Portrait of Alan Jay Lerner

Birthday profile

Alan Jay Lerner

Alan Jay Lerner, American songwriter and composer (died 1986)

Born
August 31, 1918
Died
June 14, 1986
Zodiac sign
Virgo
Birth year
1918

About Alan Jay Lerner

Alan Jay Lerner (August 31, 1918 – June 14, 1986) was an American lyricist and librettist. In collaboration with Frederick Loewe, and later Burton Lane, he created some of the world's most popular and enduring works of musical theatre both for the stage and on film. Lerner won three Tony Awards and three Academy Awards, among other honors. == Early life and education == Lerner was born in New York City to a Jewish family. He was the son of Edith (née Adelson) and Joseph Jay Lerner, whose brother, Samuel Alexander Lerner, was founder and owner of the Lerner Stores, a chain of dress shops. One of Lerner's cousins was the radio comedian and television game show panelist Henry Morgan. Lerner was educated at Bedales School in England, The Choate School (now Choate Rosemary Hall) in Wallingford, Connecticut, (where he wrote "The Choate Marching Song") and Harvard. He attended both Camp Androscoggin and Camp Greylock. At both Choate and Harvard, Lerner was a classmate of John F. Kennedy; at Choate they had worked together on the yearbook staff. Like Cole Porter at Yale and Richard Rodgers at Columbia, his career in musical theater began with his collegiate contributions, in Lerner's case to the annual Harvard Hasty Pudding musicals.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Career and life highlights

The world when Alan Jay Lerner was born

Alan Jay Lerner was born in 1918. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1918

  • Best-selling book"The U.P. Trail" – Zane Grey

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentWorld Series played in September due to WWI
  • Top headlineWorld War I ends — Spanish Flu pandemic begins
  • Technology milestoneFirst regular airmail service
  • World population~1.78B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderWoodrow Wilson
  • U.S. population102.0M

1918 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Alan Jay Lerner's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19182026
Gas$0.25$3.45/gal
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population102.0M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, MusicBrainz, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.