party with Betty Comden and Adolph Green (1958), and Fade Out--Fade In (1964).

During their Hollywood career they worked on a number of well-known...