Broadway Babylon (36 page)

M
ANY OF THOSE WHO REMAINED
with
A Chorus Line
, although delighted by its reception, grew disenchanted as it became known as Michael Bennett’s show. And as it became his golden egg. Once the touring companies opened, he was earning $75,000 a week, not including subsidiary rights. Initially he’d made sounds about sharing the wealth with the company—there seemed to be more than enough for everybody. But when dancers’ salaries didn’t keep pace with the success of the musical, Bennett backed off the subject or avoided them. The book
What They Did for Love
, by Denny Martin Flinn, told of another performer who “went through [a legal/emotional] ordeal, but the promise of more money was never kept … Michael’s position was, ‘You should have got it in writing.’ ” Donna McKechnie “did not complain about the experience and has no bitter feelings, [but] from then on she decided to do business only through her agents.”

Further resentment occurred when some of the roles grew larger than others as Bennett continued refashioning the material. His sense of showmanship told him some characters had to be “stars,” others support. The show’s success, of course, gave him greater control over its individual components, and the cast was increasingly dealt with in a heavy-handed, nakedly greedy manner. For instance, out of the blue, a producers’ representative called the seventeen cast members together so that each could sign a release for the logo. On signing, each was presented with a balloon with the logo across it: the seventeen dancers in a line. One week later—news to the seventeen—Bloomingdale’s debuted towels and other objects displaying the increasingly famous logo featuring the seventeen performers.

The dancers were stunned by the deception and the fact that despite the use of their likenesses, they had no financial participation. Of course because there were seventeen of them, most any one of them was expendable. When several of them said, “We’re getting a lawyer,” the response of Bennett and management was, “Go ahead, get a lawyer.”

The show turned out to be the thing: in spite of its mega-success,
A Chorus Line
did not produce a single bona fide star. (The biggest celebrity it yielded was Michael Bennett.) Today, only a theater buff could name any of the original cast members, most of whom went on to far-lower-profile assignments post-
A Chorus Line
. Only two performers, McKechnie and Priscilla Lopez, achieved a considerable if brief measure of stardom. Though unusual for such a huge hit, the relative anonymity of the cast (on Broadway and in all the show’s touring and foreign versions) ties in with the fact that chorus lines are almost invariably just a backdrop for a star—for instance Lauren Bacall in
Applause
or Carol Channing in
Hello, Dolly! They
are the many,
she
—it’s usually a female star—is the “One” celebrated in
A Chorus Line
’s climactic song of the same name.

A Chorus Line
’s most famous and popular song was “What I Did for Love.” Fittingly, for most dancers, few of whom get a chance at fame (exceptions include Shirley MacLaine and George Chakiris, with males more seldom crossing over), do what they do for love. For love of dance, not for love of money.

Former dancer Michael Bennett’s relative camaraderie with fellow hoofers faded with
A Chorus Line
’s success. As it kept burgeoning, he became increasingly territorial. And dictatorial. “The show made him a big-time Broadway player,” said Ben Bagley, “and the next step was to become the new Jerome Robbins.” He grew impatient with opposition. Example: A photo session with Richard Avedon shooting the cast was planned, but the dancers were given less than the twenty-four-hour notice the union required. Equity deputy Priscilla Lopez informed her colleagues that they did not have to participate if they didn’t wish to. Bennett arrived, yanked Priscilla out of the room, and when they returned, he, according to
What They Did for Love
, “lectured the company severely, threatening each of them with the consequences if they didn’t appear in the photo shoot.”

A year into the show’s success, one dancer anonymously revealed, “We all feel like we made the show a success. Or that we helped, individually or collectively. But once it was such a big success, now everyone wants a part of it … wants
in
. And those of us who are in gotta watch our step, or we’ll be
out
.”

The dancers in
A Chorus Line
earned good money at the time, some $650 a week each, more than they’d earned as chorus members in the past. But Bennett was earning dozens of thousands a week, his wages and take continually escalating. The same anonymous dancer disclosed, “He’s grown less accessible, no question about it. Conversations? Over. He might lecture or admonish. Socializing or being playful, friendly? It’s
Mr
. Bennett now, not Michael. Sometimes he looks pained if you call him Michael.”

A C
HORUS LINE
was affording
new opportunities to Bennett, among them that fiscalValhalla, Hollywood. Yet he had little patience with the show’s performers trying to better their own circumstances. When permission was sought to use a photo that would adorn the cover of an André Kostelanetz album—one side of it music from
A Chorus Line
, the other from
Chicago—
each cast member was offered $50. As it had the potential to become a hit album, the $50 was rejected; the performers got together and decided to ask $500 apiece. The offer was withdrawn. According to two cast members, Bennett was contemptuous of both the group’s request and their failure to get it fulfilled.

A Chorus Line
enriched Hamlisch, Kirkwood, Dante, Kleban, and Bob Avian, but especially Michael Bennett. Hollywood smelled loot and became interested. Who could have guessed it would take ten years to make a flop movie of the smash-hit musical that producer Stuart Ostrow deemed “the first landmark musical since
Hair
in 1968, and possibly the last of the twentieth century”?

Even though Hollywood’s attention flattered him, Bennett felt uncomfortable there, in part because it was more homophobic than the stage. Some insiders said after he legally wed he came to realize his sexuality was immutable and that he’d compromised himself in his bid for social and professional acceptance. “Drugs got ahold of Michael, same as with many, maybe most of the
Chorus Line
cast,” added James Kirkwood. “That may have played a part in his feeling very disoriented in LA.” In any case, Bennett got out of his film deal and returned to the theater.

Tony Stevens eventually danced in Chita Rivera’s nightclub act, as did three other
Chorus Line
cast members. Dancing is a profession with a limited shelf life, and many of the show’s performers later went into choreography or left the business. Michon Peacock went to work for the New York chapter of Nichiren Shoshu of America. (Another female dancer became a district leader in the organization’s Los Angeles headquarters.) Donna McKechnie moved to California but experienced a crippling bout of arthritis, for a while unable to walk. Since recovering, she works consistently onstage, regionally, doing cabaret, etc. Post
—Chorus Line
, Michael Bennett had a relative Broadway failure with
Ballroom
, featuring dancing and an older crowd; it played for 116 performances and received multiple Tony nominations.

He reclaimed success with
Dreamgirls
, based on a Supremes-like black girl group. His next big hope,
Scandal
, was canceled after several workshops due to assorted problems, including sexual subject matter viewed as salacious by some during the Reagan ’80s. Ill health caused him to drop out of plans to direct the world premiere of
Chess
in London. Michael moved to Tucson, Arizona, to live
out the final year of his life. On July 2, 1987, at age forty-four, he died of AIDS, leaving behind millions of dollars to fight the disease.

Looking back, Michael had informed an interviewer, “I thought I was ready for success. No one is.” Insiders said he felt he’d given up too much to become a success, including friendships and some measure of personal and professional integrity. Performer Alex MacKay believed, “In the end, he regretted, I think, the loss of casual intimacy with the extended family of gypsies. With the theatre gang, his success brought him pressure and loneliness.”

Performer Denny Martin Flinn reflected two years after Bennett’s death, “Only on his own terms could he be generous and supportive. He had desperate, unsatisfied needs to be loved and liked, yet he was incapable of asking for help, or love, and mistrusted those who offered it freely.”

James Kirkwood, who died in 1989, felt, “Illness and perspective had their impact on Michael. I think if he could have come back from Arizona, come back to New York, he would have been a better person. I don’t think, initially, he quite believed that you can be creative and happy at the same time.” Nick Dante concluded, “Michael Bennett bought into the showbiz myth that being an ogre is part of being respected or a successful boss type. He learned too late that it’s simply a personality trait, more accurately a deficiency, that does nobody much good in the long run.”