The Man that Got Away

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"The Man that Got Away" is a popular song.

The music was written by Harold Arlen, the lyrics by Ira Gershwin. The song was published in 1953.

The song was written for the 1954 version of the movie A Star Is Born. The best-known recording of this song was done by Judy Garland. Judy's performance of the song in A Star is Born is considered by many to be one of the best songs ever to be captured on film in a single, unedited take. Garland (as Esther Blodgett) performs the song during an after hours rehearsal session in a smoky nightclub.

"The Man That Got Away" is agrguably the most important single musical sequence in "A Star Is Born." It was photographed in threee different costumes on three different occasions, in over fourty different partial or complete takes. Judy Garland prerecorded the song on September 3, 1953. On October 21, the number was filmed in both widescreen Technicolor and in CinemaScope. Jack L. Warner and Producer Sid Luft agreed to scrap nearly two weeks of footage to date and began the film again in CinemaScope. The original CinemaScope sequence is added as a special feature on the currently available DVD, but a later CinemaScope sequence was used in the actual film.

Garland later sang this song as a regular part of her concert repotorie, a recording exists where she sang this song on the Sammy Davis Jr Show in 1966 [1].

The song has been sung, with lyric changes, as "The Gal that Got Away" by male singers such as Frank Sinatra. There is also a cover by Jeff Buckley, the recording of which can be found on the "Mystery White Boy" album. Audra McDonald also sang a version, which is on her album "How Glory Goes." Barbra Streisand sang a version on her 1993 concert tour, publicly dedicating her rendition to Garland's memory.

The Gershwin Collection at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin contains a typescript draft of the lyrics with Ira Gershwin's handwritten changes.