December 3, 1960: The musical Camelot premieres on Broadway. Based on T.H. White's 1958 novel The Once and Future King, it was directed by Moss Hart, the lyrics and "book" were written by Alan Jay Lerner, and the music by Frederick Loewe.
It opened at the Majestic Theatre, and is a variation on the story of Camelot, the idealized medieval kingdom in England. Richard Burton, considered a great stage actor but not thought of as much of a singer, played King Arthur. Julie Andrews, already famous for Lerner & Loewe's My Fair Lady and Rodgers & Hammerstein's The Sound of Music, played Queen Guenevere. And Robert Goulet, in his 1st Broadway role, played Sir Lancelot, who starts as Arthur's noblest knight, but has an affair with Guenevere that tears the kingdom apart.
David Hurst played the magician, whose name was spelled "Merlyn" in this show. Roddy McDowall played Mordred, the illegitimate son who challenges Arthur.
Arthur sings the theme song, about how wonderful things are in Camelot, and also "I Wonder What the King Is Doing Tonight." Guenevere sings "The Lusty Month of May" and, to the ensemble, "Then You May Take Me to the Fair," each of which is more evidence that she wasn't as virtuous as Arthur had first believed. To each other, they sing "What Do the Simple Folk Do?" To Guenevere, Lancelot sings, "If Ever I Would Leave You."
The musical won 5 Tony Awards, including Best Actor in a Musical by Burton. Andrews was nominated for Best Actress in a Musical, but did not win. The play was not even nominated for Best Musical.
Although the musical debuted at the end of the Administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, it became identified with that of his successor, John F. Kennedy. In the one and only interview his wife, Jaqueline, gave after his assassination, to JFK aide Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., she mentioned that he loved it, and used the last version of the theme song as a metaphor for his time in office:
Don't let it be forgot
that once there was a spot
for one brief shining moment
that was known as Camelot.
The Majestic Theatre opened in 1927, at 245 West 44th Street, and is still in operation. In 1980, Burton, having divorced Sybil Williams, and married and divorced Elizabeth Taylor twice, and Christine Ebersole starred in a revival. In 1993, Camelot was revived on Broadway, and Goulet was "promoted" to Arthur.
In 1967, the musical was filmed. It was nominated for 5 Academy Awards, winning 3. Richard Harris played Arthur, Vanessa Redgrave played Guenevere, and Franco Nero played Lancelot. Life imitated art: Redgrave left her husband, Tony Richardson, to have an affair with Nero. In 2006, long after the film, Redgrave and Nero got back together, and got married.
King Arthur's existence, and if so where and when, is still debated. Sources such as the Annales Cambriae and the Historia Brittonum suggest he lived in the early 6th Century AD, his reign beginning at the Battle of Badon around 493, and ending at the Battle of Camlann around 537, possibly as a result of a worldwide famine that was going on at that time.
The locations are usually, but not exclusively, suggested as being in England's West Country or in nearby Wales, whose myths fed the early Arthurian stories. Badon is said to be in Bath, in Somerset, or Braydon, in Wiltshire, although modern historian suggest that, if Arthur or the warlord upon he was based ever existed, he probably had nothing to do with it.
Geoffrey of Monmouth told of Camelot in Historia regum Britanniae (The History of the Kings of Britain), published around 1136, placing Camelot at Tintagel, in Cornwall. Archaeologists have found the remains of a castle at the site, suggesting the home of someone rich and powerful, but not necessarily a king. The name "Camelot" may have been taken from "Camulodunum," now Colchester in Essex, in the northeastern suburbs of London.
In discussing Camlann, the Annales Cambriae mention Medraut, making it the earliest mention of Mordred, but doesn't call him Arthur's son, legitimate or otherwise; and doesn't even call them opponents, suggesting that they may have been fighting on the same side. It's been suggested that the name "Camlann" inspired the name "Camelot." But its location is further from most of those connection with Arthur, possible in Carlisle near the English border with Scotland.
Thomas Malory told of Camelot in Le Morte d'Arthur (The Death of Arthur) in 1470, and its tales of chivalry, of courtly love and the Knights of the Round Table, and the magic of people such as the supposedly good Merlin and the evil Morgan le Fay had a special resonance at the time, as the Wars of the Roses were ongoing.
French stories about the period tend to focus more on the Knights themselves, especially Lancelot, attempting to redeem himself for his affair by finding the Holy Grail, hence their being termed the Lancelot-Grail.
The Victorian era, and the expansion of the British Empire, sparked a revival of the Arthurian legend, including Alfred Tennyson's poems, peaking in 1859 with The Idylls of the King. In addition to Burton and Harris in Camelot, the actors playing Arthur have included Cedric Hardwicke in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court in 1949, Mel Ferrer in Knights of the Round Table in 1953, Rickie Sorenson in the 1963 Disney cartoon The Sword in the Stone, Graham Chapman in the 1975 spoof Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Nicol Williamson in Excalibur in 1981, Marcus Gilbert in the horror comedy Army of Darkness in 1993, Sean Connery in First Knight in 1995, Clive Owen in King Arthur in 2004, and Charlie Hunnam in King Arthur: Legend of the Sword in 2017.
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December 3, 1960 was a Saturday. Mike Ramsey, a defenseman on the U.S. hockey team that won the Gold Medal at the 1980 Winter Olympics, was born. So was Igor Larionov, who did not play on the Soviet Union team that the U.S. famously beat, but later starred for them and in the NHL. Also born that day were actresses Daryl Hannah and Julianne Moore.
Baseball was out of season. The NFL and the brand-new AFL both played the next day. There were 2 college football games. South Carolina beat Virginia, 26-0 at Carolina Stadium (now Williams-Brice Stadium) in Columbia, South Carolina. And UCLA upset Number 10 Duke, 27-6 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
There were 2 games in the NBA. The Syracuse Nationals beat the New York Knicks, 130-113 at the Onondaga County War Memorial Auditorium (now the
Upstate Medical University Arena) in Syracuse. And the St. Louis Hawks beat the Philadelphia Warriors, 131-127 at the Philadelphia Civic Center. For the Hawks, Bob Pettit scored 37 points, and Cliff Hagan 32. For the Warriors, Wilt Chamberlain scored 35.
And there were 2 games in the NHL. The Montreal Canadiens beat the Boston Bruins, 3-1 at the Montreal Forum. And the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the New York Rangers, 5-2 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.
In English soccer, Arsenal, the North London team I would eventually support, went to the Birmingham area, and lost to Wolverhampton Wanderers, 5-3 at Molineux Stadium in Wolverhampton. Their North London arch-rivals, Tottenham Hotspur, faced Lancashire team Burnley, the defending Football League Champions at White Hart Lane, and drew 4-4. "Spurs" went on to win both the League and the FA Cup, the 1st "Double" in English football in the 20th Century.
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