OBIT: Gay Icon Arthur Laurents, Dead at 93!

Arthur Laurents, writer of landmark Broadway musicals including West Side Story and Gypsy, has died at his Manhattan home at the age of 93. Laurents' career as a playwright spanned seven decades. He also enjoyed success as a director and as screenwriter of movie classics including Rope and The Way We Were, AP reports. The Brooklyn-born Laurents served as a writer of military training films and radio scripts during World War II. His first Broadway play, 1945's Home of the Brave, dealt with anti-Semitism in the military.

The famously blunt writer once told the New York Times that he was happiest alone, putting his daydreams on paper. "I say mean things as a defense," he told the Los Angeles Times in a 1984 interview during the smash success of La Cage Aux Folles, which he directed. "People who get their feelings hurt don't realize I have a very developed set of defenses. But also I will not suffer fools and amateurs." Laurents' partner of 52 years, actor-turned-real estate developer Tom Hatcher, died in 2006.