Alan Jay Lerner: A Lyricist's Letters (28 page)

    
Still away from New York, Lerner was unable to be present for Richard Burton’s final performance in the role of Arthur in
Camelot
, so he wrote the following letter to apologize:

    
To Richard Burton

    
September 12, 1961

    
Dear Richard,

    
I am desolate I won’t be in New York for your last performance. Some day—somewhere—about three o’clock in the morning, when we are all tanked to the eyebrows, you will have to get up and give me a personal final performance from beginning to end.

        
I hope you got a copy of the published version of the play, because in the preface I tried to express my gratitude to you for those grisly days between Toronto and New York. Beyond that, all I can say is that
I suppose you are the best bloody actor in the world and that is all there is to that. Every time I see
Camelot
in the future, I shall be missing you.

        
I hope all goes well in Rome and if you need any songs to perk up the second half of the picture, let me know. I will be looking forward to seeing you in November.

        
Until then, bon voyage, happy
Cleopatra
—and again and again, thank you.

Faithfully,

Alan

Though brief, this letter indicates clearly how much Lerner admired Burton’s performance in the show—something he would mention again in later correspondence—as well as underlining the pivotal situation of the show in the actor’s career. It was his first musical, and a fair hit, but it was also his final stage appearance before filming
Cleopatra
, the movie that launched him to international stardom opposite his future wife, Elizabeth Taylor. Burton is one of many actor legends with whom Lerner was closely associated, and at the height of the writer’s career these associations tended to be on projects with which his collaborators were always closely associated (e.g., Leslie Caron and Maurice Chevalier on
Gigi
; Julie Andrews, Stanley Holloway, and Rex Harrison on
My Fair Lady
; Robert Goulet and Richard Burton on
Camelot
).

    
In the fall, an article about a concert engagement of French actor Yves Montand (who went on to star in Lerner’s
On a Clear Day
) indicated just how far
My Fair Lady
had entered the public consciousness. In reporting the program Montand was to sing, Lewis Funke referred to “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face” as being “from Alan Lerner’s and Frederick Loewe’s ‘You Know What.’”
⁷⁸
By now, the musical had become a firm classic, and in September, Warner Bros. paid a record $5.5 million in cash for the screen rights to the show, outdoing
South Pacific
’s $2,270,000, which had been the previous record (held by Twentieth Century Fox).
⁷⁹
This was front-page news, and the names of Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn were mentioned in connection with the lead roles (though Rex Harrison ultimately recreated his stage role of Higgins onscreen, of course). The article also reported that the original cast album had sold 3,250,000 copies to a total amount of $15,000,000, which was the highest figure to date for an album of any genre of music. Moreover, the Broadway production had been attended by over three million people by this point. These figures are a potent
reminder of Lerner’s prominence during this period, not only in theatrical culture but in the national headlines.

    
Back in New York by early November, Lerner set to work in earnest on his first show with Rodgers. Various articles in the newspapers from the end of 1961 and the beginning of 1962 mention the tentative start of the new partnership, but no real details are given. Rodgers was busy putting the final touches on
No Strings
, a show for which he had written both music and lyrics and which was due to premiere on Broadway in March 1962, so Lerner was not under pressure to write the book for the show they were to do together, at this stage at least.
⁸⁰
Two brief notes from the period do indicate that he had begun work on it, though, and they also hint at an incredible amount of affection from the lyricist to this most beloved of composers:

    
To Richard Rodgers

    
c. January 1962

    
Dear, dear Dick:

    
I hope what will come between these covers will make this one of the happiest of your many happy years.

Affectionately,

Alan

    
To Richard Rodgers

    
c. February 1962

    
Dear Dick:

    
Here are the first two scenes. The rest needs cutting. I’ll mail them on to you in a day or two.

XXX

Alan

The kisses in the second note are especially indicative of a pleasant working relationship, since they are the only such to appear in any of the letters that have been unearthed during the research for this book. Lerner later commented of Loewe that “there will never be another Fritz. No relationship will ever be as
close, both professionally and personally.”
⁸¹
Yet in this period, not only had Loewe left the partnership—apparently to consider writing a piece based on “a property of Oriental background,”
⁸²
according to a news report from December 1961—but these brief exchanges with Rodgers suggest that Lerner
could
potentially have had an equally fruitful and close relationship with someone else (one of the Broadway greats, no less).

    
Another of Lerner’s close collaborations came to a tragic end on December 21, 1961, when Moss Hart dropped dead of a heart attack at the age of 57.
⁸³
Speaking at Hart’s memorial tribute at the Music Box Theatre on January 9, 1962, Lerner commented on the warmth of their working relationship:

    
What would take perhaps years of association in civilian life, in the theatre takes a handful of weeks. There is no time for detachment and formality, for suddenly you’re intensely involved. Suddenly you’re exposed. You’re close and you discover. And with Moss to discover was overwhelming. What I found was all the things so many had long known before me…Talent? Of course…Knowledge, experience? Without question. But also—one of the rarest and most decently human of human beings.

        
To work with a director who is an outstanding creator in his own right had its allures, but can also be a terrifying experience. Only those writers who have been directed by Moss can fully appreciate the tact, delicacy and sensitive understanding with which he went about his job. Never once did he try to superimpose his ideas upon you. He saw the play through your eyes, and if he felt that in places you were becoming myopic or astigmatic he became your glasses to enable you to see your own work clearer. Were there ever a disagreement, you won. If you were proven right, he was the first to admit it. If you were proven wrong, he was the easiest person to be wrong with. For in either case, it was always accomplished with warmth and humor. Personalities were never on trial. Only points.

        
My Fair Lady
ran long in New Haven. Condensation, not cutting, was required. Moss came to me with a solution. I went to work on it and in so doing found what I thought was a better one, entirely different. The next day, rather hesitantly, I read it to him. He listened, thought, then rose and said, “You dirty dog. How dare you give me an inferiority complex?”…

        
I could repeat such instances by the score…for courtesy, respect for his fellow worker, patience and professionalism were the tools of his trade. These and something more…something for which in these troubled days of Broadway the theatre cries out so desperately. For in the best sense of the word, Moss brought glamour to the theatre. He felt it was special and was—and became—special to live up to it. As troubled, uncertain…as tormented as any who toil in these vineyards, he always covered it all with the cloak of dignity and grandeur.

        
When we who are members of his profession try to console ourselves by remembering what he was and how we knew him, undoubtedly each will select his own private memory. For me, I shall always think of Moss as The Theatre…and because of him, be prouder of it and love it that much more.
⁸⁴

What Minnelli had been to him in Hollywood, Hart was to him on Broadway—the ideal directorial collaborator with a strong personal aesthetic that bonded closely with Lerner’s own. But, of course, the Hart-Lerner combination only lasted for two projects,
Fair Lady
and
Camelot
, and the latter was marred by the ill health of both. With the abrupt retirement of Loewe after
Camelot
, in effect Lerner had lost both his perfect Broadway associates within the space of a year.

    
Never one to look back, though, he moved on with the Rodgers project, and also flirted again with the television medium. In an attempt to emulate the success of the Lerner and Loewe night on
The Ed Sullivan
Show, a further TV special called
The Broadway of Lerner and Loewe
was put together and broadcast by Channel 4 on February 11, 1962. Julie Andrews, Maurice Chevalier, Robert Goulet, Stanley Holloway, and Richard Burton were on hand, and Lerner and Loewe made brief appearances. But the overall effect was less well received than had been the case with the previous show, largely because of a perceived mismatch between performer and song in many instances: Andrews was given “With a Little Bit of Luck” (Holloway’s song in
Fair Lady
) while Holloway and Chevalier sang a duet version of “Almost like Being in Love.” Jack Gould in the
New York Times
suggested the effect would have been better “had the numbers been exchanged.”
⁸⁵
Though the critical reaction was mixed, the show’s high audience figures once more put Lerner in the public eye.

    
In March came the bad news that playwright Russel Crouse, one of Lerner’s colleagues from the Dramatist Guild, had been hospitalized. Lerner wrote him a short but typically witty note:

    
To Russel Crouse

    
March 22, 1962

    
Dear, dear Buck:

    
I was so deeply concerned to learn of your illness but equally gladdened to hear you’re on the mend.

        
I think you would have been pleased to know what a multitude of people worried like hell about you and expressed love and devotion. I being one of them.

        
I must say however, it seemed a rather extreme device to get out of Dramatist Guild meetings.

Affectionately,

Alan

In his reply a month later, Crouse mentions a hot topic: Lerner’s association with Rodgers, with whom Crouse himself had worked on
The Sound of Music
(as co-author of the book with Howard Lindsay):

    
From Russel Crouse

    
April 10, 1962

    
Dear Alan:

    
I am a little late in answering your note, but I’ve got a pretty good excuse. It was very nice of you to think of me. I am coming along fine now and expect to be as good as new, except for a few things I left behind at the hospital.

        
Hope all goes well with you and that the collaboration is moving swiftly and smoothly.

Sincerely,

Buck

    
Around that time, Lerner also dispatched the following amusing note of rebuttal to one Eric Shrubsole (perhaps a New York-based jeweler), whose company had delivered something to the Lerner family home:

    
To Eric Shrubsole

    
April 9, 1962

    
Dear Mr. Shrubsole,

    
I was most upset to receive your letter in which you reported that the servants in the house had been rude to your delivery man. Upon inquiry I discovered you were partially right and partially wrong.

        
There was indeed a kitchen maid who quite possibly could have listed discourtesy among a large array of unattractive traits. She has since been dismissed for other reasons, but denied your accusation heatedly.

        
On the other hand, what does seem to have been the nub of “the incident” was that your delivery man asked for a tip and did not seem satisfied with the amount forthcoming from the butler. I gather this led to a few guttural monosyllables. As far as the butler is concerned I can indeed vouch for his honesty and courtesy.

        
Be that as it may—or may not—I am sure that we will both survive the altercation. I continue to regard Shrubsole Corporation with deep respect and I trust you will feel the same of