Hazel Flagg

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Hazel Flagg is a 1953 Broadway musical with a book by Ben Hecht, based on a story by James H. Street. The songs are by Jule Styne (music) and Bob Hilliard (lyrics). It adapts the 1937 screwball comedy Nothing Sacred, for which Hecht was the main screenwriter.

The show opened on Broadway at the Mark Hellinger Theatre on February 11, 1953 and closed on September 19, 1953 after 190 performances. It was directed by David Alexander, with musical staging by Robert Alton and costumes by Miles White. The cast included Helen Gallagher as Hazel Flagg, John Howard as Wallace Cook, Thomas Mitchell as Dr. Downer, Benay Venuta as Laura Carew, Jack Whiting as the mayor of New York, Ross Martin as Dr. Egelhofer, Jonathan Harris as Oleander, Sheree North in her Broadway debut as Whitey, and John Brascia as Willie.

Paramount Pictures, which owned the rights to the original film, also produced a movie version of Hazel Flagg. The 1954 film Living It Up, starring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, is based on the musical, with Hazel Flagg rewritten as a man named Homer Flagg (played by Lewis) and Wallace Cook renamed Wally Cook (played by Janet Leigh). The film features the song “Every Street’s a Boulevard in Old New York,” performed by Martin and Lewis.

Plot in brief: Wallace Cook, a writer, suggests his magazine should feature a small-town girl, Hazel Flagg, who is said to be dying from radium exposure. He invites her to New York for an interview. She learns the diagnosis was wrong but decides not to reveal the truth and becomes a media sensation and a beloved figure.