When Alan and Marilyn Bergman write lyrics, it’s a total collaboration.

"We’re like two potters working with malleable clay on a wheel and passing the spinning pot back and forth,” Alan explained during a tribute at the Paley Center for the Media in Los Angeles.  “Each set of hands that touches it changes it, but when it’s finished, it isn’t clear whose hands did what.  And in the end, we don’t know who wrote what.”

"We’re like a pitcher and a catcher who switch roles,” Marilyn added.  “But we can only do it when we’re alone.  There can’t be anyone else in the room.”

Interviewed for nearly two hours by Pat Mitchell, president and chief executive officer of the Paley Center — as part of the museum’s Paley After Dark series — the lyricists discussed their writing career, which spans more than 52 years.

But it was not all talk.  There were clips of Astaire, Sinatra, Streisand and Steisand with Neil Diamond, singing songs by the Bergmans and their collaborators; and there was Alan Bergman taking the mic to sing, “Windmills of Your Mind” from The Thomas Crown Affair” and “What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?” from The Happy Ending, both written with Michel Legrand.

Marilyn, who usually doesn’t sing, sang a heart-breaking number they wrote with Billy Goldenberg for the TV movie, Queen of the Stardust Ballroom, in which a widow filling out a job application reflects that the only job she really wants is the one she used to have, being a wife; and the two of them closed out the evening with a tender duet and affirmation of love — “What Matters Most,” written with Dave Grusin.

Bill Cantos provided piano accompaniment for the live performances.

Along the way, there were stories, and oh, what stories:

• How a young Alan Bergman, unable to afford an engagement ring, convinced Fred Astaire, Marilyn’s favorite singer, to record “That Face,” written with Lou Spence as a tribute to Marilyn, and then presenting an early copy to her right before he proposed.

• How they almost went to work writing for Frank Loesser’s publishing company in the mid-1950s, “but we were afraid the temptation to please him would be too great and would affect our own style,” Alan explained, so they turned him down; and how friend Johnny Mercer helped them refine their style by listening to and critiquing their songs for two or three years early in their career.

• How the Bergmans, who had written the theme songs for TV’s Maude and Good Times, wrote a 48-second theme song with Neil Diamond for a TV show whose concept changed so radically, the song was no longer usable; but because Diamond liked it so much, he asked the couple to write additional lyrics for “You Don’t Send Me Flowers.”

Ultimately, it was an evening of art appreciation by an audience that appreciated the art the Bergmans continue to create.

Elliot Zwiebach
Cabaret Scenes
November 4, 2008
www.cabaretscenes.org