Alan Jay Lerner had the ability to make words cling inseparably to a melody. But he had more than that: erudition, sophistication, and style. He was also a dogged worker who, after holding up the filming of the movie Gigi (1958) for two weeks, fussing with a couplet that finally read "She's so ooh-la-la-la / So untrue-la-la-la," admitted, "It seems hardly worth the effort."

Lyricist, librettist, memoirist, and man-about- town, Lerner's tempestuous personal life was well known to the nontheatrical public, for his eight stormy marriages were often played out on the front pages of the tabloids. The musical world knew Lerner through his collaborations with composer Frederick Loewe, especially Brigadoon (1947), Camelot (1960), the movie Gigi, and his masterpiece, My Fair Lady (1956). Lerner was deeply revered by New York theater critic Clive Barnes, who, in writing his obituary, paraphrased Lerner and Loewe: "We shall never see their like again. A pity...