I Hated to Do It: Stories of a Life

by Donald C. Farber

  Tamara Geva

  Tamara Geva was a client and a friend. Yes, we met Zia through her, and indirectly Joan Bennett when Tamara’s ex-husband moved in with Joan. But we were also friendly with Tamara, though we saw a lot less of her. She who was an incredibly talented, determined, strong-willed woman.

  In 1936 Tamara and Ray Bolger created a Broadway sensation in the Rodgers and Hart musical On Your Toes, for which George Balanchine choreographed both the dramatic “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue” sequence and a balletic parody. Reviewing the show in the New York Times, Brooks Atkinson wrote that Miss Geva “is so magnificent as the mistress of the dance that she can burlesque it with the authority of an artist on a holiday.”

  In addition to dancing, she acted in many well-known films and stage productions. Tamara was so fixed in her ways and knew a great deal about theatre, which was what I helped her with the most. What was remarkable about her was the fact that, in spite of her strong feelings on every subject, she was always ready to listen to my advice about theatre producing and to actually utilize the advice that I gave her.

  I was thrilled to be associated with this world of theatre, film, TV, and ballet. When our daughter, Pat, was young, she got herself into the American School of Ballet, without our help, and at the age of nine or ten was dancing as one of the fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Lincoln Center. Of course we got to the theatre early and wanted to see Patty after she went on.

  We got on the backstage elevator, and to my surprise there was a handsome gentleman there in a tuxedo. I said to myself, “My goodness, because it is opening night, how chic, even the elevator operator is in a tuxedo.” I then asked the gentleman in the tuxedo to take us to the third floor. I was told when we got off the elevator that I had just asked George Balanchine to take us to the third floor.

  Kurt and Music

  It’s not fair, but I have discovered that some people who have talent are talented in more ways than one. Kurt was a writer, an artist, and more than that, a musician. Most people knew that he would jam with a group that included Woody Allen at a place called Michael’s Pub. Kurt, we all knew, played the clarinet. What we didn’t know was that he also played a mean, wild ragtime piano. He didn’t like to talk about it, but on one or two occasions he just sat down at our piano and it all spilled out, traces of that Scott Joplin stuff.

  Kurt and I would speak music. I let him know that when I was growing up, after six years of classic piano training, I gave up and taught myself to play the drums and then the tympani. A Gene Krupa drum book helped. At the age of fifteen, the local tympanist left town and I was invited to play with the local symphony. They got me dispensation from the union, and I played my first concert with Jascha Heifetz. What is ironic and sad is when I tell young people now that I played with Heifetz, when I was fifteen and he was thirty-six, they often ask, “Who was Heifetz?” When I tell them that Isaac Stern said that Heifetz was the greatest violinist of all time, they usually ask, “Who is Isaac Stern?”

  Kurt and Ping-Pong

  Kurt really loved the game of Ping-Pong, and there was this Ping-Pong parlor run by Marty Reisman at the Riverside Table Tennis Courts at 96th Street and Broadway in the 60s that we would go to on occasion. Marty Reisman was a real hustler who competed in the game in China and was world renowned. Marty said he was a millionaire three times and an ex-millionaire three times.

  When we arrived there one day with Kurt, Marty said to Kurt that he would bet one million dollars against one dollar of Kurt’s that he could beat him. To make the game interesting, Marty immediately threw away the first twenty points deliberately, so the score was Vonnegut twenty and Reisman zero. One could never ever predict what would happen next, but it did in fact actually happen. On the next play, Kurt, without knowing what he was doing, hit the ball into the net and it fell onto the other side of the net, landing on Marty’s side but impossible for anyone to get to the ball, let alone to return it. Kurt won the game twenty-one to nothing, with the twenty points Marty gave him and the fluke that landed on Marty’s side of the net. Kurt, generously, did give up his claim to the million dollars he was owed, but not without a sound berating of Marty.

  Dell Publishing

  It was a comedy of errors. Only we were not making the errors. My office at the time was located on 3rd Avenue between 50th and 51st Streets. Dell Publishing Company, Kurt’s publisher, had its office on 3rd Avenue at 46th Street. There was a little café, a sort of clam house, located on 3rd and 49th Street where I often had my lunch. This same café was also the local eating spot for many of the Dell employees.

  It was in the early seventies that I was negotiating a bunch of agreements for Kurt. George Delacorte, who was the founder of Dell, had retired, and his secretary, a very accomplished woman, Helen Meyers, was now running the company. In the negotiations, Sam Lawrence, who was Kurt’s early publisher with Dell, was in on all the negotiations. We would meet at Helen’s office, and after batting around the ideas, I would end up at the little café for lunch.

  I had a lot of things going for me and Kurt, namely his tremendous success with Slaughterhouse-Five and his popularity with the young readers who had found Kurt’s work and had their own cult around him. Dell wanted Kurt to continue to write books for them, as he was a very valuable asset to them. I was negotiating a five-book contract that involved a good deal of money. When you are negotiating this kind of deal, there are a number of significant but important details to settle, like how the advance will be spread out, whether the books will be cross-collateralized, the amount of the advances and the royalties, etc., etc., etc.

  There was always a contingent of Dell workers at the café waiting to pounce on me to hear how Kurt was winning in the negotiations. Of course, I could not in good conscience disclose what happened in Helen’s office, but they were all so glad to hear someone was holding their own in negotiating with Mrs. Meyers and Sam Lawrence, and it satisfied them enough if I simply told them not to worry, that Kurt was really doing very well. And Kurt was doing very well because, as I said, this was the time that his career was hot.

  Fan Mail

  What made my relationship with Kurt very special was the fact that we had mutual respect for each other and total trust in the other person’s honesty, loyalty, talent, and abilities. It felt awfully good when I would negotiate a big or little deal for Kurt, and after explaining it to him, he would always ask what I thought. Without hesitation or questioning, he would say, “Do it.” Then I would sign everything, except autographed items, with the power of attorney, which Kurt gave me.

  No matter where my office was, Kurt would walk to my office every week or ten days, sometimes twice a week. He loved to walk and it was all the same to him if the office was three blocks from his 48th Street house or twelve blocks. He came to the office to exchange stories, to go over some business, to go through the mail that I thought he should see, and to sign some autographs.

  I handled as much of the routine mail as I could without involving him, and there was a lot of Kurt’s mail coming to me. Which letter he responded to was a random hit-or-miss thing depending on how the letter or the picture enclosed struck him at that particular moment. If he wanted to reply to a letter, he would shove it in his pocket and take it with him. It was not predictable what he would respond to or what his response would be.

  He would sign the books that arrived, sign the pictures that arrived, and even sign some silly things like shirts, ties, and panties. If it struck him as really dumb he would not sign it. He sometimes sent me copies of his replies to letters and sometimes he did not.

  Every now and then I would make a deal with Easton Press to publish some leather-bound autographed copies of a book. This meant that Kurt had to sign five thousand or ten thousand blank pages to be inserted in the books. He often would sign two thousand at one sitting in my office, sometimes less than that. On occasion I would make arrangements for him to do the signing at his home, but he liked the discipline of doing it with me superv
ising. When he finished this chore, he would ask: “Can I go home now?” I am sure he walked home, and if it was a nice day, he might find a bench to rest on for a spell. He sure didn’t stop off at a bar, as that was not his style.

  Strangely enough, some of these autographed blank pages ended up with the leather-bound edition of Kurt’s book Look at the Birdie, published after his death, being posthumously autographed by Kurt. Kurt did not come back to life to autograph these books published after his death, but when we discovered we had two thousand pages Kurt had signed before his death, it was a natural to use some of those autographed pages for the autographed leather-bound version. Rumor has it that they did the same thing with one of the books of Mark Twain. Now would not that be ironic, that if it did happen, it was Twain, whom Kurt admired and to whom he was often compared?

  About once every four months the large amount of fan mail would contain an offer of marriage. Of course, each had a photo of a smashingly attractive, very young lady. But there was every kind of imaginable fan mail, and presents galore. Once some sheets and pillowcases arrived with a marker pen for Kurt to autograph them, and there was always a return stamped, addressed envelope.

  Neither Kurt nor I were surprised by the variety of requests in the letters. There were a great number of invitations to dinner in New York where Kurt lived and even some from different parts of the country, with the offer to send him airfare. Many suggested that they would cook special meals for Kurt. He had a very loyal fan club.

  On the Stage of the Library of Congress

  Kurt was devastated. Standing on the stage of the Library of Congress, a few minutes into his carefully honed speech, a gruff guy stood up at the back of the room and started yelling at Kurt: “You are a disgrace! You should be a role model for young people, and instead you write this garbage, which gives them the wrong message. You should be writing to encourage the young people to do the right thing.”

  Kurt shrank from his six foot three inches to about five feet nine inches in front of our eyes. He was almost in tears. Unable to speak, he backed off of the stage, a beaten man.

  A half hour later there were six of us sipping coffee with Kurt, and we were all upset and angry. Herman Wouk, the author of Marjorie Morningstar, The Caine Mutiny, and other great works, tried to console Kurt with “It happens to us all,” relating in detail the number of intellectual beatings he had lived through. It did not help. This attack was so wrong, so evil, not in keeping with Kurt’s world.

  It was a number of months before Kurt got up the courage to go onstage again with his chalk and blackboard. When he did get back his courage, he made many speeches before all kinds of audiences. The agent scheduling the speeches knew that Kurt could charge more for his speaking engagements, but after some increases Kurt resisted, and though he could have been paid more, he said that it wasn’t worth that much to listen to him.

  3.

  Kurt and the Theatre

  The New Lafayette Theatre

  Before I met and got involved with Kurt, although he would have approved of what I was doing without reservation, I stumbled into the theatre business and was given an opportunity to go to and represent the New Lafayette Theatre in Harlem. Annie and I were thrilled. After all the work we had done to improve race relations in Nebraska, this was another opportunity to contribute to something we believed in very strongly.

  But at this time in Harlem, in New York City in the sixties, it was not safe to wander around or even show your face in Harlem if you were white. So we went to see theatre at the New Lafayette but we were always greeted as we got out of the cab on 137th Street, and we were not let out of sight until we departed in a cab they made sure we got into. My friendly clients would follow me to the men’s room to make sure I was safe.

  The New Lafayette consisted of Ed Bullins, author, Bobby Macbeth, director, Whitman Mayo, actor (Grady on the Redd Foxx TV show), Sonny Jim Gaines, actor and author, and a host of other talent. This was community theatre as it should be. If you had two dollars you paid and got in, and if you only had one dollar you got in, and if you didn’t have the buck you got in for nothing. The cast and crew, all black, were paid next to nothing, but they did it all, the sets, the costumes, the acting, direction, and the ushering and box office, and they loved what they did. Loving it, they did it well.

  About this same time I started getting involved in black theatre in a lot of ways. I organized AMAS for Rosette Le Noire, a black musical not-for-profit theatre group that made a name and has survived. I did a lot of work for Ed Bullins, one of the foremost black authors of that era. Ed wrote a lot of plays and was produced all over the place, at La MaMa, the New Lafayette, the American Place Theatre, and at theatres throughout the world. In 1972 Lincoln Center produced Bullins’ The Duplex. Bullins was unhappy with the directors’ (Jules Irving and Gilbert Moses) emphases and accused them of turning his play into a “coon show.” He was so angry he put on a sandwich board and paraded around in front of the theatre in defiance. I didn’t know what to advise him, except that it would do little good to protest. And it did little good to protest.

  During this time we became friendly with Jeree Palmer, who was the token black in the New Christy Minstrels. She was singing with the New Christy Minstrels and in cabarets, and she was sometimes the opening act for Jerry Lewis, Bill Cosby, and Alan King when they did club shows. She appeared on television in daytime serials and Bob Hope specials, and one day she decided she had gone about as far as she could go in that area.

  Miss Palmer, who had graduated from Manhattan Community College and studied at City College, enrolled at Brown, where she received a degree in theatre arts. She conceived a show that was to become Shades of Harlem, which ran for close to two hundred performances at the Village Gate.

  Jeree married Adam Wade in 1989, and they have been performing together and producing another musical play. Adam Wade (born Patrick Henry Wade, March 17, 1935) is an American singer, drummer, and television actor. He is noted for his stint as the host of the 1975 CBS game show Musical Chairs, which made him the first African American game show host. He starred in the production Guys and Dolls in 1978 and hosted the talk show Mid-Morning LA.

  Jeree and Adam are happily married and living in New Jersey.

  The Fantasticks

  The story of The Fantasticks and how it affected our lives is really fantastic. There are so many unbelievable parts of the story that one must suspend disbelief to accept some of the story. The little musical play ran for forty-two years at the Sullivan Street Playhouse in New York City. Opening night there were seven daily newspapers in the metropolitan area. We got clobbered, bombed by six, and our only rave review was written by a critic so drunk we threw him and his drunken girlfriend out at the end of the first act because they were disturbing the audience. I helped him out and into a cab, and he needed help. The dailies were not good but we got some raves from the weekly and monthly mags. But without the New York Times, it is one helluva job staying alive.

  Want more? Opening night was a disaster in a lot of ways. We went to the ad agency of Blaine Thompson, who did 98 percent of the theatre ad work and got the reviews, raced to the home of Ed Wittstein, where there was a party (a crying session) in progress. Word Baker, the director, read the reviews amid the crying, and Harvey Sabinson, the most prestigious press agent of the time, put his arm on my shoulder and said, “Don, do Lore [the producer] a favor and tell him to close the show.” Of course we ran forty-two years at the Sullivan Street Playhouse and are still running in New York City on Broadway at 50th Street at the Snapple Theater. Every year after the opening night we had an anniversary party, and every year George Curley, who played the Indian in the original production, would remind Harvey what he said opening night, and every year, year after year, Harvey denied he said it. But he said it.

  Want more? Before the show opened we were busy celebrating a birthday at a little party in Riverdale when I get a call from Lore about ten forty-five that night telling me that I have t
o get to the theatre immediately, the fire department says we can’t play because we have an extra seat in the theatre in violation of the fire laws. So we put together two carloads and race through a blinding rain, half-pickled, to get to the theatre and save the day, or in this case the night. Word Baker had this thing about doing midnight performances, and I had to get there so the show could go on.

  We made it, and in my conciliatory fashion convinced the fire department to let us go on with the show since the show must go on in showbiz. When the curtain came down, Ira Kapp, the host of the party uptown, said he was so tired he slept through it, but feeling guilty said he was sorry that he did not get the chance to invest. To his then disappointment, I told him he could invest, and he and his business partner gave me the $330 for a 1 percent interest. To date, that investment, like all the rest in that amount, has paid off over $70,000, and Ira always says he should have given me the whole $330 himself.

  Want more? Months before The Fantasticks entered our lives, this guy Noto called me and asked if I would represent him on a play he was producing. I had met him when I represented Bob Socol, who bought an advertising agency from Lore Noto. So I said yes. Didn’t know a thing about theatre law, and I muddled through the legal work and the opening of an Off-Broadway play entitled The Failures, which it was, starring Albert Salmi. A few months later I got another call from Lore, this time telling me I should get to the Minor Latham Playhouse at Barnard to see a run-through of a little musical called Joy Comes to Deadhorse.

  Annie and I hurried to Barnard that night; for Annie it was a trip from the suburbs to a long-ago life since she was a Barnard grad. Susan Watson was supposed to sing the ingenue part, but since she had laryngitis, a guy by the name of Harvey Schmidt played the piano and sang the part both. Susan Watson shortly afterward became the star of Bye Bye Birdie and we lost her as a star of this little musical.