How Tall is Jonathan Larson?

Imagine a life where you work so hard to get out of poverty. When you finally do so and wait for your moment, a calamity strikes you! All your hard work is just gone in a few moments. A tragic experience, right?

This is what happened to a talented composer who faced death just on the night of his show.

Who is Jonathan Larson?

Jonathan Larson is a well-known composer, lyricist, and writer. He died of an aortic aneurysm, on January 25, 1996, at his home in Manhattan.

He won the Richard Rodgers Studio Production Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters for a workshop version of “Rent,” and a Rodgers Development Grant for a futuristic rock musical called “Suburbia.”

Early Life of Jonathan Larson 

Jonathan Larson was born on February 4, 1960. He would have been 62 years of age as of 2022. His zodiac sign is Aquarius.

He was born to Nanette Larson, his mother, and Allan Larson, his father who were simple men from the States and owned farmland.

Jonathan Larson grew up in White Plains, a suburb of New York City, in the United States. Thus he was an American national and belonged to the white ethnic descent.

Though he was born and brought up in an orthodox Jewish family, he himself was not a very strict Jew. He lived in abject poverty with his parents and his sister Julie McCollum.

Larson lived his childhood amidst drama clubs and music lessons. He played the tuba in high school and attended Adelphi University in Garden City, New York. Although he graduated with dreams of becoming an actor, Stephen Sondheim encouraged him to focus on composing music.

Jonathan Larson Career 

Jonathan Larson was a talented composer and writer who had a tragic death. However, he did become famous but only after his death.

Larson lived in poverty, waited tables, and worked seven years to bring his rock opera “Rent” to the stage, only to collapse and die the night before previews were to open at the Off-Broadway New York Theater Workshop.

The show’s initial five-week run sold out within 24 hours of opening night, and the play became an enormous critical and popular success.

In addition, “Rent” achieved Larson’s ambition of updating musical theatre and making it socially and personally relevant to a younger audience.

The fresh, provocative, and exuberant show and Larson’s heartbreaking story quickly became Broadway legend.

“The show features, among forty well-sung numbers, three songs that are as passionate, unpretentious, and powerful as anything I’ve heard in musical theatre for more than a decade,” John Lahr, a well-known journalist wrote in THE NEW YORKER.

“Rent” is based on the classic Puccini opera “La Bohème.” The musical is set in a dingy, disheveled loft apartment in New York’s East Village and depicts “young … artists struggling to celebrate life in the shadow of drugs, poverty, and AIDS,”

As the debut of “Rent” approached, Larson lived in poverty similar to that endured by his characters.

He stopped working in a SoHo diner only two months before the play opened and dreamed of earning enough money to afford cable TV.

Ten days before he died, Larson sold some of his books to get money for a movie ticket but he never got to see the show.

“This play was Jonathan. It is totally my brother”, her sister concluded.

Jonathan Larson penned Tick, Tick… Boom! preceding his demise, and the same novel is the basis for the new Netflix film.

The film is directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda and portrays Jonathan Larson (Andrew Garfield) as he tries to get his book turned into a stage performance.

The story follows a striving artist who works as a waiter to sustain himself while pursuing his ambition of becoming somebody.

His awards

He earned a Stephen Sondheim Award from the American Music Theater Festival; composed the eclectic rock-to-ragtime score for a musical called “J.P. Morgan Saves the Nation”; and performed a rock monologue called “Tick, Tick, Boom” at the New York Theater Workshop and other stages.

Jonathan Larson Personal Life 

Jonathan Larson was never married, thus there is not much information about his love life.

However, Jonathan Larson was in an affair with Leacock, a lovely woman. Jonathan Larson originally met Victoria Leacock, then 17 years old, during his final year together at Adelphi University.

He was a senior and she was a sophomore, and they were simply drawn to one other. Jonathan admired her for being kind, passionate, and compassionate, while she was beautiful and adventurous.

But their relationship did not last long and they soon broke up. After that, Larson started focusing more on his career and his life as a composer.

He never got married and had no children.

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Jonathan Larson Net Worth 

Jonathan Larson had secured this massive wealth at the time of his death in the year 1996.

The lyricist’s excellent profession as a composer is his primary source of money.

Jonathan Larson is a Playwright who has a net worth of approximately $4 Million.

He Won three Tony Awards for Best Musical, Best Book, and Best Score posthumously for his work on Rent. The highly acclaimed musical also garnered him a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

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Physical Appearance 

Jonathan Larson was a handsome man and had a good physique. He had a height of about 5 feet 8 inches or 172 centimeters or 1.72 meters tall.

Jonathan had a healthy weight of about 60 kg or 132 lbs. He was a fit man but was faced with an untimely death.

He had beautiful black eyes and black curly hair which made him quite adorable. So this is all you need to know about the man with a tragic life.

Thank you for reading this article about Jonathan Larson and do feel free to share any information about him in the comments section below.

Happy reading!

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