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TLS signed “Love, Jackie,” one black-bordered page, 6.25 x 9.25, Kennedy coat of arms letterhead, October 13, 1965. Letter to award-winning lyricist and librettist Alan Jay Lerner, in full: “I’m sorry I can’t come to the opening of your show but I shall be thinking of you Sunday night and all my best wishes will be with you for the greatest success ever.” Kennedy adds a handwritten postscript below: “And then sometime later will you take me to see it yourself – How I would love that.” In very fine condition.
The show in question was the musical On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, featuring music by Burton Lane and a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, which opened at the Mark Hellinger Theatre on October 17, 1965, and closed on June 11, 1966, after 280 performances and three previews. Based loosely on Berkeley Square, written in 1926 by John L. Balderston, the musical concerns a woman who has ESP and has been reincarnated. The musical received three Tony Award nominations, including Best Original Score.
A delightful association piece that evokes memories of the Kennedy White House and the classic 1960 Lerner-and-Loewe musical, Camelot. A week after the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy in November 1963, Kennedy's widow, Jackie Kennedy, was interviewed by Theodore H. White, an interview that ran in the December 1963 issue of Life magazine. In the interview, Jackie stated that the show's original cast recording had been a favorite bedtime listening for her husband (who had been Lerner's classmate at Harvard University), and that his favorite lines were in the final number: ‘Don't let it be forgot / That once there was a spot / For one brief, shining moment / That was known as Camelot.’ She also made a direct comparison to the Camelot storyline, saying, ‘There'll be great presidents again… but there'll never be another Camelot.’
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