Alan Jay Lerner

Alan Jay Lerner (August 31, 1918 – June 14, 1986) was an American lyricist and librettist. In collaboration with Frederick Loewe, and later Burton Lane, 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 Awards and three Academy Awards, among other honors.

Biography

Born in New York City, 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 Austrian composer Frederick Loewe, who needed a partner, in 1942 at the Lamb's Club. While at the Lamb's, he also met came upon Lorenz Hart, and he helped transform Lerner into his protege. with whom he would also collaborate.

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. it was "a success but not a hit."[6]

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 Rodgers 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 musicals,some successful,some not, 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 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.

Alan Jay Lerner was an advocate for writers' rights in theatre. He was a member of the Dramatists 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.

Personal life

Lerner's personal foibles were the stuff of tabloid legend. For nearly twenty years he battled an amphetamine 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).

Songwriting

Lerner would often struggle with writing his lyrics. He was surprisingly uncharacteristically able to complete "I Could Have Danced All Night" 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:

"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'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:

"I thought, oh well, maybe nobody will notice it, but not at all. Two nights after it opened, I ran into Noel Coward 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 and Works

Life of the Party (1942), with Frederick Loewe

What's Up? (1943), with Frederick Loewe

The Day Before Spring (1945), with Frederick Loewe

Brigadoon (1947), with Frederick Loewe

Love Life (1948), with Kurt Weill

Paint Your Wagon (1951), Frederick Loewe

My Fair Lady (1956), with Frederick Loewe

Camelot (1960), with Frederick Loewe

On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1965), with Burton Lane

Coco (1969), with André Previn

Lolita, My Love (1971), with John Barry

Gigi (1973), based on the 1958 film of the same name, with Frederick Loewe

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (1976), with Leonard Bernstein

Carmelina (1979), with Burton Lane and Joseph Stein

Dance a Little Closer (1983), with Charles Strouse

My Man Godfrey (1984), unfinished, with Gerard Kenny[31]

Films

Source: TCM[32]

Royal Wedding, 1951 (screenwriter/lyricist)

An American in Paris (1951) (writer)

Brigadoon, 1954 (film) (screenwriter/lyricist)

Gigi, 1958 (screenwriter/lyricist)

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1960 (lyricist)

My Fair Lady, 1964 (screenwriter/lyricist)

Camelot, 1967 (screenwriter/lyricist)

Paint Your Wagon, 1969 (producer/screenwriter/lyricist)

On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, 1970 (screenwriter/lyricist)

The Little Prince, 1974 (screenwriter/lyricist)

Tribute, 1980 ("It's All for the Best," lyricist)

Secret Places, 1984 (title song lyricist)

אלן ג'יי לרנר

' (באנגלית: Alan Jay Lerner;‏ 31 באוגוסט 1918- 14 ביוני 1986) היה מחבר שירים, לבריתן ותסריטאי אמריקאי, שיצר יחד עם פרדריק לאו את אחד ממחזות הזמר הפופולריים ביותר בעולם, הן על הבמה והן בקולנוע, "גברתי הנאווה". הוא זכה בשלושה פרסי טוני ובשלושה פרסי האקדמיה, בין שאר פרסים ואותות כבוד.

תוכן עניינים 1 חייו 2 יצירות 2.1 הצגות תיאטרון 2.2 סרטים 3 לקריאה נוספת 4 קישורים חיצוניים חייו לרנר נולד בניו יורק כבנם של אדית לרנר לבית אדלסון ושל ג'וזף ג'יי לרנר. אחי אביו, סמואל אלכסנדר לרנר היה הבעלים והמייסד של Lerner Stores, רשת של חנויות בגדים. אחד מבני הדודים של לרנר היה איש הרדיו, המנחה והשחקן הנרי מורגן. לרנר התחנך בבית הספר בידיילס (Bedales) באנגליה, אחר כך בבית הספר קואוט (Choate, כיום Choate Rosemary Hall), השייך בימינו ליישוב וולינגפורד, קונטיקט (שבו כתב את שיר הלכת של בית הספר) ובהמשך באוניברסיטת הרווארד. בבית ספר קואוט וגם בהרווארד היה חבר לכיתה של ג'ון פיצג'רלד קנדי, כששניהים נמנו עם צוות עורכי השנתון של בית ספר קואוט. בדומה לקול פורטר באוניברסיטת יל ולריצ'רד רוג'רס באוניברסיטת קולומביה, שהחלו את הקריירה שלהם במחזות-זמר שהיו תרומות למוסד שבו למדו, כתב לרנר את מחזות הזמר השנתיים במסגרת אגודת "פודינג" של תלמידי הרווארד. בעונות הקיץ 7–1936 למד לרנר בג'וליארד. בתקופת לימודיו בהרווארד איבד את הראייה בעינו השמאלית כתוצאה מתאונה בזירת האיגרוף. ב-1957 שיתף פעולה עם חברו ללימודים, ליאונרד ברנשטיין, בכתיבת "הגברים הבודדים מהרווארד", הצדעה היתולית ושנונה לאלמה מאטר שלהם.

עקב פגיעתו, לא שירת לרנר בצבא במלחמת העולם השנייה ובמהלכה כתב תוכניות רדיו, בהן "מצעד הפזמונים", עד שהתוודע ב-1942 למלחין האוסטרי פרדריק לאו, ובהמשך ללורנץ הארט והיה לבן-חסותו של הארט.

שיתוף הפעולה הראשון של לרנר ולאו היה בעיבוד מוזיקלי לפארסה "פאטסי" של בארי קונרס, למחזמר בשם "מסמר המסיבה" בשביל חברת מניות בדטרויט. את רוב הפזמונים כתב ארל קרוקר, אך הוא פרש מן המיזם והניח אחריו כר נרחב לשינויים ושיפורים. המחזמר הצגות המחזמר נמשכו תשעה שבועות ועודד את הצמד להצטרף אל ארתור פירסון ביצירת "מה קורה?", שעלה על הבמה בברודוויי ב-1943. ההפקה הופיעה על הבמה ל-63 הצגות וכעבור שנתיים בא בעקבותיה "היום שלפני האביב". אחת השותפויות המוצלחות ביותר של ברודוויי קמה והייתה לעובדה.

הלהיט הראשון של השניים היה "בריגדון" (1947), פנטזיה רומנטית שמקום התרחשותה הוא כפר סקוטי מסתורי. הבמאי היה רוברט לואיס. לאחר "בריגדון",בשנת 1951, בא "צבע את הקרון שלך", שנושאו הבהלה לזהב והצלחתו נפלה מזו של קודמו.

לרנר עבד עם קורט וייל על המחזמר הבימתי "חיי אהבה" (1948) ועם ברטון ליין על הסרט המוזיקלי "חתונה מלכותית" (1951). בה בשנה כתב לרנר גם את התסריט המקורי, זוכה פרס אוסקר לאמריקאי בפריז, בהפקת ארתור פריד ובבימוי וינסנט מינלי. אותו צוות שיעבוד בהמשך עם לרנר ולאו ביצירת ז'יז'י.

ב-1956 הסירו לרנר ולאו את הלוט מעל גבירתי הנאוה. השלמת "גבירתי הנאווה" נמשכה זמן רב ולרנר היה להוט לחזור לכתיבה. ברטון ליין ולרנר עבדו על מחזמר שנושאו הוא "אבנר הקטן" ( Li'l Abner). הזכויות לפיגמליון היו בידי גבריאל פסקל, ומלחינים אחרים כבר ניסו את מזלם בהפיכתו למחזמר ונכשלו. הראשונים לנסות היו ארתור שוורץ והווארד דיטץ, ובעקבותיהם ריצ'רד רוג'רס ואוסקר המרשטיין, אך הם אמרו נואש והמרשטיין אמר ללרנר "לפיגמליון אין עלילה משנית". העיבוד של לרנר ולאו ל"פיגמליון" של ג'ורג' ברנרד שו שימר את הפרשנות החברתית של שו והוסיף שירים מתאימים לדמויות של הנרי היגינס ולייזה דוליטל, בגילומם, במקור, של רקס הריסון וג'ולי אנדרוז. המחזמר שבר את שיאי המכירות בניו יורק ובלונדון. גרסת הקולנוע, בשנת 1964, גרפה שמונה פרסי אוסקר, בהם "הסרט הטוב ביותר" וה"שחקן הטוב ביותר" לרקס הריסון.

רצף ההצלחות של לרנר ולאו נמשך במיזם הבא שלהם, עיבוד לקולנוע ל"ז'יז'י" של קולט, שזכה בפרס האקדמיה בכיכובם של לסלי קארון, לואי ז'ורדאן ומוריס שבלייה. הסרט זכה בכל תשע המועמדויות שלו לאוסקר, הישג שהיה שיא בשעתו, ואוסקר מיוחד לאוסקר שבלייה ככוכב נלווה.

השותפות בין לרנר ללאו התפרקה עקב הלחץ שהיה כרוך בהפקת המחזמר "קמלוט", מסיפורי המלך ארתור, בשנת 1960. לאו התנגד לרצונו של לרנר לעסוק גם בבימוי נוסף לכתיבה, כשהבמאי המקורי מוס הארט לקה בהתקף לב בחודשי החזרות האחרונים. הוא מת זמן קצר לאחר הצגת הבכורה. לרנר אושפז מחמת דימום מכיב קיבה ואילו לאו סבל מבעיות בלבו. על אף כל אלה התקבל "קמלוט" כלהיט, והייתה לו גם קודה נוקבת: מיד לאחר רצח קנדי אמרה אלמנתו למגזין לייף, שהממשל של ג'ון פיצג'רלד קנדי מזכיר לה את "רגע הזוהר היחיד, הקצרצר" של "קמלוט" מאת לרנר ולאו. עד עצם היום הזה משתמשים ב"קמלוט" לתיאור האידיאליזם, הרומנס והטרגדיה של תקופת קנדי.

לאו פרש לפאלם ספרינגס שבקליפורניה ואילו לרנר עבר ממחזמר כושל אחד למשנהו, עם מלחינים כמו אנדרה פרווין ("קוקו"), ג'ון בארי ("לוליטה, אהובתי"), ליאונרד ברנשטיין ("שדרת פנסילבניה 1600"),ברטון ליין ("כרמלינה") וצ'ארלס שטראוס ("רקדי קצת יותר קרוב", שהתבסס על הסרט "תענוג של אידיוט", שהלשונות הרעות של ברודוויי הצמידו לו את הכינוי "סגור קצת יותר מהר", כיון שנסגר כבר בערב הפתיחה). רוב הביוגרפים תולים את האשמה לדעיכתו המקצועית של לרנר בהיעדרם של מלחין חזק כמו גם במאי חזק, שלרנר היה יכול לעבוד איתם כמו שניל סיימון עבד עם מייק ניקולס או סטיבן סונדהיים עם הרולד פרינס (מוס הארט, שביים את "גברתי הנאווה", מת זמן קצר לפני פתיחת "קמלוט"). בשנת 1965 חזר לרנר לעבוד עם ברטון ליין על המחזמר "ביום בהיר אפשר לראות לנצח", שעובד לסרט ב-1970. בשנת 1971 צורף לרנר להיכל התהילה של הפזמונאים.

ב-1973 שידל לרנר את פריץ לאו לחזור מפרישתו כדי להרחיב את הפרטיטורה של "ז'יז'י" לעיבוד למחזמר. כעבור שנה עבדו בצוותא על גרסת סרט מוזיקלי של הנסיך הקטן, על פי סיפור הילדים הקלאסי של אנטואן דה סנט-אכזופרי. הסרט נכשל הן בביקורות והן בקופות, אבל הוא זוכה לקהל חסידים עכשווי.

באוטוביוגרפיה של לרנר, "הרחוב שבו אני גר", (1978), היא סיפור הצלחתן של שלוש מן היצירות שעליהן עבד עם לאו, "גברתי הנאווה", "ז'יז'י" ו"קמלוט", בלוויית מידע אישי. בשנת חייו האחרונה פרסם את "התיאטרון המוזיקלי: חגיגה", ספר מצליח על תולדות התיאטרון, מלא וגדוש באנקדוטות אישיות ובשנינות המיוחדת ללרנר. ספר מילות השירים של לרנר בשם "A Hymn To Him", בעריכת הסופר הבריטי בני גרין, יצא לאור בשנת 1987. לרנר היה נשוי 8 פעמים, חמש מנשותיו היו שחקניות והוא היה אב לארבעה ילדים.

בזמן שהלך לעולמו, עמד לרנר בתחילת כתיבת השירים לפנטום האופרה. צ'ארלס הארט החליף אותו. אותם ימים עבד גם עם ג'ורג' קני בלונדון על גרסה מוזיקלית של הסרט הקלאסי, "האיש שלי גודפרי". אנדרו לויד ובר פנה אליו בבקשה דחופה לכתוב את מילות השירים ל"פנטום האופרה", ולרנר הודיע לו, כי הוא רוצה לפרוש מן המיזם משום שהוא מאבד את זכרונו (עקב גידול במוח שלא אובחן). הוא אף דחה הזמנה לכתוב את השירים באנגלית לגרסה המוזיקלית של עלובי החיים.

אחרי מותו של לרנר יצר פול בלייק רוויו מוזיקלי, מבוסס על שירי לרנר וחייו. "כמעט כמו להיות מאוהב" הכיל מוזיקה מאת פרדריק לאו, ברטון ליין, אנדרה פרווין, צ'ארלס סטרוס וקורט וייל. ההצגה החזיקה מעמד רק עשרה ימים בתיאטרון הרבסט בסן פרנסיסקו.

יצירות הצגות תיאטרון Life of the Party (1942), עם פרדריק לאו What's Up? (מחזמר) (1943), עם פרדריק לאו The Day Before Spring (1945), עם פרדריק לאו Brigadoon (מחזמר) (1947), עם פרדריק לאו Love Life (מחזמר) (1948), עם קורט וייל Paint Your Wagon (מחזמר) (1951), עם פרדריק לאו My Fair Lady (1956), עם פרדריק לאו "קמלוט" -Camelot (מחזמר) (1960), עם פרדריק לאו On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1965), עם ברטון ליין Coco (מחזמר) (1969), עם אנדרה פרווין Lolita, My Love (1971), עם ג'ון בארי (מלחין)) Gigi (מחזמר) (1973), מבוסס על הסרט "ז'יז'י" 1958 Gigi (1958, עם פרדריק לאו 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (מחזמר) (1976), עם ליאונרד ברנשטיין Carmelina (1979), עם ברטון ליין וג'וזף שטיין Dance a Little Closer (1983), עם צ'ארלס סטראוס My Man Godfrey (1984), בלתי גמור, עם ג'רארד קני סרטים Royal Wedding, 1951 (פזמונים) An American in Paris (1951) (מילים) Brigadoon 1954 (סרט) (פזמונים) Gigi (1958 סרט), 1958 (תסריט/פזמונים) The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1960 (פזמונים) My Fair Lady, 1964 (תסריט/פזמונים) Camelot, 1967 ((תסריט/פזמונים) Paint Your Wagon, 1969 (תסריט/פזמונים) On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, 1970 ((תסריט/פזמונים) The Little Prince, 1973 ((תסריט/פזמונים) Tribute, 1980 ("It's All for the Best," פזמונים) Secret Places, 1984 (הפזמון הראשי) לקריאה נוספת 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 קישורים חיצוניים IMDB Logo 2016.svg אלן ג'יי לרנר , במסד הנתונים הקולנועיים IMDb (באנגלית) MusicBrainz Logo 2016.svg אלן ג'יי לרנר , באתר MusicBrainz (באנגלית) אלן ג'יי לרנר , באתר Discogs (באנגלית) IMDB Logo 2016.svg אלן ג'יי לרנר , במסד הנתונים הקולנועיים IMDb (באנגלית) https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%90%D7%9C%D7%9F_%D7%92%27%D7%99%D7...

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Jay_Lerner

Alan Jay Lerner (August 31, 1918 – June 14, 1986) 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 Awards and three Academy Awards, among other honors.

Biography

Born in New York City, 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 Austrian 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 Rodgers 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 musicals,some successful,some not, 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 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.

Personal life

Lerner's personal foibles were the stuff of tabloid legend. For nearly twenty years he battled an amphetamine 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).

Songwriting

Lerner would often struggle with writing his lyrics. He was surprisingly able to complete "I Could Have Danced All Night" 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:

"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'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:

"I thought, oh well, maybe nobody will notice it, but not at all. Two nights after it opened, I ran into Noel Coward 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 and Works

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Jay_Lerner#Awards_and_honors