The True Story of ‘Maestro’ and Leonard Bernstein’s Complicated Marriage
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One of the most celebrated and acclaimed composers of the 20th century, Leonard Bernstein was a larger than life figure. Best known for composing the Broadway musical West Side Story, Bernstein was one of the first American-born conductors to receive global fame and lead world-class orchestras.
His wife, Felicia Montealegre, was less prominent but was an impressive artist in her own right. A successful actor who performed on Broadway and television, she also played piano, sang, and was an amateur painter and sculptor. Bernstein and Montealegre were a power couple in the public eye, and she was a source of strength and inspiration for her husband.
But their relationship was not an easy one. Bernstein had affairs with both women and men throughout his life, as Montealegre well knew. They broke off their engagement once before marrying, and Bernstein left her for a man at one point in their marriage, after which Montealegre angrily declared that Bernstein was “going to die a bitter and lonely old man.”
Their love, marriage, estrangement, and ultimate reconciliation is the subject of the new biopic Maestro, which features Bradley Cooper as Bernstein and Carey Mulligan as Montealegre. The movie, directed by Cooper, is now streaming on Netflix. Here is the true story of the romance at the heart of Maestro.
“That’s Where We Fell in Love”
Although born in Costa Rica, Montealegre’s family moved to Chile when she was 1 year old. There, her musical talent was recognized by the famed Chilean pianist Claudio Arrau, who tutored her on the instrument before she moved to New York in 1944 to study acting, according to Leonard Bernstein: The Infinite Variety of a Musician by Peter Gradenwitz.
Before they actually met, Montealegre had seen Bernstein conducting at the New York City Center and was said to have expressed her intention of marrying him even then, according to the biography Leonard Bernstein by Humphrey Burton.
The two finally met at a party on February 5, 1947, one day before Montealegre’s 24th birthday. Bernstein, then 28, had just played the Brahms D minor concerto with Arrau, the party’s host, during a New York City concert. Arrau introduced Bernstein and Montealegre “and that’s where we fell in love,” Bernstein said, according to Gradenwitz.
A few months after this encounter, the two were engaged, but they subsequently decided they weren’t ready for marriage and broke it off within less than a year. Montealegre began a romantic relationship with actor Richad Hart, with whom she had performed in several plays, but he died of a coronary occlusion in January 1951, at age 35, according to Burton.
After Hart’s death, Montealegre and Bernstein rekindled their romance. However, as Burton wrote: “Over the next few months, she would learn the hard way, through his absence, about his peripatetic lifestyle, with its pattern of incessant travel and hotel meals, new orchestras to conquer and other relationships to pursue.”
Living an “Imaginary Life”
Bernstein and Montealegre announced their second engagement in August 1951, and they were married less than a month later. According to Burton, Bernstein’s parents didn’t like Montealegre at first—his mother told Bernstein “I don’t think she is the girl for you; you deserve someone better”—but they both eventually came around.
The couple went on to have three children named Jamie, Alexander, and Nina. In the public eye, Bernstein seemed like a devoted husband and father, but in reality, he was engaged with multiple affairs with both men and women while married, Burton said.
Montealegre, who knew of Bernstein’s reputation for affairs before marrying him, maintained a positive demeanor to the outside world, but his behavior put intense pressure on her. According to Burton, Montealegre knew he had male sexual partners but believed she could “change” him because he didn’t exclusively sleep with men.
“You are a homosexual and may never change,” she wrote in a letter to Bernstein. “Let’s try and see what happens if you are free to do as you like, but without guilt and confession… Our marriage is not based on passion but on tenderness and mutual respect.”
Bernstein, himself, was torn about his bisexuality and engaged in years of therapy with the apparent hope of being “cured,” according to The New York Times. In describing his sexual attractiveness toward men, Bernstein wrote to his sister, “I have been engaged in an imaginary life with Felicia.”
Estranged then Reunited
In 1971, Bernstein met and fell in love with Tom Cothran, the music director of a San Francisco classical radio station. After bonding over their love of music, the two began an affair and repeatedly took vacations together. After five years, Bernstein left Montealegre to live with Cothran in California, according to Leonard Bernstein: An American Musician by Allen Shawn.
Montealegre felt “destroyed,” not only by Bernstein leaving her, but also by his claim that Cothran—rather than she—was his best friend and the only person who truly understood his music, according to Burton. Infuriated, she told Bernstein that he was “going to die a bitter and lonely old man.”
Shortly after their separation, Montealegre was diagnosed with lung cancer. Upon learning this, Bernstein returned to Montealegre and cared for her until her death on June 16, 1978, at age 56. Bernstein never fully recovered from the loss. “He was heartbroken,” his friend Yehudi Menuhin said, according to Gradenwitz. “He is a man who feels so very deeply.”
Bernstein didn’t resume his romance with Cothran, though the two remained friends until Cothran died from AIDS in 1987, according to Burton. Bernstein died of a heart attack three years later on October 14, 1990. He was buried at the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, alongside Montealegre.
Stream Maestro on Netflix Now
Carey Mulligan stars as Felicia Montealegre opposite Bradley Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein in Maestro. The movie is now streaming on Netflix.
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