Danielle Birkett
They Almost Picked a Daisy: Richard Rodgers & Alan Jay Lerner’s Brief Collaboration
The year 1960 marked a significant turning point on Broadway with the dissolution of two highly successful collaborations: Oscar Hammerstein died of cancer on 23 August leaving Richard Rodgers without a lyricist; while Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe decided ‘the next will be our last’ (referring to Camelot).[1] On Hammerstein’s advice, Rodgers teamed up with the much younger Lerner stating:
From what I knew about Alan, his general philosophy and attitude toward the musical theatre seemed closest to mine of any lyricist then active on Broadway…Even more important to me was the kind of theatre he had come to represent. It had taste and style, and it said something.[2]
Optimistic of a successful partnership, the news was announced in the New York Post in April 1960, however it was noted that the pair would not begin work until ‘late this year or early in 1961’.[3] After discussing several possibilities for a show, including one ‘based on the life of a French fashion designer Chanel’,[4] Rodgers and Lerner decided on a musical about extra-sensory perception, a subject Lerner defined as ‘any event that cannot be explained by the five senses’.[5]
This paper will use primary sources from the (currently unprocessed) Burton Lane Collection and the Richard Rodgers Collection, both housed in the Music Division of the Library of Congress. Employing these archival documents, I will discuss Lerner and Rodgers’ brief collaboration on the musical I Picked a Daisy (which Lerner ultimately completed with Lane and re-titled On a Clear Day You Can See Forever). In particular, I will investigate how the partnership functioned, the work that was achieved on the piece, and the difficulties that prevented the completion of the musical. Consideration will also be given to the influence this partnership had on the Lerner and Lane musical that premiered on 17 October 1965 (for which Rodgers was uncredited).
[1] Jablonski, Edward. Alan Jay Lerner: A Biography (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1996), 201.
Lerner and Loewe would later reform their collaboration to write Gigi (1973) and The Little Prince (1975).
[2] Rodgers, Richard. Musical Stages: An Autobiography (New York: Da Capo Press, 1975), 314.
[3] Scheck, Frank. New York Post (April 1960).
[4] Lees, Gene. The Musical Worlds of Lerner and Loewe (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005), 245.
Nine years later, Lerner would return to this concept to produce Coco (1969) with André Previn.
[5] Lerner, Alan Jay. ‘Extrasensory Perception…What is it all About?’ (Burton Lane Collection, Library of Congress), undated.