Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Lyricist best known for the musicals My Fair Lady and Gigi, among many other shows and films.
On the island
Eight records
That happens to be a a song that I'm immensely fond of it and and it's I think underrated and one of the most beautiful songs.
the most nostalgic part of my school days musically was Ray Noble. ... how potent is that cheap music? Well, it takes me back to those lovely days.
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Georg Solti
the greatest waltz opera ever written was by a German, Rosen Cavalier, and it is one of my absolute in this as it is with everybody in the world, one of the pure delights of all time.
I worship Coldwater. ... I sent him two tickets every Wednesday night for a year. And that's the reason I think of one of his songs, which was one of my favorites, just one of those things.
Symphony No. 5 in C-sharp minor
New York Philharmonic, conducted by Leonard Bernstein
the fifth symphony of Marlowe's that Lenny recorded. and the last movement, if possible. will satisfy me on any island.
Mack the KnifeFavourite
Mac the Knife, naturally, which is one of the most joyous things he ever did. And Court Wild again.
Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 'Choral'
Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Georg Solti
there's no greater piece of music ever written than Beethoven's Ninth. ... I suppose would be the last move of Beethoven's Dinner.
Even with the best of the kind of music we hear today, there isn't the joy that you will find in, let us say, Fat Swallows Ain't Misbehaving.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:44How well could you look after yourself on a desert island?
Well, I never thought of myself as either indoor or outdoor, but uh I think I'm a survivor.
Presenter asks
2:22Why did you go to school in England?
Well, my father was an absolute uh fanatic about the English language and uh He really sent us to sch I have two brothers. We were all sent to school in England to learn the language. He didn't think anybody spoke it very well in in New York, and I think he was probably right.
Presenter asks
5:27How did you start in the musical theatre after leaving Harvard?
Well, I I started by, in a sense, by an actual accident. When I was at Harvard, I was training for the Air Corps ... But I had an accident and I lost one eye, so that grounded me permanently. ... So I came back to New York. and uh wrote radio programmes and did all sorts of any anything I could write at all, and writing lyrics and plays at night, until I finally met Fritz Lowe
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The book
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain
I think the one that I would most want is uh Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.
The luxury
a piano with my wife's picture glued to it
could I have a piano with my wife's picture glued to it?
Why did you initially abandon the idea of making a musical out of Pygmalion?
It was at a period in the musical theater where there were certain demands placed on musicals automatically. I mean, where did the singing chorus come from? We were still in the era where there was a great deal of ballet in the musical theater. And there had to be a secondary love story, etc. And somehow w we just couldn't Make that Drawing room comedy, which is primarily what it was, expanded into the full dimension of the musical.
Presenter asks
15:18How did you and Frederick Lowe work together on a song?
Well, we would discuss it thoroughly before I even had the title, and then once I had the title, that sort of... Said what the the mood and the idea was, then Fritz would go to the piano and start to play. ... I would sit in the room always, he liked me to sit there when he was just composing, because he'd almost go into a trance as he would play, and all of a sudden I'd say, Wait, stop, that's fine.
“when I was twelve years old I was firmly convinced that I would do nothing else with my life but be in the musical theater somewhere or somehow.”
“I usually average about uh oh maybe five days to eight days, working twelve to sixteen hours a day. But sometimes it runs much longer.”
“The kind of musical theater that we had been used to disappeared. Well, it didn't disappear, but it it went to s it was brushed aside and the record business changed. Everything changed.”