Alan Jay Lerner - Shaw Festival Theatre

Alan Jay Lerner (1918 – 1986), Frederick (Fritz) Loewe (1901 – 1988)

The 40-year writing partnership of Lerner and Loewe spawned hit musicals, memorable songs and a style of American musical theatre that combines the witty lyrics and books by the Harvard-educated Lerner with the rich melodies of the Vienna-born Loewe. Their musicals include My Fair Lady, Camelot, Brigadoon, Paint Your Wagon, the film musical Gigi, and their catalogue is full of hits and standards like “Almost Like Being in Love,” “The Rain in Spain,” “On the Street Where You Live,” “They Call the Wind Mariah,” “I Could Have Danced All Night,” “Thank Heaven for Little Girls,” “Camelot,” “If Ever I Would Leave You,” and “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face.”

They met in 1942 at The Lambs Club in New York – home to America’s first professional theatrical club. Writer Alan Jay Lerner had written sketches and lyrics for the club’s annual show, and the older musician Loewe first heard his work there. Loewe had joined the club to meet more people in the musical theatre scene and when he saw Lerner at the club later, he approached him: “You’re Alan Jay Lerner. I hear you write lyrics.” Lerner answered, “I try.” Loewe said, “I write music, and I don’t have a lyric writer. Why don’t we try it together?”

Their first shows together, The Life of the Party (1942) and What’s Up? (1943) were complete failures. Their next, The Day Before Spring (1945) did slightly better, running for five months and included the song “You Haven’t Changed At All.” Then came their first universally acclaimed hit, Brigadoon (1947), the fairy tale about a Scottish town that comes to life for one day every hundred years, which ran for 17 months on Broadway. In 1951 came Paint Your Wagon, a musical western that spent nine months on Broadway and included the song “They Call the Wind Mariah.”

On March 16, 1956, My Fair Lady opened, and it became one of the longest running musicals on Broadway, running for 2,717 performances over more than six years. By 1960, $19 million worth of recordings of the score had been sold. The 1964 film version, with a screenplay by Lerner, won seven Oscars. The musical brought Lerner and Loewe their greatest acclaim and their greatest fame and afforded them lavish lifestyles, with homes in Paris and the Cote d’Azur – and for Lerner, eight wives.

In 1958, Lerner wrote the screenplay and lyrics for the classic film Gigi, with music by Loewe and directed by Vincente Minelli. The score included “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” and “I Remember It Well” and won nine Academy Awards, including Best Screenplay and Best Song. Their final major Broadway success came with Camelot in 1960. By this time, Loewe was 60 years old and retired from composing – although the two worked together one final time on the unsuccessful 1974 film The Little Prince. After Loewe’s retirement, Lerner went on to write the screenplay (and win an Oscar) for An American in Paris (1951) and perhaps his most successful post-Loewe musical was On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1965).