Broadway Composer Sandy Wilson Passes Away at 90

According to published reports, composer Sandy Wilson passed away today, August 27. He was 90 years old.

Wilson was born in Sale, Greater Manchester and was educated at Harrow School and Oriel College, Oxford. During the war he served in the Royal Ordnance Corps in Great Britain, Egypt and Iraq. While at Oxford he wrote revues for the Oxford University Experimental Theatre Club and then attended the Old Vic Theatre School on a production course.

Most of his work for the stage was material for revues, such as Hermione Gingold's Slings and Arrows, Laurier Lister's Oranges and Lemons, and See You Later, starring such performers as Peter Cook. The Boy Friend for the Players' Theatre was written in 1953 and went on to be produced in the West End at Wyndhams Theatre in January 1954 and on Broadway in 1954, introducing Julie Andrews in her Broadway debut.

He donated his papers to the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin. His autobiography, published in 1975, is titled I Could Be Happy.

His credits inclue: Caprice (1950), The Boy Friend (1953), The Buccaneer (1955), Valmouth (1958), Pieces of Eight (1959), Divorce Me, Darling! (1964), As Dorothy Parker Once Said (1969), His Monkey Wife (1971), The Clapham Wonder (1978, based on the novel The Vet's Daughter by Barbara Comyns Carr) and Aladdin (1979).