Shows · Gay Divorce
Gay Divorce
Opened 1932
248 performances
Musical, Early
The first musical to play the Ethel Barrymore Theatre (on 47th Street west of Broadway), Gay Divorce was the only stage production in which Fred Astaire performed without sister Adele. In the story, adapted from an unproduced play Astaire was seen as Guy Holden, a British novelist, who goes to a seaside resort to woo would-be divorcee Mimi Pratt (Claire Luce), primarily by convincing her — through song and dance — that night and day she is the one. Complications arise when Guy is mistaken for a professional corespondent (Erik Rhodes) who has been hired to ease Mimi’s divorce. Though Astaire proved that he could carry both a weak plot and a new dancing partner, Gay Divorce (without the definite article, please) marked his final appearance on Broadway. The 1934 film version, retitled The Gay Divorcee, co-starred Fred with Ginger Rogers.
"Cole Porter’s Gay Divorce was billed as an intimate musical, and it was basically a bedroom Continental farce set mostly": the show's own period marketing line.
- Music
- Cole Porter
- Lyrics
- Cole Porter
- Book
- Dwight Taylor
Productions2 productions: 1 on Broadway, 1 in the West End
Songs5 songs
After You, Who?, Night and Day, How’s You Romance?, I’ve Got You on My Mind, Mister and Missus Fitch
Gay Divorce is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter and book by Dwight Taylor, adapted by Kenneth Webb and Samuel Hoffenstein. It was Fred Astaire's last Broadway show and featured the hit song "Night and Day" in which Astaire danced with co-star Claire Luce. RKO Radio Pictures released a film production of the musical in 1934, starring Astaire and Ginger Rogers, renamed The Gay Divorcee.
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