A week after President John F. Kennedy’s death in 1963, Jacqueline Kennedy was interviewed by Theodore H. White for Life magazine. The former First Lady referred to “Camelot” as a favorite song of the president and its original cast album, a recording he loved to play. “The lines he loved to hear,” said Mrs. Kennedy in the Life article, “were, ‘Don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as ‘Camelot.’ “
“She wanted to make sure that the point came clear and went on, . .” Lerner wrote in his autobiography.
“She said it is time people paid attention to the new president and the new first lady. But she does not want them to forget John F. Kennedy or read of him only in dusty or bitter histories: For one brief shining moment there was Camelot.”
Shortly after that article came out, something extraordinary happened, Lerner writes in his autobiography:
” ‘Camelot’ was then on the road, playing the Opera House in Chicago, a huge barn of a theater with over three thousand seats. I was told later what happened that night. ‘The theater was packed. The verse quoted above is sung in the last scene. Louis Hayward was playing King Arthur. When he came to those lines, there was a sudden wail from the audience. It was not a muffled sob; it was a loud, almost primitive cry of pain. The play stopped, and for almost five minutes everyone in the theater – on the stage, in the wings, in the pit, and in the audience – wept without restraint. Then the play continued. . .’
‘Camelot’ had suddenly become the symbol of those thousand days when people the world over saw a bright new light of hope shining from the White House.”
