Authors: Boze Hadleigh
Broadway Babylon (46 page)
Bad Move
: A favorite dramatic presence in Edward Albee’s plays, Marian Seldes turned to the musical stage for what seemed a sure bet,
Annie 2
. Its creators called it “a continuation,” not a sequel. However, it followed in the wake of the 1977 smash
Annie
, which ran nearly six years. (A continuation of profits was doubtlessly hoped for.)
Annie 2
officially opened in Washington, D.C., in 1990. “I smile when I remember it,” said Seldes, “because my first reaction to the script was so positive, and I had to sign a very long contract. I thought, I suppose the only problem I’ll ever have is finding a way to leave this, because it’s going to be such a hit!”
But where
Annie
had had a happy ending and its theme had been hope,
Annie 2
—subtitled
Miss Hannigan’s Revenge
—seemed redundant and cold. Dorothy Loudon reprised her Hannigan, and Seldes played a character called Marietta Christmas. This time, Annie was somewhat backgrounded, while Miss Hannigan was placed center stage. The plot was too improbable, as well as mean-spirited. Hannigan’s goal is to wed Daddy Warbucks, become Annie’s adoptive mother, then kill both and become the world’s richest widow. The show didn’t make it past D.C. to Broadway, where $4 million in advance tickets had sold in anticipation of a warm, upbeat sequel akin to the original.
P.S. The original Sandy was not rehired in 1989. Deemed too old for the part, he died the year that the “continuation” opened and closed.
Good Judgment
: Director-choreographer Bob Fosse was known for consistent attention to the details of his shows, including revivals and tours. His health was often consciously placed second to his work. Michael Cone, a member of the national tour of
Sweet Charity
, recalled a particular rehearsal in Washington, D.C. “He was different that day. I remember I had a line, and I was actually begging for a laugh on it, and he gave me a note, and told me, ‘You don’t have to work that hard. The line’s not that good, and you’re better than that.’ … That night the line came up that I had been pushing so hard on, and I just said it—and it got a bigger reaction than it ever had before. I didn’t think about it, I just did it his way. After the curtain came down, they called us all back on the stage and told us that Bobby had died” of a heart attack.
Bad Judgment, Good Move
: “What the hell do we know? I’m the girl that read the end of
West Side Story
and said, ‘My lord, a musical that ends with a dead body being carried over their heads? I mean, that’s just not going to work.’ ” Yet Chita Rivera took the role of Anita, and she and the musical took Broadway by storm.
Rumor(s)
: The stories about how actor-playwright Harvey Fierstein got his whiskey-soaked gravel voice, some of them obscene
.
Reality
: Fierstein ruined, or terminally deepened, his voice on stage, before breaking through in his own
Torch Song Trilogy
. He’d appeared in an Off-Off-Broadway play titled
Xircus, the Private Life of Jesus Christ
. “I had to deliver a five-page monologue over a recording of Kate Smith singing ‘God Bless America’ at full blast. The director refused to turn the volume down, and I wanted
every
word heard.”
Rumor
: Talented and attractive Florence Henderson costarred in the 1954 musical hit
Fanny,
but never became a Broadway star because she declined producer David Merrick’s advances
.
Reality
: Henderson, aka Carol Brady from TV’s
The Brady Bunch
, denies the rumor. The mystery remains why the singer-actress didn’t hit it big in musical comedy. It
is
true, on Broadway and in Hollywood, that many careers have stalled or failed to take off because performers (mostly female) crossed powerful—and vengeful—figures.
Rumor
: Mary Martin never allowed Julie Andrews nor
The Sound of Music
movie to be mentioned, and certainly not discussed or praised, in her presence
.
Reality
: Martin starred in the Broadway
Sound of Music
to great acclaim (winning a Tony against Ethel Merman in
Gypsy
). But the screen version went to the younger Andrews, also a better singer. Martin’s success in
Music
, her final big hit, was almost totally eclipsed by the record-shattering success of
the beloved movie, which made Andrews an international superstar. But Martin did not personally ban the sight or sound of Julie.
Rumor
: Before turning over her dressing room to her
Woman of the Year
replacement, Raquel Welch, Lauren Bacall stripped it completely bare, not even leaving the younger, more buxom performer any toilet paper in the loo
.
Reality
: So said several
Woman of the Year
insiders.
Rumor
: Rock Hudson was offered the “butch gay role” in the Broadway musical
La Cage aux Folles
and wanted to accept, but felt it was too close to home
.
Reality
: Hudson already had musical stage experience, and hugely enjoyed
La Cage
. But like most closeted movie stars, he only played straight. (Heterosexual actor Gene Barry, who accepted the part, advised fellow actors that it was okay to play gay—
once
. Best known for TV’s
Burke’s Law
, Barry—born Eugene Klass—isn’t generally known to be Jewish.)
Rumor
: Eight-times-married lyricist-librettist Alan Jay Lerner
(My Fair Lady, Camelot)
was bisexual
.
Reality
: Three men reportedly had sex with Lerner, including—by his own admission—actor Felice Orlandi, longtime husband of comedic actress Alice Ghostley. Another man was a former boyfriend of actor Reid Shelton (
My Fair Lady, Annie
), of whom Shelton said, “He fell for Alan … but soon found out Alan only liked
sex
with men, and saved all his relationships for women.” Revue and record producer Ben Bagley also offered, “I had a Puerto Rican lover who met Lerner through a mutual acquaintance, then dropped me. I later heard the affair was brief, sweet, and remunerative.”
Rumor
: Lyricist Lorenz Hart was gay “because” he was so short—four-feet-nine to barely over five feet, depending on the source
.
Reality
: This fanciful and biased apologizing for the man’s sexuality has been put forward in print and TV biographies. In 1999, British theater writer Mark Steyn, in a “The Fags” chapter of his book
Broadway Babies Say Goodnight
, declined to categorize the “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” partner of composer Richard Rodgers. “Any guy of 4′ 10" winds up making do, regardless of gender.” Yet there are heterosexual dwarves and other men shorter than Hart. Alan Jay Lerner opined, “Because of his size, the opposite sex was denied him, so he was forced to find relief in the only other sex left.” Tell that to Toulouse-Lautrec, Dudley Moore, Michael J. Fox, or Mickey Rooney, who played Hart in an MGM biomythography.
Larry Hart agonized over being not only short, but Jewish and gay. Or rather, over the discrimination people with such traits encountered from the unkind
majority. As stage and screen celebrity Oscar Levant put it when asked whether he was an “unhappy Jew”: “No, but I’m not too happy about anti-Semitism.”
Rumor
: Composer George Gershwin (1898–1937
)
was homosexual or bisexual. Or heterosexual
.
Reality
: No real proof, any way.
Rumor
: Peruvian songbird Yma Sumac, able to reproduce incredibly high-pitched bird sounds, was really a Brooklynite named Amy Camus
(
Yma Sumac spelled backwards
).
Reality
: Sumac costarred in a legendary musical flop called
Flahooley
(1951), whose program read, “By the time she was eight, she was the favorite ritual singer of the sun-worshipping Andes Mountain Indians.” No wonder people thought her persona fabricated. Originally titled
Toyland
, the forty-performance
Flahooley
was Sumac’s sole Broadway show. (Later it was restaged as
Jollyanna
and bombed again.)
Sumac was the genuine article, and her mangled English was real. When she returned to Peru, her car was stoned by countrymen who felt she’d become a
gringa
. She moved to the US, doing occasional nightclub performances, her thick accent still evident in the late 1990s.
Rumor
: For his musical
Oliver!
Lionel Bart stole some of Richard Rodgers’ melodies
.
Reality
: Based on Dickens’s
Oliver Twist
, the record-breaking
Oliver!
with book, lyrics, and music by Bart opened in 1960 in London and in 1963 on Broadway, where it racked up “only” 774 performances. The 1968 film version won the Best Picture Academy Award (the last “Best” musical till
Chicago
in 2003). This pervasive rumor, which even found its way into print, is hard to pin down. Bart himself noted, “
Oliver!
is the biggest thing on two continents. They don’t bother to criticize or slander you if you don’t impress.”
British actor George Rose said, “I think it’s from a grudge. I understand that some people who couldn’t secure rights to one or other of Lionel Bart’s projects then concocted this rumor. I imagine they’re anti-Semitic as well as disgruntled.” Ben Bagley queried, “Don’t you suppose Richard Rodgers would have sued if this accusation had any merit? Jerry Herman got sued, and Bart was fairly new on the scene too, as well as a foreigner. If he’d been sued, everyone would have rooted for Mr. Rodgers.”
Rumor
: Horror movie star Bela Lugosi was forced to find work in the theater due to political blacklisting
.
Reality
: Back in Hungary, Bela Blasko (born in the town of Lugos) had done extensive theater work, usually romantic leads but also varied roles like Jesus Christ. His American breakthrough was in
Dracula
, his only stage hit
ever. He wasn’t first choice for the screen version but finally got the role and became a star—a very stereotyped one due to his unique image and accent.
During World War II, Lugosi spoke out against Hungary’s pro-Hitler position. He’d always been a liberal and was anti-monarchy, anti-fascist, etc. This came back to haunt him after the Republican-controlled Congress instigated the House Un-American Activities Committee and its resultant witch hunts. From churning out several films a year, he went to one picture annually, then none between 1948 and ’52, when he made two, one of them in England, where he had traveled to do theater as well. At the very least, Lugosi was gray-listed for his politics, and the pre-emptive letter he’d chosen to write to the notorious HUAC trying to “clear” his name had little effect.
Rumor
: Discriminating theatergoers who caught any of the nine April 4–11, 1964, performances of the early Stephen Sondheim fop
Anyone Can Whistle
still hold annual reunion dinner parties to celebrate the cult show and analyze why it didn’t soar
.
Reality
:
Still?
Originally titled
The Natives Are Restless
, the show was a satire about blind conformity. It opened and closed on two Saturday nights, playing out George S. Kaufman’s famous warning that satire is what closes on Saturday night. Angela Lansbury then a movie supporting actress, proved in
Whistle
—as the corrupt mayor of a small town—that she was made for Broadway (eventually earning four Tony Awards). Costars Lee Remick and Harry Guardino also had no prior Broadway musical experience.
During tryouts in Philadelphia, one of the actors suffered a heart attack and had to be replaced. The innovative musical, including Sondheim’s occasionally very lengthy numbers, was too unusual for the times, but the original cast album, recorded the day after
Whistle
stopped, has kept its memory very much alive, and certain diehards in and out of Manhattan do indeed meet every year for a wake, a bake, and a new take.
Rumor
: Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination caused the failure of
The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N (
1968
).
Reality
: This rumor was fostered by the musical’s creators. The story of a Jewish Russian tailor—played by Jewish-American actor Tom Bosley (TV’s
Happy Days
)—studying in night school to become a U.S. citizen was based on a Leo Rosten character popularized by
The New Yorker
in the 1930s. Though Bosley had temporarily become a Broadway star via
Fiorello!
, after
EHM
opened in Philadelphia it did minimal business and its tryout was cut short. In New York it was inevitably and negatively compared with another musical about Russian Jews,
Fiddler on the Roof
, then in its fourth year.