American Masters

"One" plays on piano

WOMAN

Oh, Marvin, Marvin. I just hear your name, and it makes me smile. Marvin Hamlisch. He heard music in everything -- the raindrops, the clock strike, someone knocking at the door.

MAN

I feel that if you opened up his vein, blood wouldn't have come out, musical notes would have come out. Every impression I had of Marvin was that we're doing something fabulous and fun. He was having such a wonderful time. He came in with a bang. He was at the top, and he stayed at the top. He has four Grammys, three Oscars, two Golden Globes, a Tony, a Pulitzer Prize, and a partridge in a pear tree.

Laughter

MAN

It's just the range of ability. I mean, ideas seem to just literally be at his fingertips. And he just loved doing it so much. And that, that's contagious.

WOMAN

When you see something and you don't know how it's done, that's what dreams are made of, that's what art is. That's what inspires someone to be an artist. If Marvin walked into a room and there was a piano in it, just wait -- something wonderful is about to happen.

MAN

How did it all begin? Did you always want to write? Did I always want to write? I wanted to be, actually, the son of J. Paul Getty, but... -

Laughter

MAN

-That didn't work out because my mother never met the man. Uh...

HAMLISCH

Way before Hitler got into power, my father, he saw what the problem was going to be. And he very smartly said, "We gotta get out of here."

WOMAN

He would look at me when he'd visit my grandparents, and he would say, "Do you know how lucky you are to have grandparents? I never knew my grandparents," because he lost his grandparents in the Holocaust. I think all of this made a huge impact. He valued friendship and family and people over everything else. It's also why Marvin was so grateful for the things that he did have, and never took it for granted.

MAN

Marvin's parents, Uncle Max and Aunt Lilly, personified Vienna. Uncle Max was a professional accordionist who played at Viennese balls. He was kind of a throwback already, like they belonged in the court of Franz Joseph rather than Broadway or in the Catskills. Aunt Lilly, she invented helicopter mothering. Aunt Lilly would not allow Marvin to fly to Los Angeles because airplanes had been known to crash, incinerating all the occupants therein. So Friday afternoon, Aunt Lilly takes Marvin to Grand Central Terminal, gives him his supper in a brown paper bag, and kisses him goodbye. She then prepares to fly out to Chicago the next day. She was allowed to fly. If her plane crashed, it would be like Dag Hammarskjold, she died in service. So Saturday morning when the train pulled into the station in Chicago, there was the same mommy who kissed him goodbye yesterday at Grand Central, waiting for him on the platform with his lunch in a brown paper bag.

HAMLISCH

Immigrant parents who come out of Europe because of the war who, obviously, want their son to have every possible thing that they never had, you get a sense of how much is riding on what it is that you're going to do. You just can't help but feel it.

TERRE

He grew up in a very small apartment on the West Side. He shared a bedroom with his sister. The piano was sort of crammed in there.

ROZ

If we played cowboys and Indians, we had background music, because Marvin would run to the piano and right away have cowboy music on the piano. So we knew early on that this was who Marvin was going to be. How young was he when you thought he had any musical ability? Eight months. -Eight months? -Eight months. He rocked in the crib to the music. A radio was playing, and he kept the rhythm.

Scales playing on piano

HAMLISCH

My sister was taking lessons at home with a teacher, and I'd be listening to this. And then I'd go to the piano, and I'd actually start to play the thing that they were playing. And my father, he realized, you know, "This kid's got something, what should I do?" He gets an audition for me at Julliard. I walk into Julliard, this six-and-a-half-year-old kid, they're expecting me to play Bach or Beethoven or something. "What are you going to play, Marvin?" I said, "I'm going to play 'I'm Yours.'" Now, these people at Julliard have no idea what I'm doing here. I go...

Plays upbeat tune

HAMLISCH

And they look at me and say, "What else are you going to play?" I said, "Well, I can play this in any key."

Transposes tune

HAMLISCH

And that's how I got into Julliard.

WOMAN

I'm yours

TERRE

Marvin was declared a child prodigy basically at age four. When they saw the way that he could play, Julliard was determined to make him the next Horowitz. That's what he was supposed to be.

HAMLISCH

I would be at home, and a friend of mine would come over from Julliard, a brilliant pianist, Lorin Hollander, he would come over. He'd play something, and my father would go, "Oh, oh!" And my mother would go, "Oh, oh!" you know. Classical music is awesome, and it touches the highest reaches of the human soul. But I can't see Marvin being contained by that. I can't see Marvin playing anything the way it should go for 30 seconds. Some creative stuff is gonna come out, some wildly funny thing, some juxtaposition. He'll bring in a whole other piece of music. He'll do everything to make it Marvin without trying to make it Marvin, it just is Marvin. I was being trained to become a concert pianist. But at a very early age, it became very clear that that would drive me crazy. Because every time I would go to the concert to play something, I would get so nervous. I would actually see the veins in my hands as I started to play. You know, and I went, "I can't do this. I literally am going to, you know," I mean, I had an ulcer at a very young age, because it was just too much for me.

MAN

If you're born with an outstanding gift, as Marvin was -- I mean, let's face it six years old, auditions for Julliard, gets in -- you're expected to take your instrument as far as you can go. And in the piano world, that's classical music. But Marvin always had one ear to his lessons and the other ear to Broadway and pop music.

HAMLISCH

My problem was that during the normal hours, I was practicing, you know? So I was doing...

Plays classical piece

HAMLISCH

at Julliard. But at Julliard, they had double doors. The minute the two doors closed and I was alone and the teacher was gone, you know, I'd be going...

Plays bluesy chords

HAMLISCH

She'd come in, walk in the door.

Switches to classical

HAMLISCH

"Hello! Everything's fine."

MAN

Marvin was not a snob. Marvin was one of the earliest progenitors of the idea that all music is equal. It was about what's good music. It's not necessarily what's classical music or what's pop, but is it good? He didn't see the difference.

HAMLISCH

By eight or nine, you know, rather early, I said to my father one day, "I don't know why I'm doing all this, because the truth of the matter is, I'm not going to be Horowitz." And I wanted to be, you know, like a Cole Porter. He said to me, "Look, if you want to be able to write music and play your music for people, you want to be able to play it well." So, therefore, I decided, "Okay, it will be my little secret. I won't tell my teachers I don't want to be Horowitz, I'll just learn all this stuff, and later on apply it to what I really want to do."

MAN

Marvin and I went to a professional children's school for performers, you know, singing and dancing. There were a few kids in the school who were really talented -- Marvin. I knew even then he was gonna have some life in musical theater.

WOMAN

I was kind of gawky, skinny. And he was kind of the geeky-looking kid. We weren't the cutest people in the school at that time. But we were thrown together because of music. We would have bazaars here in December to raise money for the school. And so this was an opportunity for him to write 12 to 15 songs in a short amount of time, quite astonishing for a 15-year-old child.

WALKEN

Nebuchadnezzar Drip. That was a character in one of his school shows. Nebuchadnezzar Drip was a movie star, very vain. He was just needy for adoration, and Marvin gave me that part. Ha ha. He would play, and he would talk, and he would make things up, and he would ask people for some ideas, a name of a song, and he would make up a song. And everything that we saw Marv do all throughout his professional career, Marv was doing back then.

UGGAMS

One of the first songs he wrote for me was called "Can You Tell Me Why I'm Lonely?" I had the nerve to tell him that I didn't think the lyrics were that great.

Laughs

UGGAMS

It kind of went... Can you tell me why I'm lonesome? Everybody tells me that I'm lonesome And I forgot the rest of it. But that's how it started.

HAMLISCH

So in that school, there was a fantastic guy who was one of my best friends. His name was Bobby. Bobby was dating a girl, and her name was Liza Minnelli. And we were all talking one day, and she says, "I'd like to make a record and present it to my mother to show her that I really want to go into this career."

PATTI

So Bobby suggested, "Why not have Marvin write some songs for Liza to give to her mother for a Christmas present?"

HAMLISCH

Now comes Christmas. I get invited to go to play these songs at their house. And there I am with Judy Garland. I am like saying, "God, take me now, because this is the greatest." Okay, now it gets better. Judy Garland says to me, she says, "Do you know any of my stuff?" And I said, "Miss Garland, there is not one song that you could possibly pick that I don't know." And for the next half-hour, I started playing songs for her.

PATTI

He was like...

Gasps

PATTI

"I played for Judy Garland!" So there was no going back after this, you know? There's no going back to Mozart or Beethoven or that, although he could do that. But it's not what his passion was. He really wanted to compose, and musical theater became his real passion.

HOLLANDER

He was in love with Broadway from the moment I met him. For him, it was just magic.

HAMLISCH

I saw "Damn Yankees," "Pajama Game," "Hello, Dolly!" I loved someone singing music with lyrics on a stage and how I felt about that. I'll never forget hearing "Whatever Lola Wants," sitting there going, "Wow!" Or when Carol Channing does "Hello, Dolly!" and the whole theater is ablaze. It's not just something that's on a screen and you go, "Bravo, bravo." It's the whole theater energizes that number.

Applause

JOANN

Right after high school, our mother wrote to Bobby, "Marvin just got this great job. He's going to be a rehearsal pianist for this new Broadway show."

WOMAN

I'm Sadie, Sadie Married lady

MAN

A friend told me a story that he was working in Doubleday's, the old book store on Fifth Avenue. And a woman came in and said, "My son is going to be this wonderful Broadway composer. His name is Marvin Hamlisch. And right now, he's a rehearsal pianist on 'Funny Girl.'" And my friend thought, "Yeah, Marvin Hamlisch. With a name like that, yeah, you're gonna be successful." So there he was, learning from the best -- Jule Styne, the composer, who had just come off "Gypsy," and, of course, Barbra Streisand.

WOMAN

I met Marvin when I was 21 years old. He was only 19. We clicked immediately. Just having him around me, you know, was so joyous. I remember they used to send you out for coffee for people, and I said to you, "Can you get me some chocolate donuts?" And you, of course, brought me two. You became my best friend! His training as a rehearsal pianist with Barbra Streisand helped him become that musician that really was such an improvisor and so spontaneous and so willing to just go wherever that singer was going to go.

HAMLISCH

It was an incredible experience, seeing her in the flesh. And everybody knew -- there was not a question of that this woman was a star and that she had a great voice. And I'm thinking to myself, "Gee, if only one day Barbra Streisand would sing one of my songs." And that became my dream. So what was the first pop song you ever wrote that was successful? I will do my first big hit.

Plays upbeat tune

HAMLISCH

Sunshine, lollipops And rainbows Everything that's wonderful Is what I feel when we're together Are they allowed to applaud? Brighter than a lucky penny When you're near The rain clouds disappear, dear And I feel so fine Just to know... This song was originally written because I have a fabulous ear, nose, and throat doctor, Dr. Lester Coleman. And Dr. Lester Coleman is also my godfather. Now, this is, you know, we're talking about when I was like, 15, 16 years old. He has in his chair as a patient Quincy Jones.

MAN

The doctor says, "I have a client here that is too shy to talk to you, but he has a song he'd love you to hear." And the song was "Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows."

LESLIE GORE

Sunshine, lollipops

HAMLISCH

The next thing you know, Quincy puts it in a film. Leslie Gore recorded it, and that was my first big hit. We're together

JONES

He had "it." I can't drive a car, but I've always been able to tell what "it" is, who's got "it" or not -- whether it's Will Smith or Oprah or Whoopi. And Marvin, Marvin was definitely one of the ones. And soon after, got "The Swimmer." I think it was one of his first scores, wasn't it, was "The Swimmer."

HAMLISCH

I was about 21 years old. I got a phone call one night. Poor woman is really screaming at me. She said, "Mr. Hamlisch, please, I've got this party and they got a piano. It's the first time we ever had a piano for the party. We usually use records, and we want you to play the piano." I said, "Listen, I'm a college student. I'm a Julliard graduate. I do not play these parties. I mean, please," you know! "By the way, could you tell me, you know, who's the party for, because I could maybe send you somebody else?" She said, "Oh, it's for the producer Sam Spiegel." Now, Sam Spiegel had just done "Lawrence of Arabia," he'd done "On the Waterfront." I did what any Jewish-American boy would do. I said, "I'll be over in 10 minutes."

Laughter

HAMLISCH

At the end of the party, he liked what I did. And the next thing you know, they sent me out to Hollywood, and I did a picture.

JONES

Spielberg and I used to call the music "emotion lotion." It is, because music makes you feel. A lot of things in a movie, you wouldn't feel if it wasn't for music, you know. It's the science and soul. All the time, you're utilizing intellect and your emotion -- always. It's the most fascinating challenge in the world. Marvin got it.

HAMLISCH

I'm now in California, and I'm doing film music. I did "Take the Money and Run."

Plays upbeat tune

HAMLISCH

It was Woody Allen. "Move" -- "Move" had a song that went... Move Move Move It was written with Alan and Marilyn Bergman, later to give us "The Way We Were." No one would have ever known that from our first song "Move." I did "Kotch." Live is what you make it Then I did "Bananas," who could ever forget? My ex-wife, Louise Lasser, said that there was this great kid around, and he was very talented. And so we showed him a cut of the film, and he got it right away. So I realized, to make it in Hollywood, it's gotta be a film that people see. Now I start to look for pictures that might be winners. Mem'ries Light the corners of my mind Misty water-color memories Of the way we were When it came time to do "The Way We Were," and heard his name mentioned, it was like, "Oh, God, we have to use Marvin!" He was so efficient, so competent, and he never said "no." I hate the word "no." I love "yes." "Yes, we can do that, yes, that's possible." HA starts out on a college campus, and they actually asked me to go to the college. And what I heard at the college were these bells...

Plays chiming notes

HAMLISCH

And this becomes...

Plays melody

HAMLISCH

And then you start thinking about Barbra Streisand, and you think about those long notes that she sounds so great at.

Plays melody

WOMAN

I think it was about "The Way We Were" that he walked up the walk the first time. We talked about food -- maybe more than we talked about music that first time. Restaurants, I remember. A lot about restaurants. He had such pleasure and joy sitting down at the piano and writing. And he could execute what he's thinking of -- -Immediately. -Immediately. It goes right to the fingers and it goes right to the keys.

MARILYN

Because he was so schooled in the disciple of music, he knew that the possibilities were almost endless. "So if you don't like this, I got that. How about this one?" We said to each other, "If, in the preview of the movie, we don't hear at least a couple of sniffles at the end, then we've not really done our job."

HAMLISCH

At the end of the picture, originally, I hardly use the theme "The Way We Were" until practically the last second. Because my feeling was, "It's getting so hokey." I mean, she's going like this to Robert Redford, and he's saying, "Blah, blah" -- and please. I mean, please, give me some maple syrup here. And we went to Phoenix for the first preview. And at the end of the picture, the picture just kind of died. So I called up the studio person at the time and said, "I've gotta redo the end cue." And they didn't want me to do the end cue over 'cause it was gonna cost about $15,000, not for me, but for the musicians. And maybe I was crazy, but I finally decided to give them back the $15,000 from my paycheck and redo that last cue, 'cause it pissed me off. I went back and redid that cue so that when she touched his hair, that blonde hair, the first thing you heard was that melody.

Melody plays

HAMLISCH

We heard a couple sniffles. Two handkerchiefs came out.

MAN

of where his head is and where his heart is. It would be unthinkable to him that you can improve something and that you wouldn't, you know, because of money. That just -- that's anathema to him.

YESTON

And with one song, Marvin joined the pantheon of great American songwriters -- with that one song. Mem'ries A song like that take in American musical history because it becomes a template for other songs rather than relying on any template that existed before. There are a lot of songs that you could say, "Hey, that reminds me of 'The Way We Were,'" but "The Way We Were" reminds you of no other song.

MARILYN

You're aiming for how the song is gonna serve the film. That's the first job, is to serve that film. Anything that happens outside is gravy. In this case, there was a lot of gravy.

ALAN

The way we were A couple of wrong chords, but otherwise...

Chuckles

Theme from "The Sting" plays

ALAN

Marvin, because he was born in 1944, was the quintessential member of a generation that had something that no other generation had before it, which is the invention of the long-playing record and its dissemination. By the time Marvin was 12 years old, he could go to a record store -- and he did -- and he could buy a recording of virtually any music that had ever existed. And as a result of that, Marvin was really one of the earliest American composers who had an absolute command of every conceivable musical vernacular. It's no surprise then that when he was gonna do "The Sting," he would reach back into ragtime and actually be responsible for the ragtime revival.

HAMLISCH

I literally got every piece of music Scott Joplin wrote. I put it all out on the piano, and then started playing it, and slowly, but surely came down to what we finally used.

Playing "The Entertainer"

Applause

JONES

We had dinner, I said, "Marvin, I have a feeling you're gonna win all three Oscars." And he said, "Get out of here, man! Are you crazy?" I said, "Let's make a bet." You know, and I bet my favorite French wine -- I think it was a Chassagne-Montrachet or something like that.

Applause

JONES

The winner is Marvin Hamlisch for "The Sting."

"The Entertainer" plays

Applause

JONES

Marv "The Way We Were." The winners are... Marvin Hamlisch and Alan Bergman! Whoo!

WOMAN

Oh, it was so beautiful. I gave him his third Oscar that night. It was Burt Bacharach and I, and he gave me the thing where it said who won. And Marvin, of course, is in the audience, and his mother and father. And the moment I looked, I -- "Aah!" They knew, of course. I feel we can talk as friends because I think I know you. Thank you all.

Cheering

JONES

I have this picture of him and his mother lugging these huge cases of wine up to my house in Brentwood -- "'Cause I won," you know.

WOMAN

He catapulted into instant stardom. And every mother of a Jewish girl knew about Marvin because they all thought he would be the perfect husband for their daughters, I think. Mom, you don't have to worry about me going all the way with Todd. I'm saving myself for my one true love -- Marvin Hamlisch.

Laughter

WOMAN

And he was young. I mean, what was he -- he was in his early 20s, probably.

INTERVIEWER

He was 29.

MARILYN

That's very young to win three Academy Awards in one night -- stunning. It didn't change him one bit. It just enabled him to rent a Ferrari instead of a Ford when he came around, you know? MA knew who Marvin Hamlisch was, very quickly, after that amazing Oscar night. He was not a secret Hollywood composer. The one and only Marvin Hamlisch. Marvin Hamlisch. Marvin Hamlisch. Mr. Hamlisch? You ever been embarrassed by the name "Marvin"? Are you kidding? Do you think you come out of a womb, and you say, "Mom, do me a favor and make it Marvin"? I love to perform. I mean, I truly -- I mean, I think when they call me "Hamlisch," I think they put the "ham" in there for real. I think that they knew.

Orchestra playing upbeat tune

MARILYN

I said, "Navel."

Buzzer sounds

MARILYN

I was sitting with my three Oscars in California, feeling, on one hand, very ecstatic, on the other hand, feeling that, you know, life was gonna continue. I was working on another movie. And my true love had always been doing something in the theater. And I had befriended Michael Bennett for a long time. And he called me up, and he said he had an idea, and he wanted to talk to me about it.

MAN

And he comes running to New York to a little off-Broadway workshop to start work with Michael Bennett on the show. And Marvin's agent Allan Carr is going, "Marvin, you can't do this! "What are you doing? "You're crazy, you're a big Oscar-winner. You can't work off-Broadway." He could have taken the safe route and done things that were commercial. There's no -- he could have not left Hollywood after three Oscars and done films. But he came back for this musical about a bunch of dancers that had a story.

ALAN

Broadway theater was his life. You're right, the theater beckoned. Oh, yeah.

"One" plays on piano

HAMLISCH

So I go back to New York. I came to Michael Bennett's apartment. "So, Michael, tell me, tell me, what do you want to do?" He says, "Well, you know, I've recorded 24 hours' worth of talks with dancers, and I think we should do a show about the chorus. A whole new idea, it's a concept called "workshop." I'm just gonna just start them up, see where we go." I was, like, very, very nervous about this.

MAN

Marvin has said this many times. He said, you know, "I come from the school where there's a beginning, a middle, and an end." And -- ha ha! And there was no beginning, middle, or end. It was just Michael and these ideas he had.

WOMAN

The first run-through was so bad that we called it "The Towering Inferno," you know, like that movie where everybody is jumping to their death? Yeah, it was that bad.

HAMLISCH

It took me really about seven or eight months working on that show to figure out what are we really talking about. And then one day in rehearsal, Michael Bennett took a chalk and went -- wham -- and drew a line on the floor. And he said, "That's the line that we're all behind." And all of a sudden, I went, "Aha! I got it!" The common dominator of all these people is... God, I hope I get it I hope I get it

Hums melody

HAMLISCH

I mean, that becomes the mantra, and the killer is... Oh, God, I The desperation. Oh, God, I need this job I really need this job I mean, everything now changes. It's not just about dancers and their resumes and showing off -- it's "I'm desperate. I'm desperate for this thing in my life." Now, people in the audience could identify with those people even though the people in the audience weren't dancers.

McKECHNIE

I mean, it really started coming together with the music, and then each character started emerging. It was very thrilling. That's when I thought, "This could be good -- this could be great." I said to Michael, "Who wants to know about a short girl that wanted to be a ballerina, you know?" And he said, "No, no, no, you're gonna be in the show, you're gonna be in the show." So I go in for Marvin to create my song. And Marvin, he said, "Tell me about yourself." I started to talk. And as I'm talking, Marvin's doodling on the piano. And he gets my energy and it's...

Hums melody

McKECHNIE

Four-foot-ten Four-foot-ten That's the story of my life I remember when everybody was my size And that's what he did with everybody. He created a theme for, you know, every individual.

HAMLISCH

There is this story, Michelangelo, they asked him, "How do you make an elephant?" And he said, "Well, I take a slab of concrete, I take away everything that's not an elephant. What I'm left with is an elephant." It's the same thing with "A Chorus Line."

AVIAN

The collaborative nature on "Chorus Line" was so tremendous. We weren't working for the money. We were working for art. We were all making $100 a week. And we thought, if we had a nice little show we could be proud of and establish ourselves as successful artists, we would be very happy.

Orchestra tuning

WOMAN

Marvin and I, we met for lunch, and I said, "Just tell me about opening night." He said, "Yeah. Well," he said, "so they do 'One,' they do the kicks, and they back into the darkness." And people are screaming and cheering because we've never seen this kind of musical before. And everybody takes their bow. And then we took the third bow. And then it was the sixth bow. He said, "21 bows later, opening night," that's my face. I was... He said, "Yeah, we're just"... we ran out of language. We just were climbing over each other, stunned that the audience would not leave -- period. They would not leave. And I said, "What is 21 curtain calls? What is that?!" He said, "It's a thousand years. It's the best thousand years of your life."

LEE

One day, someone goes, "Hey, you guys, come here! Look out the window!" We looked out the window, and there were black limousines lined up all the way down the block. And it was Jackie Onassis, Diana Ross, Groucho Marx, Lucille Ball -- I mean everybody coming to see us. And we're going, "They're coming to see us?" Wow! I mean we couldn't believe it. It exploded. All of a sudden, we had three national tours, and London, then foreign companies in all these foreign languages, and then selling the movie rights. It just touched everybody.

MAN

The at the heart, not of fame, but at the need to be up there, to live that dream in New York City. Of course he writes that show. He writes that show -- the show about the people who give and give and give and get nothing in return. He writes the show about the people who aren't the stars and it makes them stars.

Siren wails

BREGLIO

New York in 1975 when "A Chorus Line" first opened was in a very bad way. It was broke, it was dirty, it was crime-ridden. What else? I mean, you name it, it was bad. "Chorus Line" came along, and no one had ever seen a hit of this dimension. There was a whole sense of renewal. And then that led to the cleaning up of Broadway and New York!

ANNOUNCER

There's only one Broadway. It's in New York. I love New York

BREGLIO

It was a turning point. And I don't think I'm overstating it one bit because it is, you know, the heart of the city. And it was a fulcrum for a lot of the change that took place in the city.

MAN

I'm sure that it can't have been easy having a career in the theater after "A Chorus Line." And the fact that so many of the people with whom he would have gone on to create great work just weren't there. So many of them died.

SAGER

When Michael Bennett died, it was one of the most devastating things that ever happened to him. He had more respect for Michael Bennett than... anyone that I know that he knew. I think he, more than anything else, kept searching for the great collaboration again. It's never the song or the outcome that's the most important, it's the process of the collaboration. And in my lifetime, the collaboration that I had on "Chorus Line" was something that, you know, you can only dream about. Now, what they taught me at Julliard, really, was how to make things look very difficult.

Laughter

BREGLIO

You would never know it when you first met Marvin, the idea that he was gonna be a personality entertaining people and having them laugh. No, he's just this, you know, this kid from -- this Jewish kid from New York who writes songs. And, suddenly, he morphed into this real celebrity who is fantastic on stage. Aahh

MAN

I suspect, for Marvin, his sense of humor and his innate theatricality would have made it impossible for him to become a classical virtuoso. It's just too restrictive.

AVIAN

He is a performer, Marvin. To be a combination of Victor Borge and Arturo Toscanini, he had that duality and that great, great gift, you know? You are very famous, in America, anyway, for being able to write instant songs. Like somebody can toss you a lyric, and you can instantly compose something.

HAMLISCH

That's true.

RICE

Marvin seemed to move effortlessly between film and theater and performance and all that. I don't think that he really thought of them as being different things. They were all part of one great gift he had, which was to entertain, primarily through music, but also through great, great humor. Has anybody else got any great song titles?

MAN

"Thank God It's Friday!" That's been done. There's been a song, from a movie. Well, how about "Thank God It's Monday"?

Doo-wop tune begins

MAN

Most people have A crazy weekend Wah, wah, wah It ends around Sunday night Part of me is very serious, and I take it very serious, composer. And the other part of me is a very fun-loving guy who likes to have fun. I would like to be a person who can work well in both areas -- that is to say I'd like to be able to walk into a room of the musical intelligentsia of the world and be taken seriously. And at the same time, I'd like to, yes, go down to Florida and do a week at the Diplomat Hotel and just have a ball. And sometimes the two of those people in me -- because I'm always constantly, sometimes, I cannot help but think about it -- are feuding. I always wanted to be a rock star. I said Monday Yeah, baby, don't you know, yeah No, make it real close. Monday, yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, I said when Monday comes around Next time

Applause

SAGER

I was writing pop songs when I met Marvin. He started to talk to me about that he's going to London to score the James Bond movie "The Spy Who Loved Me." I said, "You know, if I were ever gonna write a James Bond song, I would call it 'Nobody Does It Better.'" And, next, on the spot, he's sitting at the piano, and he's writing the melody.

HAMLISCH

When you're trying to write a hit, you think about a lot of things. One of the things we were thinking about here was, because it's a James Bond film, get it very sexy, very double entendre, get it, you know, get it hot. You know, get a hot song, but I wanted not to start like "Goldfinger" and all those big ones, so I started very coy, you know?

Plays intro

HAMLISCH

And then, of course, what was wonderful is I had Carol Bayer Sager write the lyrics, which was wonderful. And we also had, you know -- when you have Carly Simon, who, as you know, is my -- that's it, you know -- oh -- you know? Nobody does it better Makes me feel sad for the rest The first time I met Marvin, I mistook him for a tax collector. I just had never met anybody who looked like Marvin who was in the music business, 'cause everybody that I knew were hippies or had hair that was somehow deranged. It was a dish of a song, and I was so relieved that I liked it. It wasn't "Goldfinger"! So I was thinking, "What is this song gonna be? I hope it has it has a sense of humor." And in fact, the song does. It really is sly. It doesn't take itself seriously. The spy who loved me

SAGER

I used to tell Marvin I loved the fade, because when she'd sing, "James, you're the best," you could think she's talking -- clearly, you think she's talking about James Bond, but she was married to James Taylor at the time. And I used to think, "I wonder who she thought of when she ad-libbed that?" It was definitely James Bond, but I took advantage of the fact that I was in love with James Taylor. And so it helped me to be a method actor as I sang it and to sing it to James Taylor. Oh, baby, you're the best When "The Spy Who Loved Me" was just about to open, there was a screening in New York, and James and I went, and Marvin was there. And just at the end of Roger Moore's jumping off, and the song's starting to play, the lights all went off, the electricity all went off in the theater. That was the blackout. And we trudged home to my apartment, which was the closest. And we all spent the night there. The apartment was hot and cluttered. We were all sleeping on the floor. And Marvin played the piano well into the night. It was so much fun -- he played everything from Bernstein to Copland to all of his own material. And we just were pouring ice down our backs and listening to Marvin play. It was great. And you just can't even believe that so much life could be in one person.

HAMLISCH

My life right now is a C-major chord with a C-sharp stuck in the middle, meaning the C-sharp doesn't fit with a C-major chord. I think the reason I can't say, "Isn't it great -- 'Chorus Line' will be the longest running show, isn't that terrific?" No, that's not terrific enough. It was my first show, I've gotta be able to get better. "Chorus Line" was good work. I want to be able to obtain that kind of standard. I want to be able to continue to do that. Do you still get the thrill of hearing your stuff live or on the radio? I mean, if one of your tunes comes on -- I mean, that's so egotistical, and as you know I'm kind of a... So if you hear something of yours -- No, it doesn't mean a thing to me anymore. Is that really true?

Playing upbeat tune

HAMLISCH

Oh, my God! I can't believe it! Even here in London at this theater, wherever I go... Oh, they're playing my song Oh, yeah, they're playing my song And when they're playing my song Everybody's gotta shh, shh, shh Don't say a word now Listen to that sweet melody

STRINGER

Like any hugely successful composer, he wants to repeat his last success. And to follow "Chorus Line" is a daunting prospect, completely daunting prospect. And it's pretty hard to imagine you could duplicate it. Shows they got taste As long as they're playing my song

KLEIN

I auditioned in California, and he was there with Neil Simon. And I got the part. Marvin and Carol Bayer Sager, his partner and girlfriend, were meeting with Neil to do a musical of the Gingerbread Lady. And Neil got bored with that story. When he was watching the two of them try to write it, he thought, "This is more entertaining than anything we've tried to do with -- I want to write that story." So he asked Marvin if he could take me to lunch. And Neil, he said, "How would you feel about a musical about you and Marvin?" So I thought... "Oh! Oh, that sounds fine to me. Sure, go ahead." So Marvin and I started writing the songs for "They're Playing Our Song." to write with Marvin because he was so brilliantly talented. And then to have it become the success that it became, it was just a great experience. The only thing that wasn't wonderful is we were not really getting along in the way that Neil Simon had us getting along on Broadway. I used to tell people when they would ask me that if Edward Albee had written it, it would have come out like "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" with songs. You know, in fact, the last months of our relationship, we just stayed together to finish the show. They'll be playing My song

Applause

KLEIN

I think he was miffed that, as good as this show was and how much people loved this show, it was the same year "Sweeney Todd" and Sondheim's big, you know, dramatic hit, which, of course, won everything.

SAGER

After the show opened, I think Marvin was a little lost. When you're at that level of success, that young, and you have a whole life still ahead of you... I'm sure that it plays on you. He could go very dark. I'd notice that he wouldn't look happy, you know, he'd just be somewhere else. He never really talked about it. I don't know, I don't know. I think he struggled with... who he was, what his place was. And then, I guess he just hit a patch of bad luck. Well, right now, I'm kind of excited because I've just completed music on two shows. I've been writing for two shows. Two Broadway shows? Two Broadway shows, which will be produced in 1983. One is based on a film, "Smile." Then I've got another show called "Jean," the life of Jean Seberg. And we are looking forward to both of them coming out in 1983. -Well, you are busy, busy, busy. -A little busy on that.

BREGLIO

Unfortunately, none of them seemed to gel for him. The shows didn't gel for one reason or the other. And it's always hard to pinpoint what the mistakes were.

ARNAZ

He took chances with shows like "Jean" and "Smile." But it got harder and harder to have hits on Broadway, and I think he got a little depressed after a while. Like, "boy, what do you have to do?" kind of a thing, right? But he never complained to me about his career. He joked about it, and joking is usually the funny way to say, "this sucks."

WOMAN

I saw him really sad sometimes. That energy that he had, that he was kind of like a top, and it was so vibrant and so, like... I don't know, what would you call it? Like a flame that went like this. But then he would just sometimes get into the limo, and he would just... I have not had a hit song for quite a long time right now. I sometimes have a fear... have the songs that have become the most famous for me, are those over? What's a composer? A composer is a man or a woman who's giving birth all the time. And you'd like that to have acceptance. So you start to feel like, "Gee, nobody likes this, and nobody likes that, and nobody bought this. What's wrong here?"

KLEIN

After Lilly died, I remember bumping into him, and he said... he almost instinctively goes to a pay phone as soon as he lands, and she's not with us anymore.

TERRE

His mother was so important to him. She loved him so much and was so proud of him. And with that kind of unconditional love, Marvin was able to grow up, I think, with a talent, but still know that he was loved as a person.

SHALIT

Who's your favorite composer? -The truth? -The truth. Gershwin. That's the second.

HAMLISCH

When my mother died, I was totally alone. I mean, I was just alone. You know, I was like, "Oh, my God!" My mother and I were -- some people would say too close. But my mother and I were just about as close as you can get. And you're caught in this business in a very tight situation. Who are you gonna talk to? If you talk to the press and say, "I'm so lonely," they're gonna say, "Hey, give it a break," you know? "Please, you got a big hit show, you won a Pulitzer Prize, you can't be lonely." But I was.

TERRE

After the loss of Marvin's mother, the thing that kept him going was his love and integrity for the music. He threw himself into his work, and it resulted in an extremely prolific time for him. Out of it came a huge body of work in film scores.

WOMAN

Please Don't let this feeling end It's everything I ask

MANCHESTER

I remember Marvin talking about the melody, watching the ice skater, the beautiful ice skater doing her beautiful Axels and her figure-eights and stuff. And that...

Sings melody

MANCHESTER

All that melody just started to fall out of him. But, you know, this was about an ice skater. Okay, this film, and I kept thinking about -- because I don't ice skate -- but I kept thinking about, if you're in an ice skating rink, I always see the people go around. They go -- zoom. You know, zoom, okay? And for some reason, that -- if you take that and you actually put that on a piano, you get...

Playing soft tune

MANCHESTER

Zoom! Zoom! And that's how the thing started to be written.

KING

Wow.

MANCHESTER

They asked me to sing the song, and we recorded it, and it was a very simple session. It took a couple of hours and it was done. And then the movie came out, and then people just loved the -- people were getting married in droves to this song. I sang at weddings and bar mitzvahs at a very early age. The thing is, with these kind of gigs, you have to know hundreds of songs, and I only knew like 12. One of the songs was "Ice Castles." It's so funny, I forget the lyrics to songs all the time on stage in the most important shows. And that song I could sing and just, I'll know the words, and I haven't sung it in forever. His music is so accessible to people and speaks to the heart, and yet he has training and such a facility.

COLE

As a composer/songwriter, you can have all the technical skills you want. But if you don't know how to write with heart, it never connects to the world. He was able to take the technical side and not let it get in the way of the music that was coming through his heart, because his melodies are sweet. They're endearing, they're instantly recognizable, but they come from a very deep well. His music is incredibly complex, actually, in a lot of ways. You don't -- it's hard to tell that sometimes because it's so accessible. One of the real marks of his genius was his music was smart without ever making you feel stupid when you listened to it.

WOMAN

It sweeps, and it soars, and it communicates great beauty and sort of hope and a childlike sweetness, which is obviously packed with complexities. It touches you in a very extraordinarily raw place.

SODERBERGH

I'm in the middle of nowhere in Spain getting ready to start shooting "Che," and as part of an attempt to kind of lighten our mood, I brought along a DVD of "Bananas" to watch before we started shooting "Che." And I was loving the score all over again. And my producer, he said, "You know, we should get Marvin to do the score for 'The Informant!'"

Upbeat music plays

SODERBERGH

You're sort of curious when you're watching the movie and saying to yourself, "Wow, "the score isn't like other scores. The score doesn't seem to be doing what most scores typically do." That's because the score isn't for the audience. The score is actually inside Mark Whitacre's head. It's Mark Whitacre's score for his own life. The movie for me wouldn't work without this score. It's so central to you understanding Mark Whitacre's mind set. Probably the most exciting part was the recording of the music and watching Marvin conduct. It was like watching the best figure skater in the world do flawless triple-Axels every eight minutes for eight hours a day, days on end. I remember at one point, they're playing this piece, and he goes, "Stop, stop, stop." He says, "Guitar, on the 24th bar, first beat, what chord are you playing?" The guy goes, "I'm playing... E-minor." And he goes, "It should be E-minor-seventh. Change that," you know. So Marvin, there were 30 instruments playing, and Marvin is hearing a single string on a single instrument, you know, one stroke of this guy's -- you know, that's how detailed his ear is. That was mind-blowing. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. It was really fun to watch.

Upbeat tune plays

HAMLISCH

I had bought the idea that the more successful you are, then, obviously, the more happy you would get. But I was getting lonelier by the minute, and the work was terrific, and I enjoyed it, but it didn't seem to finally give me the part of my life that I wanted.

KLEIN

He was quiet a ladies' man. He had some wonderful relationships with beautiful women. He loved the girls, and they loved him.

AVIAN

I think his parents wanted him to marry a nice Jewish girl. I think it's the last thing Marvin wanted.

ARNAZ

Marvin and I dated briefly. I'm talking so brief you have no idea. But during "They're Playing Our Song," he was single, I was single -- why not? You go out with Marvin Hamlisch, you know. But we realized we did not want to be sweethearts. We made each other giggle. It was like, "Oh, stop! "I can't kiss you, shut up! Just go play."

LEMON

The relationships just never seemed to work out, and, you know, show business, it can only give you so much, and you need that other force, you need that other person. And he just couldn't find it until Terre came along. I was living in Los Angeles. And the lady that came in to help clean my house said, "I think this is terrible that you're not married." And said, "My sister is working for somebody who seems fairly nice."

HAMLISCH

Out of the blue, I start talking to a girl on the phone that I was set up with, you know, on a phone conversation. And all of a sudden, that put the smile on my face.

TERRE

The first time that we spoke on the phone, I asked him where he was. And he said, "Oh, I'm in Virginia somewhere, and I'm buying summer shirts on sale." And I tuned in that night, and he was at the White House. Who does that? Who doesn't brag? And that was what hooked me.

HAMLISCH

You know, here's a person I'm speaking to on the phone for many, many months. I had not met her. We were just discussing life and us. We spoke on the phone sometimes four hours, six hours. Sometimes we fell asleep with the phone in our hand. If you can talk on a daily basis with someone for hours on the phone and you still are looking forward to the next conversation, then you got something. We had spoken on the phone for months and months, and then Marvin said, "Well, why don't we meet?" And so I flew east and went to the hotel, and he was standing outside the door. And I was very, very nervous because I had never met him in person. So I had this questionnaire. And I put the questionnaire on the outside of the door that said, "Fill out the questionnaire before entering." And I said, "Do you love the girl behind the door? Is the girl behind the door the most beautiful girl in the world to you? Does the girl behind the door spell her name with an 'E' or an 'I'? And does the girl behind the door love her Marvin with all her heart?" He answered all the questions right. And then he said, sight unseen, "Will you marry me?" I just was able to see her with that other part of me, you know, where I didn't need to see her with this. I needed to see her here, you know? I said, "Yes." My mother thought I was out of my mind. She did not know who Marvin Hamlisch was. She knew of a Marvin Hagler, so when I explained to her, no, that he was actually a composer and pianist, her words -- my mother's words were, "Just what this family needs, an out-of-work piano player."

Chuckles

LEMON

The way that he looked at her, I knew this was going to be the love of his life. She was like a life-saver for him. It's great that you love the masses and give it out to the world, but you have to have something in your soul. He needed to fill his soul, not only from the music, but from another human being giving him back the love. I learned that no matter how successful I got, it didn't bring me any more happiness. And that happiness had to come from another place. I realized, be careful that you don't get so involved in trying to make it in whatever it is that you lose sight of what life is really about. I used to say these were the priorities of Marvin's life. Music, Yankees, me. The Yankees were so important to him that when we got married, the gift I gave him was Yankee Fantasy Camp because when he entered Julliard, they wanted to protect his hands. So I thought he needed to live life.

MAN

That's right, Marvin! You got it!

TERRE

He was in outfield, and he was gonna catch a ball, and the team ran out of the dugout and screamed, "Marvin, no! Spare your hands!" But he caught it, and he was in heaven.

"The Nutcracker" plays

GREEN

In the old days before smartphones, if it was playoff time, messages were being relayed from the side door of the stage onto the stage. There would be somebody, you know, pointing "5-2, ninth." And then... He loved his Yankees -- loved it -- and really loved Joe Torre. He's my greatest fan because any time we lost games, it was always somebody else's fault. It was never my fault. I was a Broadway freak as a kid. And, of course, you knew who Marvin Hamlisch was. So I was at batting practice, turn around... And I said, "That's Marvin Hamlisch." Yeah, he was standing there in the dugout. I was outside the dugout. And I went over and, you know, introduced myself to him. I just... You know, you always try to be cool. You don't want to get too excited. You know he's famous, but once you find out who the guy is behind that reputation, you realize that he's such a caring person. It didn't matter what kind of mood you were when you were in his company, when you left, you were in a better mood.

HAMLISCH

I will play for you "Happy Birthday" as if you were being fed it by other composers. Like, for instance, let's say Bach was around.

Playing contrapuntally

HAMLISCH

Mozart!

Playing ornately

HAMLISCH

Beethoven.

Playing forcefully

TORRE

So I went to the Yankees, and I asked for permission to have a World Series ring made for Marvin Hamlisch, which, you know, my ring is right here, and it's got my name "Torre" on it. Well, his has "Hamlisch" on it. It's like he was part of the ball club. So we went to dinner. And I said, "I got a little something for you." And there it was.

HAMLISCH

If the piano hadn't been in the house, I would have been what I wanted to be, which was the right fielder for the Yankees. But it didn't work that way.

TERRE

And then there was his passion for food. Marvin was a total foodie. And, you know, of course, everything when it comes to food was a superlative. "This is the best restaurant with the best dessert with the best everything." "Oh, my gosh, you gotta have this. This is the best! Have you -- we're gonna have two of those!" "This is the best mashed potatoes in New York." "The best cheeseburger is at this place in Seattle." "They got the best seafood in town." "The best ice cream in the whole wide world." He would find something that he didn't know about, and he wanted everybody to know. It was tartufo in Rome. Crabs that had just left the water. Salt beef sandwiches. Swedish meatballs! He's the one who introduced me to Krispy Kreme. "We have to get the soup there, but we gotta get the salad here." He ordered every single dessert on the menu. The cakes and the cookies. -Apple pie. -Frozen yogurt. -Graeter's Ice Cream. -Ice cream. -Ice cream. -Ice cream. "You like gelato, kid?" I go, "Yeah, I love gelato." "I know a place -- we'll go after the concert." His love for food was like his love for life. He wanted to taste everything, he wanted to experience everything, he wanted to do everything. And he had a lust for life where he dug in.

HAMLISCH

For a long time after "Chorus Line," I was doing a lot of "musical comedy shows." But musical comedies for me never felt like I was using my musical abilities on four engines. I always said I felt like a Porsche that was in the garage. And when I was about 52, 53, I said, "You know, the next show I do, I want it to be 'important.'" Meaning, I don't care how long it runs, I just want to know that out there in the world will be a piece of music that I can honestly say is my best work, that I gave it my four engines. I was very pleased that he wanted to do something that had body and heft and weight to it.

MAN

"Sweet Smell" is based on the great noir film of the '50s, the New York showbiz film. Tough stuff, very harsh stuff for a Broadway musical. We were aware that it was, in some respects, a challenge to the commercial Broadway audience because it was cynical. So I was skeptical, but it was talking to Marvin, hearing some of his musical ideas, that turned me on to it.

LITHGOW

He gave it all these different kind of hallucinogenic colors. It was such an entertainment, but it's a drunken, late-night entertainment. His music was like people spinning out of control. I cannot begin to think about how many songs in that score are just so moving.

Melancholy music plays

LITHGOW

"I Cannot Hear the City" is a song that is so perfect to indicate what New York was like in the '50s. I really feel the mood of this city. In fact, I even feel that it's just rained, and the rain has dried. There's something about it that's in the music there. And when a composer can do that with the music, he's really succeeded.

CARNELIA

With Marvin, he'd get a musical idea, and then there was no disconnect between what he might want to invent and what his hands did. Most of us will have an idea, we'll think, "What is that? How do I do that?" It was nothing like that. It was just straight stuff coming out. It was astounding to watch and to be in the room with, and I always was in the room when he was inventing.

MAN

Based on the players involved, I felt, in the words of George Tenet, it was a slam dunk. You know, I thought this is... there's no way that this can't work.

LITHGOW

It got a withering review from The New York Times. In any conventional sense of the word, it was a Broadway failure.

HAMLISCH

I didn't expect "Sweet Smell of Success" to run 10 years. It's not a show that has got tons of laughter. It's not a show that children can come to. But I thought there was something here.

HYTNER

This six months after 9/11. It opened probably at the wrong time. It opened at a time when the Broadway audience wanted reassurance. So I think that might have been one of the reasons. It's very disappointing. I always felt Marvin -- this was harder on Marvin than anybody because he was the most proud of this -- probably the most proud of anything he'd done since "Chorus Line." You know, it's a hard business. My God! I don't understand why the critics were so tough. "The Sweet Smell of Success" was a smart musical. You can put out a piece of junk out there, and everybody says, "Oh, it's so bad, it's good. Oh, it's such fun!" And I mean, that type of thing happens all the time. And the people who write and aim low get away with it, while the people who aim high, as Marvin did with "Sweet Smell of Success," get penalized. There's no question that "Sweet Smell of Success" will be redeemed someday. So many musicals have a tough time their first time out and they're not appreciated. And it takes the public and the critics a while to catch up with them. I do believe that its redemption is inevitable. You asked me before whether he had any sense of never living up to his early successes. I don't think he thought that way. He was thrilled by the creative process and by sharing music with people. He was genuinely excited. I don't think he measures his current success with his past success. And I don't think he thinks of it in terms of success. I think he thinks of it in terms of joy. Because he really... music gave him joy. I see in this business a lot of people who have received a lot of acclaim and a lot of awards, and all they want to do is experience that again. They want it to happen again. And I've never understood that. And I know Marvin's attitude about it was, "That was great, but what's next?"

HAMLISCH

I never said to myself, "Oh, God, this is terrible, and I'm gonna shoot myself or that's it," no. You go up to bat in a ball game, sometimes you strike out, sometimes you hit a home run, sometimes you hit a double. One of the reasons that I kind of have had a successful career is that I just kept going. It's time to tear through that door It's time now to soar So let my life story Start

Applause

GREEN

Marvin was really one of the kindest, most generous people I've ever met. It sounds a little cliched when you say that about somebody, and I understand why it would sound like that. But in the case of Marvin, it really is true. He did a lot of things people never heard about. He would go to a senior citizen nursing home or assisted living home and play the piano for 20 or 30 senile elderly people. No press release, nothing. He just had the time, he'd drop in.

HOLLANDER

As famous as Marvin became, as demanding as his career, he never forgot people. Always giving, always generous, always doing something to give to other people. It was something that cannot be exaggerated. I met Marvin about six years ago. I was in the middle of a rehearsal in London. The phone rang, and it was Marvin.

TERRE

What happened was we were in the car, actually, in the mountains, and Marvin hears Maria Friedman singing on the radio. He actually drives off the road, and he said, "Who just sang that song?!" And, you know, Sirius Radio where you can find it. He's going, "Tell me now, tell me now!" And then he tracked down my agent, phoned me up, as I was saying, directly, and then flew me out to New York to sing with the New York Philharmonic with Liza Minnelli, Joel Grey, Jennifer Holliday. But he was extraordinary. When I was ill, it wasn't common knowledge -- I kept it very quiet. And I was doing concerts with Marvin and I was having chemotherapy, so I lost all my hair. So I phoned him up, I said, "Marvin, I'm really sorry, I will be wearing a wig because I'm having chemotherapy." He said, "Can you sing?" I said, "Yes, I can sing." He said, "Fine," that was it. And then three weeks later, I break my leg in three places. And so I had to phone him up and say, "Marvin, you know I'm bald. Well, I'm now also wearing a weight-bearing boot because I've broken my leg in three places." And there's this sort of silence, and he just sort of said, "For God's sake, pull yourself together!" And then he said, "Can you sing?" And I said, "Yes, but I really, really think that perhaps you should replace me." And he said, "No way." And everybody else canceled my concerts, not chancing the insurance and this and that and the other -- all gone. The only person -- the only person. So in a year where you're, you know, frightened and lost, he was there, which was incredible. And, you know, you don't get... you don't forget those things. Here he comes, Marvin. Thank you.

Applause

TERRE

Marvin dedicated the last two decades of his life to keeping the music of the great American composers alive -- Gershwin, Porter, Rodgers and Hammerstein.

HAMLISCH

I'm kind of like on a crusade right now to make sure that these arts have a way to live. I mean, I want to make sure that when I die, people will know that there were a Lerner and Loewe -- they existed -- Cole Porter was really there. You know, Richard Rodgers. I worry about this, I actually worry about this. I'd like to do some music now from one of the most beautiful shows -- Lerner and Loewe -- the music from "Camelot."

"Camelot" theme plays

TERRE

Marvin worked tirelessly to build audiences around the country. A lot of these symphonies were going bankrupt, and they were scrambling to stay relevant in today's world. And Marvin was very aware of this. And he took that on him.

LEMON

Marvin loved when he would see in the front row a parent with a child. He would stop the show and make it a point about, "You see this? You this, world? This is very good. I applaud you, parent."

TERRE

He was always doing community outreach programs. He was always going to the schools. He wanted children to be exposed to music that would transform their lives in some way, but also teach them what's good. He also had a very special relationship with all the White Houses from Carter through the Obamas. Marvin was the go-to guy when they wanted to put on something representing our country in music. You know, he have to do that, but he thought he could make a difference.

Music crescendos

Applause

Soft music begins

TERRE

And while I still have the time I'll stop and savor each drop of time Taste every flavor and never rest Never sleep But ever keep my vow this way

HOLMES

We'd been writing the score for "Nutty Professor," and one morning, we were getting together. The first thing he says to me is, "We've really got to have a song in this musical that just tells people that you have to appreciate absolutely every moment of life that you're given, that you need to acknowledge it, and realize how fleeting it is." He instantly sat down and wrote this soaring, heartbreaking, valiant melody. And I heard the phrase "while we still have the time" in the melody. Have the time So many roads that branch in all directions I thought to myself, "I wonder what's prompted the urgency of what Marvin was telling me?" It wasn't just something that lay dormant in the book of the musical. It was something coming from Marvin.

TERRE

Right before he died, he was in this most prolific and creative period. He just completed "Nutty Professor" for the stage. He had finished Steven Soderbergh's "Behind the Candelabra" score. He was working on the Broadway adaptation of the movie "Gotta Dance," and he had just finished writing his children's book, "Marvin Makes Music." He was taking on the Pops directorship of the Philadelphia Orchestra in addition to his work as Pops conductor of Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Dallas, Pasadena, Seattle, and San Diego. And he was really looking forward to conducting the New York Philharmonic's New Year's Eve concert. And then...

Sniffles

TERRE

And I will learn it all And be it all, and see it all Love a lot and like as not I'll lose it all I'll laugh until I've had my fill While I still Have the time My time

Applause

HAMLISCH

If I have a choice for you to play one song, the one that would probably tell you more about me than any song that you could play is "If You Really Knew Me." And there's a line in there that I think is the key to me. Does the man make the music? Does the music make this man? And am I everything I try so hard to be?

MARILYN

At heart, he was happiest when he was sitting at a piano and creating. That's when he really was happiest. I've often thought that music was just the vehicle that happened to contain his love and exuberance and zest for life and his caring.

STREISAND

I can't think of anyone who didn't love Marvin. He was just this generous, funny, witty, brilliant person.

ARNAZ

He made me appreciate what music can do. I -- I... I will miss that the most. If you take the time...

HOLMES

Getting Marvin Hamlisch as a collaborator, and more importantly as a friend, was like running away and being adopted by the circus. And... life without Marvin is sort of... like the circus has left town. He gave a lot of joy, and he experienced a lot of joy. And what could be better than that? I'm watching sis go pitter-pat

Rhythmic clicking

HOLMES

Said I can do that I can do that Bah bah bah bah bah I'm afraid to fly And I don't know why Only got me to blame and now I'm falling Falling, falling fast again True love And beautiful music Kiss today goodbye The sweetness and the sorrow I'm not a singer. Mem'ries

Hums melody

HOLMES

Something lost Something rare That's how I say goodbye One step and...

Humming indistinctly

Humming upbeat tune

HOLMES

That I can do Bah bah bah I can do that Diddley da da, bop bop

Chuckles