Lyricist and librettist Lee Goldsmith died Oct. 5 in Cutler Bay, Fla. Born Jan. 4, 1923, in New York City, Goldsmith fell in love with musical theater after seeing Ethel Merman in Anything Goes when he was a schoolboy. After his service during WWII, he began working for DC Comics, earning $200 per week writing stories for such iconic characters as Green Lantern, Flash, and Wonder Woman. He also contributed to the series Girls’ Love Stories (DC’s first romance title), War Stories, and The Westerns.
In the 1950s, he began writing revue material, working with Fred Ebb and Paul Klein on early efforts like “Chummley the Camel” (1951). The trio made their Broadway debut with the song “Four for the Road” in the short-lived, Hermione Gingold-led revue From A to Z (1960), which satirized Broadway and Hollywood. Later that year, the men had “London Town” in the even shorter-lived revue Vintage ’60, which satirized Washington, D.C. Below, you can listen to Liza Minnelli’s rendition of the latter song from the live recording of her 1979 Carnegie Hall concert.
In 1973, Goldsmith and composer Clint Ballard’s musical Sheba, adapted from William Inge’s play, premiered in Chicago with Kaye Ballard, but shuttered before making its Broadway debut. The following year, Goldsmith and composer Lawrence Hurwit’s original Sextet, about the romantic couplings of six contemporary straight and gay New Yorkers, did make it to Broadway. The team followed that with the 1978 Off-Broadway Circle Repertory Company production of Gold Diggers of 1633, an adaptation of Molière’s School for Wives in the style of Busby Berkeley.
In 1982, Goldsmith and composer Roger Anderson’s musical Shine!, based on works of Horatio Alger, was announced for Broadway but later cancelled when producer 20th Century Fox disbanded its theater division. The show premiered the following year at Richmond’s Virginia Museum Theatre. Below is the 2001 National Music Theater Network cast singing the title song.
Goldsmith worked with Anderson on several other musicals, including Eldorado (1985), an experimental piece about the famed New York nightspot, and the bio-musical Chaplin, which was slated for Broadway in 1982 with John Rubinstein but later cancelled, making its premiere in 1993 at Miami’s Shores Center and winning the Carbonell Award as Best New Work. In 1993, the team also presented Quality Street, based on J.M. Barrie’s play, at Stamford Center for the Arts. Below is the 1993 cast of Chaplin singing the opening number, “Kennington Road.”
Goldsmith and Anderson’s recent works include Ladykiller (2007), based on the noir classic The Bride Wore Black by Cornell Woolrich, and the bio-musical Abe (2009), part of the Lincoln bicentennial celebration at Muddy River Opera in Quincy, Ill. Below is Anderson singing “Fifteen Houses” from the latter show’s demo recording.