Full Description
A towering figure in music and film, Michel Legrand created some of the most creative and innovative film scores of the second half of the 20th century. The music of his most most successful collaborations -- masterpieces for films such as The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, The Thomas Crown Affair, Summer of '42, and Yentl -- is particularly memorable. As these scores and the stories behind their creation are, they represent one part of Legrand's genius. Over a career that spanned seven decades, Legrand composed the scores for 160 films, winning Oscars and Grammys along the way. Many of his songs have become standards covered by artists as diverse as Tony Bennett, Sarah Vaughan, Rufus Wainwright, and Sting. A prolific and highly versatile composer, Legrand worked with virtually every legendary figure in popular music and film from Maurice Chevalier to Barbra Streisand and from Orson Welles to Jean-Luc Godard. Still active in his late 80s, Legrand composed the score for Orson Welles's posthumously released movie, The Other Side of the Wind (2018).
Just prior to his death at the age of 87, Legrand sat down with his longtime collaborator Stéphane Lerouge to recount, all the while intermingling present and past, many of the significant and memorable episodes from his life. He speaks of his triumphs but doesn't shy away from revealing rejections, fiascos, missed opportunities, creative insecurities and a nervous breakdown he experienced in Los Angeles at the height of his success. Throughout, he pays homage to the roles played by numerous artists he encountered on both sides of the Atlantic--jazz musicians, singers and lyricists, film directors and music composers, many of whom became his lifelong friends. Translated by Sam Taylor, this book shares Legrand's stories as told to Lerouge to English readers for the first time.
Contents
Preface, by Damien Chazelle
'It's not true, it's not false. It's just life.' Foreword, by Stéphane Lerouge
1. My Friend the Piano
2. The War at Eight
3. 14, rue de Madrid
4. Mademoiselle
5. Spring of '44
6. Childhood Summers
7. Raymond
8. Summer Tours
9. 6, rue Jenner
10. Paris-New York
11. Dizzy, Miles and Co.
12. New Waves, Old Waves
13. The First Half of Demy
14. The Second Half of Demy
15. Passport to Hollywood
16. How Dark is Your Soul?
17. I Sing
18. The Union of Dwarf Aviators
19. Three Images of Steve McQueen
20. My Substitute Fathers
21. Writing Situations
22. Macha, Act I
23. The Go-Between
24. Through Walls and Across Borders
25. Sarah, Stan, Stéphane & Co.
26. Macha, Act II
27. The Ones That Got Away
28. A Scent Like the End of the World
29. Elle s'appelle Barbra
30. Fraternizing with the Enemy
31. From Chaplin to Beauvois
32. Citizen Orson
33. Macha, Act III
34. Waiting for Tomorrow
The Sunlight of His Music, An afterword by Macha Méril
Acknowledgments
Index
