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tory. After nine years on Broadway, six years on tour, plus a London production, a blockbuster film and several revivals, My Fair Lady would clearly be enshrined as one of the legendary shows of all time.
For Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick “Fritz” Loewe it was the crowning achievement in a stunning career. Lerner, born in New York in 1918, and brother of the founder of the Lerner Stores, Alexander Lerner, was the grandson of Ukrainian-Jewish immigrants. He had an interest in music from an early age, starting to play piano, and taking lessons, at the age five. After his parents divorced, he went to plays frequently with his father, which was something he enjoyed very much. By his teens, Lerner was quite proficient at music and an excellent student. He attended The Juilliard School of Music and Harvard University, from which he graduated in 1940. Lerner went on to write radio advertising but always wanted to try his hand at theater. Just two years later, the opportunity would present itself when he met Frederick “Fritz” Loewe in New York City in the Lambs Club, a theater club established in the 1870s. Loewe, some 14 years older, had already achieved some minimal success on Broadway with a show called Great Lady, which ran for a few weeks in 1938.
The son of a well-known Austrian operetta tenor, Loewe came to America at the age of 20 with his father, and, like Lerner, he had started playing piano by the age of five. He had already enjoyed a huge hit song in Europe, called Katrina, by the time he arrived in the United States.
His initial attempts to make it as a performer in the U.S. were unsuccess -
ful, so he took on a series of odd jobs while still writing songs in hopes of making a splash on Broadway.
It was the chance meeting of Lerner and Loewe that would set the wheels in motion for this significant writing team that would follow the likes of the great musical teams of the ’30s and ’40s. After two less-than-stellar shows with short runs on Broadway, they hit their stride with Brigadoon in 1947, which opened at the Ziegfeld Theater and ran for 581
performances. The unusual story about a couple of tourists who stumble upon a Scottish town that reawakens once every hundred years was a hit largely because of the fabulous Lerner and Loewe score.
After some Hollywood screenwriting success, the duo returned to Broadway with the musical Paint Your Wagon, which opened in late 1951
and ran at the Shubert Theater for 289 performances. Then came My 106
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Fair Lady, which ran for more than nine years. Gigi and Camelot followed, the latter having a run of 873 performances, cementing Lerner and Loewe as Broadway legends. Interestingly, Camelot did not receive favorable reviews by the critics. In an age long before the Internet or viral marketing, there was one recourse to take following such negative reviews.
Moss Hart, who co-produced the show with Lerner and Loewe, managed to book the stars — Richard Burton, Julie Andrews, and Robert Goulet —
on The Ed Sullivan Show, television’s most important place to be seen.
Lerner and Loewe also went on the show and as a result ticket sales soared and Camelot was a hit. It was, however, My Fair Lady that immortalized the team of Lerner and Loewe forever.
The second half of this amazing decade for musicals continued with a show called Bells Are Ringing which began a run of over 900 performances with Jule Styne, Comden and Green and Jerome Robbins among those credited with creating this hit musical about a friendly phone oper-ator who falls for an unknown caller and ends up romping around New York with him. The star of the hit musical, Judy Holliday, born Judith Turvin, was a Jewish actress and favorite of Comden and Green. Holliday was born to Zionist/socialist parents and grew up with left wing political views that would also lead to her being questioned by the Senate Subcommittee as part of the anti–Communist crusade, resulting in her being blacklisted for several years. Holliday had come to prominence in 1946
in a show called Born Yesterday written by Garson Kanin, who had collab -
orated on several screenplays with his wife, Ruth Gordon. Kanin would later direct The Diary of Anne Frank and co-direct Funny Girl with Jerome Robbins. Holliday had tried making a name for herself in Hollywood before the 1952 blacklisting. The Theater Guild, producers of Bells Are Ringing, was more sympathetic to the plight of such blacklisted performers than many of the Hollywood producers, who were fearing for their own jobs. As a result, the Theater Guild, along with Robbins, who served as director and knew the power of the anti–Communists, was more than happy to cast Holliday in the leading role. She went on to win a Tony Award for her efforts and was later cast in the film version of the musical as well.
While one blockbuster musical typically abounded each year in the
’50s, 1957 saw two shows that would become classics open within two months of each other in the fall. West Side Story opened at the Winter 107
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Garden in September, and The Music Man followed in December at the Majestic. A modern day Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story was originally supposed to be East Side Story, about an Irish Catholic girl and a Jewish boy. The four Jewish boys at the helm of this production — Leonard Bern stein, Jerome Robbins, Steven Sondheim and Arthur Laurents —
how ever, could not find enough time in their busy schedules to work together in the early 1950s and get the project off the ground. By the time they all cleared their respective schedules, they thought the story about a Polish boy and Puerto Rican girl would be timelier, and so the classic musical began to take shape.
For Stephen Sondheim, West Side Story was the huge break he had been hoping would come along. Born in New York City, Sondheim would later move to a farm in Pennsylvania, where he would grow up with his mom after his parents’ divorce. Estranged from his father and wanting nothing to do with his allegedly psychologically abusive mother, Stephen was essentially on his own as he headed into his career as a lyricist. Sondheim’s first work for Broadway, West Side Story launched a career that would continue with two more major hit shows, Gypsy and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Despite a disastrous flop called Anyone Can Whistle, Sondheim went on to team with Harold Prince on several musicals in the 1970s and then continued on his own with hit shows such as Sweeney Todd.
Meanwhile, Arthur Laurents, who first teamed with Sondheim and Robbins on West Side Story, was a Brooklyn native whose mother kept a kosher home and whose paternal grandparents were orthodox Jews. After graduating from Cornell University, Laurents became a writer of radio scripts before serving time in the military. Actually he didn’t see much action, as he was stationed in Astoria in Queens, where he served his time writing scripts. His first Broadway show, Home of the Brave, was not a major success, but once he turned his attention to being a librettist, his luck changed. Along with West Side Story, he would go on to write the lyrics for Gypsy and several shows throughout the 1960s. He would also go on to direct a number of hit musicals including La Cage Aux Folles, discussed later.
While The Music Man was another significant hit musical of the era, it was one of only a few musicals of the decade without much influ -
ence from the Jewish Broadway contingent. The sons and daughters of 108
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the Jewish immigrants had a foothold of sorts as they established themselves as the forces behind a litany of blockbuster musicals. In fact, two more shows would wrap up this amazing decade, both from Jewish composers, librettists, producers and/or directors. They were Gypsy and The Sound of Music, both of which opened in 1959.
Gypsy brought most of the team from West Side Story back together, linking Robbins, Sondheim and Laurents with the music of Jule Styne, who had ushered in the decade with Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. This time the show was about the life of the famous Minsky’s Burlesque stripper, Gypsy Rose Lee. While the show ran for a successful 702 performances, it was a far cry from some of the other blockbuster shows of the era.
Nonetheless, Gypsy would emerge as a classic
, first moving to London for another 120 performances upon closing in New York, and then returning for several Broadway revivals. It was also one of Ethel Merman’s trium phant roles, playing the part of Momma Rose and belting out
“Every thing’s Coming Up Roses.”
Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music, with a run of over 1,400 performances, ended a remarkable decade for musicals. It was a show adapted from Maria Von Trapp’s autobiography, The Trapp Family Singers, which was also a German film. While the music and lyrics for The Sound of Music are uplifting and joyful in spirit, the undercurrent of a family escaping Nazi Germany took on a different, more somber tone than many of the musicals of the decade. Nonetheless, with a happy ending, it emerged as one of the most heartwarming musicals ever to grace the Broadway stage through the early years of the ’60s and again in successful revivals.
Although Jewish culture was not a theme of any of these 1950s blockbusters, the music and stories of most of these significant shows came from Jewish theater legends, the majority of whom retained their Jewish identities while assimilating into mainstream America. As was the case with the children of the early immigrants who opted for vaudeville over Yiddish theater, this generation also chose not to follow the wishes of their parents, which now typically included graduating college and finding more stable careers in law or business. The enthusiasm for reaching out and touching an audience through music, lyrics and dialogue, as was the case in Yiddish theater, was still seductive and the primary focus for this generation of Jewish talents.
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Most of the musicals of the 1950s took on optimistic, life-affirming themes. These were not the revue-style musicals of the pre-war era, nor did the patriotism and social issues that were more prominent in many of the productions during the war years influence them. Broadway musicals were now telling a wide range of stories about everything from the King of Siam to a love story infused with rival gangs to an abridged biography of the most famous stripper of the century, and they were doing so through the strength of collaborative efforts. No, this was not group theater, but the talented teams behind most of the hit shows were very much in sync with one another, and each knew his or her role in a production very well. In some cases, they would even take on dual roles, such as Jerome Robbins, who was both a choreographer and director.
Along with writers, composers, lyricists and actors, the Jewish knack for comedic expression was also reflected in the words of Abe Burrows, George S. Kaufman and the performances of Milton Berle, Zero Mostel and others. In fact, a Jewish training ground of sorts, for such comedy, had emerged in the area known as the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York.
The Borscht Belt
In the early part of the 20th century, the Catskill Mountains began to emerge as a vacation destination. The rural area residents, mostly Jewish, saw the potential to lure city dwellers into their serene neck of the woods. It could be a place where vacationers, mostly Jewish, could get away from the city. As a result, hotels, inns and bungalow colonies sprang up. The response was favorable, so more were built, and those that were already packing in visitors began expanding, which they continued to do as the demand for accommodations grew. To create the full-vacation experience, many of the hotels included meals (mostly kosher), planned activities, golf courses and entertainment in the form of both singers and comedians. Yes, from humble beginnings, resorts were formed and they kept on expanding and expanding. In fact, for years, comedy routines were based on the fact that the hotels had become so big that it could be a half-day’s activity or more just locating your room.
Among the first entertainment venues in the area were those of Boris 110
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Thomashefsky, the Yiddish theater star, who built both an indoor and outdoor theater in the nearby Hunter Resort. From these theaters and the many newly built hotel ballrooms, which could accommodate hundreds of people, and in some cases over a thousand, the training ground for numerous comedians emerged. It was nicknamed the Borscht Belt.
The name Borscht Belt was derived from the Eastern European vegetable soup (borscht), which was well known to the Jewish immigrants and served on the traditional menu of Jewish cuisine at the resort hotels.
Over the years, these Catskill resorts, including Grossinger’s, the Con cord and Brown’s, would become the training ground for many of the most significant comedians of the century. The comics would work out their material and establish their on stage personas in front of adoring fans. It was a unique place in which they could be funny and be Jewish.
Catskills comics had an ongoing inside joke with the audiences who enjoyed the mainstream material, but identified more closely with, and laughed harder at, the routines about Jewish families, Jewish customs and Jewish life. Like Yiddish theater, the performers shared so much with their audience, which was typically 90 percent Jewish. For the com -
ics, it was the ideal place to fuse their Jewish identity with their comedy.
From jokes about their immigrant parents to Jewish delicatessens to planning their son’s Bar Mitzvah (Bat Mitzvah’s were not yet as popular as they are today), there was plenty of familiar fodder for humor, not to mention the typical wife and mother-in-law jokes.
By the late 1940s and through the heyday of the ’50s and ’60s, the Catskills resorts were packing in more than a million visitors a year. The summer months, especially on weekends, were prime spots for comics, and headlining on the holiday weekends, such as July 4 or Labor Day, meant you were at the top of your game.
Many of the comedians from the Borscht Belt went on to become stars of television, film and yes, even Broadway. Among those Catskills comics who also had an impact on the Great White Way were Woody Allen, Milton Berle, Mel Brooks, Sid Caesar, Danny Kaye, Robert Klein, Jackie Mason, Zero Mostel and Carl Reiner. Other comics on the legendary circuit included Buddy Hackett, Jerry Lewis, Don Rickles and Totie Fields.
In the early days of what would become a legendary film career, New York-born and raised Allen Stewart Konigsberg, better known as 111
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Woody Allen, started performing stand-up comedy in the early 60s, after being expelled from NYU. From appearances at the Duplex (a nightclub in Greenwich Village) to other nightclubs in and around Manhattan and then in the Catskills, Allen’s nervous, neurotic humor emerged and was very well received. Meanwhile, Woody Allen was also part of the legen -
dary writing team on Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows, which included Mel Brooks, Larry Gelbart and Neil Simon.
By the mid 1960s, Allen was already established, with a few films under his belt, and his stand-up career intact. He took his chances at writ ing for Broadway with two comedies, Don’t Drink the Water in 1966, and Play It Again, Sam, in 1968. Both shows were successful and were also two of the nearly 50 screenplays written by Allen, who not only starred in most of his films but also took the lead role on Broadway in Play It Again, Sam. The role suited Allen perfectly, as he played a socially awkward film critic, Alan Felix, who hoped his bad luck with women could be remedied through confidential talks with the ghost of Hum -
phrey Bogart. The show ran for 453 performances.
Woody Allen also brought the Catskills to life in his 1984 film, Broad way Danny Rose. Playing a former Catskills comic who now managed several absurd novelty acts, Allen tells the tales of his Borscht Belt days to a table of comics including Sandy Baron, Jackie Gale, Corbett Mon ica, Howie Storm, Will Jordan, and Morty Gunty, all of whom played the Catskills.
Not unlike Woody Allen, another Jewish New Yorker, Sid Caesar, also wore several hats, as a writer, performer and musician (Allen plays clarinet, Caesar, Saxophone). In fact, Caesar got his start in the Catskills, as a teenager, playing in one of the hotel bands before emerging as a come dian. He would go on to work on his comedy material to the delight of Catskills audiences. The new medium of the late 1940s, television, proved to be the breakthrough for Caesar.
His second television series, in 1950, Your Show of Shows, topped the ratings and brought numerous top celebrities into the homes of a nationwide audience dazzled by what was thought by some to be a passing fad.
It was in the early 1960s that Neil Simon, along with composer Cy Coleman, lyricist Carolyn Leigh and choreographer Bob Fosse, would put together the musical comedy Little Me. It was perfect for Caesar who got to utilize many of the dialects he used in his comedy act while playing 112
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multiple characters and making 32 costume changes. The show ran for 257 performances (or over 8,000 costume changes) before moving to Lon don in 1964 for another successful run, without Caesar. Little Me would return twice to Broadway, also without Caesar, who moved on to films, plus occasional television and nightclub appearances.
If any one comedian truly exemplified the Catskills humor, it was Jackie Mason. The son of a rabbi, Mason was born Yacov ( Jacob) Moshe Maza in 1934 in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. He later moved to the Lower East Side of Manhattan where a litany of show business greats had already honed their talents. Mason, however, followed in the footsteps of his father and three older brothers, all of whom became rabbis. He soon found himself working at a synagogue in Pennsylvania. In time, however, he would begin to interject humor into his weekly sermons while also sprinkling in jokes while talking to members of the congregation. This was the beginning of the end of his career as a rabbi and the start of a long, rocky, but ultimately highly successful comedy career.
Working as a social director in the Catskills, Mason learned from the comics he watched on stage and soon became part of the hotel circuit, getting regular bookings, while also making his way to nightclubs and on to television. While working to lose the heavy Jewish accent in an attempt to be more easily understood, he was also honing the Jewish stage persona that suited him well. And yet, he drew his share of criticism for playing the Jewish stereotype, somewhat like those in the vaudeville days before him. Nonetheless, Mason appeared often on the most popular entertainment program of the 1960s, The Ed Sullivan Show, until one fateful event derailed his career for a number of years. It didn’t take a senate subcommittee to blackball Mason; it took one inappropriate hand gesture on The Ed Sullivan Show to ban him from television for years to come. Mason claims the entire thing was an accident, but Sullivan disagreed. The outspoken Mason, always on top of politics, added fuel to the fire with a number of controversial actions and comments over the years.
Jews on Broadway: An Historical Survey of Performers, Playwrights, Composers, Lyricists and Producers Page 14
