The real Leonard Bernstein behind Bradley Cooper’s Maestro: ‘A gifted man who drove himself to extremes’

As Bradley Cooper’s bravura Maestro goes up against Oppenheimer and The Zone of Interest at the Oscars, David Benedict dives head-first into the passionate, contradictory, action-packed life of a cultural icon

Leonard Bernstein was one of the 20th century’s most gifted composers and conductors (Getty, Netflix)

Although Bradley Cooper is the first person to portray the magisterial Leonard Bernstein on screen, there’s also a pretender to the throne. Almost.

In 1990, Carl Davis, composer of everything from ITV’s epic The World at War to the BBC’s beloved Pride and Prejudice, played the role of conductor in a filmed studio session recording a crossover album with full orchestra and opera divas Lucia Poop and Renata von Trapp. Poop and Trapp were, of course, actually French and Saunders. Their delicious “I Should Be So Lucky” cover version sketch was spoofing Christopher Swann’s famously tense documentary film of the making of an operatic recording of West Side Story in September 1984, a passion project conceived and conducted by its composer, Leonard Bernstein.

Davis wasn’t literally playing the man, but the fact that, 33 years on, the spoof is still so ridiculously effective is testament to the strength of its genesis and Bernstein’s industry clout. His drafting of inappropriate opera singers to record a musical theatre masterpiece is now largely regarded as misguided but, back then, the 66-year-old Bernstein was such a superstar that the notoriously high-minded record label Deutsche Grammophon came on board. In the process, they racked up epic sales. Decades on from that recording session (now back on screen on BBC iPlayer), West Side Story remains the composer’s most recognisable work thanks, partly, to Steven Spielberg’s recent movie remake. Although his new $100m version boasted pleasures including a screenplay by Tony Kushner (of Angels in America fame) and made a star of Ariana DeBose as fiery Anita, it generated more media brouhaha than box-office, which stands in sharp contradiction to the beloved, original 1961 screen version.