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Arthur Laurents (July 14, 1917 – May 5, 2011) was an American playwright, stage director and screenwriter.〔("Obituaries: Arthur Laurents" ). ''The Daily Telegraph''. May 6, 2011.〕 After writing scripts for radio shows after college and then training films for the U.S. Army during World War II, Laurents turned to writing for Broadway, producing a body of work that includes ''West Side Story'' (1957), ''Gypsy'' (1959), ''Hallelujah, Baby!'' (1967), and ''La Cage Aux Folles'' (1983), and directing some of his own shows and other Broadway productions. His early film scripts include ''Rope'' (1948) for Alfred Hitchcock, followed by ''Anastasia'' (1956), ''Bonjour Tristesse'' (1958), ''The Way We Were'' (1973), and ''The Turning Point'' (1977). ==Early life== Born Arthur Levine, Laurents was the son of middle-class Jewish parents, a lawyer and a schoolteacher who gave up her career when she married.〔("When You’re a Shark You’re a Shark All the Way" ). ''New York''.〕 He was born and raised in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, a borough of New York City, New York, the elder of two children, and attended Erasmus Hall High School.〔Hutchinson, Bill (May 6, 2011). ("Playwright Behind 'West Side Story' and 'Gypsy,' Arthur Laurents, Dies at Age 93" ). ''Daily News''.〕〔Arnold, Laurence (May 5, 2011). ("Arthur Laurents, Writer of 'West Side Story,' 'Gypsy' Scripts, Dies at 93" ). Bloomberg News.〕 His sister Edith suffered from chorea as a child.〔Laurents, Arthur. ("Beginnings" ) ''Original Story By Arthur Laurents: A Memoir of Broadway and Hollywood'', Hal Leonard Corporation, 2001, ISBN 1-55783-467-9, pp. 10–11, 34–35.〕 His paternal grandparents were Orthodox Jews, and his mother's parents, although born Jewish, were atheists. His mother kept a kosher home for her husband's sake, but was lax about attending synagogue and observing the Jewish holidays. His Bar Mitzvah marked the end of Laurents's religious education and the beginning of his rejection of all fundamentalist religions,〔Laurents, Arthur. ''Original Story By''. New York: Alfred A. Knopf (2000). ISBN 0-375-40055-9, pp. 6–7.〕 although he continued to identify himself as Jewish.〔Laurents, p. 133.〕 However, late in life he admitted to having changed his last name from Levine to the less Jewish-sounding Laurents, "to get a job."〔 After graduating from Cornell University, Laurents took an evening class in radio writing at New York University. William N. Robson, his instructor, a CBS Radio director/producer, submitted his script ''Now Playing Tomorrow'', a comedic fantasy about clairvoyance, to the network, and it was produced in the Columbia Workshop series on January 30, 1939, with Shirley Booth in the lead role. It was Laurents' first professional credit. The show's success led to him being hired to write scripts for various radio shows, among them ''Lux Radio Theater''.〔Laurents, pp. 12–13.〕 Laurents' career was interrupted when he was drafted into the U.S. Army in the middle of World War II. Through a series of clerical errors, he never saw battle, but instead was assigned to the U.S. Army Pictorial Service located in a film studio in Astoria, Queens, where he wrote training films and met, among others, George Cukor and William Holden. He later was reassigned to write plays for ''Armed Service Force Presents'', a radio show that dramatized the contributions of all branches of the armed forces.〔Laurents, pp. 22–28.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Arthur Laurents」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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