Bradley Cooper ignores Leonard Bernstein’s Black Panther party in biopic

Legendary composer Leonard Bernstein was in the midst of one of the most famous socialite racial controversies of the 20th century when he held a fundraiser in his Manhattan penthouse to support the Black Panthers in January 1970.

But Bradley Cooper, director and star of Netflix’s upcoming Bernstein biopic Maestro, opted not to host the infamous party meant to raise money for ‘Panther 21’: All 21 members of the group jailed and accused of conspiring to kill police and conspire to bomb parties. from New York City.

The fallout from the party, held at Bernstein’s Upper East Side duplex apartment, was incendiary, with The New Yorker magazine calling the moment the “most notorious episode” in Bernstein’s career and the party’s account of the writer Tom Wolfe popularizing the phrase “radical elegance.

A source who saw an early screening of the film told DailyMail.com: “The party came to define Leonard Bernstein in the public eye, and yet Bradley Cooper avoids it entirely.”

Bradley Cooper directs and stars in Maestro, a biopic about legendary composer Leonard Bernstein. Cooper appears on set with prosthetics.

Cooper has controversially chosen not to host the infamous fundraiser to raise money for the ‘Panther 21’ – the 21 Black Panther members imprisoned and accused of conspiring to kill police and conspiring to bomb in the New York City. Members of the Black Panther Party are pictured outside the New York County Criminal Court in 1969

The Panther 21 were eventually cleared of charges of planning bombing and rifle attacks on the NYPD precincts in the Bronx and Manhattan and on the Queens office of the Board of Education. The 1971 trial failed after it was revealed that police infiltrators played a key role in organizing the campaign.

One of America’s most iconic composers and conductors of the 20th century, Bernstein was Music Director of the New York Philharmonic and composed the Broadway musicals West Side Story, On the Town and Candide. He died, aged 72, in 1990.

Maestro, whose producers include Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese, is Cooper’s follow-up film to his 2018 smash hit A Star Is Born.

It’s set to open in the fall, but it had an early test screening last week at the Paris Theater in New York.

The source who attended the initial screening said, “Although Bernstein’s left-wing politics drew suspicion from the FBI and the political establishment, Cooper does not address them at all in the film.”

Cooper (left) fully transformed into composer Bernstein for the biopic Maestro

The Black Panthers match isn’t the only thing missing from Maestro, the source revealed.

Emmy-winning Succession star Jeremy Strong, who was widely reported to star in Maestro as Bernstein biographer John Gruen, does not appear in the finished film.

‘Apparently Bradley Cooper and [co-writer] Josh Singer decided to completely cut the character out of the script so Jeremy Strong would never end up filming any scenes,” according to the source.

“It was a bold choice on Bradley’s part not to finally include the role of Jeremy. He is still listed in the movie on Wikipedia and other sites, but he’s not actually in it.”

Maestro chronicles the stormy marriage of Leonard Bernstein to his wife, actress Felicia Montealegre, played by Carey Mulligan, from their initial meeting at a party in 1946 until her death from lung cancer in 1978.

Emmy-winning Succession star Jeremy Strong, widely reported to star in Maestro as Bernstein biographer John Gruen (right), does not appear in the finished film.

Maestro has faced backlash for casting English actress Carey Mulligan to play Bernstein’s Chilean-American wife, Felicia Montealegre.

Bernstein’s children supported the casting, releasing a statement saying, “We are absolutely delighted to have Carey Mulligan play our mother in Maestro.” Leonard and Felicia in 1959

The film also faced backlash from the Latinx community in reaction to English actress Mulligan playing a Chilean-American.

Felicia and Leonard Bernstein’s children Jamie, Alexander and Nina supported the casting, and Jamie, 70, released a statement saying: “We are absolutely delighted to have Carey Mulligan play our mother in Maestro.”

“Carey is sure to capture Felicia’s unique combination of wit, warmth, graceful beauty and depth of emotion.”

Maestro doesn’t hesitate to portray Bernstein’s many affairs with men, including clarinetist David Oppenheim, played by Matt Bomer, and musician Tom Cothran.

However, there is no mention in the film of Bernstein’s decade-long relationship with Japanese insurance worker Kunihiko Hashimoto, whose intimate letters with Bernstein were included in the 2019 book Dearest Lenny: Letters from Japan and the Making of the World Maestro. .

Maestro also features a scene of Bernstein doing cocaine at a decadent 1970s party.

Protesters are seen in New York City in 1970. The fallout from the party, held at Bernstein’s Manhattan duplex, was inflammatory, with The New Yorker magazine calling the moment the “most notorious episode” in the Bernstein’s career.

The film depicts Bernstein’s meteoric musical rise and early marriage to Felicia in the 1940s and 1950s. Cooper is seen on set in New York City

In addition to his own music, the film features the composer dancing and singing to the 1985 pop song Shout by Tears for Fears.

The biopic was filmed in Los Angeles, New York, and at Ely Cathedral in England.

The film is produced in black and white when depicting Bernstein’s meteoric musical rise and early marriage to Felicia in the 1940s and 1950s and then switches to color for the last decades of his life.

Cooper has previously spoken about Maestro as his passion project in an interview with Mahershala Ali for Variety’s Actors on Actors series.

“I wanted to be a conductor since I was a kid,” Cooper said. ‘He was obsessed with it, [I] I asked Santa Claus for a cane when I was eight years old.