All News

Industry & Advocacy News

Times Revisits 1988 Guild Campaign to Credit Phantom Novelist

When The Phantom of the Opera opened on Broadway in 1988, the musical—which Andrew Lloyd Weber adapted from Gaston Leroux’s 1910 French novel—was an immediate hit, securing 10 Tony nominations in its first year on stage. But Leroux didn’t receive credit in the official production billing. The Authors Guild was part of a group that fixed that, and the New York Times revisited the 27-year-old story in its Morning Briefing earlier this week (subscription required).

Leroux’s absence from the billing had irked a young film assistant named Bill O’Connell, who organized a coalition of rights groups and authors to make sure Leroux received credit.

The coalition included the Authors Guild, the Dramatists Guild, the Mystery Writers of America and the authors Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, E.L. Doctorow and Harlan Ellison.