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Leonard Bernstein and Humphrey Burton: A Shared Life in Music
Posted January 20, 2026
Leonard Bernstein and Humphrey Burton: A Shared Life in Music
by Helena Burton
I was by my father’s bedside at home throughout his final days, and as he slipped into unconsciousness, my older siblings and I put on the original soundtrack to West Side Story. I did my best with “Somewhere.” (I’m not a singer, but I was gifted enough once on the recorder for Leonard Bernstein to write me, age 19, a piece of music, which I cheekily sent back, saying it was unplayable.) Then, with tears streaming down my face, I also belted out “Maria”—remembering how, at my mother’s 50th birthday party, my half-brother Matthew had sung the same tune, changing the title word to “Christina.” They say hearing is the last sense to go when dying. We couldn’t have chosen a more fitting soundtrack for Dad’s final hours, alongside his other favourite musical geniuses, Mozart and Beethoven.
Lenny has always been a fundamental part of our lives—from accompanying my parents’ walk down the aisle on the organ at their wedding in New York, to the many years Dad spent obsessively writing Bernstein’s biography, during which literally everything was related back to LB. “You have a toothache? Let me tell you about the toothache LB had in 1952!” To be honest, it did get a tad annoying! But as a wannabe writer now, I understand how the subject matter can become all-consuming.
One of my most endearing memories of Bernstein was as a teenager, backstage at the Royal Albert Hall after a performance. Lenny spied me across a room full of very important people and made a beeline. Wrapping me up in one of his big, fat, wet, whiskey-and-cigarette-smelling hugs—for which he was infamous with my younger brother Lukas and me—he whispered in my ear, “I know it’s tough, kid. I know it’s hard going with your dad right now. But hang in there. I love you.” Lenny truly had the gift of always making you feel like the most important person in the room.
A few years later, while working on my dad’s crew filming Sibelius symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic—a job my half-sister Clare also had—LB asked me to marry him. In jest, of course, but I think my mother, in particular, was devastated that I never became Mrs. Helena Bernstein. A son-in-law she could never have been prouder of. A story she dined out on regularly, I’m sure.
Dad made over 200 films with Bernstein. A photo of the two of them working together is on the back cover of my father’s autobiography, In My Own Time. He was the closest thing my father ever had to a best friend. He was most definitely considered family. Are they now making beautiful music together in the afterlife? I sure hope so.