Original Story By Arthur Laurents - A Memoir of Broadway and Hollywood

Here is the original story of a true original, the celebrated and internationally renowned director, playwright and screenwriter Arthur Laurents, whose creative genius continues to energize American stage and screen today

Say his name, and images of West Side Story, Gypsy, Anastasia, The Turning Point, and The Way We Were appear

Laurents' highly praised memoir is a dazzling portrait of his life

He recounts the great moments, the trials and the joys of his incredible career

He takes us into his world, peopled with the creative artists, directors, actors and personalities who came of age in the theatre and in Hollywood after WWII

Later, back in New York, he writes about jump-starting Barbra Streisand's career by casting her in I Can Get It for You Wholesale

He writes about the creation of Gypsy with Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim

And he writes about coming together in a complex, fraught collaboration with his three old pals, Jerome Robbins, Leonard Bernstein and Sondheim for West Side Story

Throughout, Laurents is funny, fierce, and frank - a life recounted as richly as it was lived