Alan Jay Lerner | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Lerner,c. 1962 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | (1918-08-31)August 31, 1918 New York City, US |
| Died | June 14, 1986(1986-06-14) (aged 67) New York City, US |
| Genres | Musical theatre,popular |
| Occupations | Lyricist,librettist |
| Years active | 1942–1986 |
Alan Jay Lerner (August 31, 1918 – June 14, 1986) was an Americanlyricist andlibrettist. In collaboration withFrederick Loewe, and laterBurton Lane, he created some of the world's most popular and enduring works ofmusical theatre both for the stage and on film. Lerner won threeTony Awards and threeAcademy Awards, among other honors.
Lerner was born in New York City to a Jewish family. He was the son of Edith (née Adelson) and Joseph Jay Lerner, whose brother, Samuel Alexander Lerner, was founder and owner of theLerner Stores, a chain of dress shops. One of Lerner's cousins was the radio comedian and television game show panelistHenry Morgan. Lerner was educated atBedales School in England,The Choate School (now Choate Rosemary Hall) in Wallingford, Connecticut, (where he wrote "The Choate Marching Song") andHarvard. He attended bothCamp Androscoggin andCamp Greylock.[1] At both Choate and Harvard, Lerner was a classmate ofJohn F. Kennedy; at Choate they had worked together on the yearbook staff.[2] LikeCole Porter atYale andRichard Rodgers atColumbia, his career in musical theater began with his collegiate contributions, in Lerner's case to the annual HarvardHasty Pudding musicals.[3] During the summers of 1936 and 1937, Lerner studied music composition atJuilliard. While attending Harvard, he lost his sight in his left eye due to an accident in the boxing ring. In 1957, Lerner andLeonard Bernstein, another of Lerner's college classmates, collaborated on "Lonely Men of Harvard", a tongue-in-cheek salute to their alma mater.
Owing to his eye injury, Lerner could not serve inWorld War II. Instead he wrote radio scripts, includingYour Hit Parade, until he was introduced to German-Austrian composerFrederick Loewe, who needed a partner, in 1942 at theLamb's Club.[4] While at the Lamb's, he also metLorenz Hart, with whom he would also collaborate.[5]
Lerner and Loewe's first collaboration was a musical adaptation of Barry Conners's farceThe Patsy calledLife of the Party for aDetroitstock 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 withArthur Pierson forWhat's Up?, which opened on Broadway in 1943.[4] It ran for 63 performances and was followed two years later byThe Day Before Spring.[6]
Their first hit wasBrigadoon (1947), a romantic fantasy set in a mystical Scottish village, directed byRobert Lewis.[4] It was followed in 1951 by theGold Rush storyPaint Your Wagon. While the show ran for nearly a year and included songs that later became pop standards, such as "They Call the Wind Maria", it was less successful than Lerner's previous work. He later said ofPaint Your Wagon, it was "a success but not a hit."[7]
Lerner worked withKurt Weill on the stage musicalLove Life (1948) andBurton Lane on the movie musicalRoyal Wedding (1951). In that same year Lerner also wrote theOscar-winning originalscreenplay forAn American in Paris,[4] produced byArthur Freed and directed byVincente Minnelli. This was the same team who would later join with Lerner and Loewe to createGigi.
In 1956, Lerner and Loewe unveiledMy Fair Lady.[4] By this time, too, Lerner and Burton Lane were already working on a musical aboutLi'l Abner.Gabriel Pascal owned the rights toPygmalion, which had been unsuccessful with other composers who tried to adapt it into a musical.Arthur Schwartz andHoward Dietz first tried, and then Richard Rodgers andOscar Hammerstein II attempted, but gave up and Hammerstein told Lerner, "Pygmalion had no subplot". Lerner and Loewe's adaptation ofGeorge Bernard Shaw'sPygmalion retained his social commentary and added appropriate songs for the characters of Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle, played originally byRex Harrison andJulie Andrews.[4] It set box-office records in New York and London. When brought to the screen in 1964, the movie version won 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 fromColette, the Academy Award-winning film musicalGigi, starringLeslie Caron,Louis Jourdan andMaurice Chevalier.[4] The film won all of its nine Oscar nominations, a record at that time, and a special Oscar for co-star Maurice Chevalier.[4]
The Lerner-Loewe partnership cracked under the stress of producing the ArthurianCamelot in 1960,[4] with Loewe resisting Lerner's desire to direct, as well as write, when original directorMoss Hart suffered a heart attack in the last few months of rehearsals, and died about a year after the show's Broadway premiere.[8][9] Lerner was hospitalized withbleeding ulcers while Loewe continued to have heart troubles.Camelot was a hit nonetheless, and immediately following the assassination of John F. Kennedy, his widow told reporterTheodore H. White that JFK's administration reminded her of the "one brief shining moment" of Lerner and Loewe'sCamelot.[4] As of the early 21st century,Camelot was still invoked to describe the idealism, romance, and tragedy of the Kennedy years.[10]
Loewe retired toPalm Springs, California, while Lerner went through a series of musicals—some successful, some not—with such composers asAndré Previn (Coco),John Barry (Lolita, My Love), Leonard Bernstein (1600 Pennsylvania Avenue), Burton Lane (Carmelina) andCharles Strouse (Dance a Little Closer, based on the film,Idiot's Delight, nicknamedClose A Little Faster by Broadway humorists because it closed on opening night). Most biographers[who?] blame Lerner's professional decline on the lack of a strong director with whom Lerner could collaborate, asNeil Simon did withMike Nichols orStephen Sondheim withHarold Prince. (Moss Hart, who had directedMy Fair Lady, died shortly afterCamelot opened.) In 1965 Lerner collaborated again with Burton Lane on the musicalOn a Clear Day You Can See Forever, which was adapted for film in 1970. At this time, Lerner was hired by film producerArthur 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 withLeslie Bricusse.[11] Lerner was inducted into theSongwriters Hall of Fame in 1971.
In 1973, Lerner coaxed Loewe out of retirement to augment theGigi score for amusical stage adaptation.[4] The following year they collaborated on a musical film version ofThe Little Prince,[4] based on the classic children's tale byAntoine de Saint-Exupéry.
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, andCamelot, along with personal information. In the last year of his life, he publishedThe Musical Theatre: A Celebration, a well-reviewed history of the theatre, with personal anecdotes and humor. TheLos Angeles Times reviewer wrote: "There are several reasons why this book makes a fine introduction to musical theater. One is that Lerner knows exactly what was new, and when and why....In "The Musical Theatre," one is privy to the judgment of a man... who expresses his opinions in a forthright, warm and personal manner."[12] A book of Lerner's lyrics entitledA Hymn To Him, edited by a British writerBenny Green, was published in 1987.
At the time of Lerner's death, he had been working withGerard Kenny andKristi Kane in London on a musical version of the filmMy Man Godfrey.[4] He had also received an urgent call fromAndrew Lloyd Webber, asking him to write the lyrics toThe Phantom of the Opera. He wrote "Masquerade", but he then informed Webber that he wanted to leave the project because he was losing his memory (he had developed metastatic lung cancer) andCharles Hart replaced him.[13][14] He had turned down an invitation to write the English-language lyrics for the musical version ofLes Misérables.[15]
After Lerner's death, Paul Blake made a musical revue based on Lerner's lyrics and life entitledAlmost Like Being In Love, which featured music by Loewe, Lane, Previn, Strouse, and Weill.[16][17] The show ran for 10 days at theHerbst Theatre inSan Francisco.[18][19]
Lerner often struggled with writing his lyrics. He was uncharacteristically able to complete "I Could Have Danced All Night" fromMy Fair Lady in one 24-hour period. He usually spent months on each song and was constantly rewriting them. Lerner was said[by whom?] to have insecurity about his talent. He would sometimes write songs with someone in mind. For instance, he changed the rhymes in some lines of "I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face" to ones thatRex Harrison was more comfortable with.[20]
Lerner 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 onNPR'sAll Things Considered, Lerner went into some depth about his lyrics forMy 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 lyricist:
I thought, oh well, maybe nobody will notice it, but not at all. Two nights after it opened, I ran intoNoël Coward in a restaurant, and he walked over and he said, "Dear boy, it ishanged, nothung." 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.
Alan Jay Lerner was an advocate for writers' rights in theatre. He was a member of theDramatists Guild of America. In 1960, he was elected as the twelfth president of the non-profit organization. He continued to serve as the Guild's president until 1964.
For nearly 20 years, Lerner wasaddicted toamphetamines; during the 1960s he was a patient ofMax 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 practice.[21][22]
Lerner married eight times: Ruth Boyd (1940–1947), singerMarion Bell (1947–1949), actressNancy Olson (1950–1957), lawyer Micheline Muselli Pozzo di Borgo (1957–1965), editor Karen Gundersen (1966–1974),Sandra Payne (1974–1976), Nina Bushkin (1977–1981) andLiz Robertson (1981–1986 [his death]). Four of his eight wives — Olson, Payne, Bushkin, and Robertson — were actresses.[2] His seventh wife, Nina Bushkin, whom he married on May 30, 1977, was the director of development atMannes College of Music and the daughter of composer and musicianJoey Bushkin.[23] After their divorce in 1981, Lerner was ordered to pay her a settlement of $50,000.[24] Lerner wrote in his autobiography (as quoted byThe New York Times): "All I can say is that if I had no flair for marriage, I also had no flair for bachelorhood."[25] All of this lent some irony to the lyrics for his songGet Me to the Church on Time.
Lerner had four children — three daughters, Susan (by Boyd), Liza, and Jennifer (by Olson), and one son, screenwriter and journalistMichael Alan Lerner (by di Borgo).
Lerner's multiple divorces cost him much of his wealth. Still, he was primarily responsible for his financial ups and downs and was less than truthful about his financial fecklessness.[26] It was claimed that his divorce settlement from Micheline Muselli Pozzo di Borgo (his fourth wife) cost him an estimated $1 million in 1965. This was untrue.[27] Lerner's pattern of financial mismanagement continued until his death from cancer in 1986 when he reportedly owed the U.S.Internal Revenue Service over US$1 million ($2.87 million in2024) in back taxes and was unable to pay for his final medical expenses.[28]
On June 14, 1986, Lerner died oflung cancer inManhattan at the age of 67. At the time of his death he was married to actressLiz Robertson, who was 36 years his junior.[25] He lived inCenter Island, New York.[29] He has a memorial plaque inSt Paul's Church, the Actors' Church inCovent Garden in London.
Source: TCM[36]
lerner bricusse.
lerner.
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