You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed

for you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read.

Hi, this is Michael Sulfuratt, and welcome to Bookworm.

Today, I'm extremely honored and delighted to have as my guest, Betty Comden, the author most recently of a memoir called Offstage.

It's published by Simon & Schuster.

You know, I've never done a show of this sort before.

My listeners know that the only people they've heard on Bookworm are authors of literary fiction and modern poetry. But Betty Comden,

to my mind, along with her partner, in Alf Green, wrote some of the wittiest and funniest and most American lyrics that were

ever heard on the musical stage. The great thing about Betty Comden and Adolf Green to my mind

was that they wrote about working Americans from the middle classes who suddenly and operatically would give

birth to their deepest, most sudden emotions. These sounds began in On the Town with sailors on

leave, one of whom is pursuing a girl whose face he sees in a subway ad.

Judy Holliday in Bells are ringing played the role of a switchboard operator at an answering service, Suzanne Sophone.

Rosalind Russell was a Midwestern journalist hitting the big city in wonderful town.

And poor Phil Silvers, Hubert Cram and Doree Me,

well, he should have gone into his wife's father's dry cleaning business, but he had better

things in mind. In these wonderful musicals and these characters, are you writing autobiographies of your sudden appearance

into the world of theater?

Our autobiography?

I don't think we ever thought of it that way.

...