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`Wunderbarr

Meet the Jewish couple behind
Cole Porter's "Kiss Me, Kate."

Introducing...

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Special to the Jewish News

S am and Bella Spewack were as

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ing Shakespeare's work in the musical
would not make it too "highbrow" to
succeed on Broadway.
Amazingly, Bella also had to convince
the producers to take a chance on
Porter, who was considered by many to
be "washed up" in the 1940s after sever-
al musical flops.
Bella was born in Russia, Sam in
Hungary, and they met in New York
while working as reporters on rival
newspapers. She had 40 published short
stories by the time she was 23.
After marrying in 1922, they began a
collaboration of almost 50 years, writing
such plays as Boy Meets Gil-4 movies like

different from Cole Porter as
"night and day."
The Spewacks were poor,
Jewish immigrants from Eastern
Europe. They came to America and
became a husband-and-wife writing
team that hacked out a living penning
screenplays and books for Broadway
musicals.
Porter was a rich Episcopalian, born
on an Indiana farm the grandson of a
millionaire financier. Educated at Yale,
he wrote about 1,000
songs and was one of
the greatest
composer/lyricists of
all time.
Yet the Spewacks
and Porter, who early
in his career decided
he had to write
"Jewish tunes" to suc-
ceed, combined in
1948 to produce what
was arguably Porter's
best ever Broadway
musical: Kiss Me, Kate.
The Tony Award
winner for Best
Musical Revival in
2000 runs Sept. 2-21
Dexter James Brigham as Fred
at the Fisher Theatre,
Graham/Petruchio and Emily
launching Detroit's
Herring
as Lilli Vanessi/Katharine
2003-2004 theater sea-
in "Kiss Me Kate," at the
son.

My Favorite Wife
and Mr. Broadway,
and some early tele-
vision shows.
Sam died at 72 in
1971, six months
short of their 50th
wedding anniver-
sary, and Bella died
at 91 in 1990.
The Spewacks,
who were not very
religious, became
famous enough to
have a play written
about them, A
Letter to Sam From
Bella, a one-act
piece by prominent
New York theater
figure Aaron
Frankel.
It's based on a let-
ter Bella wrote to
Fisher Theatre.
Kiss Me, Kate
Sam after his death,
unfolds around a
gleaned from about 75,000 items
Baltimore tryout of a production of
among the Spewack papers at Columbia
Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew.
University's Rare Book and Manuscript
Fred Graham is producer and co-star of
Library. Its one-time performance —
the play; Lilli Vanessi, his ex-wife, is a
before a packed house of the Spewacks'
movie star who gets top billing. The
contemporaries — featured Frankel's
pair's fights offstage, stoked by his ego
wife, Abetha Aayer, and Eugene Smith.
and her temper, mirror the
"They were married almost 50 years
Shakespearean antics on stage.
Producer Arnold Saint-Subeforiginal- and yet, because of marital problems,
spent much of that time living apart,"
ly had the idea for the musical; he
says Frankel, 82, from his New York res-
reportedly said he was inspired by the
idence.
offstage repartee between famed acting
"[Sam] wrote a letter to her asking
couple Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne.
that they separate. They later reconciled.
"Saint" asked Bella (Cohen) Spewack
Both of them had a strong commitment
to write the book, with her husband,
to hard work, which translated into an
Sam. The Spewacks, who first worked
unusual record of professional success.
with Porter on the 1938 musical Leave
"Bella actually did most of the work
It to Me, convinced Porter that includ-