Page "Alan Jay Lerner" Paragraph 8

The Lerner-Loewe partnership cracked under the stress of producing the Arthurian Camelot in 1960, with Loewe resisting Lerner's desire to direct as well as write when original director Moss Hart suffered a heart attack in the last few months of rehearsals, and would die shortly after the show's premiere.

Lerner was hospitalized with bleeding ulcers while Loewe continued to have heart troubles.

Camelot was a hit nonetheless, with a poignant coda ; immediately following the assassination of John F. Kennedy, his widow told Life magazine that JFK's administration reminded her of the " one brief shining moment " of Lerner and Loewe's Camelot.

To this day, Camelot is invoked to describe the idealism, romance, and tragedy of the Kennedy years.