Posted 6:43 PM by Gene

Luigi Creatore, previously a writer of small-potatoes comedies....

Let us say we did a double-take at John Simon's slighting description. We would not have thought him alive, let alone a playwright. (He turns 90 in December.) He has just written a drama called An Error of the Moon, about the Booth family. Back in the sixties Mr. Creatore co-authored the flop musical Maggie Flynn, a Civil War-era vehicle for Jack Cassidy and Shirley Jones. This he wrote with his cousin Hugo Peretti and the late George David Weiss. Still don't remember? All three were songwriters, and the cousins (we didn't know that until today) were record producers, A&R men for Roulette (and the notorious Morris Levy) and later RCA; they did everything from The Tokens (and a lawsuit) to "The Hustle." If you've collected enough records you've seen the puzzling "Hugo & Luigi" logo. The trio's most famous achievement was to get a songwriter named Martini to write them a ballad called "Can't Help Falling in Love." It tickles us to see that one member of this triumvirate is still standing, and it forces us to ask whether the former scourge of the former Broadway really knows that much.

P. S. According to the bio Mr. Creatore has had only one other play produced, off-Broadway, so that small-potatoes knock doubly puzzles us.