JFK and Camelot
On December 3, 1960 the musical Camelot opened at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway. The musical tells the story of the court of King Arthur and his Queen Guenevere, and of the knights of the round table. The music was composed by Frederick Loewe and the lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner. The musical would come to be associated with the administration of John F. Kennedy.
Shortly after the funeral of President Kennedy in November, 1963, his widow Jacqueline Kennedy called the writer Theodore White and invited him to the Kennedy home in Hyannisport, Massachusetts. She asked him to write a piece about her late husband for Life magazine. The essay based on the interview appeared in the December 6th issue of Life. It was this essay that created the association of Camelot with the 1000-day presidency of JFK.
White wrote that, in the context of the Kennedy administration, Camelot represented, “a magic moment in American history, when gallant men danced with beautiful women, when great deeds were done, when artists, writers, and poets met at the White House, and the barbarians beyond the walls held back.” According to White, Jacqueline Kennedy played the final song written by Alan Jay Lerner over and over again. It had been her husband’s favorite. The focus was on the ending lyrics: “Don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot.” In the Broadway musical, King Arthur sings the lines as he is near death. Arthur’s Camelot was a place of “happy-ever-aftering.”
In Mrs. Kennedy's interview with White she stressed that for her husband, “history was full of heroes.” The Knights of the Roundtable, led by the idealistic King Arthur, served justice, which she compared to her husband's short time in the White House. White noted that, in his January 20th Inaugural Address, Kennedy stated that, “In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hours of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility, I welcome it.” He also noted how, in June 1963 President Kennedy stood at the infamous Berlin Wall, identifying in solidarity with his audience: “Ich bin ein Berliner.”
White wrote that, for John F. Kennedy, the Roundtable Knights were the heroes – men and women that gave of themselves to achieve social justice and enrich the lives of others. These were the people who "asked not what the country could do for them, but what they could do for their country." These were the Peace Corps volunteers, the scientists and technicians at NASA that implemented Project Mercury with the ultimate goal of putting a man on the moon, and the Civil Rights advocates that fought to end segregation in the South.
Although most of the initial Civil Rights legislation would be passed under the Presidency of Lyndon Johnson, White pointed out that it was the JFK administration that began the initiatives to end segregation. In June 1963 President Kennedy challenged the nation to live up to the “Golden Rule” and the American Dream as it affected all Americans, including people of color.
Following Kennedy's death, the promotes of the musical publicized the fact that the show's original cast recording had been favorite bedtime listening in the White House. The lyricist Alan Jay Lerner had been a classmate of Kennedy's at Harvard. Jacqueline Kennedy said that her husband's favorite lines were in the final number, in which King Arthur knights a young boy and tells him to pass on the story of Camelot to future generations:
"Don't let it be forgot
That once there was a spot,
For one brief, shining moment
That was known as Camelot."
I wish I could find a version of the final scene with Richard Burton in it, but I was unable to. Here is a 5 minute YouTube video of the final scene with Gabriel Byrne singing this song:
Shortly after the funeral of President Kennedy in November, 1963, his widow Jacqueline Kennedy called the writer Theodore White and invited him to the Kennedy home in Hyannisport, Massachusetts. She asked him to write a piece about her late husband for Life magazine. The essay based on the interview appeared in the December 6th issue of Life. It was this essay that created the association of Camelot with the 1000-day presidency of JFK.
White wrote that, in the context of the Kennedy administration, Camelot represented, “a magic moment in American history, when gallant men danced with beautiful women, when great deeds were done, when artists, writers, and poets met at the White House, and the barbarians beyond the walls held back.” According to White, Jacqueline Kennedy played the final song written by Alan Jay Lerner over and over again. It had been her husband’s favorite. The focus was on the ending lyrics: “Don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot.” In the Broadway musical, King Arthur sings the lines as he is near death. Arthur’s Camelot was a place of “happy-ever-aftering.”
In Mrs. Kennedy's interview with White she stressed that for her husband, “history was full of heroes.” The Knights of the Roundtable, led by the idealistic King Arthur, served justice, which she compared to her husband's short time in the White House. White noted that, in his January 20th Inaugural Address, Kennedy stated that, “In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hours of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility, I welcome it.” He also noted how, in June 1963 President Kennedy stood at the infamous Berlin Wall, identifying in solidarity with his audience: “Ich bin ein Berliner.”
White wrote that, for John F. Kennedy, the Roundtable Knights were the heroes – men and women that gave of themselves to achieve social justice and enrich the lives of others. These were the people who "asked not what the country could do for them, but what they could do for their country." These were the Peace Corps volunteers, the scientists and technicians at NASA that implemented Project Mercury with the ultimate goal of putting a man on the moon, and the Civil Rights advocates that fought to end segregation in the South.
Although most of the initial Civil Rights legislation would be passed under the Presidency of Lyndon Johnson, White pointed out that it was the JFK administration that began the initiatives to end segregation. In June 1963 President Kennedy challenged the nation to live up to the “Golden Rule” and the American Dream as it affected all Americans, including people of color.
Following Kennedy's death, the promotes of the musical publicized the fact that the show's original cast recording had been favorite bedtime listening in the White House. The lyricist Alan Jay Lerner had been a classmate of Kennedy's at Harvard. Jacqueline Kennedy said that her husband's favorite lines were in the final number, in which King Arthur knights a young boy and tells him to pass on the story of Camelot to future generations:
"Don't let it be forgot
That once there was a spot,
For one brief, shining moment
That was known as Camelot."
I wish I could find a version of the final scene with Richard Burton in it, but I was unable to. Here is a 5 minute YouTube video of the final scene with Gabriel Byrne singing this song: