His passion was the theater, and Oliver Smith, our brilliant set designer, was exceedingly kind to him. Impressed by Tony’s portfolio, he invited him to his house in Brooklyn Heights and counseled him regarding the theater, the union, and how to proceed.
The same was true of our lighting designer, Abe Feder. He was a short, stocky fellow, built like a tank. He nearly always walked around with a good Cuban cigar clenched between his teeth. He, too, was a legend on Broadway, a larger-than-life personality, wonderfully charismatic, chockfull of ideas and good humor. In addition to his theatrical experience, Abe was a renowned architectural lighting designer and had illuminated vast projects like the World’s Fair, Rockefeller Center, the Empire State Building, and the United Nations, among others.
Abe provided Tony with introductions to several major magazines, including Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and Playbill. Tony’s very first assignment in the U.S. was to design caricatures for Long Day’s Journey into Night starring Fredric March and Florence Eldridge.
TONY AND I attended some wonderful parties.
Moss and Kitty Hart were the best hosts in New York. Their evenings were charming and sophisticated, their guests extraordinary, the dialogue sparkling. There were trays heaped with food and the champagne flowed. At the height of the festivities, someone played the piano and Moss and Kitty would entertain us, singing witty duets. They were marvelous together, and seemed really to enjoy the fun.
Stephen Sondheim was a young, up-and-coming talent. His lyrics for Candide and West Side Story had earned him instant recognition. I met him for the first time at a luncheon party. Despite his celebrity, he was sitting alone at one side of the room—terribly shy, but innately intelligent and charismatic. We struck up a conversation and my heart instantly went out to him.
Just around the block from the Mark Hellinger was the Alvin Theater, and a play called No Time for Sergeants was playing there. A group of us were coming out of our theater one day, and we stopped to chat with members of the play’s cast. Someone said to me, “Do you know Roddy McDowall?,” indicating one of the actors.
My knees practically buckled. Here was my fantasy hero from My Friend Flicka! I had never imagined that one day I might meet him.
“You don’t know it,” I said to him, “but we’re sort of married.”
He looked at me, puzzled, and I explained my girlhood fantasies about him, the ranches, and the horses. He loved my story. I told him that if I could find one of the original deeds that I had made, I would send it to him. I did find one—and he kept it in a beautiful lacquered box on his desk.
Roddy was a devoted friend to a great many people, and he was loyal to a fault. I always hoped he would write a book about his life and the people he knew. When asked why he didn’t, Roddy replied, “I have too many friends. I know too much. I couldn’t.”
Tony and I began to entertain a little. We had moved out of the Park Chambers, and Lou had found for us a tiny ground-floor apartment on East 65th Street. We thought it must once have belonged to a high-class call girl, because we kept getting phone calls at all hours of the night asking for this particular woman. The flat certainly had all the trappings: purple and gold curtains, speckled mirrors, comfortable but over-decorated furnishings.
We sometimes made weekend trips to a lovely little inn by a lake on the west side of the Hudson River. It got us out of the city, and I was grateful for the rest and relaxation. We’d walk in the woods or take a boat on the lake.
EVERY YEAR, EACH show on Broadway gives one extra performance for the Actors’ Fund of America. This benefit is usually done on the actors’ day off. When it is your company’s turn, you perform seventeen performances in two weeks without a break. Every actor, every gypsy on Broadway comes to see the show, especially if it is a hit, since it is the one night that working colleagues can catch up with what is currently playing. These are simply electric evenings, the kind one never forgets.
Our Actors’ Benefit was a knockout success. We could not progress smoothly through the show because of the constant ovations. Our entrances were greeted with roars and applause, screams, whistles, shouts. Practically every number stopped the show. It was phenomenal.
I discovered that on important nights such as these, my nerves would take over and my heart would beat as if it were about to jump out of my chest. I would also feel somewhat light-headed.
Many years later, I discovered that I suffered from very low blood sugar—thus, when under stress, the only thing supporting me was adrenaline. I was eventually able to compensate for this by having high-protein meals and occasionally sipping liquid protein during the show. It made all the difference to my stability and energy, and I wish I had known more about it in those early days.
Tony and I went to see the Actors’ Fund Benefit of West Side Story, which was our closest and biggest rival. It was a miracle of a show, from the first downbeat of the overture to the last note of the evening. As My Fair Lady was to song and book, West Side Story was to song and dance. The two shows were equal titans. I became friends with Chita Rivera, who played Anita, and her boyfriend, Tony Mordente (who later became her husband), as well as with Carol Lawrence, who played Maria.
REX’S CONTRACT WAS up at the end of November, and Edward Mulhare (who had subbed when Rex took vacation time earlier in the year) was brought in to take over the role of Higgins. Mulhare was almost the spitting image of Leslie Howard, who had played the role in the film version of Pygmalion.
In spite of the difficulties I’d had with Rex, he was so charismatic, such a brilliantly faceted diamond, and so fascinating to watch, that when he left the company, I missed him very much.
He lived his life in the grand manner; he oozed style. I missed his power, his presence, and of course, he always kept me on my toes. I can’t remember who said this, but someone made a cogent remark: “No matter how big a shit Rex was, the truth is he cut the mustard—and for that, one forgave him everything.”
Suddenly, though, there was a new dynamic. Once Rex departed, the weight of the show seemed to fall on me.
Mulhare certainly looked the part, and he did a good job playing Henry Higgins, but I don’t think I ever really got to know him. Rex had been so flamboyant; Mulhare was more guarded and private.
TONY PASSED HIS union exam and got a job designing the sets and costumes for Noël Coward’s Conversation Piece. He came home with hilarious tales about Noël and the auditions.
Two Noël Coward productions were being prepared simultaneously, and auditions for both were held in the same theater at the same time. The great master would sit in the center of the auditorium, one production company on the left of him, the other on the right. The manager for the auditions would come onstage and say, “This gentleman is auditioning for…”
One day a man rushed onto the stage and said, “I understand that there’s a gigolo in your play, Mr. Coward,” and before anyone could reply, he continued, “so I thought I’d show you my physique.” He stripped naked, except for his bright red socks, and just stood there. Both production teams were stunned. There were a few stifled giggles but otherwise total silence, and the stage manager hesitated, wondering what to do. Everyone glanced at Coward for his reaction.
Suddenly his immaculate English voice called from the auditorium, “Er…turn a little to the left please!”
I LEARNED SO much about the theater from Tony. I would complain about the enormous hats Beaton had designed, and the forced perspective of the sets that made it difficult to pass through doorways and narrow spaces. Tony would gently point out that there is only so much room on a stage, and that false perspective is utterly essential, indeed part of almost every theatrical design. Stages are often raked, couches and beds are foreshortened, doorways and rooftops have proportions much smaller than audiences might imagine watching from the auditorium. As I observed Tony at work through the years, I learned to respect very much the designer’s craft.
I said to him one day, “I wish my nose wasn’t so big.
I’d like a small, retroussé nose like, say, Vivien Leigh.”
“Nonsense,” he replied. “You have a lovely nose. It doesn’t disappear into the scenery. Gertrude Lawrence had a large nose—and look what it did for her!”
I never complained about it again.
As I have mentioned, Tony often watched our show, and he helped me resolve something that had been puzzling me. There were times when I felt that I had given a pretty good performance, yet Tony would indicate that it was merely average.
There were nights when I didn’t think I was good at all, but Tony felt I had done a terrific show. What made it more difficult to understand were the special nights when I “threaded the needle,” so to speak: I felt good, I was good, and the audience hung on every word.
When I spoke to Tony about this, he said, “I think in the first instance you are sometimes too busy watching yourself and saying ‘Aren’t I doing this well?’ Your focus is turned inward. In the second instance, when you don’t feel up to par, you are concentrating so much on getting through to your audience that you lose the awareness of self and your focus is on sending it out to them instead. That’s the night when you think you’re bad, but in fact you’re very good. The third case is when you have found the exact level of health, generosity, and technique.”
Is it ever perfect? Hardly. But that rare magical performance, when one “threads the needle,” is nourishment for the soul. It is the reason, ultimately, why one strives over and over to capture the feeling again.
THIRTY-SIX
IN JULY AND November of 1956, I made two appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, the biggest weekly variety show on television at the time. Sullivan’s ratings were so high that he attracted top performing talent from all over the world.
I certainly wasn’t a headliner, and my appearances were not particularly noteworthy, but they were important for two reasons: I was exposed to a vast viewing audience across the country, and, more importantly, I sang songs from My Fair Lady. These, together with scenes from Camelot, which I performed on his show in 1961 with Richard Burton and Robert Goulet, are the only filmed records that exist of my performances in both musicals.
Nowadays there is always archival material taken of any show on Broadway, but for so many years, nothing was recorded on film or tape (except for bootlegged footage that no one will own up to). The tiny snippets of shows that were captured on television in that era are like gold dust to people who are interested.
I made a brief appearance on a television special with Rex called Crescendo. It featured an amazing cast—Ethel Merman, Peggy Lee, Benny Goodman, Diahann Carroll, and the great Louis Armstrong. Our paths crossed briefly. I had completed my segment and Louis was just commencing his. His energy seemed boundless. He clasped the famous trumpet, wiped the sweat from his brow with a big white handkerchief, and grinned at me. He said, in that delicious growl of his, “I seen you in that My Fair Alligator.” Made perfect sense to me.
IN 1957 I made two record albums. One was for Angel Records, and was called Tell It Again, a collection of unusual children’s songs composed and arranged by a blind eccentric named “Moondog.” He was the equivalent of an English “busker,” playing various instruments on the corner of 54th Street, near Broadway. He was brilliant, funny, and a little daunting—for he sported a long beard and dressed in loose robes, open toed sandals, and a Viking’s helmet. He also carried a spear. He was definitely not crazy, but certainly unique. His music was sophisticated and original. Some of his rhythms were in five-fourths and seven-eighths, which I found challenging, never having sung them. Martyn Green, a man famed for his performances in Gilbert and Sullivan, shared the album with me.
The second album I made that year was for RCA Records and was entitled The Lass with the Delicate Air. Irwin Kostal was the arranger/conductor, and it was the beginning of an extended collaboration. We made another album together, and later he was arranger/conductor for the films Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music.
The Lass with the Delicate Air was a collection of English ballads, and though I think RCA hoped I would choose pieces that were more popular, I was very keen to record the songs, since I had an instinct that there would come a day when these sweet minor classics would not be as easy for me to sing.
IN MARCH, I had an altogether different experience. I was invited to play the title role in a live broadcast on CBS of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella. This was an original musical created basically for me, and I felt incredibly fortunate. It coincided with a two-week vacation that was due me from My Fair Lady.
A wonderful cast was assembled. The legendary theater couple Howard Lindsay and Dorothy Stickney were to play the King and Queen; Edie Adams, the Fairy Godmother; the hilarious Kaye Ballard and Alice Ghostley would play the Ugly Stepsisters; Ilka Chase would be the Stepmother; and a newcomer at the time, Jon Cypher, was to play the handsome Prince.
Our director, Ralph Nelson, had a fine reputation for many prestigious shows, but his concept for Cinderella seemed a little odd. He hoped to make the story appear as real as possible, which was unusual given the fairy-tale nature of the piece and the endless possibilities he had for magical effects—pumpkin-to-coach, Cinderella’s transformation from rags to riches, and so on. He may have been limited because we were, after all, doing live television; the night we performed was the night we aired across America, and trick photography would have been difficult.
I thought the songs were very pretty. I loved the ballad “In My Own Little Corner,” and a song called “Impossible,” which I sang with Edie Adams.
Edie had an air of sparkling sweetness about her. She was dating the great comedian Ernie Kovacs at the time, and they subsequently married.
Kaye Ballard and Alice Ghostley were wonderful foils for each other. Kaye’s character was so strong and bossy, and Alice’s so giggly and silly. Jon Cypher was very good-looking, and had a pleasant singing voice.
Howard Lindsay and Dorothy Stickney were the dearest couple. Married in real life, they had been the stars of one of Broadway’s longest running plays, Life with Father. On lunch breaks they would sit on the set, side by side on their scenic thrones, and eat their sandwiches out of brown paper bags. Howard was an effervescent, diminutive man, and Dorothy was pretty and equally diminutive. Tony and I became great friends with them.
They owned an exquisite mill house in New Jersey, close to the Pennsylvania border, and they invited Tony and me to stay with them one weekend. We drove out in their car, which Dorothy’s cook had stocked with fruit pies and wonderful casseroles.
We arrived in the cool of the night at this beautiful stone cottage. The property had a rustic charm, and there was an herb garden ringed by a white picket fence. Hammocks were strung between the trees and a bubbling brook made sweet music. Everything about the place was comfortable. There were glowing table lamps and soft couches covered in floral patterns. There was a screened patio, and one could eat alfresco and not be bothered by mosquitoes. Tree frogs, crickets, and cicadas would buzz and hum.
We visited Howard and Dorothy several times, and they were wonderful hosts. Tony and I would rest, read, and take leisurely walks. Howard would disappear into his study to write. Dorothy would putter in her kitchen.
Eventually the Lindsays allowed Tony and me the use of the cottage for a quiet vacation. I remember one weekend when we walked midst the riotous colors of autumn and the far-off hills were covered in a misty haze. Deer came down to the little stream to drink, and rabbits scampered in the grass beneath the trees. It was a safe and lovely haven.
REHEARSALS FOR CINDERELLA progressed, and we soon brought the production to the floor of the television studio from which it was to be aired. There were technical problems to be resolved, many cameras to be rehearsed, and for the actors, there was much waiting around.
I chatted a lot with our floor manager, a charming, shy, and extremely capable young man. I asked him what he would be working on after Cinderella was finished.
He said
, “Actually, I don’t think I will be doing television much longer.”
When I inquired why, he said that he was close to realizing a long-held dream of providing free Shakespearean performances in Central Park for the general public. I thought of the hard work he must have done to get something so unusual off the ground. I also wondered if his project could ever be successful. I remember wishing him luck. His name was Joseph Papp.
His vision, of course, soon became a proud reality at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park and at the Joseph Papp Public Theater in New York.
ONE DAY I was waiting in the wings of our set, and I happened to be whistling. (When I am nervous, I always whistle. I’m good at it, and directors have used it from time to time…I whistled in Mary Poppins, and in My Fair Lady and Camelot.) I was standing there and, I do not know why, I whistled a few bars of a song called “The Last Time I Saw Paris.”
A voice behind me said, “I really meant that when I wrote it, you know.” I turned around and was face-to-face with Oscar Hammerstein.
“Oh gosh, Mr. Hammerstein,” I stammered. “I’m ashamed to say I had no idea that was your song.”
He said, “I was so devastated when Paris fell to the Germans during the war, and remembering the city as I once knew it, I felt compelled to write that lyric.”
I realize now that in those days I walked with giants: Alan, Fritz, Moss, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Joe Papp…Why didn’t I think to ask the hundreds of questions that haunt me today whenever I think about them? I suppose I was too busy finding out who I was.
LIVE TELEVISION WAS daunting. We were performing a musical show, yet, unlike theater, there were cameras doing a slow dance around us at all times (and in those days, they were much bigger); people were pulling cables out of the way, and we were trying to ignore all the chaos of a working crew while attempting to convince our audience there was no one around but us actors. That’s where Joe Papp was so helpful, because he smoothly directed traffic on the floor, cued the actors in terms of where we had to be, how long before we were on camera, and which camera was being used.
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