Culture | Back Story

A Broadway musical updates “Some Like It Hot”

It underscores the subtle genius of Billy Wilder’s screwball masterpiece

American actors Marilyn Monroe and Tony Curtis attempt to seduce each other in a scene from the comedy 'Some Like It Hot', 1959. (Photo by Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images) — Image: Getty Images

Jan 26th 2023

They were shooting the ending of “Some Like It Hot” but didn’t have a final line. I.A.L. Diamond urged Billy Wilder, his co-writer and the director, to use a quip cut from an earlier scene. So it was that when Osgood, the dappy millionaire played by Joe E. Brown, learns that Daphne, his fiancée (Jack Lemmon), is secretly a man, he responds: “Nobody’s perfect.” In a raucous new musical at the Shubert Theatre on Broadway, the line is revised. “I think you’re perfect,” Osgood tells Daphne, previously known as Jerry.

This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “Nobody’s perfect”