Bradley & Carey as Leonard Bernstein & Felicia Montealegre
Friday, July 8, 2022 at 9:01AM 
Bradley Cooper & Carey Mulligan in character for "Maestro"
Thoughts? Here's how the real couple looked...
image via The Daily Beast
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990), who was one of the 20th century's most important musicians and wrote the greatest musical score of all time (West Side Story) was gay in real life. But, like many men of his generation, married a woman to make his life easier and his career more successful. Felicia Montealegre, a Chilean American woman, was aware of this for most of their marriage. You should read her amazing famous letter to Bernstein about their "this whole bloody mess which is our 'connubial' life'.
Their story will be told in Maestro (2023), Bradley Cooper's sophomore directorial outing after A Star is Born (2018). It's interesting that he went with another music-centered romantic drama, right? Though they separated for a few years in the 1970s, the Bernsteins stayed married until Felicia's death 12 years before Bernstein's.
Matt Bomer will be playing one of Bernstein's lovers as was evident from this paparazzi shot during filming.
The complciated Bernstein marriage could make for a great movie, though we can't help noticing that it's extremely similar to De-Lovely (2004) on paper, which didn't turn out to be a great movie. The earlier picture was about the gay songwriter Cole Porter (another giant 20th century figure in American music) and his wife who were also very close and aware of the husband's situation. They also stayed together until she died, roughly 10 years before he did. (Naturally the other Bernstein biopic announced in 2018, which was to star Jake Gyllenhaal and be directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, is not happening.)
Maestro is still filming and will arrive on Netflix sometime in 2023. It's easy to picture it being an Oscar thing, too, don't you agree?
Bradley Cooper, Carey Mulligan, De-Lovely, LGBTQ+, Maestro, biopics
Reader Comments (7)
Ignoring the controversy of their casting, I'll just comment on how they look in the photo. Carey looks fine. Bradley is freaking me out! He looks like a... Muppet?
Bradley Cooper playing Sean Penn playing Leonard Bernstein.
Why is he pink??
It's too bad because I remember thinking "that's not bad casting" when I heard Cooper was going to play Lenny. But now I'll be way too distracted by that makeup.
I might get dragged for this, but I don't think Mulligan's casting is *that* bad. Yes, an actual hispanic/Southamerican would've been better casting (Anya Taylor Joy's the obvious example, although too young to be cast alongside Cooper), but I think a big part of the negative reaction is due to the public conflating race with ethnicity/nationality. It's the same old chestnut as when Banderas or the aforementioned Taylor Joy have been described as POC in the media (particularly hilarious in the case of the latter, with her alabaster complexion). A person can be Hispanic/Latinx and white. I believe Montealegre was a white/caucasian Chilean (of course, I could be wrong). An actress with that profile would've been much better, but it's not like Mulligan will be playing a person of indigenous ascendance.
OK, that is an awful tan on Cooper.
as a gay Chilean, I'm conflicted.
Felicia and Leonard look like fun. Bradley and Carey look like humourless snobs.
From photos and writings about Leonard Bernstein, he seems smarter, handsomer, and more charismatic than Cooper. (sigh). But then Bernstein was a genius and Bradley Cooper is someone who is pretty good at what he does.
I always liked the writing about when the young Bernstein belonged to a musical revue troupe. The 4 troupers were Bernstein, Judy Holliday, and Betty Comden and Adolph Green. Comden and Green were screenwriters (“Singing in the Rain”), Tony winning lyricists (“On the Town”, music by Bernstein), playwrights, etc. Green and Bernstein met at summer camp.
Bernstein wasn’t a music snob. He wanted music to be more inclusive. Amanda Green, Adoph’s daughter, did a 2018 presentation about Bernstein’s working approach, after talking to his many collaborators, including Stephen Sondheim. To me, he comes across as someone exciting to work with, and fun to be with.
And Bradley as Leonard just looks so morose.