Alan Jay Lerner: A Lyricist's Letters (20 page)

        
I do hope you and Sarah
⁷⁷
will be in town. I’ll let you know in the next couple of weeks precisely when we’ll be arriving.…Give my love to Sarah. I can’t wait to see you both.

Aye,

Alan

    
To Herman Wouk

    
April 4, 1957

    
Dear Herman:

    
To begin with, old cock, my name is A-L-A-N, not “Allen.” I should have thought that after all we have been through together, my name would have been engraved on the wall of one of those dark, dank corridors of your subconscious that you visit when you have nightmares.

        
My second beef about your letter is that it’s quite obvious from its tone that this Western D. H. Lawrence life you’re leading, this existence of sandy detachment and wind-swept isolation, with no one to talk to but leather-skinned Neanderthals, has increased your rather irritating self-satisfaction and political perversity. Not only are you going to return tanned and healthy, which is annoying enough, but I fully expect you to be completely converted to Richard Nixon, with the possible exception that here and there he may be a bit too liberal for you. Oh, Sarah,
⁷⁸
speak up! Don’t let this happen to our Herman!

        
As for the Authors’ League, not only have I been shirking my civic duties, but my general attitude these days about the human race in general is one of buoyant disinterest. I am off for Paris next week, where I fully intend to grow a beard, become an Existentialist, and spend the rest of my days sitting in the corner of a shabby bistro thinking up new and exhilarating ways of committing suicide. I did, however, attend one meeting, and all seems to be well. They have more speakers than a ladies’ club, and Freedom-To-Write Day will obviously be the most important national event since John Hancock John Hancocked. The invitations have gone out, but I’ve no idea about the reaction. I have a strange recurring feeling the only authors who will
be there will be Rex Stout,
⁷⁹
Buck Crouse,
⁸⁰
you and I—and I’m not sure about the last one.

        
Of myself, my winter has gone something like this:

        
1. Wrote two dreary songs for Harvard with Leonard Bernstein, which took me weeks and weeks and were presented at Carnegie Hall to a packed house of aged, deaf alumni, who couldn’t hear a word and loved them.

        
2. Spent three appalling weeks in California with my children, whom as a result of which I have since given to Hungarian Relief.

        
3. Attended the opening of wife Nancy’s play, which the authors successfully mangled to pieces on the road, but which nevertheless will enjoy a run.

        
4. Directed the road company of
My Fair Lady
—Moss Hart having been conveniently taken ill—and saw same through the opening in Rochester—great success.

        
5. Vaguely assisted in the highly successful and totally undeserved revival of
Brigadoon
at the City Center.
⁸¹

        
6. Began score for film version of
Gigi
.

        
7. As mentioned above, leaving for Paris Wednesday for casting, atmosphere and la vie de bohème.

        
Do hope the book is coming well. Before you make any more fool motion picture deals, you’d better let me read it, in case there’s a musical in it. I miss you, old boy, and I’ll be glad when you’re back in town. Give Sarah a buss for me, and come home soon.

Aye,

Alan

These letters show just how productive Lerner was; the post–
Fair Lady
inertia had not lasted long. Then on April 21 came the great news:
My Fair Lady
had won six Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Actor, Musical Director, Costume Designer, Scenic Designer, and Director.

    
Out of this busy and elating period came earnest preparations for
Gigi
, which progressed quickly now that Loewe had come on board. Moving to Paris in mid-April, Lerner worked fast to complete changes to the script in time for production. In doing so, he managed to quell the fears of Maurice Chevalier, who had concerns about his role of Uncle Honoré. Because this character is not
fully developed in Colette’s novella, he is largely the invention of Lerner and, as such, took time to bring into focus. Lerner was a lifelong fan of Chevalier—“He had been an idol of mine ever since every little breeze started whispering Louise,” he commented—and sensed the French star should be the cornerstone of the movie, as he explains in his book: “I felt that a musical personality, such as Chevalier, was essential to the film: there had to be someone whose singing would be expected. The other characters could sing, but they were not singing roles.”
⁸²
Therefore, the character that Chevalier initially read on the page did not fully correspond to Lerner’s intentions for him, so Lerner met with the actor to calm him down. In response, Chevalier wrote him a short note of thanks, saying “I was very happy to feel yesterday that with Fred
⁸³
you were decided to fortify as much as it is possible with the story my part of Uncle Honoré. I can assure you that I am out in our picture to give the very best acting singing performance I can get out of my blood. I admire and trust our group immensely and you can all be sure of my devotion and sincerity.”
⁸⁴
The movie was in production over the summer, and in spite of various problems with filming on location in Paris, it was completed on October 30, 1957.
⁸⁵

    
For now, Lerner and Loewe had a major movie musical in the can, but, as the
New York Times
asked, “Where Do They Go from ‘My Fair Lady?’”
⁸⁶
They both felt that the show had led them in their “natural” direction as writers, as Lerner commented during November 1957:

    
You learn from your failures; they teach you what you’ve done wrong. But you learn more from a success. When you can get far enough away from it to think it over and analyse it, a success shows you what you’ve done right.

        
I see now there were some things I had to get out of my system; hang-overs from youth, fantasy, dream stuff. The “Day Before Spring,” “Brigadoon” phase is over.

        
I know now that what I want to be is a good lyric writer. Larry Hart told me once, “To be a writer, you must be brutal.” He didn’t mean you must hurt people. He meant you must be ruthless with yourself, you must concentrate on your writing to the exclusion of everything and everyone else, you must devote yourself to learning it, improving it,
working at it constantly without ever giving yourself an out, without ever settling for less.

        
For years, Fritz and I floundered around, trying to find our natural way of writing. “My Fair Lady” revealed it to us. The property dictates it. The characters in the story. We are the means by which they express themselves, not vice versa. So it’s better they be in somebody else’s story. Your own are too accommodating. They stay flat, the easier for you to pin songs on. Without their resistance to give you an original springboard into your lyrics, your score doesn’t come off.

        
Doing “My Fair Lady,” for the first time Fritz and I had to come to grips with somebody else’s characters, Shaw’s. They were too strong, too alive to let us push them around. They compelled us to see things their way so that when we moved them into scenes outside the story framework that had hitherto contained them, they were able to meet their new situations with their emotions, motivations, quirks intact.

        
When we felt we really knew them, then we began to work on the score. If we were right, their songs came out of what they are, out of the only way they could express themselves.

        
Writing lyrics from this viewpoint, you don’t say “Hey! How about this for a title?,” fill in the rest, decide who should sing it, and look for a likely place to spot it. We try to catch some thought of a character that motivates him and, in turn, the story; that’s our title. When we’ve agreed on that thought and its mood, Fritz sets it to music, then writes out the music for me. (I read music.) I go away with it and sketch in the lyric. Next meeting I try out what I’ve done on Fritz.

        
His taste is incredibly fine and sensitive. He may find I’ve got off the track or gone too fancy, or I may feel his music needs development here or calming there, or there may even be a time when we’re both delighted—but in the early stages that’s rare.

        
The “Gigi” score gave us the first chance to use what we’d learned from “My Fair Lady”; we wrote it, for us, in a flash.
⁸⁷

Here, Lerner acknowledges that his work on
My Fair Lady
had taken him to a new level of craft as a lyricist, and that this had helped
Gigi
to be a much easier project to write.

    
Apparently at the happiest point of their relationship to date, Lerner and Loewe mulled over some ideas that came their way. First they heard from Jo
Mielziner,
⁸⁸
the veteran scenic and lighting designer. One of his most acclaimed designs was for the Elmer Rice
⁸⁹
play
Dream Girl
(1945), for which he won the Donaldson Award, and he wrote to Lerner and Loewe to suggest it to them as their next musical. However, they decided to turn it down:

    
To Jo Mielziner

    
August 16, 1957

    
Dear Mr. Mielziner:

    
I am dictating this long distance, so do forgive me if this letter is a little brief.

        
Fritz and I have thought about
Dream Girl
most carefully and feel that, for various reasons, it is not for us. I’ll be back in town within the month, and if you would like I’ll call you and explain in a little more detail why we feel the way we do. Thanks so much for thinking of us.

        
Give my best regards to Elmer, and all good luck to you both on the project.

Sincerely,

Alan

It wasn’t until 1965 that a musical was adapted from the play, under the title
Skyscraper
with a score by Cahn and Van Heusen, and Mielziner’s name was not attached.

    
As for Lerner, this period of theatrical deliberation coincided with separation from his wife, Nancy Olson, in September.
⁹⁰
Then, he and Loewe finally settled on their future plans: following rumors about the show in August,
⁹¹
on October 13 they announced that they were at work with Moss Hart on a musical version of
Father of the Bride
, based on the 1949 novel by Edward Streeter and the 1950 film starring Elizabeth Taylor.
⁹²
Hart would stage the show, and the three of them would produce it. In addition, Lerner and Loewe also intended to produce their first play: Jean Anouilh’s
Ornifle
, adapted by Lucienne Hill and starring Rex Harrison. In this way, they proposed to emulate their great forebears,
Rodgers and Hammerstein, in producing others’ work as well as their own, and in both musical and dramatic theater. Another project that briefly came back on the cards was the movie adaptation of
Paint Your Wagon
. After having written the version in 1953 with Arthur Schwartz, Lerner now agreed to write some new songs with Loewe, to a screenplay by John Lee Mahin and William Ludwig.
⁹³
But as before, nothing came of any of the movie. A possible musical based on Sherlock Holmes, suggested by Billy Wilder,
⁹⁴
also never came to pass.
⁹⁵

    
In the end, after several months’ work on
Father of the Bride
they elected to abandon that project too, and they decided to give Herman Levin the rights as a Christmas present:

    
To Herman Levin

    
December 23, 1957

    
Dear Herm:

    
Fritz and I didn’t know what to give you for Christmas, so we finally decided to give you
Father of the Bride
. We’re not doing it, and we thought you might like to have it.

        
Will call you tomorrow, and we must get together before the end of the year about all our casting problems.

        
Hope you and Dawn
⁹⁶
have a wonderful holiday.

Aye,

Alan

At around the same time, Lerner remarried, this time to the French lawyer Micheline Musselli Pozzo di Borgo.

    
By the start of 1958, Lerner and Loewe were back to square one, with no future projects in preparation. But both
Fair Lady
and
Gigi
still required work: the former’s original cast was dispersing to prepare for the London transfer in April, and the latter’s May premiere required effort from them in advance publicity, as well as some reshooting in February after a slightly disappointing first preview in
January.
⁹⁷
After the success of Vic Damone’s recording of “On the Street Where You Live” as a marketing tool for
Fair Lady
, Lerner and Loewe were keen to have him record the title song from their next project, and Lerner wrote to the singer to express his approbation when he agreed:

    
Telegram to Vic Damone

    
January 22, 1958

    
I’M SO DELIGHTED YOU WILL BE RECORDING “GIGI.” LOEWE AND I HAVE NEVER BEEN HAPPIER WITH A RECORDING THAN YOUR VERSION OF “ON THE STREET WHERE YOU LIVE.” WE’RE VERY ANXIOUS FOR YOURS TO BE THE DEFINITIVE RECORD AND HAVE YOU INTRODUCE IT ON THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW.
⁹⁸
HOPE TO SEE YOU NEXT WEEK IN NEW YORK
.