Three-time Tony-winning librettist Peter Stone was born Feb. 27, 1930, in Beverly Hills. His parents were both screenwriters, and he loved movies, but he was even more enamored of theater. After graduating from University H.S., he attended Bard College, where he had two plays produced. He continued his studies at the Yale School of Drama, earning a master’s in 1953. He spent most of the remaining decade as a broadcast journalist in France, where his mother had moved with her second husband.
He sold his first script in 1956 to Studio One and had continued success in TV, winning an Emmy in 1962 for The Defenders and working with Richard Rodgers on the 1967 musical Androcles and the Lion. His first film script was for Charade (1963), which landed him a contract with Universal, resulting in Father Goose (1964) — which earned Stone an Oscar — then Mirage (1965), Arabesque (1966), The Secret War of Harry Frigg (1968), Jigsaw (1969), and the film adaptation of Sweet Charity (1969). Below is Shirley MacLaine singing “If My Friends Could See Me Now” from Sweet Charity.
During the 1960s, Stone also began writing Broadway musicals. Alfred Drake’s agent (who was also Stone’s) asked Stone to write the libretto to Kean (1961) for Drake. The show only ran two months, but Stone’s next musical, Skyscraper (1965), ran for a respectable seven months and earned him a Tony nomination. Two years later, he had his first stage hit with 1776 (1969), which earned Stone his first Tony award and made him the first writer to win an Emmy, Oscar, and Tony. Below is the trailer for the film adaptation of 1776.
In the 1970s, Stone continued to work on both coasts. His Broadway work includes uncredited book doctoring on Georgy (1970), the librettos for Two by Two (1970) and Sugar (1972), and uncredited doctoring on Goodtime Charley (1975). His screenplays during this time include Skin Game (1971), the adaptation of 1776 (1972), The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974), Silver Bears (1978), and Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe (1978), as well as the “Boy Meets Girl” segment in the Emmy-winning TV special Free to Be … You & Me (1974), which you can watch below.
In 1981, Stone was elected president of the Dramatists Guild, serving until 1999. He also returned to Broadway that year with Woman of the Year, for which he won his second Tony. Stone then wrote a new book for My One and Only (1983) during its out-of-town tryout, for which he earned a Tony nomination, and did uncredited script doctoring on Grand Hotel (1989). Below is Tony winner Lauren Bacall performing “One of the Boys” at the 1981 Tonys.
Stone earned his fifth Tony nomination for The Will Rogers Follies (1991) and picked up his third Tony Award for Titanic (1997). His last Broadway hit was the 1999 revival of Annie Get Your Gun, for which he revised the original 1946 book. Stone died of pulmonary fibrosis on Apr. 26, 2003, in Manhattan. Below are Bernadette Peters and Tom Wopat with the Annie Get Your Gun revival cast at the 1999 Tonys, performing “I Got the Sun in the Morning / Old-Fashioned Wedding.”
On Feb. 27, 2004, he was posthumously inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. The two shows that Stone was working on at the time of his death were both eventually produced. Curtains opened on Broadway in 2007, with the book adapted by Rupert Holmes, and Death Takes a Holiday Off-Broadway in 2011, the book being completed by his cowriter Thomas Meehan. Below is an interview with Stone on Theater Talk, recorded Oct. 8, 1997, that includes clips from both Titanic and the Annie Get Your Gun revival, which were both running at the time.