Biography
Abram Solman Borowitz entered the world on 18 December 1910 and departed on 17 May 1985 in New York. Celebrated equally as a stage director and librettist, he accumulated an extensive catalogue of Broadway musicals and non-musical dramas. Initial studies in medicine and accounting gave way to a stint as a travelling salesman until radio comedy scripts pulled him in another direction. Among those early efforts were Duffy’s Tavern and the late-1940s success Take Your Word; he also composed and performed a string of comic songs. His decisive opportunity arrived through a partnership with Jo Swerling that produced the book for Frank Loesser’s Guys And Dolls, widely regarded as the definitive Broadway musical. The assignment earned Burrows his first Tony Award. During the 1950s he supplied or shared the librettos for Make A Wish, Three Wishes For Jamie, Can-Can, Silk Stockings, Say, Darling, and First Impressions. In 1961 he reunited with Loesser on How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, a pointed satire of corporate America that brought him a second Tony and a portion of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. He also helmed the original production of How To Succeed and took the director’s chair for Three Wishes For Jamie, Can-Can, Say, Darling, and First Impressions. Additional staging credits included the Bert Lahr vehicle Two On The Aisle, Happy Hunting, and What Makes Sammy Run?, the last of which introduced popular singer Steve Lawrence to Broadway audiences in 1964. Although later projects occasionally misfired—among them Breakfast At Tiffany’s and a 1976 attempt to revive Hellzapoppin’!, neither of which reached New York—producers repeatedly, if often anonymously, enlisted Burrows to repair troubled productions and guide them to success.