Editing Alan Jay Lerner (section)

==Early life and education==
Lerner was born in [[New York City]] to a Jewish family. He was the son of Edith ({{née}} Adelson) and Joseph Jay Lerner, whose brother, Samuel Alexander Lerner, was founder and owner of the [[Lerner Stores]], a chain of dress shops. One of Lerner's cousins was the radio comedian and television game show panelist [[Henry Morgan (comedian)|Henry Morgan]]. Lerner was educated at [[Bedales School]] in England, [[Choate Rosemary Hall|The Choate School]] (now Choate Rosemary Hall) in Wallingford, Connecticut, (where he wrote "The Choate Marching Song") and [[Harvard University|Harvard]]. He attended both [[Camp Androscoggin]] and [[Camp Greylock]].<ref>[https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE7DC1E3AF937A25755C0A964958260 "The Executive Life; And No One Mentions The Many Mosquitoes"]''[[The New York Times]]'', June 14, 1992</ref> At both Choate and Harvard, Lerner was a classmate of [[John F. Kennedy]]; at Choate they had worked together on the yearbook staff.<ref name=tcm>[http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/participant.jsp?spid=112326&apid=8980  "Alan Jay Lerner: Biography"]{{dead link|date=April 2025|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}} [[Turner Classic Movies]], accessed August 1, 2009</ref>  Like [[Cole Porter]] at [[Yale]] and [[Richard Rodgers]] at [[Columbia University|Columbia]], his career in musical theater began with his collegiate contributions, in Lerner's case to the annual Harvard [[Hasty Pudding Theatricals|Hasty Pudding]] musicals.<ref>Green, p.238</ref> During the summers of 1936 and 1937, Lerner studied music composition at [[Juilliard]]. While attending Harvard, he lost his sight in his left eye due to an accident in the boxing ring. In 1957, Lerner and [[Leonard Bernstein]], another of Lerner's college classmates, collaborated on "Lonely Men of Harvard", a tongue-in-cheek salute to their alma mater.