'1776,' 'Titanic' writer dies

NEW YORK -- Peter Stone, who won an Oscar, an Emmy and three Tony awards during a career in which he wrote the musicals "1776" and "Titanic" and the film classic "Charade," has died. He was 73.\nHe died Saturday at New York-Cornell Hospital of pulmonary fibrosis, said Maury Yeston, a close friend who collaborated with him on three shows, including "Titanic."\nStone was an acclaimed writer for both the stage and screen. He won Tonys for writing the books to the musicals "1776" (1969), "Woman of the Year" (1981) and "Titanic" (1997).\nHe also revised the musical "Annie Get Your Gun," originally produced by Rodgers and Hammerstein in the late 1940s, for a revival that ran more than 1,000 performances before closing in September 2001.\nWith co-writers S.H. Barnett and Frank Tarloff, Stone won an Oscar in 1964 for "Father Goose," the World War II comedy starring Cary Grant as a man who watches Japanese spy planes on a deserted South Seas island. His Emmy was for the 1960s television drama "The Defenders." \nHis other writing credits include "Charade," starring Grant and Audrey Hepburn; the screenplay for the musical "Sweet Charity" and the 1974 drama about a hijacked New York subway, "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three."\nIn an interview with The Associated Press in 1997, Stone offered advice to creators of musicals.\n"You listen to the audience," he said. "The audience is wrong individually and always right collectively. If they don't laugh, it isn't funny. If they cough, it isn't interesting. If they walk out, you are in trouble."\nFor "1776," producer Stuart Ostrow asked Stone to sort out historical material that had been gathered by composer Sherman Edwards. So Stone laid out index cards marked with bits of information, eventually stringing them together for the book.\nThe result was a musical built around the declaration's signing, with John Adams emerging as its hero.\nStone is survived by his wife, Mary Stone. His funeral was to be private, and a memorial on Broadway would be planned, Yeston said.