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After a successful sojourn in Hollywood, Moss directed My Fair Lady on Broadway, of course. Then he and Alan Lerner and Fritz Loewe teamed up again to do Camelot.
That was a disaster for everybody concerned because Alan is an impossible man to work with. They had booked a theater and it was a tremendous production--hundreds of thousands of dollars. But Alan just delayed and dilly-dallied and when rehearsals began they didn't even have a second act. Before it was over, Alan had a heart attack. Fritz Loewe and Alan Lerner split forever after Camelot. And Moss himself had a heart attack in Toronto where it opened.
That was heart attack number one. Then he had another one later. Although he had been warned by the doctor that he must be careful, that wasn't the way that Moss was. He went on going to parties. He lived his life. He and Kitty took a lovely house in Palm Springs, and Phyllis and I were invited out for Christmas. Moss was buying everything in sight. I always said that when he went to a new town, every store immediately declared an extra dividend.
One morning I thought that my switchboard operator said, “Mr. Hart is on the phone.” I expected the usual insult--that was the relationship that we had--but it was Kitty. She said, “Moss just dropped dead.” I'll never forget that as long as I live. We were on a plane in an hour. It was just before Christmas.
I didn't realize that Camelot...I didn't realize that there were such frictions.
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