A certified genius

Marvin Hamlisch, 68, the composer-conductor who died Monday in Los Angeles was a certified genius. From the age of seven, when he became the youngest student ever admitted to New York’s Juilliard School of Music, Marvin grew up to win both the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award for his 1975 musical “A Chorus Line.” He also had three Oscars, four Grammys, four Emmys and three Golden Globes.

Marvin embodied more than an impressive resume and long list of celebrity friends. He may have been the most self-effacing person of great achievement I have ever known.

Admiration

We met by accident, if you believe in such things. My wife and I were with the musical comedy and cabaret singer Barbara Cook at a post-performance party when he walked in. She introduced us and for me it was admiration at first sight. Though we came from different backgrounds and life experiences — he a huge success in show business and me a Stage-door Johnny and musical comedy wannabe who “settled” for journalism because I had to make a living — we hit it off.

Recently he had a kidney transplant, which was known only to a few people. He told his wife, Terre Blair, he would rather die than be ahead of someone on a waiting list. He didn’t have to worry. A close friend donated one of his own kidneys. Terre said the new kidney was functioning well, but complications from an unrelated condition drove him into a coma from which he never recovered.

Few conductors have had Marvin’s rapport with audiences. He could carry on conversations with adults and children and make the audience roar with laughter at his ad-libs. He was the principle pops conductor for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Pasadena Symphony and Pops, Seattle Symphony and San Diego Symphony.

A line from the Alan and Marilyn Bergman song “The Way We Were” — for which Marvin wrote the music, which was made famous by Barbra Streisand, for whom he was once a rehearsal pianist — seems a fitting epitaph to this musical giant: “So it’s the laughter we will remember. Whenever we remember, the way we were.”

Tribune Media Services