FLC
Frederick Loewe Collection, Library of Congress
HLP
Herman Levin Papers, Wisconsin Center for Film and Television Research, Madison, Wisconsin
HRP
Harold Rome Papers, Yale University
TGC
Theatre Guild Collection, Yale University
WCC
Warner-Chappell Collection, Library of Congress
CHAPTER 1
1. Ovid (trans. John Dryden), Metamorphoses, Wordsworth Classics Edition (London: Wordsworth, 1998), 325.
2. Alan Jay Lerner, The Street Where I Live (London: Hodder and Staughton, 1978), 29–119. Page numbers refer to the 1989 English paperback edition with a foreword by Benny Green (New York: Da Capo Press, 1989).
3. Steven Bach, Dazzler: The Life and Times of Moss Hart (New York: Knopf, 2001). David Mark D’Andre, “The Theatre Guild, Carousel, and the Cultural Field of American Musical Theatre” (PhD diss., Yale University, May 2000).
4. Dan Laurence, ed., Bernard Shaw: Collected Letters 1926–50 (New York: Viking, 1988), 528. In an earlier letter to novelist and playwright Siegfried Trebitsch, Shaw revealed that he had suggested that Straus’s score for The Chocolate Soldier be provided with “a new libretto bearing a new name” and referred to the operetta as “the abominable C.S.” Letter of April 28, 1931, Shaw to Trebitsch in ibid, 236–37.
5. Letter of August 28, 1921, Shaw to Trebitsch, in Dan Laurence, ed., Bernard Shaw: Collected Letters 1911–25 (New York: Viking, 1985), 730–31.
6. In a letter of December 18, 1907, to Trebitsch on hearing that Straus intended to set his play to music rather than merely use an idea from act 1, Shaw wrote: “Such a musical version would simply drive the play off the boards,” in Dan Laurence, ed., Bernard Shaw: Collected Letters 1898–1910 (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1972), 742.
7. Letter of February 3, 1948, Shaw to E. A. Prentice in ibid., 813.
8. Letter of April 5, 1948, Shaw to Fanny Holtzmann in ibid., 817.
9. Lewis Funke, “The Long View of Mary Martin’s Plans after South Pacific,” New York Times, May 20, 1951, 11.
10. Sam Zolotow, “Goldsmith Writes Play for Mitchell,” New York Times, October 5, 1951, 38.
11. Memorandum of October 24, 1951, Marshall to Langner, TGC, 137.
12. Interoffice memorandum of January 4, 1952, by Langner, TGC, 137.
13. Letter of February 15, 1952, Langner to Pascal, TGC, 137.
14. Lewis Funke, “Theatre Guild Mentioned as Producer of Pygmalion Musical,” New York Times, January 27, 1952, X1.
15. A complete score for Spring was rediscovered by the author during the course of the research for this book and received its first complete performance since the original 1945 Broadway run by the London-based Lost Musicals organization in June 2010.
16. “On the 21st he dangled in front of Anderson a play that was certainly among those he was to discuss with Alan Jay Lerner a year or two later—Pygmalion.” David Drew, Kurt Weill: A Handbook (London: Faber, 1987), 419–20. Lerner and Weill eventually collaborated on Love Life (1948).
17. See Valerie Pascal, The Disciple and his Devil (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1970), 239.
18. Telegram of March 22, 1952, Langner to Pascal, TGC, 137.
19. Lerner, Street, 49–51.
20. Letter of May 10, 1952. Lerner to Pascal, TGC, 137.
21. Letter of May 22, 1952, Langner to Fitelson. TGC, 137.
22. Sam Zolotow, “Michael Todd Eyes Ninotchka Script,” New York Times, May 30, 1952, 12.
23. Lewis Funke, “Plans for Musicalizing Pygmalion Are Making Progress,” New York Times, June 1, 1952, X1.
24. Letter of June 17, 1952, Langner to Helburn; letter of June 19, 1952, Marshall to Helburn, TGC, Box 62.
25. Letter of June 20, 1952, Helburn to Langner. TGC, Box 62. Less than three months later, Lawrence died of cancer, which was undoubtedly the cause of her problems in performance. Sheridan Morley, Gertrude Lawrence (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981), 197–98.
26. Telegram of June 25, 1952 (10:15 a.m.), Langner to Helburn, TGC, 137.
27. Telegram of June 25, 1952 (11 a.m.), Langner to Helburn, ibid.
28. Letter of June 27, 1952, Langner to Helburn. TGC, 62. Quoted in D’Andre, “Theatre Guild,” 248; Valerie Pascal, Disciple, 220.
29. Crawford describes her difficulties in her autobiography, One Naked Individual: My Fifty Years in the Theatre (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1977). Letter of July 1, Helburn to Langner, TGC, 62.
30. D’Andre, “Theatre Guild,” 248. D’Andre does not cite a source for this piece of information.
31. Letter of July 18, Langner to Helburn. TGC, 137.
32. Telegram of August 7, 1952, Harrison to Langner. TGC, 59.
33. Interestingly, Noël Coward’s published diary for July 28, 1952, indicates that he had been approached by the Theatre Guild to write a Pygmalion musical for Mary Martin at this time. Graham Payn and Sheridan Morley, eds., The Noel Coward Diaries (London: Macmillan, 1983), 196.
34. Both D’Andre and Valerie Pascal agree on this date, though neither cites a source. D’Andre, “Theatre Guild,” 249; Pascal, Disciple, 221. Pascal’s copy of the contract is held in the Pascal Collection, Howard Gottlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University.
35. Lerner, Street, 38.
36. Letter of October 20, 1954, Helburn and Langner to Lerner, TGC, Box 137.
37. Bach says, “There were rumors that the collaborators had quarreled, for neither the first nor the last time.” Bach, Dazzler, 338.
38. Interoffice memorandum of February 17, 1953, Jo Mielziner to Marshall, TGC, 137.
39. D’Andre, “Theatre Guild,” 250. D’Andre does not state the sources for this information.
40. Lewis Funke, “News and Gossip Gathered on the Rialto,” New York Times, February 8, 1953, X1.
41. Brooks Atkinson, review of Maggie, New York Times, February 19, 1953.
42. Letter of February 20, 1953, Helburn to Langner. TGC, 137.
43. Although D’Andre states this date with certainty, he does not cite a source for the information.
44. Sam Zolotow, “Saints and Sinners Stage News Again,” New York Times, May 27, 1953, 28.
45. Letter of July 8, 1953, Benjamin Aslan to Charles Abramson of the Famous Artists Corp., HRP, folder 79/57.
46. Sam Zolotow, “Decision Awaited on Hit’s Transfer,” New York Times, August 28, 1953, 13.
47. Sam Zolotow, “Saints and Sinners Is Postponed,” New York Times, September 18, 1953, 16. The Girl with Pink Tights had a score by Sigmund Romberg; it opened on March 5, 1954, at the Mark Hellinger Theatre, which would eventually be the home of My Fair Lady.
48. Letter of October 27, 1953, Benjamin Aslan to Jane Rubin of the Richard J Madden Play Company, Inc., HRP, 79/57.
49. Sam Zolotow, “Richard III Back on Stage Tonight,” New York Times, December 9, 1953, 9.
50. Letter of January 26, 1954, Benjamin Aslan to Michael Halperin of Wilzin and Halperin, HRP, 79/57. A copy of the contract also lies in the same box of HRP at Yale.
51. Sam Zolotow, “Guinness Stymied in Bid to Act Here,” New York Times, June 11, 1954, 20; Zolotow, “Katzka Discusses Spewack Musical,” New York Times, July 21, 1954, 19. Hal Prince went on to become one of Broadway’s leading producers and directors, with shows such as West Side Story and The Phantom of the Opera to his credit.
52. Letter of September 8, 1954, Aslan to Herbert P. Jacoby of Schwartz and Frohlich, HRP, 79/57.
53. Letter of September 10 from Aslan to Rome, Fields, Loewe, and Chodorov; letter of September 12, 1956, Rome to Aslan; letter of October 31, Aslan to Herbert Jacoby; letter of March 14, 1957, Aslan to Loewe, Rome and Fields, HRP, 79/57.
54. Typescript for Saints and Sinners, HRP, folder 65/85. Sale of Frederick Loewe’s manuscripts at Christie’s, Los Angeles, November 18, 1999, Lot 99, Sale 9292. Demo recording of Saints and Sinners, Library of Congress, call number RGB 0465.
55. Louis Calta, “Li’l Ab
ner Bagged by Two Showmen,” New York Times, March 17, 1953, 26. Lewis Funke’s column briefly mentions the same project in his column five days later. Funke, “News and Gossip of the Rialto,” New York Times, March 22, 1953, X1.
56. Arthur Schwartz’s successes include The Band Wagon, written for Fred Astaire on Broadway in 1931 and later fitted out with a new book and additional songs as an MGM film, again with Astaire (1953), and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1951).
57. Thomas M Pryor, “Cinerama Slates Full-Length Film: Paint Your Wagon, with New Music and Lyrics, on Tap as First Feature in Process,” New York Times, February 11, 1953, 35.
58. Edwin Schallert, “Cinerama Start Looms,” Los Angeles Times, February 11, 1953, B9.
59. A song with the title “There’s Always One You Can’t Forget” was written for Lerner and Charles Strouse’s Dance a Little Closer in 1983 but with an otherwise completely new lyric.
60. My thanks to Mr. Schwartz and Erik Haagensen for bringing this script to my attention and for generously providing me with a copy.
61. Louis Calta, “News of the Stage,” New York Times, November 12, 1953, 37.
62. Stephen Holden, “A Composer’s Son Remembers Life with Father, Through Music,” New York Times, October 4, 1988, 17.
63. Sam Zolotow, “Lewis Wondering about Three Musicals,” New York Times, June 21, 1954, 20.
64. Howard Thompson, “The Local Screen Scene,” New York Times, August 15, 1954, X5.
65. I thank Richard C. Norton for this piece of information about Olsen, which comes from his forthcoming biography of Loewe. Olsen also mentions her part in this reunion in the Camera Three Productions documentary Lerner and Loewe: Broadway’s Last Romantics (1988).
66. Lerner, Street, 45.
CHAPTER 2
1. Sam Zolotow, “Bow Set Tonight for On Your Toes,” New York Times, October 11, 1954, 31.
2. Letter of October 19, 1954, Lerner to Helburn and Langner, TGC, 137.
3. Letter of October 20, 1954, Helburn and Langner to Lerner, ibid.
4. HLP, 25/7. On December 4, 1956, Moss Hart would approach Coward with a view to him appearing in the London production of the show (HLP, 23/5). Nothing came of this offer, but Coward later wrote a musical for production by Levin, The Girl Who Came to Supper (1963).
5. HLP, 26/6.
6. Ibid.
7. Lerner, Street, 60. Certainly Lerner, Loewe, and Levin met with Beaton in London, but Lerner leaves the reader with the impression that all discussions about the show took place there rather than having started in New York with Levin.
8. HLP, 23/5.
9. Ibid.
10. Diary, 1955. Michael Redgrave Papers, Theatre Museum Archive, Victoria and Albert Museum, TH 17/31/41/12. The “Clurman-Giraudoux” project was a play about the Trojan wars called Tiger at the Gates, in which Redgrave would play Hector.
11. Memo of telephone conversation with Richard Halliday, December 14, 1954, TGC, Box 137.
12. D’Andre, “Theatre Guild,” 253. I was not able to access the interoffice memos D’Andre cites for this information.
13. Letter of December 27, 1954, Langner to Paul Ramsay, TGC, 137.
14. Theatre Guild Memo of January 18, 1955, TGC, 137.
15. Summary of conversations with Rodgers and Hammerstein, February 9, 1955, TGC, 137.
16. HLP, 25/8.
17. Lerner, Street, 81. In the end, Hanya Holm’s choreography received unanimous praise, but the cutting of the ballet—which would have been her great moment—meant that the amount of choreography was reduced even further.
18. Ibid. Lerner finished the story: “Moss had nothing to say and obviously could not wait for the meeting to end. After Mike left, Moss looked at Fritz and me and from his lips came an over-articulated, ‘No.’”
19. In a letter of June 13, 1955, Levin wrote to Laurence Evans: “We have made a deal with Moss Hart to direct the show,” HLP, 25/7. Hart’s contract, dated June 18, 1955, is also in HLP, 25/8.
20. Telegram of January 25, 1955, Lerner to Levin, HLP, 25/7. Letter of April 1, 1955, Levin to Laurence Evans, HLP, 25/7. Letter of April 1, 1955, Levin to Beaton, HLP, 24/7.
21. HLP, 26/6. One assumes that the reference to Show Boat is sarcastic rather than the person referred to in the phrase “I’m meeting him today …,” if nothing else because Sammy Lee, the choreographer of the original Show Boat, did no further work on Broadway after 1932.
22. Lerner, Street, 81.
23. HLP, 25/7. In his book on Moss Hart, Steven Bach cites an interview he carried out with production assistant Bud Widney by way of explaining Holliday’s brief connection with the show, Bach, 343–44.
24. HLP, 26/6.
25. Agreement between Levin and Andrews of March 31, 1955, to which are attached various riders of May-June 1955, HLP, 25/5.
26. Julie Andrews, Home (New York: Hyperion, 2008), 180–81.
27. Lerner, Street, 52.
28. Andrews, Home, 182.
29. HLP, 23/5.
30. Letters of February 7, 1955, Levin to Martin Jurow and David Hocker, HLP, 23/5.
31. Letter of April 11, 1956, Basil Geoffrey of Renée Stepham Ltd. to Levin, HLP, 23/5. Geoffrey had read about My Fair Lady in the Daily Express and wrote to Levin to suggest three of his artists: Barry Sinclair for Higgins, Stanley Beard for Doolittle, and Petula Clark for Eliza.
32. Lerner, Street, 54.
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid., 49.
35. Ibid., 60.
36. Ibid., 62–63.
37. HLP, 23/5.
38. Lerner, Street, 53.
39. Letter of April 1, 1955, Levin to Beaton, HLP, 24/7. Beaton was designing both costumes and sets for Selznick’s production of Enid Bagnold’s play The Chalk Garden, which was to open on Broadway in October 1955 and star Gladys Cooper (who later played Mrs. Higgins in the 1964 movie version of My Fair Lady)
40. Letter/agreement of March 18, 1955, Levin to Harrison and countersigned by the latter, HLP, 25/7.
41. See, for instance: Jared Brown, Moss Hart: A Prince of the Theatre (New York: Crown, 2006), 338.
42. Letter of February 24, 1955, Lillian Aza to Herman Levin, HLP, 25/9.
43. Lerner, Street, 60.
44. Letter of March 14, 1955, Aza to Levin, HLP, 25/9.
45. Letter of March 25, 1955, Levin to Aza, HLP, 25/9.
46. Letter of March 31, 1955, Aza to Levin, HLP, 25/9.
47. Letter of April 6, 1955, Levin to Aza, HLP, 25/9.
48. Lerner writes: “We … promised him that we would fly over to see him to show him his songs as we wrote them, to make certain he felt comfortable with them,” Lerner, Street, 62–63.
49. Letter of April 1, 1955, Levin to Laurence Evans, HLP, 25/7.
50. Letter of April 1, 1955, Levin to Smith, HLP, 26/6.
51. Four telegrams between Levin and Van Druten. Only Van Druten’s first telegram is dated (April 6), so the dates of the others remain conjectural.
52. Memorandum of Telephone Message, Monica McCall to Herman Levin of May 9, 1955, HLP, 25/7.
53. Letter of April 14, 1955, Aza to Levin, HLP, 25/9.
54. Letter of April 29, 1955, Aza to Levin, HLP, 25/9.
55. Letter of May 6, 1955, Levin to Aza, HLP, 25/9.
56. Letter of May 12, 1955, Aza to Levin, HLP, 25/9.
57. Letter of May 17, 1955, Levin to Aza, HLP, 25/9.
58. Letter of May 31, 1955, Aza to Levin, HLP, 25/9.
59. Telegram of June 13, Levin to Aza, HLP, 25/9.
60. Letter of June 27, Aza to Levin, HLP, 25/9.
61. Telegrams of July 13, 1955 between Levin and Aza, HLP, 25/9.
62. Letter of April 4, 1955, Evans to Levin, HLP, 25/7.
63. Letter of April 20, 1955, Levin to Evans, HLP, 25/7.
64. Letter of April 25, 1955, Evans to Levin, HLP, 25/7.
65. Letter of May 2, 1955, Evans to Levin; letter of May 6, 1955, Levin to Evans, HLP 25/7.
66. Letter of May 9, 1955, Evans to Levin, HLP, 25/7.
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67. Letter of May 17, 1955, Levin to Evans, HLP, 25/7.
68. Letter of May 18, 1955, Evans to Levin, HLP, 25/7. Lerner describes how Harrison was having an affair with Kay Kendall at the time Harrison was appearing onstage with Lilli Palmer. Lerner, Street, 55.
69. Letter of May 23, 1955, Evans to Levin, HLP, 25/9.
70. Letter of May 27, 1955, Levin to Evans, HLP, 25/9.
71. Letter of April 6, 1955, Beaton to Levin, HLP, 25/9.
72. Letter of May 13, 1955, Arnold Weissberger to Levin, HLP, 24/7.
73. Letter of May 24, 1955, Weissberger to Levin, HLP, 24.7.
74. Letter of June 13, 1955, Weissberger to Levin, HLP, 24/7. On June 17, Levin wrote to Beaton to inform him that he had received the contracts the previous day. Letter of June 17, 1955, Levin to Beaton, HLP, 24/7.
75. Letter of April 20, 1955, Levin to Actors’ Equity Association, HLP, 25/5.
76. Letter of April 27, 1955, Actors’ Equity Association to Levin, HLP, 25/5.
77. Letter of May 14, 1955, Smith to Levin, HLP, 26/6.
78. Letter of May 17, 1955, Levin to Smith, HLP, 26/6.
79. Letters of May 20 and June 2, 1955, between Smith and Levin, HLP, 26/6.
80. Lerner, Street, 61–62.
81. “Suggested Deal—CBS” of May 23, 1955, HLP, 27/10. The fruits of the advertising aspect of the deal came to bear in February 1956. A letter from CBS to Levin lists fourteen television spots in the following week in which the opening of My Fair Lady would be announced. Letter of February 10, 1956, Sam Cook Digges of CBS to Levin, and attached list, HLP, 33/5.
82. Letter of June 15, 1955, Irving Cohen to Levin, HLP, 27/10.
83. Agreement of July 18, 1955, between Levin and CBS, HLP, 28/5.
84. Letter of June 13, 1955, Levin to Evans, HLP, 25/7.
85. Letter of June 24, Beaton to Levin, HLP, 24/7.
86. Letters of March 16 and May 19, 1955, Geoffrey to Levin; letters of June 12 and July 27, Levin to Geoffrey, HLP, 23/5. Michael King would go on to earn $200 a week in this role.
87. Letter of June 29, 1955, Lou Wilson to Levin, HLP, 25/5.
88. Letter of June 28, 1955, Levin’s amanuensis—presumably his secretary—to W. H. Worrall (Levin’s London broker for this negotiation), HLP, 25/7.
Loverly:The Life and Times of My Fair Lady (Broadway Legacies) Page 28