Lorenz Hart, lyricist who was the longtime toast of Broadway, died at age 48 in 1943, the year that the Golden Globes launched. His songs have lived on for nearly a century and the Richard Linklater-directed Blue Moon opens at a time when audiences are seeing several movie musicals that carry on his legacy.

With Blue Moon,  Linklater pays tribute to one of the greatest lyricists of the 20th century. Lorenz Hart’s name and his tormented life may have faded in the public’s memory but his lyrics remain enshrined in the Great American Songbook to this day.

When the musical  Oklahoma!  premiered in spring 1943 on Broadway, it marked the beginning of the successful partnership of composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein (South Pacific, The King and I , The Sound of Music). For 20 years before Hammerstein, however, it was Hart who wrote the lyrics to Rodgers’ music. Their musicals (Pal Joey, Babes in Arms ) in 1920-1942 included big hits and their song collaborations included classics like The Lady Is a Tramp, My Funny Valentine, Isn’t It Romantic, Where or When and of course Blue Moon.

The latter is also the title of Linklater’s film. Based on a refined script by Robert Kaplow, the chamber piece takes place at Sardi’s Restaurant in Manhattan on opening night of Oklahoma! When the audience first sees Lorenz, aka Larry, he desperately tries to remain relevant in his mind and in his circle, but his time is about to run out. Ethan Hawke plays Hart perfectly balanced between grandiose and desperately vulnerable.

“That’s what’s so heartbreaking about the story,” Linklater said during a press conference at the Toronto Film Festival. “It’s an artistic breakup, but it’s not brought on by lack of artistry. [He] is the greatest lyricist of the 20th century. It’s his personal demons he’s struggling with.” 

Hart has an alcohol problem. He keeps drinking and pretending the world has not passed him by, while Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott) moves on artistically and Hart’s young, oblivious muse/fantasy love interest Elizabeth Weiland (Margaret Qualley) tells him all about a boy she’s fallen in love with.

A couple of weeks after the “Oklahoma!” premiere, Hart’s mother, whom he lived with, passed away. “He lost not only his professional life, but also his mom,” Linklater says. “He was probably never sober another day, and he died six months later.”

Lorenz Hart and his younger brother Teddy were born in Harlem, N.Y., to German immigrant parents. His great-granduncle on his mother’s side was German poet Heinrich Heine whose works have been put to music by the likes of composers Robert Schuhmann and Franz Schubert. Hart went to Columbia University where he met Rodgers in 1919 and the two began writing songs for amateur shows and student productions. They wrote 26 Broadway musicals and countless songs together.

Hart resented the song Blue Moon, which was cut from several movies before it became an American standard when Hart dropped his signature sardonic style and wrote more romantic lyrics for it.

Hart’s professional success did not translate to a happy life: Born of short stature and conflicted about his sexual identity, he suffered from depression and alcoholism. His erratic behavior caused ultimately the break with Rodgers. Nonetheless, they worked together once more in his final year on new songs for a revival of their 1927 hit A Connecticut Yankee. Hart showed up at the premiere drunk, ended up in a gutter on that cold November night and died a few days later at age 48 of pneumonia.

The Rodgers & Hart legacy though, lives on– for example in John Kander & Fred Ebb, songwriters for the musicals Cabaret, Chicago and Kiss of the Spider Woman, which is currently in movie theaters starring Jennifer Lopez, Tonatiuh and Diego Luna.  Wicked: For Good, starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande will hit theaters this Thanksgiving and songwriter Stephen Schwartz has specifically mentioned Hart as an inspiration.<

Linklater has another film with a year-end opening, Nouvelle Vague — this time not about the end, but the beginning of an artistic career, when Jean-Luc Godard made Breathless in 1960.