Alan Jay Lerner
Encyclopedia
Alan Jay Lerner was an American
lyricist
and librettist. In collaboration with Frederick Loewe, he created some of the world's most popular and enduring works of musical theatre
for both the stage and on film. He won three Tony Award
s and three Academy Awards, among other honors.
, he was the son of Edith Adelson Lerner and Joseph Jay Lerner, whose brother, Samuel Alexander Lerner, was founder and owner of the Lerner Stores, a chain of dress shops. One of Lerner's cousins was the radio comedian/television game show panelist Henry Morgan
. Alan Jay Lerner was educated at Bedales School
in England, The Choate School
(now Choate Rosemary Hall) in Wallingford, Connecticut, (where he wrote "The Choate Marching Song") and Harvard
. He attended both Camp Androscoggin
and Camp Greylock
. At both Choate and Harvard, Lerner was a classmate of John F. Kennedy
; at Choate they had worked together on the yearbook staff. Like Cole Porter
at Yale
and Richard Rodgers
at Columbia
, his career in musical theater began with his collegiate contributions, in Lerner's case to the annual Harvard Hasty Pudding
musicals. During the summers of 1936 and 1937, Lerner studied at Juilliard. While attending Harvard, he lost his sight in his left eye due to an accident in the boxing ring. In 1957, Lerner and Leonard Bernstein
, another of Lerner's college classmates, collaborated on "Lonely Men of Harvard," a tongue-in-cheek salute to their alma mater.
Due to his injury, Lerner could not serve in World War II
. Instead he wrote radio
scripts, including Your Hit Parade
, until he was introduced to Austria
n composer Frederick Loewe, who needed a partner, in 1942 at the Lamb's Club. While at the Lamb's, he came upon Lorenz Hart
, and he helped transform Lerner into his protege.
Lerner and Loewe's first collaboration was a musical adaptation of Barry Conners's farce The Patsy called Life of the Party for a Detroit stock company. The lyrics were mostly written by Earle Crooker, but he had left the project, with the score needing vast improvement. It enjoyed a nine-week run and encouraged the duo to join forces with Arthur Pierson for What's Up?, which opened on Broadway in 1943. It ran for 63 performances and was followed two years later by The Day Before Spring
. One of Broadway's most successful partnerships had been established.
Their first hit was Brigadoon (1947), a romantic fantasy set in a mystical Scottish village, directed by Robert Lewis. It was followed in 1951 by the less successful Gold Rush
story Paint Your Wagon.
Lerner worked with Kurt Weill
on the stage musical Love Life (1948) and Burton Lane
on the movie musical Royal Wedding
(1951). In that same year Lerner also wrote the Oscar-winning
original screenplay
for An American in Paris, produced by Arthur Freed
and directed by Vincente Minnelli
. This was the same team who would later join with Lerner and Loewe to create Gigi
.
In 1956, Lerner and Loewe unveiled My Fair Lady
. Before finishing the musical, Lerner was eager to write while My Fair Lady was taking so long to complete. Burton Lane
and Lerner were working on a musical about Li'l Abner
. Gabriel Pascal
owned the rights to Pygmalion, which had been unsuccessful with other composers who tried to adapt it into a musical. Arthur Schwartz
and Howard Dietz
first tried, and then Richard Rogers
and Oscar Hammerstein II
attempted, but gave up and Hammerstein told Lerner "Pygmalion had no subplot". Their adaptation of George Bernard Shaw
's Pygmalion
retained his social commentary and added appropriate songs for the characters of Henry Higgins and Liza Doolittle, played originally by Rex Harrison
and Julie Andrews
. It set box-office records in New York
and London
. When brought to the screen in 1964, the movie version would win eight Oscars
, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Rex Harrison
.
Lerner and Loewe's run of success continued with their next project, a film adaptation of stories from Colette
, the Academy Award winning film musical Gigi
, starring Leslie Caron
, Louis Jourdan and Maurice Chevalier
. The film won all of its nine Oscar nominations, a record at that point in time, and a special Oscar for co-star Maurice Chevalier.
The Lerner-Loewe partnership cracked under the stress of producing the Arthurian Camelot
in 1960, with Loewe resisting Lerner's desire to direct as well as write when original director Moss Hart
suffered a heart attack in the last few months of rehearsals, and would die shortly after the show's premiere. Lerner was hospitalized with bleeding ulcers while Loewe continued to have heart troubles. Camelot was a hit nonetheless, with a poignant coda; immediately following the assassination of John F. Kennedy
, his widow told Life
magazine that JFK's administration reminded her of the "one brief shining moment" of Lerner and Loewe's Camelot. To this day, Camelot is invoked to describe the idealism
, romance
, and tragedy
of the Kennedy years.
Loewe retired to Palm Springs, California
while Lerner went through a series of unsuccessful musicals with such composers as André Previn
(Coco
), John Barry
(Lolita, My Love
), Leonard Bernstein
(1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
), Burton Lane
(Carmelina
) and Charles Strouse
(Dance a Little Closer
, based on the film, Idiot's Delight, nicknamed Close A Little Faster by Broadway wags because it closed on opening night). Most biographers blame Lerner's professional decline on the lack of not only a strong composer but a strong director whom Lerner could collaborate with, as Neil Simon
did with Mike Nichols
or Stephen Sondheim
with Harold Prince (Moss Hart
, who had directed My Fair Lady
, died shortly after Camelot
opened). In 1965 Lerner collaborated again with Burton Lane
on the musical On a Clear Day You Can See Forever
, which was adapted for film in 1970. At this time, Lerner was hired by film producer Arthur P. Jacobs
to write a treatment for an upcoming film project, Doctor Dolittle
, but Lerner abrogated his contract after several non-productive months of non-communicative procrastination and was replaced with Leslie Bricusse
. Lerner was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame
in 1971.
In 1973, Lerner coaxed Fritz Loewe out of retirement to augment the Gigi score for a musical stage adaptation
. The following year they collaborated on a musical film version of The Little Prince
, based on the classic children's tale by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
. This film was a critical and box office failure, but has gained a modern following.
Lerner's autobiography The Street Where I Live (1978), was an account of three of his and Loewe's successful collaborations, My Fair Lady, Gigi, and Camelot along with personal information. In the last year of his life he published The Musical Theatre: A Celebration, a well-reviewed history of the theatre replete with personal anecdotes and his trademark wit. A book of Lerner's lyrics entitled A Hymn To Him, edited by British writer Benny Green, was published in 1987.
At the time of Lerner's death, he had just begun to write lyrics for The Phantom of the Opera
, and was replaced by Charles Hart
. He also had been working with Gerard Kenny
in London on a musical version of the classic film My Man Godfrey
. He received an urgent call from Andrew Lloyd Webber
who wanted him to write the lyrics to The Phantom of the Opera
, which he wrote Masquerade
. He then informed Webber that he wanted to leave the project, as he was losing his memory (due to an undiagnosed brain tumor). He had turned down an invitation to write the English-language lyrics for the musical version of Les Misérables
.
After Lerner's death, Paul Blake made a musical revue based on Lerner's lyrics and life. Almost Like Being in Love featured music by Frederick Loewe, Burton Lane
, Andre Previn
, Charles Strouse
, and Kurt Weill
. The show ran for only 10 days at the Herbst Theatre
in San Francisco
.
addiction
; during the 1960s he was a patient of the notorious Max Jacobson
, known as "Dr. Feelgood", who administered injections of "vitamins with enzymes" that were in fact laced with amphetamines. Lerner's addiction is believed to have been the result of Jacobson's bizarre practice.
He married eight times: Ruth Boyd (1940–1947), dancer Marion Bell (1947–1949), Nancy Olson
(1950–1957), lawyer Micheline Muselli Pozzo di Borgo (1957–1965), editor Karen Gunderson (1966–1974), Sandra Payne
(1974–1976), Nina Bushkin (1977–1981), and Liz Robertson
(1981–1986). Four of his eight wives Olson, Payne, Bushkin, and Robertson, were actresses.
His seventh wife, Nina Bushkin, whom he married on May 30, 1977, was the director of development at Mannes College of Music
and the daughter of composer and musician Joey Bushkin. After their divorce in 1981, Lerner was ordered to pay her a settlement of $50,000. Lerner wrote in his autobiography (as quoted by The New York Times): "All I can say is that if I had no flair for marriage, I also had no flair for bachelorhood." One of his ex-wives reportedly said, "Marriage is Alan's way of saying goodbye."
The divorces cost him much of his wealth, but Lerner bears primary responsibility for his financial ups and downs, and was apparently less than truthful about his financial fecklessness. One persistent fiction, widely publicized, was that his divorce settlement from Micheline Musseli Pozzo di Borgo (his fourth wife) cost him an estimated $1 million in 1965. This was a gross distortion of the truth. It was also falsely reported that Ms. Musseli sent over US$500,000 to Switzerland
, but that was gossip given credence by newspaper items claiming that Loewe had warned his partner to not get romantically involved with a lawyer. The reality is that Micheline Musseli Pozzo di Borgo, a French aristocrat who at 20 was France's youngest lawyer ever, brought considerable wealth to her marriage to Lerner and lost most of it through him, including nearly $600,000 from the sale of her Parisian apartment, which Lerner placed in investments that either failed or were looted by him during periods of financial desperation. (Musseli told friends she had not wanted to sell her home, but that Lerner urged her to cut her ties with her native city and that she entrusted Lerner with the proceeds of the sale, for investment in the U.S.) The daughter of a World War One French war hero and herself an unsung heroine of the Resistance, whose Corsican forebears were intimates of Napoleon Bonaparte, she later made Lerner the gift of a chateau in France after he declared to her that he wanted a French rural retreat where he could write. That too was lost to Lerner's neglect of his finances. Some observers speculate that Alan Jay Lerner's pride was so badly bruised by Muselli's much-publicized rejection of him (due to his drug addiction and neglect of their son) that in revenge he portrayed her as a gold-digging spendthrift. Her actual settlement was said to be in the neighborhood of $80,000. Alan Jay Lerner's pattern of financial mismanagement continued until his death from cancer in 1986, when he reportedly owed the US Internal Revenue Service over US$1,000,000 in back taxes, and was unable to pay for his final medical expenses.
Lerner died of lung cancer
in Manhattan
at the age of 67. At the time of his death he was married to actress Liz Robertson
, who was 36 years his junior.
Lerner had four children: three daughters, Susan (by Boyd), Liza and Jennifer (by Olson); and one son, Michael (by di Borgo).
" from My Fair Lady
in one 24 hour period. He usually spent months on one song and was constantly rewriting them. Lerner was said to have insecurity about his talent. He would sometimes write songs with someone in mind, for instance, "I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face
" from My Fair Lady
was written with Rex Harrison
in mind to complement his very limited vocal range. He said of writing:
In a 1979 interview on NPR
's All Things Considered
, Lerner went into some depth about his lyrics for My Fair Lady
. Professor Henry Higgins sings, "Look at her, a prisoner of the gutters / Condemned by every syllable she utters / By right she should be taken out and hung / For the cold-blooded murder of the English tongue." Lerner said he knew the lyric used incorrect grammar for the sake of a rhyme. He was later approached about it by another famous lyricist:
Academy Award
Golden Globe
Tony Award
New York Drama Critics
Johnny Mercer Award
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
lyricist
Lyricist
A lyricist is a songwriter who specializes in lyrics. A singer who writes the lyrics to songs is a singer-lyricist. This differentiates from a singer-composer, who composes the song's melody.-Collaboration:...
and librettist. In collaboration with Frederick Loewe, he created some of the world's most popular and enduring works of musical theatre
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
for both the stage and on film. He won three Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
s and three Academy Awards, among other honors.
Biography
Born in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, he was the son of Edith Adelson Lerner and Joseph Jay Lerner, whose brother, Samuel Alexander Lerner, was founder and owner of the Lerner Stores, a chain of dress shops. One of Lerner's cousins was the radio comedian/television game show panelist Henry Morgan
Henry Morgan
Admiral Sir Henry Morgan was an Admiral of the Royal Navy, a privateer, and a pirate who made a name for himself during activities in the Caribbean, primarily raiding Spanish settlements...
. Alan Jay Lerner was educated at Bedales School
Bedales School
Bedales School is a co-educational independent school situated in Hampshire, in the south east of England. Founded in 1893 by John Haden Badley in reaction to the limitations of conventional Victorian schools, today the school is one of the most expensive in the UK, charging £9,985 per term for a...
in England, The Choate School
Choate Rosemary Hall
Choate Rosemary Hall is a private, college-preparatory, coeducational boarding school located in Wallingford, Connecticut...
(now Choate Rosemary Hall) in Wallingford, Connecticut, (where he wrote "The Choate Marching Song") and Harvard
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
. He attended both Camp Androscoggin
Camp Androscoggin
Camp Androscoggin is an all-boys summer camp in Wayne, Maine, and one of the oldest in the state. It is ACA accredited. It was founded in 1906 by Edward M...
and Camp Greylock
Camp Greylock
Camp Greylock is a boys' summer camp located in Becket, Massachusetts. The land was purchased in the fall of 1915, and the opening summer was 1916. The founders were three brothers, George, Gabriel , and Lou Mason...
. At both Choate and Harvard, Lerner was a classmate of John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
; at Choate they had worked together on the yearbook staff. Like Cole Porter
Cole Porter
Cole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre...
at Yale
YALE
RapidMiner, formerly YALE , is an environment for machine learning, data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. It is used for research, education, training, rapid prototyping, application development, and industrial applications...
and Richard Rodgers
Richard Rodgers
Richard Charles Rodgers was an American composer of music for more than 900 songs and for 43 Broadway musicals. He also composed music for films and television. He is best known for his songwriting partnerships with the lyricists Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II...
at Columbia
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, his career in musical theater began with his collegiate contributions, in Lerner's case to the annual Harvard Hasty Pudding
Hasty Pudding Theatricals
The Hasty Pudding Theatricals, known informally simply as The Pudding, is a theatrical student society at Harvard University, known for its burlesque musicals and for its status as the oldest collegiate theatrical organization in the United States...
musicals. During the summers of 1936 and 1937, Lerner studied at Juilliard. While attending Harvard, he lost his sight in his left eye due to an accident in the boxing ring. In 1957, Lerner and Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
, another of Lerner's college classmates, collaborated on "Lonely Men of Harvard," a tongue-in-cheek salute to their alma mater.
Due to his injury, Lerner could not serve in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Instead he wrote radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
scripts, including Your Hit Parade
Your Hit Parade
Your Hit Parade, is an American radio and television music program that was broadcast from 1935 to 1955 on radio, and seen from 1950 to 1959 on television. It was sponsored by American Tobacco's Lucky Strike cigarettes. During this 24-year run, the show had 19 orchestra leaders and 52 singers or...
, until he was introduced to Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n composer Frederick Loewe, who needed a partner, in 1942 at the Lamb's Club. While at the Lamb's, he came upon Lorenz Hart
Lorenz Hart
Lorenz "Larry" Milton Hart was the lyricist half of the famed Broadway songwriting team Rodgers and Hart...
, and he helped transform Lerner into his protege.
Lerner and Loewe's first collaboration was a musical adaptation of Barry Conners's farce The Patsy called Life of the Party for a Detroit stock company. The lyrics were mostly written by Earle Crooker, but he had left the project, with the score needing vast improvement. It enjoyed a nine-week run and encouraged the duo to join forces with Arthur Pierson for What's Up?, which opened on Broadway in 1943. It ran for 63 performances and was followed two years later by The Day Before Spring
The Day Before Spring
The Day Before Spring is a musical with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe.-Productions:The 1945 touring production closed in Chicago after three days due to a crippling coal strike...
. One of Broadway's most successful partnerships had been established.
Their first hit was Brigadoon (1947), a romantic fantasy set in a mystical Scottish village, directed by Robert Lewis. It was followed in 1951 by the less successful Gold Rush
California Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The first to hear confirmed information of the gold rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands , and Latin America, who were the first to start flocking to...
story Paint Your Wagon.
Lerner worked with Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
on the stage musical Love Life (1948) and Burton Lane
Burton Lane
Burton Lane was an American composer and lyricist. His most popular and successful work is the musical Finian's Rainbow, "the score for which Lane will always be most remembered."-Biography:...
on the movie musical Royal Wedding
Royal Wedding
Royal Wedding is a 1951 Hollywood musical comedy film known for Fred Astaire's dance performance on a ceiling and another with a coat rack. The story is set in London in 1947 at the time of the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip, and stars Astaire, Jane Powell, Peter Lawford, Sarah...
(1951). In that same year Lerner also wrote the Oscar-winning
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
original screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
for An American in Paris, produced by Arthur Freed
Arthur Freed
Arthur Freed was born Arthur Grossman in Charleston, South Carolina. He was a Jewish American lyricist and a Hollywood film producer.- Biography :Freed began his career as a song-plugger and pianist in Chicago...
and directed by Vincente Minnelli
Vincente Minnelli
Vincente Minnelli was an American stage director and film director, famous for directing such classic movie musicals as Meet Me in St. Louis, The Band Wagon, and An American in Paris. In addition to having directed some of the most famous and well-remembered musicals of his time, Minnelli made...
. This was the same team who would later join with Lerner and Loewe to create Gigi
Gigi (1958 film)
Gigi is a 1958 musical film directed by Vincente Minnelli. The screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner is based on the 1944 novella of the same name by Colette...
.
In 1956, Lerner and Loewe unveiled My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady is a musical based upon George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe...
. Before finishing the musical, Lerner was eager to write while My Fair Lady was taking so long to complete. Burton Lane
Burton Lane
Burton Lane was an American composer and lyricist. His most popular and successful work is the musical Finian's Rainbow, "the score for which Lane will always be most remembered."-Biography:...
and Lerner were working on a musical about Li'l Abner
Li'l Abner
Li'l Abner is a satirical American comic strip that appeared in many newspapers in the United States, Canada and Europe, featuring a fictional clan of hillbillies in the impoverished town of Dogpatch, Kentucky. Written and drawn by Al Capp , the strip ran for 43 years, from August 13, 1934 through...
. Gabriel Pascal
Gabriel Pascal
Gabriel Pascal was a Hungarian film producer and director.Born 1894 in Arad, Austria-Hungary , Pascal was the first film producer to bring the plays of George Bernard Shaw successfully to the screen. His most famous production was Pygmalion, for which Pascal himself received an Academy Award...
owned the rights to Pygmalion, which had been unsuccessful with other composers who tried to adapt it into a musical. Arthur Schwartz
Arthur Schwartz
Arthur Schwartz was an American composer and film producer.Schwartz supported his legal studies at New York University and postgraduate studies at Columbia University by playing piano before concentrating his talents on vaudeville, Broadway theatre and Hollywood.Among his Broadway musicals are The...
and Howard Dietz
Howard Dietz
Howard Dietz was an American publicist, lyricist, and librettist.-Biography:Dietz was born in New York City and studied journalism at Columbia University...
first tried, and then Richard Rogers
Richard Rogers
Richard George Rogers, Baron Rogers of Riverside CH Kt FRIBA FCSD is a British architect noted for his modernist and functionalist designs....
and Oscar Hammerstein II
Oscar Hammerstein II
Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II was an American librettist, theatrical producer, and theatre director of musicals for almost forty years. Hammerstein won eight Tony Awards and was twice awarded an Academy Award for "Best Original Song". Many of his songs are standard repertoire for...
attempted, but gave up and Hammerstein told Lerner "Pygmalion had no subplot". Their adaptation of George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
's Pygmalion
Pygmalion (play)
Pygmalion: A Romance in Five Acts is a play by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw. Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at an ambassador's garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of...
retained his social commentary and added appropriate songs for the characters of Henry Higgins and Liza Doolittle, played originally by Rex Harrison
Rex Harrison
Sir Reginald Carey “Rex” Harrison was an English actor of stage and screen. Harrison won an Academy Award and two Tony Awards.-Youth and stage career:...
and Julie Andrews
Julie Andrews
Dame Julia Elizabeth Andrews, DBE is an English film and stage actress, singer, and author. She is the recipient of Golden Globe, Emmy, Grammy, BAFTA, People's Choice Award, Theatre World Award, Screen Actors Guild and Academy Award honors...
. It set box-office records in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
and London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. When brought to the screen in 1964, the movie version would win eight Oscars
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Rex Harrison
Rex Harrison
Sir Reginald Carey “Rex” Harrison was an English actor of stage and screen. Harrison won an Academy Award and two Tony Awards.-Youth and stage career:...
.
Lerner and Loewe's run of success continued with their next project, a film adaptation of stories from Colette
Colette
Colette was the surname of the French novelist and performer Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette . She is best known for her novel Gigi, upon which Lerner and Loewe based the stage and film musical comedies of the same title.-Early life and marriage:Colette was born to retired military officer Jules-Joseph...
, the Academy Award winning film musical Gigi
Gigi (1958 film)
Gigi is a 1958 musical film directed by Vincente Minnelli. The screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner is based on the 1944 novella of the same name by Colette...
, starring Leslie Caron
Leslie Caron
Leslie Claire Margaret Caron is a French film actress and dancer, who appeared in 45 films between 1951 and 2003. In 2006, her performance in Law and Order: Special Victims Unit won her an Emmy for guest actress in a drama series...
, Louis Jourdan and Maurice Chevalier
Maurice Chevalier
Maurice Auguste Chevalier was a French actor, singer, entertainer and a noted Sprechgesang performer. He is perhaps best known for his signature songs, including Louise, Mimi, Valentine, and Thank Heaven for Little Girls and for his films including The Love Parade and The Big Pond...
. The film won all of its nine Oscar nominations, a record at that point in time, and a special Oscar for co-star Maurice Chevalier.
The Lerner-Loewe partnership cracked under the stress of producing the Arthurian Camelot
Camelot (musical)
Camelot is a musical by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe . It is based on the King Arthur legend as adapted from the T. H. White tetralogy novel The Once and Future King....
in 1960, with Loewe resisting Lerner's desire to direct as well as write when original director Moss Hart
Moss Hart
Moss Hart was an American playwright and theatre director, best known for his interpretations of musical theater on Broadway.-Early years:...
suffered a heart attack in the last few months of rehearsals, and would die shortly after the show's premiere. Lerner was hospitalized with bleeding ulcers while Loewe continued to have heart troubles. Camelot was a hit nonetheless, with a poignant coda; immediately following the assassination of John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
, his widow told Life
Life (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
magazine that JFK's administration reminded her of the "one brief shining moment" of Lerner and Loewe's Camelot. To this day, Camelot is invoked to describe the idealism
Idealism
In philosophy, idealism is the family of views which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing...
, romance
Romance (genre)
As a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a knight errant portrayed as...
, and tragedy
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...
of the Kennedy years.
Loewe retired to Palm Springs, California
Palm Springs, California
Palm Springs is a desert city in Riverside County, California, within the Coachella Valley. It is located approximately 37 miles east of San Bernardino, 111 miles east of Los Angeles and 136 miles northeast of San Diego...
while Lerner went through a series of unsuccessful musicals with such composers as André Previn
André Previn
André George Previn, KBE is an American pianist, conductor, and composer. He is considered one of the most versatile musicians in the world, and is the winner of four Academy Awards for his film work and ten Grammy Awards for his recordings. -Early Life:Previn was born in...
(Coco
Coco (musical)
Coco is a musical with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by André Previn. It starred Katharine Hepburn in her only stage musical.-Background:...
), John Barry
John Barry (composer)
John Barry Prendergast, OBE was an English conductor and composer of film music. He is best known for composing the soundtracks for 12 of the James Bond films between 1962 and 1987...
(Lolita, My Love
Lolita, My Love
Lolita, My Love was an unsuccessful musical by John Barry and Alan Jay Lerner, based on Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita. It closed in Boston in 1971 while on a tour prior to Broadway.-Production history:...
), Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
(1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (musical)
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is a 1976 musical with music by Leonard Bernstein and book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner. It is considered to be a legendary Broadway flop, running only seven performances...
), Burton Lane
Burton Lane
Burton Lane was an American composer and lyricist. His most popular and successful work is the musical Finian's Rainbow, "the score for which Lane will always be most remembered."-Biography:...
(Carmelina
Carmelina
Carmelina is a musical with a book by Joseph Stein and Alan Jay Lerner, lyrics by Lerner, and music by Burton Lane.Based on the 1968 film Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell , it focuses on an Italian woman who has raised her teenaged daughter Gia to believe her father was an American who died heroically in...
) and Charles Strouse
Charles Strouse
Charles Strouse is an American composer and lyricist.-Life and career:Strouse was born and raised in New York City, the son of Ira and Ethel Strouse...
(Dance a Little Closer
Dance a Little Closer
Dance a Little Closer is a musical with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Charles Strouse. The story is an updated version of Robert E...
, based on the film, Idiot's Delight, nicknamed Close A Little Faster by Broadway wags because it closed on opening night). Most biographers blame Lerner's professional decline on the lack of not only a strong composer but a strong director whom Lerner could collaborate with, as Neil Simon
Neil Simon
Neil Simon is an American playwright and screenwriter. He has written numerous Broadway plays, including Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues, and The Odd Couple. He won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Lost In Yonkers. He has written the screenplays for several of his plays that...
did with Mike Nichols
Mike Nichols
Mike Nichols is a German-born American television, stage and film director, writer, producer and comedian. He began his career in the 1950s as one half of the comedy duo Nichols and May, along with Elaine May. In 1968 he won the Academy Award for Best Director for the film The Graduate...
or Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...
with Harold Prince (Moss Hart
Moss Hart
Moss Hart was an American playwright and theatre director, best known for his interpretations of musical theater on Broadway.-Early years:...
, who had directed My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady is a musical based upon George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe...
, died shortly after Camelot
Camelot (musical)
Camelot is a musical by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe . It is based on the King Arthur legend as adapted from the T. H. White tetralogy novel The Once and Future King....
opened). In 1965 Lerner collaborated again with Burton Lane
Burton Lane
Burton Lane was an American composer and lyricist. His most popular and successful work is the musical Finian's Rainbow, "the score for which Lane will always be most remembered."-Biography:...
on the musical On a Clear Day You Can See Forever
On a Clear Day You Can See Forever
On a Clear Day You Can See Forever is a musical with music by Burton Lane and a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner based loosely on Berkeley Square, written in 1929 by John L. Balderston. It concerns a woman who has ESP and has been reincarnated...
, which was adapted for film in 1970. At this time, Lerner was hired by film producer Arthur P. Jacobs
Arthur P. Jacobs
Arthur Jacobs was a twentieth century film producer responsible for numerous classic films of the 1960s and 1970s, including the Planet of the Apes series, Doctor Dolittle, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Play It Again, Sam and Tom Sawyer...
to write a treatment for an upcoming film project, Doctor Dolittle
Doctor Dolittle (film)
Doctor Dolittle is a 1967 American musical film directed by Richard Fleischer and starring Rex Harrison, Samantha Eggar, Anthony Newley and Richard Attenborough. It's adapted by Leslie Bricusse from the novel series by Hugh Lofting, primarily The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle, The Story of Doctor...
, but Lerner abrogated his contract after several non-productive months of non-communicative procrastination and was replaced with Leslie Bricusse
Leslie Bricusse
Leslie Bricusse is an English composer, lyricist, and playwright.Although best known for his partnership with Anthony Newley, Bricusse has worked with many other composers. He was educated at University College School in London and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge...
. Lerner was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame
Songwriters Hall of Fame
The Songwriters Hall of Fame is an arm of the National Academy of Popular Music. It was founded in 1969 by songwriter Johnny Mercer and music publishers Abe Olman and Howie Richmond. The goal is to create a museum but as of April, 2008, the means do not yet exist and so instead it is an online...
in 1971.
In 1973, Lerner coaxed Fritz Loewe out of retirement to augment the Gigi score for a musical stage adaptation
Gigi (musical)
Gigi is a musical with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. It is based on the novella Gigi by Colette and 1958 hit musical film of the same name. The story concerns Gigi, a free-spirited teenaged girl living in Paris at the turn of the 20th century. She is being...
. The following year they collaborated on a musical film version of The Little Prince
The Little Prince (film)
The Little Prince is a 1974 American/British science fiction musical film with screenplay and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe...
, based on the classic children's tale by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry , officially Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, comte de Saint Exupéry , was a French writer, poet and pioneering aviator. He became a laureate of France's highest literary awards, and in 1939 was the winner of the U.S. National Book Award...
. This film was a critical and box office failure, but has gained a modern following.
Lerner's autobiography The Street Where I Live (1978), was an account of three of his and Loewe's successful collaborations, My Fair Lady, Gigi, and Camelot along with personal information. In the last year of his life he published The Musical Theatre: A Celebration, a well-reviewed history of the theatre replete with personal anecdotes and his trademark wit. A book of Lerner's lyrics entitled A Hymn To Him, edited by British writer Benny Green, was published in 1987.
At the time of Lerner's death, he had just begun to write lyrics for The Phantom of the Opera
The Phantom of the Opera (1986 musical)
The Phantom of the Opera is a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on the French novel Le Fantôme de l'Opéra by Gaston Leroux.The music was composed by Lloyd Webber, and most lyrics were written by Charles Hart, with additional lyrics by Richard Stilgoe. Alan Jay Lerner was an early collaborator,...
, and was replaced by Charles Hart
Charles Hart (lyricist)
Charles Hart is a British lyricist, songwriter and musician. He is best known for re-writing the lyrics to, and contributing to the book of Andrew Lloyd Webber's stage musical The Phantom of the Opera. He also co-wrote the lyrics to Lloyd Webber's 1989 musical Aspects of Love...
. He also had been working with Gerard Kenny
Gerard Kenny
Gerard Kenny is a popular music singer-songwriter.-Career:Kenny formed his first band whilst in high school and between then, and the early 1970s, he toured the club circuit. In 1968 he landed his first recording contract with Warner Bros...
in London on a musical version of the classic film My Man Godfrey
My Man Godfrey
My Man Godfrey is a 1936 American screwball comedy film directed by Gregory La Cava. The screenplay was written by Morrie Ryskind, with uncredited contributions by La Cava, based on "1101 Park Avenue", a short story by Eric Hatch. The story concerns a socialite who hires a derelict to be her...
. He received an urgent call from Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer of musical theatre.Lloyd Webber has achieved great popular success in musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of...
who wanted him to write the lyrics to The Phantom of the Opera
The Phantom of the Opera (1986 musical)
The Phantom of the Opera is a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on the French novel Le Fantôme de l'Opéra by Gaston Leroux.The music was composed by Lloyd Webber, and most lyrics were written by Charles Hart, with additional lyrics by Richard Stilgoe. Alan Jay Lerner was an early collaborator,...
, which he wrote Masquerade
Masquerade (song)
"Masquerade" is a song from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical The Phantom of the Opera. It is sung at the beginning of the second act where a New Year's masquerade ball is held at the Opera House...
. He then informed Webber that he wanted to leave the project, as he was losing his memory (due to an undiagnosed brain tumor). He had turned down an invitation to write the English-language lyrics for the musical version of Les Misérables
Les Misérables (musical)
Les Misérables , colloquially known as Les Mis or Les Miz , is a musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg, based on the novel of the same name by Victor Hugo....
.
After Lerner's death, Paul Blake made a musical revue based on Lerner's lyrics and life. Almost Like Being in Love featured music by Frederick Loewe, Burton Lane
Burton Lane
Burton Lane was an American composer and lyricist. His most popular and successful work is the musical Finian's Rainbow, "the score for which Lane will always be most remembered."-Biography:...
, Andre Previn
André Previn
André George Previn, KBE is an American pianist, conductor, and composer. He is considered one of the most versatile musicians in the world, and is the winner of four Academy Awards for his film work and ten Grammy Awards for his recordings. -Early Life:Previn was born in...
, Charles Strouse
Charles Strouse
Charles Strouse is an American composer and lyricist.-Life and career:Strouse was born and raised in New York City, the son of Ira and Ethel Strouse...
, and Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
. The show ran for only 10 days at the Herbst Theatre
Herbst Theatre
The Herbst Theatre is an auditorium in the War Memorial and Performing Arts Center in Civic Center in San Francisco, United States. The 928-seat hall hosts programs as diverse as City Arts & Lectures, SF Jazz, and San Francisco Performances....
in San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
.
Personal life
Lerner's personal foibles were the stuff of tabloid legend. For nearly twenty years he battled an amphetamineAmphetamine
Amphetamine or amfetamine is a psychostimulant drug of the phenethylamine class which produces increased wakefulness and focus in association with decreased fatigue and appetite.Brand names of medications that contain, or metabolize into, amphetamine include Adderall, Dexedrine, Dextrostat,...
addiction
Substance use disorder
Substance use disorders include substance abuse and substance dependence. In DSM-IV, the conditions are formally diagnosed as one or the other, but it has been proposed that DSM-5 combine the two into a single condition called "Substance-use disorder"....
; during the 1960s he was a patient of the notorious Max Jacobson
Max Jacobson
Max Jacobson was a German-born New York physician, nicknamed "Dr. Feelgood" who administered dangerous levels of amphetamines and other medications to several high profile clients including American President John F...
, known as "Dr. Feelgood", who administered injections of "vitamins with enzymes" that were in fact laced with amphetamines. Lerner's addiction is believed to have been the result of Jacobson's bizarre practice.
He married eight times: Ruth Boyd (1940–1947), dancer Marion Bell (1947–1949), Nancy Olson
Nancy Olson
Nancy Ann Olson is an American actress.In Sunset Boulevard she played Betty Schaefer, for which she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress...
(1950–1957), lawyer Micheline Muselli Pozzo di Borgo (1957–1965), editor Karen Gunderson (1966–1974), Sandra Payne
Sandra Payne
Sandra Payne is an English actress best known for her roles as Christine Harris in the British television series Triangle and as Marion Ballard in Waiting for God....
(1974–1976), Nina Bushkin (1977–1981), and Liz Robertson
Liz Robertson
Liz Robertson is an English actress and singer. She is the widow of Playwright and lyricist Alan Jay Lerner.Robertson began training at the Finch Stage School at the age of three. Her first professional employment was as a cabaret dancer at London's Savoy Hotel at the age of sixteen...
(1981–1986). Four of his eight wives Olson, Payne, Bushkin, and Robertson, were actresses.
His seventh wife, Nina Bushkin, whom he married on May 30, 1977, was the director of development at Mannes College of Music
Mannes College of Music
Mannes College The New School for Music is The New School university's music conservatory. While the university's main campus is located in Greenwich Village, New York City, Mannes maintains its main academic building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan....
and the daughter of composer and musician Joey Bushkin. After their divorce in 1981, Lerner was ordered to pay her a settlement of $50,000. Lerner wrote in his autobiography (as quoted by The New York Times): "All I can say is that if I had no flair for marriage, I also had no flair for bachelorhood." One of his ex-wives reportedly said, "Marriage is Alan's way of saying goodbye."
The divorces cost him much of his wealth, but Lerner bears primary responsibility for his financial ups and downs, and was apparently less than truthful about his financial fecklessness. One persistent fiction, widely publicized, was that his divorce settlement from Micheline Musseli Pozzo di Borgo (his fourth wife) cost him an estimated $1 million in 1965. This was a gross distortion of the truth. It was also falsely reported that Ms. Musseli sent over US$500,000 to Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, but that was gossip given credence by newspaper items claiming that Loewe had warned his partner to not get romantically involved with a lawyer. The reality is that Micheline Musseli Pozzo di Borgo, a French aristocrat who at 20 was France's youngest lawyer ever, brought considerable wealth to her marriage to Lerner and lost most of it through him, including nearly $600,000 from the sale of her Parisian apartment, which Lerner placed in investments that either failed or were looted by him during periods of financial desperation. (Musseli told friends she had not wanted to sell her home, but that Lerner urged her to cut her ties with her native city and that she entrusted Lerner with the proceeds of the sale, for investment in the U.S.) The daughter of a World War One French war hero and herself an unsung heroine of the Resistance, whose Corsican forebears were intimates of Napoleon Bonaparte, she later made Lerner the gift of a chateau in France after he declared to her that he wanted a French rural retreat where he could write. That too was lost to Lerner's neglect of his finances. Some observers speculate that Alan Jay Lerner's pride was so badly bruised by Muselli's much-publicized rejection of him (due to his drug addiction and neglect of their son) that in revenge he portrayed her as a gold-digging spendthrift. Her actual settlement was said to be in the neighborhood of $80,000. Alan Jay Lerner's pattern of financial mismanagement continued until his death from cancer in 1986, when he reportedly owed the US Internal Revenue Service over US$1,000,000 in back taxes, and was unable to pay for his final medical expenses.
Lerner died of lung cancer
Lung cancer
Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...
in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
at the age of 67. At the time of his death he was married to actress Liz Robertson
Liz Robertson
Liz Robertson is an English actress and singer. She is the widow of Playwright and lyricist Alan Jay Lerner.Robertson began training at the Finch Stage School at the age of three. Her first professional employment was as a cabaret dancer at London's Savoy Hotel at the age of sixteen...
, who was 36 years his junior.
Lerner had four children: three daughters, Susan (by Boyd), Liza and Jennifer (by Olson); and one son, Michael (by di Borgo).
Songwriting
Lerner would often struggle with writing his lyrics. He was surprisingly able to complete "I Could Have Danced All NightI Could Have Danced All Night
"I Could Have Danced All Night" is a song from the musical My Fair Lady, with music written by Frederick Loewe and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, published in 1956...
" from My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady is a musical based upon George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe...
in one 24 hour period. He usually spent months on one song and was constantly rewriting them. Lerner was said to have insecurity about his talent. He would sometimes write songs with someone in mind, for instance, "I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face
I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face
"I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" is a song from the 1956 musical My Fair Lady, with music by Frederick Loewe and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner. It was originally performed by Rex Harrison as Professor Henry Higgins...
" from My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady is a musical based upon George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe...
was written with Rex Harrison
Rex Harrison
Sir Reginald Carey “Rex” Harrison was an English actor of stage and screen. Harrison won an Academy Award and two Tony Awards.-Youth and stage career:...
in mind to complement his very limited vocal range. He said of writing:
"You have to keep in mind that there is no such thing as realism or naturalism in the theater. That is a myth. If there was realism in the theater, there would never be a third act. Nothing ends that way. A man's life is made up of thousands and thousands of little pieces. In writing fiction, you select 20 or 30 of them. In a musical, you select even fewer than that.
"First, we decide where a song is needed in a play. Second, what is it going to be about? Third, we discuss the mood of the song. Fourth, I give (Loewe) a title. Then he writes the music to the title and the general feeling of the song is established. After he's written the melody, then I write the lyrics."
In a 1979 interview on NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
's All Things Considered
All Things Considered
All Things Considered is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio. It was the first news program on NPR, and is broadcast live worldwide through several outlets...
, Lerner went into some depth about his lyrics for My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady is a musical based upon George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe...
. Professor Henry Higgins sings, "Look at her, a prisoner of the gutters / Condemned by every syllable she utters / By right she should be taken out and hung / For the cold-blooded murder of the English tongue." Lerner said he knew the lyric used incorrect grammar for the sake of a rhyme. He was later approached about it by another famous lyricist:
"I thought, oh well, maybe nobody will notice it, but not at all. Two nights after it opened, I ran into Noel CowardNoël CowardSir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
in a restaurant, and he walked over and he said, "Dear boy, it is hanged, not hung." I said, "Oh, Noel, I know it, I know it! You know, shut up!" So, and there's another, "Than to ever let a woman in my life." It should be, "as to ever let a woman in my life," but it just didn't sing well."
Awards and honors
- Kennedy Center HonorsKennedy Center HonorsThe Kennedy Center Honors is an annual honor given to those in the performing arts for their lifetime of contributions to American culture. The Honors have been presented annually since 1978 in Washington, D.C., during gala weekend-long events which culminate in a performance for—and...
1985
Academy Award
- Best Original Screenplay, 1951 An American in ParisAn American in ParisAn American in Paris is a symphonic tone poem by the American composer George Gershwin, written in 1928. Inspired by the time Gershwin had spent in Paris, it evokes the sights and energy of the French capital in the 1920s. It is one of Gershwin's best-known compositions.Gershwin composed the piece...
- Best Adapted ScreenplayAcademy Award for Writing Adapted ScreenplayThe Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay is one of the Academy Awards, the most prominent film awards in the United States. It is awarded each year to the writer of a screenplay adapted from another source...
, 1958 GigiGigi (1958 film)Gigi is a 1958 musical film directed by Vincente Minnelli. The screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner is based on the 1944 novella of the same name by Colette... - Best Original SongAcademy Award for Best Original SongThe Academy Award for Best Original Song is one of the awards given annually to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences . It is presented to the songwriters who have composed the best original song written specifically for a film...
, 1958 GigiGigi (1958 film)Gigi is a 1958 musical film directed by Vincente Minnelli. The screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner is based on the 1944 novella of the same name by Colette...
Golden Globe
- Best Original SongGolden Globe Award for Best Original SongGolden Globe Award for Best Original Song was awarded for the first time in 1962 and has been awarded annually since 1965 by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.-1960s:...
, 1968 CamelotCamelot (film)Camelot is a 1967 film adaptation of the musical of the same name. Richard Harris stars as Arthur, Vanessa Redgrave as Guinevere, and Franco Nero as Lancelot. The film was directed by Joshua Logan.-Plot:... - Best Original ScoreGolden Globe Award for Best Original ScoreThe Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score is one of several categories presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association , an organization of journalists who cover the United States film industry, but are affiliated with publications outside North America, since its institution in 1947...
, 1975 The Little PrinceThe Little PrinceThe Little Prince , first published in 1943, is a novella and the most famous work of the French aristocrat writer, poet and pioneering aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry ....
Tony Award
- Best Book of a MusicalTony Award for Best Book of a MusicalThe Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical is awarded to librettists of the spoken, non-sung dialogue, and storyline of a musical play. Eligibility is restricted to works with original narrative framework; plotless revues and revivals are ineligible...
, 1957 My Fair LadyMy Fair LadyMy Fair Lady is a musical based upon George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe... - Best Original ScoreTony Award for Best Original ScoreThe Tony Award for Best Original Score is the Tony Award given to the composers and lyricists of the best original score written for a musical in that year. The score consists of music and lyrics...
, 1957 My Fair LadyMy Fair LadyMy Fair Lady is a musical based upon George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe...
and 1974 GigiGigiGigi is a 1944 novella by French writer Colette. The plot focuses on a young Parisian girl being groomed for a career as a courtesan and her relationship with the wealthy cultured man named Gaston who falls in love with her and eventually marries her....
New York Drama Critics
- Best MusicalNew York Drama Critics' CircleThe New York Drama Critics' Circle is made up of 24 drama critics from daily newspapers, magazines and wire services based in the New York City metropolitan area. The organization was founded in 1935 at the Algonquin Hotel by a group that included Brooks Atkinson, Walter Winchell, and Robert Benchley...
, 1947 Brigadoon - Best MusicalNew York Drama Critics' CircleThe New York Drama Critics' Circle is made up of 24 drama critics from daily newspapers, magazines and wire services based in the New York City metropolitan area. The organization was founded in 1935 at the Algonquin Hotel by a group that included Brooks Atkinson, Walter Winchell, and Robert Benchley...
, 1957 My Fair LadyMy Fair LadyMy Fair Lady is a musical based upon George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe...
Johnny Mercer Award
- Lyric WritingNational Academy of Popular MusicThe National Academy of Popular Music is an American organization which administers the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and sponsors a series of workshops and showcases for the songwriting profession. It was formed in 1988 by Sammy Cahn and Bob Leone....
, 1985, Lifetime
Stage
- Life of the Party (1942), with Frederick Loewe
- What's Up? (1943), with Frederick Loewe
- The Day Before SpringThe Day Before SpringThe Day Before Spring is a musical with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe.-Productions:The 1945 touring production closed in Chicago after three days due to a crippling coal strike...
(1945), with Frederick Loewe - Brigadoon (1947), with Frederick Loewe
- Love Life (1948), with Kurt WeillKurt WeillKurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
- Paint Your Wagon (1951), Frederick Loewe
- My Fair LadyMy Fair LadyMy Fair Lady is a musical based upon George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe...
(1956), with Frederick Loewe - CamelotCamelot (musical)Camelot is a musical by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe . It is based on the King Arthur legend as adapted from the T. H. White tetralogy novel The Once and Future King....
(1960), with Frederick Loewe - On a Clear Day You Can See ForeverOn a Clear Day You Can See ForeverOn a Clear Day You Can See Forever is a musical with music by Burton Lane and a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner based loosely on Berkeley Square, written in 1929 by John L. Balderston. It concerns a woman who has ESP and has been reincarnated...
(1965), with Burton LaneBurton LaneBurton Lane was an American composer and lyricist. His most popular and successful work is the musical Finian's Rainbow, "the score for which Lane will always be most remembered."-Biography:... - CocoCoco (musical)Coco is a musical with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by André Previn. It starred Katharine Hepburn in her only stage musical.-Background:...
(1969), with André PrevinAndré PrevinAndré George Previn, KBE is an American pianist, conductor, and composer. He is considered one of the most versatile musicians in the world, and is the winner of four Academy Awards for his film work and ten Grammy Awards for his recordings. -Early Life:Previn was born in... - Lolita, My LoveLolita, My LoveLolita, My Love was an unsuccessful musical by John Barry and Alan Jay Lerner, based on Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita. It closed in Boston in 1971 while on a tour prior to Broadway.-Production history:...
(1971), with John BarryJohn Barry (composer)John Barry Prendergast, OBE was an English conductor and composer of film music. He is best known for composing the soundtracks for 12 of the James Bond films between 1962 and 1987... - GigiGigi (musical)Gigi is a musical with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. It is based on the novella Gigi by Colette and 1958 hit musical film of the same name. The story concerns Gigi, a free-spirited teenaged girl living in Paris at the turn of the 20th century. She is being...
(1973), based on the 1958 film of the same nameGigi (1958 film)Gigi is a 1958 musical film directed by Vincente Minnelli. The screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner is based on the 1944 novella of the same name by Colette...
, with Frederick Loewe - 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (musical)1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is a 1976 musical with music by Leonard Bernstein and book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner. It is considered to be a legendary Broadway flop, running only seven performances...
(1976), with Leonard BernsteinLeonard BernsteinLeonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim... - CarmelinaCarmelinaCarmelina is a musical with a book by Joseph Stein and Alan Jay Lerner, lyrics by Lerner, and music by Burton Lane.Based on the 1968 film Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell , it focuses on an Italian woman who has raised her teenaged daughter Gia to believe her father was an American who died heroically in...
(1979), with Burton LaneBurton LaneBurton Lane was an American composer and lyricist. His most popular and successful work is the musical Finian's Rainbow, "the score for which Lane will always be most remembered."-Biography:...
and Joseph SteinJoseph SteinJoseph Stein was an American playwright best known for writing the books for such musicals as Fiddler on the Roof and Zorba.-Biography:... - Dance a Little CloserDance a Little CloserDance a Little Closer is a musical with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Charles Strouse. The story is an updated version of Robert E...
(1983), with Charles StrouseCharles StrouseCharles Strouse is an American composer and lyricist.-Life and career:Strouse was born and raised in New York City, the son of Ira and Ethel Strouse... - My Man Godfrey (1984), unfinished, with Gerard KennyGerard KennyGerard Kenny is a popular music singer-songwriter.-Career:Kenny formed his first band whilst in high school and between then, and the early 1970s, he toured the club circuit. In 1968 he landed his first recording contract with Warner Bros...
Films
- Royal WeddingRoyal WeddingRoyal Wedding is a 1951 Hollywood musical comedy film known for Fred Astaire's dance performance on a ceiling and another with a coat rack. The story is set in London in 1947 at the time of the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip, and stars Astaire, Jane Powell, Peter Lawford, Sarah...
, 1951 (lyricist) - An American in ParisAn American in Paris (film)An American in Paris is a 1951 MGM musical film inspired by the 1928 orchestral composition by George Gershwin. Starring Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, Oscar Levant, Georges Guetary, and Nina Foch, the film is set in Paris, and was directed by Vincente Minnelli from a script by Alan Jay Lerner...
(1951) (writer) - BrigadoonBrigadoon (film)Brigadoon is a 1954 MGM musical feature film made in CinemaScope and Ansco Color based on the Broadway musical of the same name by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe. The film was directed by Vincente Minnelli and stars Gene Kelly, Van Johnson, and Cyd Charisse...
, 1954 (film) (lyricist) - GigiGigi (1958 film)Gigi is a 1958 musical film directed by Vincente Minnelli. The screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner is based on the 1944 novella of the same name by Colette...
, 1958 (screenwriter/lyricist) - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1960 (lyricist)
- My Fair LadyMy Fair Lady (film)My Fair Lady is a 1964 musical film adaptation of the Lerner and Loewe stage musical, of the same name, based on the 1938 film adaptation of the original stage play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. The ballroom scene and the ending were taken from the previous film adaptation , rather than from...
, 1964 (screenwriter/lyricist) - CamelotCamelot (film)Camelot is a 1967 film adaptation of the musical of the same name. Richard Harris stars as Arthur, Vanessa Redgrave as Guinevere, and Franco Nero as Lancelot. The film was directed by Joshua Logan.-Plot:...
, 1967 (screenwriter/lyricist) - Paint Your WagonPaint Your Wagon (film)Paint Your Wagon is a 1969 American musical film starring Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood. The movie was adapted by Paddy Chayefsky from the 1951 stage musical by Lerner and Loewe, set in a mining camp in Gold Rush-era California.-Plot:...
, 1969 (screenwriter/lyricist) - On a Clear Day You Can See ForeverOn a Clear Day You Can See Forever (film)On a Clear Day You Can See Forever is a 1970 American musical/romantic fantasy film directed by Vincente Minnelli. The screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner is adapted from his book for the 1965 stage production of the same name...
, 1970 (screenwriter/lyricist) - The Little PrinceThe Little Prince (film)The Little Prince is a 1974 American/British science fiction musical film with screenplay and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe...
, 1973 (screenwriter/lyricist) - TributeTribute (film)Tribute is a play by Bernard Slade.The plot focuses on Scottie Templeton, a popular actor who has spent his life shirking responsibility. When he discovers he is terminally ill with leukemia, he attempts to reconnect with his long-estranged son....
, 1980 ("It's All for the Best," lyricist) - Secret Places, 1984 (title song lyricist)
Further reading
- Lerner, Alan Jay (1985). The Street Where I Live. Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80602-9
- Shapiro, Doris (1989). We Danced All Night: My Life Behind the Scenes With Alan Jay Lerner. Barricade Books. ISBN 0-942637-98-4
- Jablonski, Edward (1996). Alan Jay Lerner: A Biography. Henry Holt & Co. ISBN 0-8050-4076-5
- Citron, David (1995). The Wordsmiths: Oscar Hammerstein 2nd and Alan Jay Lerner. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-508386-5
- Green, Benny, Editor (1987). A Hymn to Him : The Lyrics of Alan Jay Lerner. Hal Leonard Corporation. ISBN 0-87910-109-1
- Garebian, Keith (1998). The Making of My Fair Lady. Publisher: Mosaic Press. ISBN 0-88962-653-7
External links
- Alan Jay Lerner at the Internet Off-Broadway Database