Backstage Pass To Broadway

by Susan L. Schulman

  I arrived at the hotel and met all the key players including Himself. When Carlin introduced us, he shook my hand, looked me in the eye, and said, “Hi Susan, thanks a lot for helping us out.” By then I’d been around celebrities for a long time and thought I was pretty cool. I’d met Frank Sinatra, Cary Grant and Paul Newman and managed to have coherent conversations without fainting or drooling. But this time I was completely dazzled. Having that much high quality wattage focused exclusively on me — even momentarily — was overwhelming. Redford was gorgeous, smart, polite, friendly, had great hair and remembered my name. I was a goner.

  The press was a wolf pack, desperate to get a photo of the normally reclusive Robert Redford. Redford was, for that night, willing to use his celebrity to shine some light on the accomplishments of those being honored by CAN.

  I set up a photo of Redford shaking hands with two or three honorees and the photographers went nuts. After a while, Redford and I exchanged a look and I stopped the photo session, suggesting we take a break. Redford disappeared. Fifteen minutes later, I decided it was time to set up shots of him with another group of honorees. I looked for Redford, and discovered he was standing five feet from me. He had, mysteriously, turned down his star wattage and become invisible. It’s hard to imagine overlooking Robert Redford, but I had been standing near him and had not noticed. I once read that Spencer Tracy could walk down the street and make people either notice him or not, depending on how he presented himself, but I’d never witnessed anything like it in person. In addition to his other sterling qualities, Robert Redford could make himself disappear.

  We took more photos and he did it again. He was highly present as he posed for photos, charming the winners, and then just seemed to evaporate, until I’d quietly ask if he was ready for another round of photos. This went on for about an hour, with Redford seeming to appear and disappear at will.

  Finally, it was time for the dinner and, as I ushered the press out of the ballroom, Carlin thanked me and invited me to stay for the dinner. I politely declined. I felt overwhelmed by Redford, and slightly unsettled by the whole experience.

  The next morning Carlin called to thank me again for my help and asked why I hadn’t stayed. I told her that I had been completely flummoxed by Redford. Having all that intelligence, personality and charm focused directly at me proved I wasn’t quite as cool as I thought I was. Robert Redford was, and still is, the real deal.

  WHO’S GOT THE CLOUT

  During the Golden Age of Broadway, it was perfectly clear who was a star. Producers would announce a new Broadway show with a full page ad in the New York Sunday Times, featuring a photo of Mary Martin, Ethel Merman, Julie Harris or Julie Andrews, plus a ticket order coupon to fill out and mail in with your check. By the end of the week, the box office treasurer could measure the effectiveness of the ad. If the Times ad cost $10K, it needed to draw $20K in ticket sales to be deemed successful. Those mail-in coupons were coded so the producers could tell which newspaper or magazine drew the most ticket orders. The stars, and to a lesser degree, the producers, directors or creators’ names in those ads were the selling point as the titles of the new plays or musicals were generally meaningless to the public at that point. Mary Martin and Ethel Merman sold tickets. Julie Andrews and Gwen Verdon sold tickets. So did Alfred Drake, John Raitt and Robert Preston. Many of today’s stars, while talented and charismatic, do not automatically sell tickets.

  Today, musicals are rarely created around the particular talents of a star, showcasing his or her ability to charm or hold a note longer than anyone else in the vicinity. Michael Bennett created A CHORUS LINE to showcase the talents (and career tribulations) of his former dancing partner and close friend, Donna McKechnie, but even the Tony Award she earned playing Cassie didn’t make her a bankable star. RENT was supposed to launch Daphne Ruben-Vega to mega-stardom — it didn’t. Bernadette Peters, Audra McDonald, Kristin Chenoweth, Patti LuPone and Cherry Jones are wonderful, award-winning actors, but their names alone over the title will not guarantee a sold out engagement.

  In every Broadway show, one person has ‘the power.’ It may be the director, the producer, the star or the author. Sometimes that person chooses to remain in the background (like a script doctor or a major agent like the late CAA uber agent Sam Cohn,) and sometimes it is very clear (see billing on the show’s window card or the theatre marquee) who is calling the shots. In APPLAUSE, Lauren Bacall held all the cards. In THE MERCHANT, it was Zero Mostel until he died, then director John Dexter. In DANCIN’ it was unquestionably Bob Fosse. More recently, it was Oprah Winfrey in THE COLOR PURPLE, not because of her financial investment or her creative input, but for her extraordinary ability to reach the show’s potential audience through her media empire. Occasionally, a well-known director, like Mike Nichols or Tommy Tune, will take over a show as a favor to the producer. He might not receive billing, but he is well-paid for his contributions with cash and ‘points’ or a percentage of the gross if and when the re-staged show runs. Director Gower Champion reportedly bought a penthouse apartment on Central Park South with the fee he received for replacing Noel Coward as the (un-billed) director of BLITHE SPIRIT. Champion was definitely ‘the power’ on any show in which he was involved. Fosse allegedly took over as choreographer for the original production of HOW TO SUCCEED and Joe Masteroff allegedly re-wrote the book of DEAR WORLD in Boston. Neither one was credited but we can assume they were well-compensated for their contributions to those shows.

  Maureen Stapleton had terrible arthritis when she starred in the Circle in the Square production of THE GLASS MENAGERIE. The family’s dingy apartment was set on a raised platform on the upstage playing area. Maureen’s knees hurt, and she found it too painful to go up and down that one step during the play. The producers lowered the set to accommodate her. THAT is clout.

  Fifties rock-and-roll legend Chuck Berry had interesting clauses in his contract. In those days, before GPS was available in rental cars, he feared getting lost in a strange city while trying to find his hotel. So his contract required a rental car and a limo in each city in which he performed. Upon landing, Berry would drive the rental car while following the limo to the hotel. He also demanded payment in cash before he would perform. But once he had his money in hand, he gave his all, performing wonderfully for hours without a break. Berry also arranged for his girlfriend, and/or other attractive young women, to be positioned in each corner of the stage for a quick kiss or cuddle during the show. If he was happy, so was the audience.

  GLENN CLOSE AND THE INDIANS

  In 1979, The Phoenix Theatre cast Glenn Close as a Native American in THE WINTER DANCERS. This blond, well-born Connecticut Wasp was not ideal casting, but they were unable to find any Native American actors to fill the role. The cast also included other blatantly non-Native Americans like soap star Larry Bryggman and Jacqueline Brookes, as well as Stephen McHattie, who reportedly had a drop or two of Native American blood.

  During previews, we learned that a coalition of Native American actors were unhappy with the casting, and planned to picket the theatre. They had every right to protest the casting of these Caucasian actors. Some of these actors had auditioned for the play and been turned down, and some had not even been considered. They were even more annoyed to see the buckskin-clad Glenn Close and her blond pigtails up on the Phoenix Theatre stage portraying one of them. This was before Glenn’s film career took off and she was best-known for replacing Meryl Streep in Wendy Wasserstein’s UNCOMMON WOMEN AND OTHERS.

  In fact, the director had offered a role to well-known Native American actor Tommy Lee Jones but he had turned it down. As the Phoenix Theatre’s press agent, I could not explain to the media that Mr. Jones had declined our offer, or that the actors cast in the play had not been our first choice.

  Previews began and the Native Americans arrived outside the theatre dressed in buckskin, feathers and beads. They had tom toms too. They looked terrific, and carried clever signs suggesting ways the Phoenix Theatre
could and should return to the ashes from which it had sprung. They were very entertaining. Not only were they delivering a heartfelt message about a theatrical injustice, they were getting a chance to audition for the critics and the theatergoers passing them on their way into the theatre.

  Opening night, New York Daily News critic Douglas Watt turned to me as he exited the theatre, and said, “Loved the pickets, hated the play.” He was right.

  The front show curtain for DEATH AND THE MAIDEN acted like a one-way vision mirror. Because of a trick of lighting, you could stand on stage and see the audience through the curtain but the audience couldn’t see you. So every night the three stars, Glenn Close, Richard Dreyfuss and Gene Hackman, production stage manager Peter Lawrence and occasionally, Oscar-winning director Mike Nichols, came on stage, dropped their pants and mooned the audience before the show began. It was an interesting way for the actors to begin Ariel Dorfman’s painfully serious drama about political torture. Some of us found the nightly mooning ritual far more entertaining than the play.

  STUNTS

  Bill Doll was king in an era when outrageous publicity stunts were an every day occurrence. Those silly, unsophisticated days are over, but press agents still try to come up with clever stunts that create a buzz. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t.

  One of Bill’s main clients was Sears and he loved pouring over the thick Sears catalog trolling for ideas. One day, he showed me a new item he called a ‘garbage squisher.’ It was the very first garbage compactor. He suggested I pitch it to What’s My Line? Normally the popular TV show’s celebrity panel tried to guess people’s occupations but occasionally the show featured a mysterious new product and the panel had to guess its function or use.

  The TV producer was intrigued with my pitch, and soon my Sears garbage squisher was booked on the show. We asked Sears to provide ‘clean garbage’ for the on-air demonstration by a pretty young actress we’d hired. When the panel could not guess what it was, the young woman appeared in a short dress, holding a huge, clear plastic bag of pristine milk cartons and sealed, empty tuna fish cans. Clean garbage. The Sears machine proceeded to squish it all into a tiny bag. Astonishment reigned and Sears got millions of dollars of free publicity.

  When Peter Masterson directed THE LAST OF THE KNUCKLEMEN off-Broadway, we came up with what we thought was a brilliant stunt to promote the play. The drama featured tough, realistic, carefully choreographed fight scenes performed by hunky young male actors. We decided to stage a mock fight alongside the TKTS booth in Times Square, where theatre-goers line up to buy discount tickets to Broadway and off-Broadway shows. To juice up our stunt, we found four pretty young actresses (in short skirts, of course) to hold the rope as they acted as the four corner posts of the boxing ring. (Are you beginning to note a trend here??)

  The good-looking young actors, including the then-unknown Dennis Quaid, began enthusiastically punching the hell out of each other, rolling around on the street. The fight looked very realistic and a little scary. The ‘corner’ girls cheered them on. There was much grunting and punching. The people on the TKTS line barely glanced in their direction.

  The Knucklemen duke it out in Duffy Square.

  (From the author’s photo collection)

  I walked up and down the TKTS line, handing out flyers for the show as the KNUCKLEMEN continued to violently fight each other. People looked briefly at the flyer and continued chatting with their friends on-line. This was New York City. People fight on the street all the time. Even with the girls and the rope and the yelling, the theatrical tumult we were creating didn’t make the slightest impression. Eventually, I told the actors to stop fighting. We packed up our props and slunk away. I doubt we sold a single ticket. This was not a successful stunt.

  Another less than successful stunt involved an actor portraying Ben Franklin in an off-Broadway play called GO FLY A KITE. He had created an elaborate make-up that transformed him into a very believable facsimile of Ben Franklin. There was a famous series of photos taken of Hal Holbrook, as he was transformed into Mark Twain for MARK TWAIN TONIGHT. We decided to invite the press to see exactly how our guy turned himself into old Ben. We set up an antique make-up table, complete with a ring of old fashioned theatre lights, upstairs in Sardi’s Restaurant. He laid out his extensive collection of make-up pencils and creams, the bald wig on a wig stand, and sat poised, ready to begin his transformation.

  No press showed up. No photographers. No one. We waited another half hour, while I nervously called the various photo assignment editors to see if their photographers might be caught in traffic. No luck. The editors hadn’t heard of this actor, didn’t care about Ben Franklin and no one was coming. The actor, who was now a little jumpy, pointed out that his make-up took about an hour to complete and asked if he should begin. He didn’t seem to grasp that if the press doesn’t cover a publicity stunt, then we are just doing it for our own amusement. This one had seemed like such a good idea at the time.

  FRIENDS

  Sometimes a client becomes a friend, but more often that friendship only lasts as long as you can be useful to them or the run of the show. When Jim Dale made his Broadway debut in the Young Vic production of SCAPINO, his agent suggested he hire a personal press agent to make the most of this pivotal moment in his career. But after working with me, the press agent for the Circle in the Square, which presented SCAPINO, he decided he didn’t need a personal press agent. He had me. And he did. I thought Jim was terrific and was happy to spread the word about this talented English actor who was taking Broadway by storm. Time and Newsweek agreed with me and ran features about Jim Dale. He quickly became a Broadway star. On my own time, I helped him move from one apartment to another on Riverside Drive. He would amusingly introduce me to the audience as part of his schtick during SCAPINO’s sing-along finale. I felt like the ultimate insider and I loved it, but I knew we were ‘professional friends.’

  On the other hand, some people you work with DO become real friends. Award-winning actress Kathleen Chalfant and I first worked together when she stunningly played eight roles in the landmark Broadway production of Tony Kushner’s ANGELS IN AMERICA. My respect and admiration for her, both on stage and off, turned into a real, lasting friendship. Her values and political activism have earned Kathy many friends and I’m proud to be one of them. We’ve shared many Thanksgivings at her home and I have joined Kathy and her extended family at their summer retreat in Italy.

  English actress Susan Hampshire and I met doing a national publicity tour for the original Forsyte Saga TV series in which she played Fleur. The Forsyte Saga was the first British blockbuster mini-series to air on American TV and it was a phenomenon, not unlike the recent response to Downton Abbey. Susan, (who was four months pregnant), her French husband Pierre Granier-Deferre, and I flew slowly across the country during an air controllers strike, doing interviews from 7 am until midnight, while dodging mobs of over-excited fans.

  After spending such an intense period of time together, you either love or hate someone. Happily the two Susans became, and remain, close friends, and I have been her house guest in London for more than 40 years. Susan’s son Christopher, (whom I’ve obviously known since he was born) recently celebrated his wedding at a medieval castle in Wales where he gleefully introduced me to everyone as his Jewish Godmother.

  The author with Susan Hampshire at her son Christopher’s wedding celebration in Wales.

  (From the author’s photo collection)

  THE LOUDS

  Long before Jon and Kate Plus Eight, The Real Housewives, or Jersey Shore, there were The Louds and An American Family.

  In 1971, NET/Channel 13, the public broadcasting station in New York City, commissioned producer Craig Gilbert to film the first cinema verité TV series chronicling the daily lives of a typical (if affluent) American family. The producers had been seeking a large family with several teenagers who had interesting and diverse lives apart from their core family. The family originally selected
fell out and, at the last minute, the Loud family of Santa Barbara, California agreed to be the subject of the series. Young husband and wife filmmakers, Alan and Susan Raymond, moved into the family’s large home with total access, 24/7.

  The producers were unaware that Bill and Pat Loud had a rocky marriage, or that one of their sons was gay and secretly planned to ‘come out’ on national television. (I never knew if the Louds knew Lance was gay in advance of the taping.) The Louds were delighted to showcase their five adolescent kids and hoped the TV exposure would make them stars.

  As the filming for An American Family progressed, the family began falling apart, on and off camera. Bill Loud’s extramarital affair was exposed followed by a confrontation with his peeved, long suffering wife Pat. It was unclear if having the camera crew present night and day heightened the family tensions or if it gave each of the Louds an outlet to push their personal agendas. Were the Louds performing for the camera or had they become genuinely oblivious to the crew filming their daily life? Were they behaving naturally or more flamboyantly for the camera? One of the producers allegedly became romantically involved with Pat Loud.

  Self-proclaimed ‘artistic son’ Lance was living in NYC when he decided to come out on national television. TV crews captured both sides of a highly charged phone conversation: Lance in garish drag at the legendary (and seedy) Chelsea Hotel in New York City, and his upset, embarrassed mother, trying to appear cool, in the family home in California. Viewers didn’t seem to question how and why this particular telephone conversation happened to be filmed at both ends. Thus, Lance became the first openly gay ‘personality’ on US television.

  The other gangly, moody Loud teenagers, with their constant round of band and cheerleading practice, seemed shallow and boring rather than charmingly All American. None of them showed any particular talent or aptitude aside from shopping and dating. The Louds seemed to represent all that was wrong with the upper middle class Southern California culture.