Quote of the day:

People think of education as something they can finish.
—Isaac Asimov

When I read this anecdote, it reminded me of the story that Celeste Holm told about Oscar Hammerstein, and I thought about putting them together in a post. But then I decided to back up and relate the Most Hostile City story and then give a more complete remembrance of that AIDS benefit concert. But this Lorenz Hart anecdote didn’t fit in with that. So here it is all by itself, with the assumption that you’ve read the Celeste Holm anecdote about Oscar.

In Gary Marmorstein’s biography of Lorenz Hart, A Ship Without A Sail: The Life of Lorenz Hart, he tells this anecdote about Hart’s ability to quickly dash off new lyrics when needed.

Too Many Girls tried out in Boston in early October. Larry was trying to stay sober, and once again his lyrical cleverness in “I Like to Recognize the Tune” made the audience hungry for more. Desi Arnaz, misremembering the setting as New Haven, wrote that George Abbott asked Larry for two more choruses. Larry borrowed a pencil and, placing an old envelope on top of the piano, began to write. The cast and crew left him there, a little boy forced to do his homework, while they all attended a party at the restaurant across the street. “In about half an hour Larry came in,” Arnaz recalled, “went to Mr. Abbott and Dick Rodgers and said, ‘What do you think of this?’ as he handed them the envelope. He had written three more choruses as good as, if not better than, the ones he had written before. Unbelievable mind!”

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