Hollywood’s finest go head to head with rival Bernstein films

WITH a career as a musical great and a life full of passion and tragedy, there is plenty of material for a Leonard Bernstein biopic. So much, in fact, that two of Hollywood’s leading men are going head-to-head in rival films.

At the Cannes Film Festival, Paramount Pictures unveiled plans for Bernstein, starring and directed by Bradley Cooper. Produced by Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese, the film-makers have secured a deal with the Bernstein estate that gives them exclusive rights to his songs.

That came a matter of days after news that Jake Gyllenhaal will star in and produce The American, directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga and based on an unauthorised biography by Bernstein’s close friend, Humphrey Burton.

“Like many people, Leonard Bernstein found his way into my life and heart through West Side Story when I was a kid,” Gyllenhaal said. “But as I got older and started to learn about the scope of his work, I began to understand the extent of his unparalleled contribution and the debt of gratitude modern American culture owes him.”

Gyllenhaal’s film promises to be a more avant garde project, structured into movements to mimic a symphony.

The actor, Oscar-nominated for his performance in Brokeback Mountain, has musical talent of his own, making an acclaimed Broadway debut last year in a revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George.

Both films celebrate Bernstein’s career as conductor and composer, one that saw him become the youngest music director of the New York Philharmonic and write the score for West Side Story. He was a household name in the US, but unbeknown to millions of fans, he had a complicated private life. He married Felicia Montealegre, a Chilean actress, in 1951 and they had three children.

She was aware that Bernstein was homosexual, but adored him and allowed him to have affairs. In a letter written shortly after their wedding, she said: “You are a homosexual and may never change – you don’t admit to the possibility of a double life, but if your peace of mind, your health, your whole nervous system depend on a certain sexual pattern, what can you do?” She urged him to be “free to do as you like, but without guilt and confession, please”.

And she wrote of their union: “Our marriage is not based on passion but on tenderness and mutual respect. Why not have them?”

However, in 1976, Bernstein fell hopelessly in love with Tom Cothran, a young composer, and left his wife. Not long afterwards, Felicia was diagnosed with cancer. A guilt-stricken Bernstein returned and nursed her until she died in 1978. Cothran died of Aids in 1981. Bernstein died in 1990, aged 72, in New York. This year is the centenary of his birth, which is being marked globally.