You could hardly find a more laudatory documentary about a show business figure than the one tonight premiering on “American Masters” (PBS, 9 p.m., check local listings).
“Marvin Hamlisch: What He Did For Love,” directed by Dori Berinstein, recounts the interesting story of the composer, a prodigy who was enrolled into Julliard at age six for classical piano, but longed to become a Broadway composer.
At a high school for performing artists (with a class that included Christopher Walken and Leslie Uggams), there was no supressing his talent. He got Quincy Jones to hear one of his compositions and suddenly it was a hit for Leslie gore (“Sunshine, Lollipops, Rainbows”).
In Hollywood, he got his start doing the score for “The Swimmer” but got a lot of work. When he got three Oscars in one year (1974) for his work in “The Sting” and “The Way We Were,” he topped it with a Broadway hit with “A Chorus Line.”
It’s fun to hear about all of these pop milestones, but when someone says that it was “A Chorus Line” that brought back New York City from financial ruin, you may think: That might be exaggerating things, just a little bit.
Because he only died in August 2012 at the age of 68, when he was amid the usual flurry of activity (his score for HBO’s much-awarded Liberace movie “Behind the Candelabra” came out in the spring), interviewees are especially sad and perhaps a tad too over the top with how great a person Hamlisch was.
There’s no getting over that he’s one of just 11 people who have reached EGOT status (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards). But he’s only one of two who have reached PEGOT (all those plus a Pulitzer ), if indeed PEGOT is a thing (Richard Rodgers is the other one).
It’s up to viewers to see for themselves how admittedly hammy Hamlisch really was, how gangly and uncomfortable he often was on stage and it’s clear to see that a few of his musicals (“Smile,” “Jean Seberg”) just plain flopped.
Still, the interviews set up to explain this part of his life are more of the nature of “What is wrong with critics? Why couldn’t they see how great this was?”
A number of big names line up to sing the praises of Hamlisch, including Idina Menzel, Ann-Margret and Joe Torre. But you don’t hear from Barbra Streisand as much as you’d expect (he was rehearsal pianist on “Funny Girl”), and Woody Allen literally phoned in his comments (Hamlisch scored “Bananas”).
Hamlisch himself is the most expansive on his life and career , and there’s a lot of footage at Berinstein’s disposal. But maybe I’m missing something here. Maybe he was a saint after all.
As his widow Terre Blair Hamlisch said at the summer press tour earlier this year, “He has a portrait that was just accepted at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., and they asked him which piece of music that he wanted to be painted in his hand. And he said, ‘I think people will be surprised, Terre.’
It wasn’t “The Way They Were.”
“The portrait hasn’t been hung yet. It’s going to be. He said, ‘Because I chose “What I Did for Love,” ‘ ” she said, referring to the song from “A Chorus Line.” “Marvin would want you to know that what he did, he did for love.”
His friend Luci Arnaz went further. “It seems like he’s one of those people that, if you talk about him, it just seems like, ‘Well, was there anything wrong with this person? You know, he was so brilliant, and everybody loved working with him, and he was just the nicest person in the world, and he was so funny and la la la la, and this is going to be a pretty dull documentary. You know, it’s going to be a tribute piece. It’s not be interesting.’
“Well, I’ve seen the documentary, and it’s very funny, and it makes you cry, and it talks about his early life and how he got this way, which I love knowing that, there’s a kind of way to find out how a person develops into that,” Arnaz said.
“But you also see that there were lots of times where things did not go well and the frustration that happened to his career after suddenly looking like it was an overnight success and then try and try and try again, and each time the balloon did not stay in the air.
“If Marvin was here, he’d make some sort of a joke about it and write a song about being up to bat and even if you miss every other, if you miss 50 percent of the time, you know, it’s still .500 and who bats .500?
“It’s very inspirational for everybody just the way ‘Chorus Line’ was inspirational for normal people. You didn’t have to be a dancer trying to get a job. It was about people trying to be accepted and being allowed to do what they love to do. And it’s a very moving piece.”
“Marvin Hamlisch: What He Did For Love” closes out the 27th season of “American Masters.”