- Late conductor Leonard Bernstein is the subject of Bradley Cooper's new biopic, "Maestro."
- In real life, Bernstein welcomed three kids with his wife, Felicia Montealegre.
- Here's where his daughters Jamie and Nina and son Alexander are now.
Celebrated conductor Leonard Bernstein is the latest musician to get the biopic treatment in "Maestro," directed by and starring Bradley Cooper.
"Maestro" centers on the complicated relationship between Bernstein (Cooper) and his wife, Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan). In real life, Montealegre died of cancer in 1978 and Bernstein died of a heart attack in 1990 at 72 years old.
The couple is survived by their three children — daughters Jamie and Nina (born in 1952 and 1962, respectively) and son Alexander (born in 1955) — and four grandchildren: Francisca, Evan, Anya, and Anna.
Here's where Leonard's kids are now.
The children have continued their father's musical legacy in different ways
Jamie has been the most active in the music industry. She developed and wrote "The Bernstein Beat," an orchestral program, in addition to writing and narrating various other concerts globally. Jamie also codirected the 2014 documentary "Crescendo: the Power of Music."
In 2018, on the centennial of Leonard's birth, Jamie released the memoir "Famous Father Girl: A Memoir of Growing Up Bernstein" which chronicled her experience as the child of a music legend.
Alexander, the middle child, received a bachelor's degree from Harvard and a master's in English education from New York University. He previously taught at the Packer-Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn, New York. Like some of his family members, Alexander dabbled in acting and performing.
In a 2012 appearance on the podcast "Here's the Thing," Jamie and Alexander said that their dad was "tortured and introspective," but the family dynamic was joyful during their early childhoods.
Jamie said that their parents' demeanor took a turn when John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
"That was when the shadow fell over and life became sort of real," she said.
Nowadays, Alexander is the president of Artful Learning, a learning method inspired by Leonard's approach to the arts. He's also the vice president and treasurer of The Leonard Bernstein Office.
Nina Bernstein Simmons, the youngest, had a contrasting experience to her siblings.
"I think by the time I was 10, they were really tired," she said of her parents in a 1997 interview.
Nina said that the "lightness" of the family disappeared by the '70s and "it was not the happiest time."
"I had a very different growing up experience than Jamie and Alexander did, which is not to say there weren't moments of great joy, of course there were, but I'm saying that it didn't have that magical, impregnable feeling that they grew up with," she said.
Nina, a former actor, serves as the family's archivist and worked with the Library of Congress to make digital versions of the family's archives available to the public.
Nina also documented her famous family in the film "Leonard Bernstein: A Total Embrace," centered on her sister Jamie. For the past 15 years, Nina has been working as a food educator, per The Bernstein Experience.
Nina and her husband, Rudd Simmons, welcomed a daughter named Anna Felicia Simmons on April 6, 2002.
The Bernstein kids were involved in the production of 'Maestro' and gave it their seal of approval
Jamie, Alexander, and Nina have praised Cooper's approach to handling their father's story in "Maestro." They've attended red carpets in support of the movie, including appearances at the Venice Film Festival and the Gotham Awards.
Cooper has become so close to the Bernstein family that he visited them over Thanksgiving weekend.
"Bradley was so generous about including my brother and sister and me with him on his own journey with this film — which was something he didn't have to do, necessarily," Jamie said during the "Maestro" press conference at the New York Film Festival in early October, per People.
"Once we gave him permission to make the film, he could've just gone off and never consulted with us again, had he wanted to. But, instead he made us part of his own journey," Jamie continued.
The kids also raved about Cooper's transformation into their father at the North American premiere of "Maestro" at NYFF.
"It took our breath away, it made us gasp," Jamie told Variety. "In some pictures, we could tell a little bit that it was Bradley, but there were certain photographs where we would go, 'Oh my God!' It was so amazingly perfect."
They previously defended Cooper after his prosthetic nose faced backlash and accusations of perpetuating stereotypes.
"It breaks our hearts to see any misrepresentations or misunderstandings of his efforts. It happens to be true that Leonard Bernstein had a nice, big nose," the children told Business Insider in a statement shared in August.
"Bradley chose to use makeup to amplify his resemblance, and we're perfectly fine with that," they added. "We're also certain that our dad would have been fine with it as well."
The kids were gracious to Cooper, giving him Bernstein's medicine case and Montealegre's gold cigarette lighter, Variety reported. In addition, Cooper and Mulligan wore clothing in "Maestro" that belonged to Bernstein and Montealegre.
The Bernsteins also allowed the actor-director to film "Maestro" at the family's home in Fairfield, Connecticut.
"An element of trust ran through the entire project, so it's not surprising that that trust extended to letting our house be part of the film," Jamie explained to Architectural Digest. "Everything Bradley did created this environment where everybody felt this bond and warmth and sense of trust and safety."
"Maestro" is now streaming on Netflix.
