How Steven Spielberg's 'West Side Story' finally solved the problem of 'I Feel Pretty'

How do you solve a problem like Maria's "I Feel Pretty" number from "West Side Story"? Stephen Sondheim, who wrote the lyrics for the musical, regretted his sprightly wordplay shortly after the song was put into the show.

At the time, Sondheim, a prodigy in his mid-20s, was still a Broadway novice. He saw himself as a composer-lyricist and was initially reluctant to supply the words to Leonard Bernstein's music. But the prospect of collaborating with a heavyweight creative team, which also included book writer Arthur Laurents and director-choreographer Jerome Robbins, was an opportunity Sondheim's mentor, Oscar Hammerstein II, told him he shouldn't pass up.

In "Finishing the Hat," the first of his two-volume set of collected lyrics and attendant commentaries, Sondheim recounted how he came to see the flaw in "I