Loverly

In the early days of the Kennedy Center Honors, they didn't just give the award to popular or successful artists who had terrific careers, but rather to people who were legendary.  This falls in that category.  It comes from 1985, and the honorees are Lerner & Lowe. 

When you see them sitting in that booth, that's composer Frederick Lowe on the left, which must leave Alan Jay Lerner (who wrote the book and lyrics for their shows) on the right.

Lerner had a career beyond Lowe, writing a huge number of flops at the end of his career, but also the big hit On a Clear Day You Can See Forever with composer Burton Lane.  And also a respectable run with Coco, written with Andre Previn, and famous for starring Katharine Hepburn.  (Yes, Katharine Hepburn.)  Also, while they say during the film narration that the last show the two of them wrote for Broadway was Camelot, the two men actually wrote a later movie musical together, The Little Prince (a score which Lerner loves, but in his entertaining autobiography, The Street Where I Live, he trashes the director for ruining, mucking up tempos and deleting musical passages), and they also did a stage version of Gigi, which included a couple of new songs.  So, while the narration is technically correct, they did do some later work.  The reason they stopped working together, by the way, was simply that Lerner was quite a bit older and wanted to retire.  He was coaxed out of retirement for The Little Prince, a large part of Lerner being so furious at the director, writing, "The price was high, because it undoubtedly was Fritz' last score." 

(To show how snippy Lerner could get, he writes, "The director, someone named Stanley Donen."  Someone named?  Stanley Donen is one of the most acclaimed movie musical directors of all time, among his credits being co-directing Singin' in the Rain,On the Town and Damn Yankees!, and directing Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Funny Face, along with non-musicals Charade and Bedazzled, among many others, receiving a Lifetime Achievement Oscar -- for which he gave one of the all-time great acceptance speeches.  Really.  I'm not saying Lerner wasn't right to be upset.  Just that "Someone named..." is a tad dismissive.  But I digress...)

It's a very nice Kennedy Center Honors tribute, with one glaring omission, no Julie Andrews.  And the replacement for her is paltry -- Liz Robertson, who happens to be Alan Jay Lerner's wife.  Had she been his sole and lifelong wife, that might have been touching, but he was married something like 118 times.  Okay, I exaggerate, it was just eight.  At least she was his last one.  To be clear, she's talented, and was in some shows.  But it's hard to imagine that they couldn't have found some other renown soprano instead.  At least they do have Rex Harrison there.  Too bad he seemingly didn't want to do anything more than the introduction and narration.  Still, the performance of everyone is very good.

One performance stands out for me, that of Michelle Lee.  Most people probably know her from the series Knots Landing, but she was a wonderful singer.  Not only did she have the female lead in the movie version of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, but she starred on Broadway in Seesaw (based on the movie, Two for the Seesaw).  When she wanted to belt, boy howdy could she belt.  She's really wonderful here, singing "Almost Like Being in Love" from Brigadoon.  But that's not the reason I single her out here, good as she is.  It's because she changes a lyric, right at the beginning of the song.  And I have to believe it had lyricist Lowe grinding his teeth, saved only by the exuberant performance.

She sings --

Maybe the sun
Gave me the power.
But I could swim Loch Lomond
And be back in half an hour.

The thing is, Lerner actually had another rhyme in there.  What he wrote was --

Maybe the sun
Gave me the power.
But I could swim Loch Lomond
And be home in
Half an hour.

It's such a clever, lively, fluid rhyme, that I'm sure he loved.  Anyway, as I said, he probably partially forgave her after the performance.

This video comes in two parts and runs 24 minutes.  I've edited them together, so they should run back-to-back.