The Way I Was

This autobiography recounts the story of Marvin Hamlisch. His Viennese Jewish parents packed him off to Julliard at the age of six (the youngest student ever accepted at Julliard). His parents wanted him to be the next Vladimir Horowitz, but Marvin had other ideas. He preferred pop tunes to Puccini, and by the time he was in high school, he was writing songs for the school musical.;He helped Liza Minelli make her first recording as a teenager and then went off to play it for Liza's mom, Judy Garland. By the time he was in his early 20s, he had written a song that made the charts. A few years later he was Barbra Streisand's rehearsal pianist and musical co-ordinator for the Bell Telephone Hour. At 30 he had won three Oscars for "The Way We Were" and the score of "The Sting". At 35 he had written the greatest musical of all, "A Chorus Line".;He had his flops too, and his heartbreaks, but as "Notes From A Rehearsal Pianist" shows, Marvin is irrepressible and continues the frantic pace. This is a book peopled by the likes of Michael Bennett, Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Sam Spiegel, Carole Baker Sager, Neil Simon, and of course, Barbra Streisand and Liza Minelli. Hamlisch's co-author, Gerald Gardner, has also written "Robert Kennedy in New York" and "Who's in Charge Here?".