George Furth
Encyclopedia
George Furth was an American
librettist, playwright
, and actor
.
Tuerk) and George Schweinfurth. He majored in drama & theatre at Northwestern University
and received his master's degree
from Columbia University
.
He made his Broadway
debut as an actor in the 1961 play A Cook for Mr. General, followed by the musical Hot Spot
two years later. He was also known for his collaborations with Stephen Sondheim
: the highly successful Company
, the ill-fated Merrily We Roll Along
and the (equally ill-fated) drama, Getting Away with Murder
. Furth penned the plays Twigs
, The Supporting Cast, and Precious Sons, and wrote the book for the Kander and Ebb
musical, The Act
.
One of Furth's last writing projects was a foray into an area where he had not previously endeavored. Furth penned the lyrics for a musical revue, with music by Doug Katsaros. Furth and Katsaros shaped the work with San Francisco director Mike Ward into "The End-a new musical revue". The piece was performed at San Francisco's New Conservatory Theatre Center during the summer of 2004 and was billed as a "Pre-U.S. Tour Workshop Production". The piece was reworked twice, with the title changing to Last Call and Happy Hour, respectively.
Frequently cast as a bespectacled, ineffectual milquetoast
, Furth appeared in such films as The Best Man
, Myra Breckinridge
, Hooper
, Blazing Saddles
, Oh God!, Shampoo
, The Cannonball Run, Young Doctors in Love
, Doctor Detroit
, Bulworth
and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
.
His many television credits include Tammy
, McHale's Navy
, Ironside
, I Dream of Jeannie
, That Girl
, Green Acres
, The Monkees
, Batman, The Odd Couple
, Bonanza
, Happy Days
, All in the Family
, Murphy Brown
, L.A. Law
, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman
, Murder, She Wrote
, Little House on the Prairie
, Love, American Style
, Adam-12
, F Troop
and the made-for-TV movie
The Scarlett O'Hara War
, in which he portrayed famed film director George Cukor
. He adapted his play, Twigs, for a 1975 television production starring Carol Burnett
.
He worked as a voice actor in several episodes of the animated television series The Adventures of Don Coyote and Sancho Panda for Hanna-Barbera
Productions.
He won both the Tony and Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical
for Company, and was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding New Play for Precious Sons.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
librettist, 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 actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
.
Biography
Furth was born George Schweinfurth in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Evelyn (néeMarried and maiden names
A married name is the family name adopted by a person upon marriage. When a person assumes the family name of her spouse, the new name replaces the maiden name....
Tuerk) and George Schweinfurth. He majored in drama & theatre at Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
and received his master's degree
Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
from Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
.
He made his Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
debut as an actor in the 1961 play A Cook for Mr. General, followed by the musical Hot Spot
Hot Spot (musical)
Hot Spot is a musical with the book by Jack Weinstock and Willie Gilbert, lyrics by Martin Charnin, music by Mary Rodgers, and additional lyrics and music by Stephen Sondheim. It had a brief run on Broadway in 1963...
two years later. He was also known for his collaborations with Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...
: the highly successful Company
Company (musical)
Company is a musical with a book by George Furth and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The original production was nominated for a record-setting fourteen Tony Awards and won six....
, the ill-fated Merrily We Roll Along
Merrily We Roll Along (musical)
Merrily We Roll Along is a musical with a book by George Furth and lyrics and music by Stephen Sondheim. It is based on the 1934 play of the same name by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart....
and the (equally ill-fated) drama, Getting Away with Murder
Getting Away with Murder (play)
Getting Away with Murder is a play written by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth. The action centers on seven well-to-do patients of an eminent psychiatrist meeting for their weekly group therapy session. During a fierce Manhattan thunderstorm, the patients arrive and soon discover that their...
. Furth penned the plays Twigs
Twigs (play)
Twigs is a play by George Furth, with incidental music by Stephen Sondheim.It consists of four vignettes involving three sisters and their mother, each focusing on one of the women as she confronts various issues with the man in her life. Emily is a recent widow, relocating to a new apartment, who...
, The Supporting Cast, and Precious Sons, and wrote the book for the Kander and Ebb
Kander and Ebb
Kander and Ebb were a highly successful songwriting team consisting of composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb . Known primarily for their stage musicals, Kander and Ebb also scored several movies including their most famous song, the theme song from Martin Scorsese's New York, New York...
musical, The Act
The Act (musical)
The Act is a musical with a book by George Furth, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and music by John Kander.It was written to showcase the talents of Kander and Ebb favorite Liza Minnelli, who portrayed Michelle Craig, a fading film star attempting a comeback as a Las Vegas singer. The thin plot was little more...
.
One of Furth's last writing projects was a foray into an area where he had not previously endeavored. Furth penned the lyrics for a musical revue, with music by Doug Katsaros. Furth and Katsaros shaped the work with San Francisco director Mike Ward into "The End-a new musical revue". The piece was performed at San Francisco's New Conservatory Theatre Center during the summer of 2004 and was billed as a "Pre-U.S. Tour Workshop Production". The piece was reworked twice, with the title changing to Last Call and Happy Hour, respectively.
Frequently cast as a bespectacled, ineffectual milquetoast
Milquetoast
A milquetoast is a weak, ineffectual or bland person. The word is derived from the character Caspar Milquetoast from the 1924 comic strip The Timid Soul.Milquetoast may also refer to:...
, Furth appeared in such films as The Best Man
The Best Man (1964 film)
The Best Man is a 1964 film directed by Franklin J. Schaffner with a screenplay by Gore Vidal based on his play of the same title. Starring Henry Fonda, Cliff Robertson, and Lee Tracy, the film details the seamy political maneuverings behind the nomination of a presidential candidate...
, Myra Breckinridge
Myra Breckinridge (film)
Myra Breckinridge is a 1970 American campy comedy film, based on Gore Vidal's 1968 novel of the same name, the film was directed by Michael Sarne, with Raquel Welch in the title role. It also starred John Huston as Buck Loner, Mae West as Leticia Van Allen, Farrah Fawcett, Rex Reed, Roger Herren,...
, Hooper
Hooper (film)
Hooper is a 1978 action-comedy motion picture starring Burt Reynolds, based loosely on the experiences of director Hal Needham, a one-time stuntman in his own right...
, Blazing Saddles
Blazing Saddles
Blazing Saddles is a 1974 satirical Western comedy film directed by Mel Brooks. Starring Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder, the film was written by Brooks, Andrew Bergman, Richard Pryor, Norman Steinberg, and Al Uger, and was based on Bergman's story and draft. The movie was nominated for three...
, Oh God!, Shampoo
Shampoo (film)
Shampoo is a 1975 satirical film written by Robert Towne and directed by Hal Ashby. It stars Warren Beatty, Julie Christie and Goldie Hawn, with Lee Grant, Jack Warden, Tony Bill and in an early film appearance, Carrie Fisher....
, The Cannonball Run, Young Doctors in Love
Young Doctors in Love
Young Doctors in Love is a 1982 comedy film directed by Garry Marshall. Similar in tone to the Airplane! movies, it spoofs a variety of medical shows ....
, Doctor Detroit
Doctor Detroit
Doctor Detroit is a 1983 comedy film, written by Bruce Jay Friedman, Robert Boris and Carl Gottlieb. The film stars Dan Aykroyd, Howard Hesseman, Lynn Whitfield, Fran Drescher, and Donna Dixon, with a special appearance by James Brown. The film was directed by Michael Pressman.James Brown performed...
, Bulworth
Bulworth
Bulworth is a 1998 American film co-written, co-produced and directed by the film's star, Warren Beatty. It was loosely based on the life of Beatty's friend, Tennessee political figure John Jay Hooker. It co-stars Halle Berry, Oliver Platt, Don Cheadle, Paul Sorvino, Jack Warden, and Isaiah...
and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a 1969 American Western film directed by George Roy Hill and written by William Goldman...
.
His many television credits include Tammy
Tammy (TV series)
Tammy is an American sitcom, starring Debbie Watson in the title role. Produced by Universal City Studios, 26 color half-hour episodes were aired on ABC from September 17, 1965 to March 11, 1966....
, McHale's Navy
McHale's Navy
McHale's Navy is an American television sitcom series which ran for 138 half-hour episodes from October 11,1962, to August 31, 1966, on the ABC network. The series was filmed in black and white and originated in a one-hour drama called Seven Against the Sea, broadcast on April 3, 1962...
, Ironside
Ironside (TV series)
Ironside is a Universal television series which ran on NBC from September 14, 1967 to January 16, 1975. The show starred Raymond Burr as the wheelchair-using Chief of Detectives, Robert T. Ironside. The character's debut was in a TV-movie on March 28, 1967. The original title of the show in the...
, I Dream of Jeannie
I Dream of Jeannie
I Dream of Jeannie is a 1960s American sitcom with a fantasy premise. The show starred Barbara Eden as a 2,000-year-old genie, and Larry Hagman as an astronaut who becomes her master, with whom she falls in love and eventually marries...
, That Girl
That Girl
That Girl is an American television situation comedy that ran on ABC from 1966 to 1971. It stars Marlo Thomas as the title character, Ann Marie, an aspiring actress, who had moved from her hometown of Brewster, New York to make it big in New York City...
, Green Acres
Green Acres
Green Acres is an American television series starring Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor as a couple who move from New York City to a country farm...
, The Monkees
The Monkees (TV series)
The Monkees is an American situation comedy that aired on NBC from September 1966 to March 1968. The series follows the adventures of four young men trying to make a name for themselves as rock 'n roll singers. The show introduced a number of innovative new-wave film techniques to series...
, Batman, The Odd Couple
The Odd Couple (TV series)
The Odd Couple is a television situation comedy broadcast from September 24, 1970 to July 4, 1975 on ABC. It starred Tony Randall as Felix Unger and Jack Klugman as Oscar Madison. It was based upon the play of the same name, which was written by Neil Simon.Felix and Oscar are two divorced men....
, Bonanza
Bonanza
Bonanza is an American western television series that both ran on and was a production of NBC from September 12, 1959 to January 16, 1973. Lasting 14 seasons and 430 episodes, it ranks as the second longest running western series and still continues to air in syndication. It centers on the...
, Happy Days
Happy Days
Happy Days is an American television sitcom that originally aired from January 15, 1974, to September 24, 1984, on ABC. Created by Garry Marshall, the series presents an idealized vision of life in mid-1950s to mid-1960s America....
, All in the Family
All in the Family
All in the Family is an American sitcom that was originally broadcast on the CBS television network from January 12, 1971, to April 8, 1979. In September 1979, a new show, Archie Bunker's Place, picked up where All in the Family had ended...
, Murphy Brown
Murphy Brown
Murphy Brown is an American situation comedy which aired on CBS from November 14, 1988, to May 18, 1998, for a total of 247 episodes. The program starred Candice Bergen as the eponymous Murphy Brown, a famous investigative journalist and news anchor for FYI, a fictional CBS television...
, L.A. Law
L.A. Law
L.A. Law is a US television legal drama that ran on NBC from September 15, 1986 to May 19, 1994. L.A. Law reflected the social and cultural ideologies of the 1980s and early 1990s and many of the cases featured on the show dealt with hot topic issues such as abortion, racism, gay rights,...
, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman
Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman
Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman is an American post-Civil War western/drama series created by Beth Sullivan. Dr. Michaela "Mike" Quinn, played by Jane Seymour, left Boston in search of adventure. She goes to Colorado Springs, Colorado where she establishes herself as doctor/adviser.The show ran on CBS...
, Murder, She Wrote
Murder, She Wrote
Murder, She Wrote is an American television mystery series starring Angela Lansbury as mystery writer and amateur detective Jessica Fletcher. The series aired for 12 seasons from 1984 to 1996 on the CBS network, with 264 episodes transmitted. It was followed by four TV films and a spin-off series,...
, Little House on the Prairie
Little House on the Prairie (TV series)
Little House on the Prairie is an American Western drama television series, starring Michael Landon and Melissa Gilbert, about a family living on a farm in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, in the 1870s and 1880s. The show was an adaptation of Laura Ingalls Wilder's best-selling series of Little House books...
, Love, American Style
Love, American Style
Love, American Style is an hour-long TV anthology produced by Paramount Television and originally aired between September 1969 and January 1974...
, Adam-12
Adam-12
Adam-12 was a television police drama which followed two police officers of the Los Angeles Police Department, Pete Malloy and Jim Reed, as they patrolled the streets of Los Angeles in their patrol unit, 1-Adam-12. Created by Jack Webb who is known for creating Dragnet, the series captured a...
, F Troop
F Troop
F Troop is a satirical American television sitcom that originally aired for two seasons on ABC-TV. It debuted in the United States on September 14, 1965 and concluded its run on April 6, 1967 with a total of 65 episodes. The first season of 34 episodes was filmed in black-and-white, but the show...
and the made-for-TV movie
Television movie
A television film is a feature film that is a television program produced for and originally distributed by a television network, in contrast to...
The Scarlett O'Hara War
The Scarlett O'Hara War
The Scarlett O'Hara War is a 1980 made for TV movie directed by John Erman. It is based on the novel Moviola by Garson Kanin. The film is set against the backdrop of late 1930s Hollywood as the search for Scarlett O'Hara begins to unfold.- Synopsis :...
, in which he portrayed famed film director George Cukor
George Cukor
George Dewey Cukor was an American film director. He mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations. His career flourished at RKO and later MGM, where he directed What Price Hollywood? , A Bill of Divorcement , Dinner at Eight , Little Women , David Copperfield , Romeo and Juliet and...
. He adapted his play, Twigs, for a 1975 television production starring Carol Burnett
Carol Burnett
Carol Creighton Burnett is an American actress, comedian, singer, dancer and writer. Burnett started her career in New York. After becoming a hit on Broadway, she made her television debut...
.
He worked as a voice actor in several episodes of the animated television series The Adventures of Don Coyote and Sancho Panda for Hanna-Barbera
Hanna-Barbera
Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. was an American animation studio that dominated North American television animation during the second half of the 20th century...
Productions.
He won both the Tony and Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical
Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical
The Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical is presented by the Drama Desk, a committee which comprises New York City theatre critics, writers, and editors...
for Company, and was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding New Play for Precious Sons.