Fosse

by Wasson, Sam

  [>] “You want to come with me?”: Charles Grass, interview with the author, September 4, 2012.

  [>] Now that he had gotten a deferral from the war: Gottfried, All His Jazz, 36.

  [>] “I hate show business”: Bernard Drew, “Life as a Long Rehearsal,” American Film, November 1979.

  [>] In the summer of 1945: Charles Grass, interview with the author, September 4, 2012.

  [>] “a kind of audition”: Ibid.

  [>] “That might have saved Bob’s life”: Ibid.

  [>] “It was songs and sketches”: Buzz Halliday, interview with the author, November 3, 2011.

  [>] “very thin, Irish-looking kid”: Kenneth Turan, Free for All: Joe Papp, the Public, and the Greatest Theater Story Ever Told (New York: Doubleday, 2009), 28.

  [>] At twenty-five, Papirofsky, with his streetwise: Ibid.

  [>] “I saw at once that he was footjoy”: John T. McQuiston, “A Veteran at 13,” New York Times, September 24, 1987.

  [>] “I thought plays were effete”: Turan, Free for All, 27.

  [>] “that overbite”: Kenneth Turan/Bob Fosse unpublished interview, February 19, 1987.

  [>] Papp and Bill Quillin: Gottfried, All His Jazz, 40.

  [>] “I heard about it later”: Charles Grass, interview with the author, September 4, 2012.

  [>] The woman told Mrs. Fosse: Ibid.

  [>] “I want you to know”: Ibid.

  [>] Fosse toured Tough Situation: Gottfried, All His Jazz, 42.

  [>] Dancing alone in the forest: Gwen Verdon interview, Dance in America, WNET archives, September 6, 1989.

  [>] By the time Tough Situation: Gottfried, All His Jazz, 41.

  [>] “That was the first time”: Pete Hamill, “Fosse,” Piecework (Boston: Little, Brown, 1996), 348.

  FORTY-ONE YEARS

  [>] Discharged from service in August 1946: Military service papers, LOC, box 52B.

  [>] mongrel work in progress: The brief illustration of post–World War II New York as a vaudeville town comes from dozens of primary-source interviews.

  [>] “In a great musical”: Richard Rodgers, Musical Stages: An Autobiography (New York: Random House, 1975), 227.

  [>] “Many a somber problem play”: John Martin, “The Dance: De Mille’s ‘Oklahoma!,’” New York Times, May 9, 1943.

  [>] “When he talked to you”: Lynne Carrow, interview with the author, December 10, 2010.

  [>] “I had always wondered why”: Robert Greenhut, interview with the author, August 31, 2010.

  [>] “I think everyone was attracted to him”: Christopher Newman, interview with the author, September 10, 2010.

  [>] “It was like you were in a tunnel”: Trudy Ship, interview with the author, January 21, 2011.

  [>] Fosse’s bed at the YMCA: George Chauncey, Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and The Making of the Gay Male World 1890–1940 (New York: Basic Books, 1994), 155–57.

  [>] “Sing first”: Sheila John Daly, “Cross-Country Potpourri of Teen Doings,” Chicago Tribune, June 21, 1947.

  [>] “The Farting Contest”: Frankie Man, interview with the author, July 20, 2010.

  [>] “He was always there early”: Carl Reiner, interview with the author, September 14, 2010.

  [>] “At the end of that number”: Jeanna Belkin, interview with the author, May 8, 2011.

  [>] “We had a pretty crazy company”: Carl Reiner, interview with the author, September 14, 2010.

  [>] They called her Spooky: Jeanna Belkin, interview with the author, May 8, 2011.

  [>] “Marian was a spitfire”: Harvey Evans, interview with the author, January 28, 2011.

  [>] “I wanted to walk behind her”: Margery Beddow, In the Company of Friends: Dancers Talking to Dancers II, the Women of Fosse, videotaped at the New Dance Group, New York, on October 7, 2007.

  [>] “Spooky was a wonderful tap dancer”: Jeanna Belkin, interview with the author, May 8, 2011.

  [>] “Bobby liked beauty but he loved talent”: Deborah Geffner, interview with the author, October 1, 2010.

  [>] “No matter where the show took us”: Jeanna Belkin, interview with the author, May 8, 2011.

  [>] “Limehouse Blues”: Ronna Elaine Sloan, “Bob Fosse: An Analytic-Critical Study” (University Microfilms International, 1983), 67.

  [>] “She was a not too educated girl”: Jeanna Belkin, interview with the author, May 8, 2011.

  [>] She “had a lot of clarity”: Kevin Boyd Grubb, Razzle Dazzle: The Life and Work of Bob Fosse (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989), 19.

  [>] The weekend the Ice Capades came: “Bob Fosse,” E! True Hollywood Story, February 3, 1999.

  [>] “Could you imagine”: Ibid.

  [>] Late in the evening: Martin Gottfried, All His Jazz (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 1998; first published by Bantam in 1990), 44. Citations refer to the Da Capo edition.

  [>] “We all knew about Bobby”: Jeanna Belkin, interview with the author, May 8, 2011.

  [>] Backstage, Fosse pouffed his ascot: Gottfried, All His Jazz, 48.

  [>] “She was just a very sweet girl”: Carl Reiner, interview with the author, September 14, 2010.

  [>] “Mr. Weaver was a hundred percent against marriage”: Charles Grass, interview with the author, September 4, 2012.

  [>] “He was very, very nervous”: Gottfried, All His Jazz, 48.

  [>] There was a reception that afternoon: Ibid.

  [>] Fosse posted his final review in the scrapbook: Bob Fosse black embossed scrapbook with Dutch boy and girl cover, LOC, box 55A.

  [>] “Bob likened show business to boxing”: Ann Reinking, interview with the author, November 15, 2010.

  [>] “He had a drug problem”: Charles Grass, interview with the author, September 4, 2012.

  [>] The maestro put tens and twenties: Ibid.

  [>] sensed that Fosse watched them with: Ibid.

  [>] “I always thought I’d be dead by twenty-five”: Barry Rehfeld, “Bob Fosse’s Follies,” Rolling Stone, January 19, 1984.

  [>] “the most promising young dancers”: Mark Newton, “The Clubs . . . After Dark,” Montreal Standard, March 28, 1948.

  [>] “When we got off the floor someone said”: “The Real Chorus Line,” The David Susskind Show, WNTA-TV, October 18, 1981.

  [>] “They would do their nightclub act somewhere”: Eileen Casey, interview with the author, January 31, 2011.

  [>] “I get terribly involved in my work”: Jan Hodenfield, “Bob Fosse Feet First,” New York Post, April 21, 1973.

  [>] “He thought he was the best and”: Ann Reinking, interview with the author, November 15, 2010.

  [>] they arrived early: Frank Farrell, “Reds Never Rest,” New York World Telegram, December 8, 1948.

  [>] “You’ve heard of Marge and Gower Champion?”: Gottfried, All His Jazz, 56.

  [>] “If they looked good they didn’t have”: Bill Smith, “Cotillion Room, Hotel Pierre, New York,” Billboard, December 18, 1948.

  [>] “What faith a wife must have”: Norman Clark, “Bert Lahr Leads Buoyant Musical On Stage at Ford’s,” Baltimore News Post, February 15, 1949.

  [>] “There were about fifteen of us”: Phyllis Sherwood, interview with the author, December 12, 2010.

  [>] “Unless he knew everything perfect”: Ibid.

  [>] “Little bit of comedy in ‘showoff’ stint”: Variety, July 13, 1949.

  [>] in the audience: Robert Wahls, “Gwen Verdon, the Eternal Gypsy,” New York Sunday News, June 1, 1975.

  THIRTY-SEVEN YEARS

  [>] with Poe’s “Annabel Lee”: Lisa Jo Sagolla, The Girl Who Fell Down (Lebanon, NH: Northeastern University Press, 2003), 62.

  [>] “Her eyes, in particular, often looked”: Ibid., 26.

  [>] “practically a musical comedy in herself”: Sam Zolotow, “Feigay-Smith Show Will Open Tonight,” New York Times, December 22, 1945.

  [>] “There are lots of ballerinas”: Sagolla, The Girl Who Fell Down, 66.

  [>] resembled piano legs: Ibid., 20.


  [>] “McCracken was exactly the right kind”: Ibid., 71.

  [>] As one of the original members of the Actors Studio: Ibid., 6.

  [>] “I can fall down and make it”: New York Sunday News, May 7, 1953.

  [>] “You could have sopped the audience up”: Sagolla, The Girl Who Fell Down, 75.

  [>] “He would give her a flower”: Ibid., 180.

  [>] To Mary-Ann, Fosse gave a new: Eileen Casey, interview with the author, January 31, 2011.

  [>] But feeling sorry for herself: Ibid.

  [>] Ol’ Spooky (she wanted them to say): Jeanna Belkin, interview with the author, May 8, 2011.

  [>] choreographer, Robert Sidney, seemed to give her: Sagolla, The Girl Who Fell Down, 181.

  [>] styles not necessarily to his taste: George Goldberg, “Bob Fosse, Not an Ordinary Man,” Faces International, Summer 1985.

  [>] “Interviewers would say”: “Bob Fosse: Steam Heat,” Great Performances: Dance in America, PBS; first aired February 23, 1990.

  [>] “Take care of myself?”: Lionel Chetwynd, “Except for Bob Fosse,” Penthouse, January 1974.

  [>] “Since last caught”: Bill Smith, “Night Club–Vaude Reviews: Cotillion Room, Hotel Pierre, New York,” Billboard, January 20, 1951.

  [>] The place was so full, chairs had to be: Ibid.

  [>] “There wasn’t much choreography”: George Marcy, interview with the author, February 8, 2011.

  [>] “We’re all here to woo you”: Michael Blowen, “Will Gritty ‘Star 80’ Glitter at the Box Office?,” Boston Globe, November 6, 1983.

  [>] Proser swapped: “Café Theater, N.Y.,” Variety, April 4, 1951.

  [>] Fosse would lead: George Marcy, interview with the author, February 8, 2011.

  [>] “I remember going there”: Ibid.

  [>] “Jesus, she was so in love”: Ibid.

  [>] “She’s the one who encouraged me”: Chris Chase, “Fosse, from Tony to Oscar to Emmy,” New York Times, April 29, 1973.

  [>] Fosse thought of choreography as: “Is the Director-Choreographer Taking Over?” Roundtable discussion broadcast by radio station WEVD, New York, March 30, 1966.

  [>] “Joan was the biggest influence”: Bernard Drew, “Life as a Long Rehearsal,” American Film, November 1979.

  [>] Joan bloomed with the scent of cypress: Sagolla, The Girl Who Fell Down, 164.

  [>] she spoke French: Ibid.

  [>] she knew about wine: Ibid.

  [>] she advised Fosse to enroll in: “Bob Fosse,” The Dick Cavett Show, PBS, July 8, 1980.

  [>] “I was always very bad in class”: Richard Philip, “Bob Fosse’s ‘Chicago’: Roxie’s Razzle Dazzle and All That Jazz,” Dance Magazine, November 1975.

  [>] Room 3B at the Neighborhood Playhouse: Sanford Meisner and Dennis Longwell, Sanford Meisner on Acting (New York: Random House, 1987), 3.

  [>] Gloria Vanderbilt, Farley Granger: Farley Granger and Robert Calhoun, Include Me Out (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2007), 186.

  [>] If you do something, you really do it: Meisner and Longwell, Sanford Meisner on Acting, 17.

  [>] He told them a story about Fanny Brice: Ibid., 176.

  [>] “So you’re going to be nervous”: Ibid.

  [>] “I think he had some sort of motto”: Bob Fosse, interview with Stephen Harvey, LOC, box 60F.

  [>] Meisner saw what few had seen: “Sanford Meisner: The American Theatre’s Best Kept Secret,” American Masters, PBS, August 27, 1990.

  [>] despite Richard Rodgers’s objections to Fosse’s: Martin Gottfried, All His Jazz (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 1998; first published by Bantam in 1990), 62. Citations refer to the Da Capo edition.

  [>] Apparently, one of Metro’s scouts had seen him: Ibid.

  [>] “natural-born hoofer”: William Saroyan, The Time of Your Life (New York: Samuel French, 1941), 23.

  [>] contract for five hundred dollars: Bob Fosse’s MGM contract, LOC, box 51A.

  [>] She had diabetes: Sagolla, The Girl Who Fell Down, 225.

  [>] “Bobby was great in the show”: Phyllis Sherwood, interview with the author, December 12, 2010.

  [>] Fosse went up to Sherwood’s hotel room: Ibid.

  [>] “We laughed about it afterward”: Ibid.

  [>] “He never had a sleaziness about him”: Candy Brown, interview with the author, January 7, 2011.

  [>] “He always sort of tucked his head”: Blane Savage, interview with the author, February 26, 2011.

  [>] with chorus girls Norma Andrews: Gottfried, All His Jazz, 64.

  [>] “When he fell out of love with her”: George Marcy, interview with the author, February 8, 2011.

  [>] some wondered if Niles really understood: Ibid.

  [>] “added a lot of talking to his act”: Bill Smith, “Empire Room, Waldorf-Astoria, New York,” Billboard, February 2, 1952.

  [>] “Fosse’s ‘Time of Your Life’ bit: “Waldorf-Astoria, N.Y.,” Daily Variety, January 30, 1952.

  [>] he was visibly restless: Gottfried, All His Jazz, 64.

  [>] Andrews and Jackson suggested: Ibid.

  [>] filled his stomach with that sour: Chase, “Fosse, from Tony to Oscar to Emmy.”

  [>] April 28, 1952: “Equity Fines Miss Morrow,” Billboard, March 29, 1952.

  [>] Returning to Hollywood, to MGM, Donen learned: John Anthony Gilvey, Before the Parade Passes By: Gower Champion and the Glorious American Musical (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005), 53.

  THIRTY-FIVE YEARS

  [>] Just outside the high walls: Scott Eyman, Lion of Hollywood (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2005), 329.

  [>] “You know, Helen”: Hugh Fordin, MGM’s Greatest Musicals: The Arthur Freed Unit (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 1975), 439.

  [>] Mayer hated Smith and Salsbury: Leslie Caron, Thank Heaven: A Memoir (New York: Viking, 2009), 60.

  [>] Mayer’s 167 Culver City acres: Eyman, Lion of Hollywood, 1.

  [>] “If I start up another studio”: Ibid., 436.

  [>] five-hundred-thousand-dollar budget for a single number: Ibid., 440.

  [>] Bob Fosse sublet Buddy Hackett’s place: Martin Gottfried, All His Jazz (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 1998; first published by Bantam in 1990), 67. Citations refer to the Da Capo edition.

  [>] Fosse endured many screen tests: Kevin Boyd Grubb, Razzle Dazzle: The Life and Work of Bob Fosse (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989), 27.

  [>] They gave him a toupee: Ken Geist, e-mail to the author, February 14, 2011.

  [>] “That was a trauma for me”: Gaby Rodgers, “Bob Fosse: ‘Choreography Is Writing with Your Body,’” Long Island, October 1, 1978.

  [>] the part Kelly was supposed to play: John Anthony Gilvey, Before the Parade Passes By: Gower Champion and the Glorious American Musical (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005), 50.

  [>] they had a turkey on their hands: Stephen M. Silverman, Dancing on the Ceiling: Stanley Donen and His Movies (New York: Knopf, 1996), 181.

  [>] The last-minute casting: David L. Goodrich, The Real Nick and Nora: Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, Writers of Stage and Screen Classics (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004), 194.

  [>] Unceasing revisions put a strain: Marge Champion, interview with the author, August 24, 2011.

  [>] “They were Mr. Show Biz”: Gilvey, Before the Parade Passes By, 53.

  [>] “In my opinion”: Stanley Donen, interviewed by Michael Kantor, August 26, 2006, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Theatre on Film and Tape Archive.

  [>] “Fosse and Donen were wrapped up”: Marge Champion, interview with the author, August 24, 2011.

  [>] Donen was seen creeping up behind: Ken Geist, e-mail to the author, February 14, 2011.

  [>] Fosse was seen creeping up behind: Harvey Evans, interview with the author, January 28, 2011.

  [>] Out of a distant sound stage sailed: “Bob Fosse: Steam Heat,” Great Performances: Dance in America, PBS; first aired February 23, 1990.

  [>] “Hiya, Foss!”: American Film Inst
itute Salute to Fred Astaire, CBS, April 18, 1981.

  [>] “You see it on the screen”: Ibid.

  [>] they’d never let her dance: Lisa Jo Sagolla, The Girl Who Fell Down (Lebanon, NH: Northeastern University Press, 2003), 229.

  [>] “After they previewed it”: Marge Champion, interview with the author, August 24, 2011.

  [>] “Charlie”: Charles Grass, interview with the author, September 4, 2012.

  [>] “That’s the teenaged Bob Fosse”: Ibid.

  [>] “I was living in a one-room apartment”: Paul Rosenfield, “Fosse, Verdon and ‘Charity’: Together Again,” Los Angeles Times, July 21, 1986.

  [>] choreographer Michael Kidd’s parties: Interviews with Geraldine Fitzgerald, Gwen Verdon, Marian Seldes, and Elizabeth McCann, CUNY Spotlight, CUNY-TV, 1991, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Theatre on Film and Tape Archive.

  [>] “Dance it like a lady athlete”: Glenn Loney, Unsung Genius: The Passion of Dancer-Choreographer Jack Cole (New York: Franklin Watts, 1984), 214.

  [>] Joan McCracken, Mrs. Bob Fosse, had been one of Verdon’s: Gwen Verdon interview, Dance in America, WNET archives, September 6, 1989.

  [>] “Then came David and Bathsheba”: Hyman Goldberg, “Little Knock-Knees Knocks ’Em Cold,” Sunday Mirror Magazine, n.d., ca. 1955.

  [>] “One more body on the cutting room floor”: Jack Stone, “In Hollywood They Call Gwen Verdon the Naughty Girl on the Cutting Room Floor,” American Weekly, July 31, 1955.

  [>] “I never think of myself as sexy”: Ibid.

  [>] turned into loneliness: Peggy King, interview with the author, February 21, 2011.

  [>] “My parts were getting smaller”: Rosenfield, “Fosse, Verdon and ‘Charity.’”

  [>] “He was depressed”: Peggy King, interview with the author, February 21, 2011.

  [>] producer Arthur Loew, Kirk Douglas: Jane Allen, Pier Angeli: A Fragile Life (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2002), 35, 75, 84.

  [>] “Anna was moving up”: Peggy King, interview with the author, February 21, 2011.

  [>] “I think it would have been better if”: “AFC’s Loew Gives Fosse Salute,” Daily Variety, September 25, 1987.