We Danced All Night: My Life Behind the Scenes With Alan Jay Lerner [Paperback]

Doris Shapiro (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0942637984 | ISBN-13: 978-0942637984 | Publication Date: August 1993

This tender, personal story reveals the public and private lives of show-business genius Alan Jay Lerner and his personal assistant, Doris Shapiro--the outsider he took along with him for the ride. Photographs.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Shapiro, Lerner's assistant for 14 years, writes of her devotion to the popular lyricist, co-creator, with Frederick Loewe, of My Fair Lady and other musical classics. She gives spirited accounts of Richard Burton, Julie Andrews, director Moss Hart and other luminaries associated with the glittering productions, but two figures dominate the book: Lerner, effortlessly charming even when discarding eight wives, lovers and collaborator Loewe; and Max Jacobsen, the nefarious Dr. Feelgood. Along with Lerner, Shapiro relied on the physician's "magic" shots for the energy to keep functioning despite little rest. She shows that her bedazzlement with her boss and the theater was akin to his obsession with creating stage masterpieces, and suggests that Jacobsen, although dangerously misguided, was well-meaning. An affecting nostalgia for the glory days of Camelot informs the memoir but perception that the tale is mythology is absent. Author tour.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

The author worked as Alan Jay Lerner's personal assistant for 14 years during the making of the great Lerner and Loewe musicals, My Fair Lady, Gigi, and Camelot . These, however, are skimmed over, as Shapiro centers on the last five years, during the creation of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever , when she and Lerner both became addicted to the infamous Dr. Max Jacobsen's "shots." The book title has ominous overtones: they literally worked for days at a time without sleep, getting shots every few hours to keep going, until Doris was finally dragged out of the doctor's office by her husband and put in a detox ward. Shapiro's obsession with both Lerner and Dr. Max, as well as the high life of show biz, should make a more interesting book than this. Her flat prose style does not bring either Lerner or the era to life.
- Marcia L. Perry, Berkshire Athenaeum, Pittsfield, Mass.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 245 pages
• Publisher: Barricade Books (August 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0942637984
• ISBN-13: 978-0942637984
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,855,201 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Weak start - rousing finish, March 30, 2008

By 

G. Tavaglione (New Hampshire, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: We Danced All Night: My Life Behind the Scenes With Alan Jay Lerner (Hardcover)

When I first started this book I expected a more 'dishy' memoir - after all, the author spent 14 years as Lerner's secretary, and yet while she is there through the creation of 'My Fair Lady,''Gigi,' and 'Camelot' she really doesn't say much about the productions in any depth. It was as though she wrote the memoir over a long weekend. Your first interpratation of the title is a reworded song from 'My Fair Lady' about the great time she had.

The title refers to the three years of hell she endured after 'Camelot,' when Lerner severed his partnership with Lowe and went on to create 'On A Clear Day You Can See Forever.' On his fourth marriage (he had 8 in all) and at the height of his creative powers Lerner introduces the author to 'Dr. Max' and suddenly three trips a day to get 'vitamin' shots become the norm ~ days on end without sleep trying to write a show that doesn't work. "We Danced All Night" becomes a chronicle of bad judgements, genius gone bad, a show out of control, and a tale of unbounded loyalty that leads to a parting of the ways when the author is placed in detoxification by the strength and love of her husband. Pretty heady stuff from such a placid beginning!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Celebrity high life and musical theatre ..., December 13, 2004

By 

S. G. Oles (Seattle, WA, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: We Danced All Night: My Life Behind the Scenes With Alan Jay Lerner (Hardcover)

Doris Shapiro's tough, hard-hitting memoir is an essential piece of theatre history, documenting the frantic, fraught development of several famous musicals, but especially Lerner & Lane's troubled ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER.

Anyone who wonders why that show is so uneven, despite its superb score, will find the answer here: Lerner, the author, the show's stars, and what seems like half the celebrities of the 1960s, from JFK and Jackie to Anthony Quinn and Eddie Fisher, were strung out on Dr. Max Jacobsen's miracle "vitamin shots" whose main ingredient was Methedrine (called "speed" then, nicknamed "crystal", "glass", or "Tina" by today's addicts.)

In the sixties, as now, speed was popular with high achievers, bringing them boundless alertness and energy for work and play, along with attractive weight loss, even though it would end up devastating most of their lives, careers, and relationships.

Shapiro spares no one, especially herself, in what is the best description of stimulant addiction I've seen. It's all here: the initial exhilaration -- you feel unbelievably smart, motivated, energetic, and productive. Depression and fears are banished. You're bursting wtih courage and confidence, sure you've found the key to the universe until lack of sleep and food begin to wear down the body and mind.

Then come the mood swings, the subtly growing delusions, paranoia, jitters, confusion, disorganization, procrastination, detachment from reality ... and finally a crack-up, from which Shapiro was luckily extricated by her heroic husband Bert.

The book ends on an unnecessarily downbeat note, as she lists the deaths of her principal figures, but overall it's a hopeful story of how a highly intelligent, educated woman declined into drug addiction and finally, improbably, escaped it, saving her marriage and her life.

It's a book that took a lot of courage to write -- and to publish (wasn't Morrow afraid of law suits from the celebrity junkies she names?) For lovers of musical theatre, or students of drug addiction, this is an essential volume.