William Todd Schultz
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199752041
- eISBN:
- 9780190255961
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199752041.003.0005
- Subject:
- Psychology, Social Psychology
This chapter describes Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, which was an enormous critical and financial success in the mid-1960s. After the release of In Cold Blood Capote collected his materials and ...
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This chapter describes Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, which was an enormous critical and financial success in the mid-1960s. After the release of In Cold Blood Capote collected his materials and started writing Answered Prayers. He described writing his last novel as a tough job on several levels and unique in his artistic life. It is a perfect summary of all those aspects of Capote's psychological life, outlining his attachment insecurity and conflicts surrounding his mother. It was a complex mess of claims, needs, hopes, and intentions.Less
This chapter describes Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, which was an enormous critical and financial success in the mid-1960s. After the release of In Cold Blood Capote collected his materials and started writing Answered Prayers. He described writing his last novel as a tough job on several levels and unique in his artistic life. It is a perfect summary of all those aspects of Capote's psychological life, outlining his attachment insecurity and conflicts surrounding his mother. It was a complex mess of claims, needs, hopes, and intentions.
William Todd Schultz
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199752041
- eISBN:
- 9780190255961
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199752041.003.0003
- Subject:
- Psychology, Social Psychology
This chapter focuses on Truman Capote's distrust of psychoanalysis, in part because of his history of confrontation with his mother over matters of sexuality, her willingness to turn to doctors when ...
More
This chapter focuses on Truman Capote's distrust of psychoanalysis, in part because of his history of confrontation with his mother over matters of sexuality, her willingness to turn to doctors when seeking solutions for his “girliness”. She believed that talk therapy might make him a man. Capote dealt with his problems through his writing, where he understood and defined himself. His very first published book, Other Voices, Other Rooms is a slightly scandalous but not entirely successful homosexual fantasy in which Capote replayed attachment anxieties.Less
This chapter focuses on Truman Capote's distrust of psychoanalysis, in part because of his history of confrontation with his mother over matters of sexuality, her willingness to turn to doctors when seeking solutions for his “girliness”. She believed that talk therapy might make him a man. Capote dealt with his problems through his writing, where he understood and defined himself. His very first published book, Other Voices, Other Rooms is a slightly scandalous but not entirely successful homosexual fantasy in which Capote replayed attachment anxieties.
William Todd Schultz
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199752041
- eISBN:
- 9780190255961
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199752041.003.0002
- Subject:
- Psychology, Social Psychology
This chapter describes events in Truman Capote's childhood that lead to his inspiration for writing his last novel, Answered Prayers. Capote's mother Lillie Mae was a beautiful, narcissist and ...
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This chapter describes events in Truman Capote's childhood that lead to his inspiration for writing his last novel, Answered Prayers. Capote's mother Lillie Mae was a beautiful, narcissist and social-climber while his father, Arch Persons, was a hopeless con man. Arch and Lillie were married on August 23, 1923, but after seven years of marriage, they filed for divorce in August, 1931. Capote's father was an important figure in his life, influencing his fictional works in a number of ways, especially early works like Other Voices, Other Rooms.Less
This chapter describes events in Truman Capote's childhood that lead to his inspiration for writing his last novel, Answered Prayers. Capote's mother Lillie Mae was a beautiful, narcissist and social-climber while his father, Arch Persons, was a hopeless con man. Arch and Lillie were married on August 23, 1923, but after seven years of marriage, they filed for divorce in August, 1931. Capote's father was an important figure in his life, influencing his fictional works in a number of ways, especially early works like Other Voices, Other Rooms.
William Todd Schultz
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199752041
- eISBN:
- 9780190255961
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199752041.001.0001
- Subject:
- Psychology, Social Psychology
Truman Capote was one of the most gifted and flamboyant writers of his generation. What has received little attention, however, is Capote's last, unfinished book, Answered Prayers, a merciless ...
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Truman Capote was one of the most gifted and flamboyant writers of his generation. What has received little attention, however, is Capote's last, unfinished book, Answered Prayers, a merciless skewering of cafe society and the high-class women Capote called his “swans.” When excerpts appeared he was immediately blacklisted, ruined socially, labeled a pariah. Capote recoiled—disgraced, depressed, and all but friendless. In this book, the book sheds light on the life and works of Capote and answers the perplexing mystery—why did Capote write a book that would destroy him? Drawing on an arsenal of psychological techniques, the book illuminates Capote's early years in the South—a time that Capote himself described as a “snake's nest of No's”—no parents to speak of, no friends but books, no hope, no future. Out of this dark childhood emerged Capote's prominent dual life-scripts: neurotic Capote, anxious, vulnerable, hypersensitive, expecting to be hurt; and Capote the disagreeable destroyer, emotionally bulletproof, nasty, and bent on revenge. The book shows how Capote would strike out when he felt hurt or taken for granted, engaging in caustic feuds with Gore Vidal, Tennessee Williams, and many other writers. And the book reveals how this tendency fed into Answered Prayers, an exceedingly corrosive and thinly disguised roman à clef that trashed his high-society friends.Less
Truman Capote was one of the most gifted and flamboyant writers of his generation. What has received little attention, however, is Capote's last, unfinished book, Answered Prayers, a merciless skewering of cafe society and the high-class women Capote called his “swans.” When excerpts appeared he was immediately blacklisted, ruined socially, labeled a pariah. Capote recoiled—disgraced, depressed, and all but friendless. In this book, the book sheds light on the life and works of Capote and answers the perplexing mystery—why did Capote write a book that would destroy him? Drawing on an arsenal of psychological techniques, the book illuminates Capote's early years in the South—a time that Capote himself described as a “snake's nest of No's”—no parents to speak of, no friends but books, no hope, no future. Out of this dark childhood emerged Capote's prominent dual life-scripts: neurotic Capote, anxious, vulnerable, hypersensitive, expecting to be hurt; and Capote the disagreeable destroyer, emotionally bulletproof, nasty, and bent on revenge. The book shows how Capote would strike out when he felt hurt or taken for granted, engaging in caustic feuds with Gore Vidal, Tennessee Williams, and many other writers. And the book reveals how this tendency fed into Answered Prayers, an exceedingly corrosive and thinly disguised roman à clef that trashed his high-society friends.
William Todd Schultz
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199752041
- eISBN:
- 9780190255961
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199752041.003.0004
- Subject:
- Psychology, Social Psychology
This chapter considers the motivations behind Truman Capote's writing of In Cold Blood, his non-fiction novel about the murder of the Clutters, a farm family in Kansas. Capote got the idea for the ...
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This chapter considers the motivations behind Truman Capote's writing of In Cold Blood, his non-fiction novel about the murder of the Clutters, a farm family in Kansas. Capote got the idea for the book after coming across a one-column item about the murders in The New York Times in 1959, a year after the release of Breakfast at Tiffany 's. Capote's initial intention was to write a relatively modest piece, focusing only on the echoes of the murders within the tiny Holcomb community. But writing In Cold Blood represented a different kind of challenge.Less
This chapter considers the motivations behind Truman Capote's writing of In Cold Blood, his non-fiction novel about the murder of the Clutters, a farm family in Kansas. Capote got the idea for the book after coming across a one-column item about the murders in The New York Times in 1959, a year after the release of Breakfast at Tiffany 's. Capote's initial intention was to write a relatively modest piece, focusing only on the echoes of the murders within the tiny Holcomb community. But writing In Cold Blood represented a different kind of challenge.
Ellen Cheshire
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231172059
- eISBN:
- 9780231850681
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231172059.003.0004
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Among all the creative arts, writing is the one that directors often find difficult to convey on screen. Films on the lives of real writers tend to downplay the actual act of writing and focus ...
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Among all the creative arts, writing is the one that directors often find difficult to convey on screen. Films on the lives of real writers tend to downplay the actual act of writing and focus instead on their private lives, either drawing parallels between what they write about and their lives, or how events serve as inspiration for their emotional inner life and its transfer to the written page. This chapter examines the lives of three writers, and four interpretations of their lives: Iris Murdoch in Iris (2001), Harvey Pekar in American Splendor (2003), and two versions of Truman Capote in Capote (2005) and Infamous (2006).Less
Among all the creative arts, writing is the one that directors often find difficult to convey on screen. Films on the lives of real writers tend to downplay the actual act of writing and focus instead on their private lives, either drawing parallels between what they write about and their lives, or how events serve as inspiration for their emotional inner life and its transfer to the written page. This chapter examines the lives of three writers, and four interpretations of their lives: Iris Murdoch in Iris (2001), Harvey Pekar in American Splendor (2003), and two versions of Truman Capote in Capote (2005) and Infamous (2006).
William Todd Schultz
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199752041
- eISBN:
- 9780190255961
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199752041.003.0006
- Subject:
- Psychology, Social Psychology
This chapter describes how Truman Capote was born with a tendency towards anxiety, presenting different neurochemical, neurotransmitter-based models of anxiety disorder or depression. He was also ...
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This chapter describes how Truman Capote was born with a tendency towards anxiety, presenting different neurochemical, neurotransmitter-based models of anxiety disorder or depression. He was also born with alcoholism, with both him and his mother being heavy drinkers. Capote also feared closeness, intimacy, and the vulnerability caused by seeking out love, because these things, from his earliest childhood memories, ended in rejection or abandonment. He expected to be hurt and unconsciously anticipated it. More often than not, his expectations were met; people did reject and abandon him.Less
This chapter describes how Truman Capote was born with a tendency towards anxiety, presenting different neurochemical, neurotransmitter-based models of anxiety disorder or depression. He was also born with alcoholism, with both him and his mother being heavy drinkers. Capote also feared closeness, intimacy, and the vulnerability caused by seeking out love, because these things, from his earliest childhood memories, ended in rejection or abandonment. He expected to be hurt and unconsciously anticipated it. More often than not, his expectations were met; people did reject and abandon him.
Rebecca Roach
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- November 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198825418
- eISBN:
- 9780191864094
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198825418.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies, Criticism/Theory
The fifth chapter examines the roles of interviewer and interviewee, exploring debates around objectivity and personality in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This was a period in which these roles ...
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The fifth chapter examines the roles of interviewer and interviewee, exploring debates around objectivity and personality in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This was a period in which these roles came under pressure, partly as a reaction against the interrogative interviewing that dominated in previous decades. Drawing on the famed series of interviews in The Paris Review and the New Journalism of Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer, Truman Capote, and colleagues, the chapter illustrates how the interview emerged as a site where authors could discuss those topics such as methodology, market orientation, and intention that had been largely dismissed by New Criticism. These writers and publications, while beholden to a canonical modernist tradition, reject this older conception of the interview. In so doing, they enabled the interview to be conceived by authors, including ageing modernists, as an aesthetically and critically engaged activity in an age of celebrity authorship.Less
The fifth chapter examines the roles of interviewer and interviewee, exploring debates around objectivity and personality in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This was a period in which these roles came under pressure, partly as a reaction against the interrogative interviewing that dominated in previous decades. Drawing on the famed series of interviews in The Paris Review and the New Journalism of Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer, Truman Capote, and colleagues, the chapter illustrates how the interview emerged as a site where authors could discuss those topics such as methodology, market orientation, and intention that had been largely dismissed by New Criticism. These writers and publications, while beholden to a canonical modernist tradition, reject this older conception of the interview. In so doing, they enabled the interview to be conceived by authors, including ageing modernists, as an aesthetically and critically engaged activity in an age of celebrity authorship.
William Todd Schultz
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199752041
- eISBN:
- 9780190255961
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199752041.003.0001
- Subject:
- Psychology, Social Psychology
This chapter describes Truman Capote's early childhood experiences. One in particular is the emotional devastation he felt when he was locked in the hotel room by his mother at age two. Another ...
More
This chapter describes Truman Capote's early childhood experiences. One in particular is the emotional devastation he felt when he was locked in the hotel room by his mother at age two. Another occurred at age three when he was left alone in a zoo by his nanny who fled after two lions were suspected to escape their cages. Capote's biographer, Gerald Clarke, points out that the zoo memory and the memory of the hotel room seemed like two versions of the same basic experience. For Capote, he experienced in both events the loss of emotional control, the sense that the world was dangerous, and that adults who should be responsive in the face of danger simply could not be depended for comfort.Less
This chapter describes Truman Capote's early childhood experiences. One in particular is the emotional devastation he felt when he was locked in the hotel room by his mother at age two. Another occurred at age three when he was left alone in a zoo by his nanny who fled after two lions were suspected to escape their cages. Capote's biographer, Gerald Clarke, points out that the zoo memory and the memory of the hotel room seemed like two versions of the same basic experience. For Capote, he experienced in both events the loss of emotional control, the sense that the world was dangerous, and that adults who should be responsive in the face of danger simply could not be depended for comfort.
JOSEPH RAZ
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199278466
- eISBN:
- 9780191699986
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199278466.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
This chapter discusses generalising aspects of specific values which link to an appeal of a value and appreciation of beauty in the two-stage process of evaluation. A reference to Truman Capote’s ...
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This chapter discusses generalising aspects of specific values which link to an appeal of a value and appreciation of beauty in the two-stage process of evaluation. A reference to Truman Capote’s novel ‘In Cold Blood’ is given. The perception of value and understanding is given analysis with views on changes and interpretation as an act of response. It also considers the distinction between knowledge and taste and the gradual changes of a norm when two processes are available, thus blurring the line of diagnosis. Complex reactions on a value are one of the reasons why this book provides a thorough explanation on the need to understand the contingency at the heart of a value.Less
This chapter discusses generalising aspects of specific values which link to an appeal of a value and appreciation of beauty in the two-stage process of evaluation. A reference to Truman Capote’s novel ‘In Cold Blood’ is given. The perception of value and understanding is given analysis with views on changes and interpretation as an act of response. It also considers the distinction between knowledge and taste and the gradual changes of a norm when two processes are available, thus blurring the line of diagnosis. Complex reactions on a value are one of the reasons why this book provides a thorough explanation on the need to understand the contingency at the heart of a value.
Howard Pollack
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- November 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190458294
- eISBN:
- 9780190458324
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190458294.003.0019
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
During his final years, Latouche faced some discrimination and censure as a result of his inclusion in a 1950 handbook entitled Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and ...
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During his final years, Latouche faced some discrimination and censure as a result of his inclusion in a 1950 handbook entitled Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television. For all his malaise during these years, he continued to kick up his heels with friends and maintain his reputation as one of the city’s brightest wits and raconteurs. His eclectic assortment of friends durisng this period included composer Ned Rorem; writers Gore Vidal, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, and Jack Kerouac; ghost hunter Hans Holzer; and poet Frank O’Hara. He also became romantically involved with the heiress Alice Bouverie (of the Astor dynasty) as well as with painter Harry Martin and poet Kenward Elmslie, with whom he purchased a country home in Vermont.Less
During his final years, Latouche faced some discrimination and censure as a result of his inclusion in a 1950 handbook entitled Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television. For all his malaise during these years, he continued to kick up his heels with friends and maintain his reputation as one of the city’s brightest wits and raconteurs. His eclectic assortment of friends durisng this period included composer Ned Rorem; writers Gore Vidal, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, and Jack Kerouac; ghost hunter Hans Holzer; and poet Frank O’Hara. He also became romantically involved with the heiress Alice Bouverie (of the Astor dynasty) as well as with painter Harry Martin and poet Kenward Elmslie, with whom he purchased a country home in Vermont.
Mary Weaks-Baxter
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781496819598
- eISBN:
- 9781496819635
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496819598.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
This chapter looks at the American success story of the self-made man and how it was reinterpreted in the context of 20th Century Southern masculinity. Focusing on novels by Wolfe, Ellison, Styron, ...
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This chapter looks at the American success story of the self-made man and how it was reinterpreted in the context of 20th Century Southern masculinity. Focusing on novels by Wolfe, Ellison, Styron, Capote, and Warren, the chapter builds on earlier scholarship that identifies a shift from idealized images of planter and slave to new models of masculinity for blacks and whites. The central claim is that new narrative patterns were embraced that set male characters on journeys outside the South to encounter that world and find success. A mania of sorts evolved around this narrative as portrayed by Wolfe who represented wandering as opportunity for introspection, movement as a means to remake one’s self, and liminal space as a site of creativity for the neophyte writer but also a distinctly masculine zone. The chapter ends with reflections on how this journey is altered when males encounter racial or sexual prejudice.Less
This chapter looks at the American success story of the self-made man and how it was reinterpreted in the context of 20th Century Southern masculinity. Focusing on novels by Wolfe, Ellison, Styron, Capote, and Warren, the chapter builds on earlier scholarship that identifies a shift from idealized images of planter and slave to new models of masculinity for blacks and whites. The central claim is that new narrative patterns were embraced that set male characters on journeys outside the South to encounter that world and find success. A mania of sorts evolved around this narrative as portrayed by Wolfe who represented wandering as opportunity for introspection, movement as a means to remake one’s self, and liminal space as a site of creativity for the neophyte writer but also a distinctly masculine zone. The chapter ends with reflections on how this journey is altered when males encounter racial or sexual prejudice.
Frederick Gross
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816670116
- eISBN:
- 9781452946467
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816670116.001.0001
- Subject:
- Art, Photography
In any decade the work of only a very few artists offers a template for understanding the culture and ideas of their time. Photographer Diane Arbus is one of these rare artists, and this book returns ...
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In any decade the work of only a very few artists offers a template for understanding the culture and ideas of their time. Photographer Diane Arbus is one of these rare artists, and this book returns Arbus’s work to the moment in which it was produced and first viewed to reveal its broader significance for analyzing and mapping the culture of the 1960s. While providing a unique view of the social, literary, and artistic context within which Arbus worked, this book also measures the true breadth and complexity of her achievement. The book considers Arbus less in terms of her often mythologized biography—a “Sylvia Plath with a camera”—but rather looks at how her work resonates with significant photographic portraiture, art, social currents, theoretical positions, and literature of her times, from Robert Frank and Richard Avedon to Andy Warhol and Truman Capote. It shows how her incandescent photographs seem to literalize old notions of photography as trapping a layer of the subject’s soul within the frame of a picture. For Arbus, “auguries”—as in “Auguries of Innocence,” her 1963 photographic spread in Harper’s Bazaar—conveyed the idea that whoever was present in her photograph could attain legendary status.Less
In any decade the work of only a very few artists offers a template for understanding the culture and ideas of their time. Photographer Diane Arbus is one of these rare artists, and this book returns Arbus’s work to the moment in which it was produced and first viewed to reveal its broader significance for analyzing and mapping the culture of the 1960s. While providing a unique view of the social, literary, and artistic context within which Arbus worked, this book also measures the true breadth and complexity of her achievement. The book considers Arbus less in terms of her often mythologized biography—a “Sylvia Plath with a camera”—but rather looks at how her work resonates with significant photographic portraiture, art, social currents, theoretical positions, and literature of her times, from Robert Frank and Richard Avedon to Andy Warhol and Truman Capote. It shows how her incandescent photographs seem to literalize old notions of photography as trapping a layer of the subject’s soul within the frame of a picture. For Arbus, “auguries”—as in “Auguries of Innocence,” her 1963 photographic spread in Harper’s Bazaar—conveyed the idea that whoever was present in her photograph could attain legendary status.
Andy Propst
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- March 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190630935
- eISBN:
- 9780190630966
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190630935.003.0015
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
During the early and middle part of the 1960s Betty Comden and Adolph Green were no longer splitting their time between working on shows for Broadway and movies in Hollywood, and as a result they ...
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During the early and middle part of the 1960s Betty Comden and Adolph Green were no longer splitting their time between working on shows for Broadway and movies in Hollywood, and as a result they were able to dedicate more time to their personal lives. And while they might have been spending time with the elite of New York’s society, they were not unaware of the issues facing the country. This informed a pair of stand-alone songs they penned with Jule Styne and Leonard Bernstein as well as their next musical, Hallelujah, Baby! Featuring a book by Arthur Laurents, the show chronicled the African-American experience during the first six decades of the twentieth century. Leslie Uggams was the star of what was ultimately an unconventional tuner that had music by Jule Styne and went on to win a Tony Award as best musicalLess
During the early and middle part of the 1960s Betty Comden and Adolph Green were no longer splitting their time between working on shows for Broadway and movies in Hollywood, and as a result they were able to dedicate more time to their personal lives. And while they might have been spending time with the elite of New York’s society, they were not unaware of the issues facing the country. This informed a pair of stand-alone songs they penned with Jule Styne and Leonard Bernstein as well as their next musical, Hallelujah, Baby! Featuring a book by Arthur Laurents, the show chronicled the African-American experience during the first six decades of the twentieth century. Leslie Uggams was the star of what was ultimately an unconventional tuner that had music by Jule Styne and went on to win a Tony Award as best musical
