The comments were not unusual for Mr. Laurents. Perhaps more than anyone in the American theatre outside of George S. Kaufman, Arthur Laurents was as famous, or infamous, for what he said as what he did. He said playwright John Guare "had a talent for networking, and the knife," and that Katharine Hepburn had "no sense of humor." After Jerome Robbins named names before HUAC, and mused that it would be years before he knew whether he'd done the right thing, Laurents retorted, "I can tell you right now, you were a shit." He stated that "Most directors are frustrated writers." Mr. Laurents once joked that every barb uttered in the theatre was attributed to him, because people naturally expected him to say audacious things.