Leonard Bernstein pal reveals secrets he sent Bradley Cooper for biopic
nypost.comwearing a retro suit and a prosthetic nose for his latest role as Leonard Bernstein, for the upcoming Netflix film “Maestro.”Now, a former protege and friend of the music legend is revealing private stories that the Oscar-nominated actor has likely never heard about the composer of “West Side Story” — including how the married Bernstein slept with his protégé’s boyfriend.Conductor Mark Janas, 70, was friends with Bernstein beginning in the mid 1970s until the composer’s death in 1990, and last month he managed to get a letter to Cooper, through the actor’s, Hollywood agent detailing some of his stories of “the great maestro,” which he shared exclusively with The Post.
Cooper, 47, is directing and starring in the movie, scheduled for release next year. Janas was 23 years old and an aspiring conductor when he met Bernstein, known to friends as Lenny, in the summer of 1975. “I was a bit unprepared for Lenny answering the door wearing a Speedo, flip flops and a white terrycloth bathrobe, with a glass of Scotch in one hand and a joint in the other,” Janas wrote in the letter he sent to Cooper and shared with The Post.The conductor, then 56, was already established as one of the world’s greatest musicians but had left his position as the longtime music director of the New York Philharmonic to focus on composing.
Read more on nypost.com
