Peter Allen was almost struck off the Oscar nomination for the song ‘Arthur’s Theme’, by Burt Bacharach, Carole Bayer Sager and Christopher Cross because the three writers didn’t feel Allen contributed enough to the song.
Peter Allen was responsible for only one line in the song but that line was “when you get caught between the moon and New York City”, the most memorable line in the song.
Todd McKenney, the original “Peter Allen’ in The Boy From Oz, knew Peter Allen who told him the story. Todd recalled it for Undercover. “They won the Oscar for it,” he says. “Rumour has it that the other three wanted to cut him out of the Oscar nominations because he only played such a small role, but what is the line you remember”.
In fact, Allen didn’t even come up with the line. A flight attendant did. “It was written by Burt Bacharach, Carol Bayer Sager, Christopher Cross and Peter Allen,” Todd says. “They were singing lines to each other on their answering machines. Peter was flying from Australia to the Catskills to do a show. It was outside New York. He had to land on time to get to the gig on time. They were put into a holding pattern and he said to the flight attendant “I’ve got to get down, I have to get down to do this gig” but the flight attendant said ‘I’m really sorry but we are 10th plane in line. You are stuck between the moon and New York City” and Peter said, “Get me a napkin” and he wrote it down “when you get caught between the moon and New York City”. Now that is the only line he wrote in the song”.
Todd returned to his lead role as Peter Allen in The Boy From Oz for The Production Company in Melbourne this year. The show became the fastest selling show ever in the history of The Production Company.
Todd will return for more shows from January 5 with The Boy From Oz at The State Theatre in Melbourne.
