Trivia

That Jacques Brel knew he was dying is pure fantasy, not to say other words that might easily be deemed offensive. Brel died in 1978 of pneumonia while he was cured for a recurrence of his lung cancer. Between 1974 and 1978, after he had surgery on his left lung, he and his woman alone embarked on a round-the-world tour by boat which eventually led them to Hiva Oa in the Marquis Islands where they settled down. In the years that they spent there, he used his private airplane to help the isolated community bringing them goods from the main island, carrying people to hospital visits, and so on. He also managed with his French filmmaker friends to open up an open-air cinema theatre. Not really the moribund life-style.

Brel's scenes were filmed quickly as Brel, a heavy smoker, knew he was dying. In October of 74 he was diagnosed with lung cancer. That following November he was rushed to the hospital for emergency lung surgery.

The stage version was conceived for a quartet of players, two male and two female. For the film version, the material was reconfigured in terms of a trio, two men and one woman. Elly Stone and Mort Shuman recreated their stage roles, with Stone inheriting most of the material performed on stage by Alice Whitfield. Shawn Elliott's role was performed on screen by Joe Masiell.

The American Film Theatre initially contracted with Caedmon Records to release box-set soundtrack albums from each of the films produced in the AFT series. The Caedmon project got as far as The Iceman Cometh (1973), A Delicate Balance (1973), The Homecoming (1973), Rhinoceros (1974), Luther (1974) and Butley (1974), all of which were handsomely issued on LP in their entirety. Once the AFT series began to falter, and record sales for the first six albums proved to be equally lukewarm, Caedmon cancelled its plans to produce any further box sets, stopping midway through the recording of Three Sisters (1974). This was unfortunate, as two of the remaining AFT projects were musicals. Despite its limited appeal, the soundtrack of Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris (1974) was surprisingly released as a two-record-set on the Atlantic Records label, but the glorious score of Lost in the Stars (1974) was never commercially released.

Despite being a record label specifically devoted to spoken word, Caedmon was contracted to issue the sound track album of Lost in the Stars (1974), going so far as to promote the availability of the record on the film's poster art. However, it was never released.