Throughout his life, my fathers greatest joy was finding someone with whom he could share his passions.
My father quickly discovered the dual nature of his friends personality.
Its too bad youll never amount to anything.
“America’s best young conductor,” photographed by Irving Penn, Vogue, July 1948
The result,On the Town,announced the arrival of a new generation on Broadway.
His eyes flashed and he smacked me across the face, saying, Fuck youwe were really talking.
Well work day and night in a kind of fever.
Well explore, well create, well laugh, well make love.
Later, I nervously recounted the proposition to my father, who just laughed.
Bernstein never mentioned our possible collaboration again, and I eventually learned he had abandoned the project.
Love, Goddaddy Lenny.
My father and Bernstein collaborated for the last time in the winter of 1989.
Ten months later, Bernstein died at the age of 72.
OK, Leonard, this isnt funny, he growled.
Get up, goddamn you.
How happy your friendship makes me.
When I first read my fathers words, it was as if I saw himand their relationshipanew.
It may have been rambling, but it only looked haphazard, and the connections go on.
