Fred Saidy
Encyclopedia
Fred Saidy was an American
playwright
and screenwriter
.
Born in Los Angeles, California
, Saidy began his writing career in 1943 with the screenplay
for the Red Skelton
comedy
I Dood It
. The following year, he scripted both the Lucille Ball
-Dick Powell
feature film Meet the People and the book for the Harold Arlen
-E. Y. Harburg musical
Bloomer Girl
. It was the first of several collaborations with Harburg, which included Finian's Rainbow
(1947), Flahooley
(1951), Jamaica
(1957), and The Happiest Girl in the World
(1961). He was nominated for the Tony Award
for Best Musical for Jamaica.
Finian's Rainbow
has had three major revivals (1955, 1960 and 1967), and was also made into a film starring Fred Astaire
and Petula Clark
, directed by Francis Ford Coppola
, in 1968. Saidy's last project was the screenplay for the film, for which he was nominated for the Writers Guild of America
Award for Best Written American Musical. In 2004 the Irish Repertory Theatre
staged a well-received Off-Broadway
production. New York's City Center Encores! series performed a critically acclaimed concert version of the piece in March 2009. Directed and choreographed by Warren Carlyle, it starred Tony Award
-winner Jim Norton
and Kate Baldwin
as Finian and Sharon, with Cheyenne Jackson
as Woody and Jeremy Bobb as Og, the leprechaun. A Broadway revival will begin on October 8, 2009, with opening scheduled for October 29 at the St. James Theatre
with most of the Encores! cast. Newly added to the Broadway cast are Christopher Fitzgerald as Og and Chuck Cooper as Billboard; Jim Norton
, Kate Baldwin
and Cheyenne Jackson
all reprise their roles
Saidy collaborated with Neil Simon
and Will Glickman
, among others, on Satins and Spurs, an original television
musical for Betty Hutton
, which was broadcast by NBC
in September 1954.
Saidy is the father of the international chess master Anthony Saidy
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
and screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
.
Born in Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
, Saidy began his writing career in 1943 with the screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
for the Red Skelton
Red Skelton
Richard Bernard "Red" Skelton was an American comedian who is best known as a top radio and television star from 1937 to 1971. Skelton's show business career began in his teens as a circus clown and went on to vaudeville, Broadway, films, radio, TV, night clubs and casinos, all while pursuing...
comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
I Dood It
I Dood It
I Dood It is a 1943 MGM musical-comedy film starring Red Skelton and Eleanor Powell, and directed by Vincente Minnelli. The screenplay is by Fred Saidy and Sig Herzig and the film features Richard Ainley, Patricia Dane, Lena Horne and Hazel Scott...
. The following year, he scripted both the Lucille Ball
Lucille Ball
Lucille Désirée Ball was an American comedian, film, television, stage and radio actress, model, film and television executive, and star of the sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy and Life With Lucy...
-Dick Powell
Dick Powell
Richard Ewing "Dick" Powell was an American singer, actor, producer, director and studio boss.Despite the same last name he was not related to William Powell, Eleanor Powell or Jane Powell.-Biography:...
feature film Meet the People and the book for the Harold Arlen
Harold Arlen
Harold Arlen was an American composer of popular music, having written over 500 songs, a number of which have become known the world over. In addition to composing the songs for The Wizard of Oz, including the classic 1938 song, "Over the Rainbow,” Arlen is a highly regarded contributor to the...
-E. Y. Harburg musical
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
Bloomer Girl
Bloomer Girl
Bloomer Girl was a Broadway musical that premiered on October 4, 1944. Sig Herzig and Fred Saidy wrote the book, Harold Arlen the music, and E.Y. Harburg the lyrics. Agnes de Mille was the choreographer...
. It was the first of several collaborations with Harburg, which included Finian's Rainbow
Finian's Rainbow
Finian's Rainbow is a musical with a book by E.Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy, lyrics by Harburg, and music by Burton Lane. The 1947 Broadway production ran for 725 performances. Several revivals and a 1968 film version followed. A Broadway revival ran from October 8, 2009 until January 17, 2010...
(1947), Flahooley
Flahooley
Flahooley is a musical with a book by E. Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy, lyrics by Harburg, and music by Sammy Fain.The allegorical tale is set in fictional Capsulanti, USA, site of the headquarters for B.G. Bigelow, Incorporated, the largest toy corporation in the world...
(1951), Jamaica
Jamaica (musical)
Jamaica is a musical with a book by Yip Harburg and Fred Saidy, lyrics by Harburg, and music by Harold Arlen. Harburg was blacklisted in Hollywood at the time of the writing of the musical...
(1957), and The Happiest Girl in the World
The Happiest Girl in the World
The Happiest Girl in the World is a musical with a book by Fred Saidy and Henry Mayers, lyrics by E.Y. Harburg, and music taken from the works of Jacques Offenbach....
(1961). He was nominated for the Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
for Best Musical for Jamaica.
Finian's Rainbow
Finian's Rainbow
Finian's Rainbow is a musical with a book by E.Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy, lyrics by Harburg, and music by Burton Lane. The 1947 Broadway production ran for 725 performances. Several revivals and a 1968 film version followed. A Broadway revival ran from October 8, 2009 until January 17, 2010...
has had three major revivals (1955, 1960 and 1967), and was also made into a film starring Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
and Petula Clark
Petula Clark
Petula Clark, CBE is an English singer, actress, and composer whose career has spanned seven decades.Clark's professional career began as an entertainer on BBC Radio during World War II...
, directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...
, in 1968. Saidy's last project was the screenplay for the film, for which he was nominated for the Writers Guild of America
Writers Guild of America
The Writers Guild of America is a generic term referring to the joint efforts of two different US labor unions:* The Writers Guild of America, East , representing TV and film writers East of the Mississippi....
Award for Best Written American Musical. In 2004 the Irish Repertory Theatre
Irish Repertory Theatre
The Irish Repertory Theatre is an Off Broadway theatre, founded by Ciarán O’Reilly and Charlotte Moore, which opened its doors in September 1988, with Sean O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars.The mission of the theatre was and remains:...
staged a well-received Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...
production. New York's City Center Encores! series performed a critically acclaimed concert version of the piece in March 2009. Directed and choreographed by Warren Carlyle, it starred Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
-winner Jim Norton
Jim Norton (actor)
Jim Norton is an Irish character actor.-Performances:Jim Norton has been acting for over forty years in theatre, television, and movies, and frequently plays clergymen, most notably Bishop Brennan in the sitcom Father Ted, as well as in The Sweeney , Peak Practice , Sunset Heights , A Love Divided...
and Kate Baldwin
Kate Baldwin
-Biography:Born in Evanston, Illinois, Baldwin graduated from the theatre program at Northwestern University in 1997.-Career:Kate Baldwin made her Broadway debut in The Full Monty in 2000, followed by appearances in Thoroughly Modern Millie and Wonderful Town...
as Finian and Sharon, with Cheyenne Jackson
Cheyenne Jackson
Cheyenne Jackson is an American actor and singer. He started in regional theater when he moved to Seattle, and after moving to New York City, made his 2002 Broadway theatre debut understudying both male leads in the Tony Award-winning musical Thoroughly Modern Millie...
as Woody and Jeremy Bobb as Og, the leprechaun. A Broadway revival will begin on October 8, 2009, with opening scheduled for October 29 at the St. James Theatre
St. James Theatre
The St. James Theatre is located at 246 W. 44th St. Broadway, New York City, New York. It was built by Abraham L. Erlanger, theatrical producer and a founding member of the Theatrical Syndicate, on the site of the original Sardi's restaurant. It opened in 1927 as The Erlanger...
with most of the Encores! cast. Newly added to the Broadway cast are Christopher Fitzgerald as Og and Chuck Cooper as Billboard; Jim Norton
Jim Norton (actor)
Jim Norton is an Irish character actor.-Performances:Jim Norton has been acting for over forty years in theatre, television, and movies, and frequently plays clergymen, most notably Bishop Brennan in the sitcom Father Ted, as well as in The Sweeney , Peak Practice , Sunset Heights , A Love Divided...
, Kate Baldwin
Kate Baldwin
-Biography:Born in Evanston, Illinois, Baldwin graduated from the theatre program at Northwestern University in 1997.-Career:Kate Baldwin made her Broadway debut in The Full Monty in 2000, followed by appearances in Thoroughly Modern Millie and Wonderful Town...
and Cheyenne Jackson
Cheyenne Jackson
Cheyenne Jackson is an American actor and singer. He started in regional theater when he moved to Seattle, and after moving to New York City, made his 2002 Broadway theatre debut understudying both male leads in the Tony Award-winning musical Thoroughly Modern Millie...
all reprise their roles
Saidy collaborated with Neil Simon
Neil Simon
Neil Simon is an American playwright and screenwriter. He has written numerous Broadway plays, including Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues, and The Odd Couple. He won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Lost In Yonkers. He has written the screenplays for several of his plays that...
and Will Glickman
Will Glickman
Will Glickman Born: March 07, 1910/March 1983 was an American playwright who frequently collaborated with Joseph Stein.Glickman made his Broadway debut in 1948 with sketches he and Stein wrote for the revue Lend an Ear. The two went on to collaborate on Mrs. Gibbons' Boys, Alive and Kicking, Mr...
, among others, on Satins and Spurs, an original television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
musical for Betty Hutton
Betty Hutton
Betty Hutton was an American stage, film, and television actress, comedienne and singer.-Early life:Hutton was born Elizabeth June Thornburg, daughter of a railroad foreman, Percy E. Thornburg and his wife, the former Mabel Lum . While she was very young, her father abandoned the family for...
, which was broadcast by NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
in September 1954.
Saidy is the father of the international chess master Anthony Saidy
Anthony Saidy
Anthony Saidy is an International Master of chess. He has played many times in the U.S. Chess Championship. He won the 1960 Canadian Open Chess Championship. He is the author of several chess books, including The Battle of Chess Ideas, and The World of Chess...
.