Fosse

by Wasson, Sam

  [>] “That’s when people started to”: John McMartin, interview with the author, November 8, 2010.

  [>] I want to do it, Fosse told: Gottfried, All His Jazz, 129.

  [>] “He’s doing Pal Joey”: Ibid.

  [>] She laughed through it all: Ibid.

  [>] “It was a folie à deux”: Ibid.

  [>] “I’ve been fired”: Bill Guske, In the Company of Friends: Dancers Talking to Dancers III, the Men of Fosse, videotaped at the New Dance Group, New York, December 9, 2007.

  TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS

  [>] Fosse called Jack Perlman: R. Fosse v. Producers Theatre, Inc., legal papers, LOC, box 43B.

  [>] “I am hopeful”: Louis Calta, “Fosse in Dispute over Two Dances,” New York Times, December 16, 1960.

  [>] “unreasonably withheld”: R. Fosse v. Producers Theatre, Inc.

  [>] “An indication of the troubles”: Howard Taubman, “The Theatre: ‘The Conquering Hero,’” New York Times, January 17, 1961.

  [>] Standing there, he later said: Bob Fosse, letter to Judy Grossman and Diane Rubin, LOC, box 47C.

  [>] “How the fuck can you have”: Harold Prince, interview with the author, October 6, 2010.

  [>] “It made him look like he couldn’t choreograph”: Ann Reinking, interview with the author, November 15, 2010.

  [>] “He sat by her bed a long, long, long time”: Ibid.

  [>] “After my mother died”: Chris Chase, “Fosse, from Tony to Oscar to Emmy,” New York Times, April 29, 1973.

  [>] “Most of what I know about Bob”: Charles Grass, interview with the author, September 4, 2012.

  [>] seeing another woman: Barry Rehfeld, “Bob Fosse’s Follies,” Rolling Stone, January 19, 1984.

  [>] his dad in lipstick: Martin Gottfried, All His Jazz (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 1998; first published by Bantam in 1990), 158. Citations refer to the Da Capo edition.

  [>] correspondence with his siblings: Miscellaneous correspondence, LOC, box 47A, folders 7 and 8.

  [>] The first time she performed her big: Luke Yankee, Just Outside the Spotlight (New York: Back Stage Books, 2006), 101.

  [>] “Well,” he said: Eileen Heckart interview in Jackson R. Bryer and Richard A. Davison, eds., The Actor’s Art: Conversations with Contemporary American Stage Performers (Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers, 2001), 116.

  [>] “We are going to restage your number”: Yankee, Just Outside the Spotlight, 101.

  [>] “break [the choreographer’s] heart if I did that to him”: Ibid.

  [>] “You know, Heckart”: Ibid.

  [>] “Yes, it was quite magnificent”: Bryer and Davison, The Actor’s Art, 116.

  [>] “when we wore the little white gloves”: “Dance On: Ann Reinking,” Dance On with Billie Mahoney, video workshop for Dance and Theater, August 31, 1983.

  [>] “Every night”: Ibid.

  [>] “The high spot”: Richard P. Cooke, “The Theater,” Wall Street Journal, June 2, 1961.

  [>] “I saw Bob in Pal Joey”: Tommy Tune, interview with the author, January 6, 2011.

  [>] “I remember there was an interview”: Stephen Sondheim, interview with the author, February 15, 2012.

  [>] she found him ambling around: Buzz Halliday, interview with the author, November 3, 2011.

  [>] Getting away from show business: Ann Reinking, interview with the author, November 15, 2010.

  [>] Present that season, along with: Arthur Gelb, “Rialto by the Sea,” New York Times, August 13, 1961.

  [>] “This year [East Hampton] seems to”: Ibid.

  [>] “At the first reading”: Robert Morse, interview with the author, November 16, 2010.

  [>] “He got us into one big clump”: Donna McKechnie, interview with the author, October 14, 2010.

  [>] held in rooms without air-conditioning: Ibid.

  [>] “I’d watch them from the stage”: Ibid.

  [>] “Because Bob had been fired”: Gwen Verdon interview, Dance in America, WNET archives, September 6, 1989.

  [>] “The main problem”: Glenn Loney, “The Many Facets of Bob Fosse,” After Dark, June 1972.

  [>] “I took it to its extreme”: Ibid.

  [>] “On ‘Coffee Break,’ they”: Donna McKechnie, interview with the author, October 14, 2010.

  [>] all the chorus members: Ibid.

  [>] which had been passed around: Susan Loesser, A Most Remarkable Fella: Frank Loesser and the Guys and Dolls in His Life (New York: Donald I. Fine, 1993), 203–5.

  [>] Unwilling to part with the number, the team met: Cy Feuer and Ken Gross, I Got the Show Right Here (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003), 228–29.

  [>] “What did you mean by that?”: Gottfried, All His Jazz, 141.

  [>] “I’ve got an idea”: Feuer and Gross, I Got the Show Right Here, 229.

  [>] “The creative person is an absolute”: Moira Hodgson, “When Bob Fosse’s Art Imitates Life, It’s Just ‘All That Jazz,’” New York Times, December 30, 1979.

  [>] “When you stage a dance”: Paul Rosenfield, “Fosse, Verdon and ‘Charity’: Together Again,” Los Angeles Times, July 21, 1986.

  [>] Fosse called them his care pills: Jennifer Nairn-Smith, interview with the author, January 7, 2011.

  [>] “I want to see it full out”: Donna McKechnie, interview with the author, October 14, 2010.

  [>] “The word tired does not exist”: James Horvath, interview with the author, January 14, 2011.

  [>] “It was his belief in you”: Donna McKechnie, interview with the author, October 14, 2010.

  [>] “We see the perfection”: Ben Vereen, interview with the author, January 11, 2011.

  [>] Fosse and Verdon, alone except: Feuer and Gross, I Got the Show Right Here, 229.

  [>] “The results were exactly what”: Sam Zolotow, “Novel by Sneider Will Be Musical,” New York Times, September 22, 1961.

  [>] There had been a few attempts: “Theatre League Votes Refusal to Recognize Directors’ Union,” New York Times, April 3, 1962.

  [>] Fosse bounded into Variety Arts: Barrie Chase, interview with the author, April 21, 2011.

  [>] “Crafty, conniving, sneaky”: Walter Kerr, review of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, New York Herald Tribune, October 14, 1961.

  [>] “The most inventive and stylized”: John McClain, review of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, New York Journal-American, October 14, 1961.

  [>] “It belongs to the blue chips”: Howard Taubman, “Musical Comedy Seen at 46th St. Theatre,” New York Times, October 16, 1961.

  [>] “Nobody just walked across”: Tommy Tune, interview with the author, January 6, 2011.

  [>] dancer Barrie Chase: Barrie Chase, interview with the author, April 21, 2011.

  [>] “Shaking hands with Bob was like”: Ervin Drake, interview with the author, April 25, 2011.

  [>] “I went along with everything Fosse suggested”: Ibid.

  [>] “stayed away”: Ibid.

  [>] the production absorbed Fosse completely: Barrie Chase, interview with the author, April 21, 2011.

  [>] “He was very involved”: Ibid.

  [>] Variety suggested Fosse’s audition sequence: “Seasons of Youth” Review, Variety, November 1, 1961.

  [>] “a total cliché”: Barrie Chase, interview with the author, April 21, 2011.

  [>] “Hiya, Barrie”: Ibid.

  [>] Gwen got a call: Lisa Jo Sagolla, The Girl Who Fell Down (Lebanon, NH: Northeastern University Press, 2003), 257.

  [>] “Gwen,” Campbell began: Ibid.

  [>] “Years from now”: Bernard Drew, “Life as a Long Rehearsal,” American Film, November 1979.

  [>] Soon after he got the news, Fosse sat down: “Cleveland, U.S.A.,” short story, LOC, box 53B.

  [>] De Mille, Robbins, and Richard Rodgers were among: Leo Lerman, The Grand Surprise: The Journals of Leo Lerman, ed. Stephen Pascal (New York: Knopf, 2007), 246.

  [>] Joan’s “funeral was dreadful”: Ibid.

  [>] Fosse watched from the other si
de: Sagolla, The Girl Who Fell Down, 258.

  [>] got a call from Cy Feuer: Bob Fosse, interview with “Haddad,” 1982, LOC, box 49A.

  [>] “Co-?” Bob asked: Ibid.

  [>] It was book writer Neil Simon’s idea: Feuer and Gross, I Got the Show Right Here, 234.

  [>] Once, after a performance: Paul Turgeon, interview with the author, March 29, 2011.

  [>] But only if Feuer and Martin: Sam Zolotow, “Directors’ Union Enters Broadway,” New York Times, February 21, 1962.

  [>] now backed by Harold Clurman: “Directors Society Seeks Recognition,” New York Times, December 8, 1961.

  [>] “You know, I never can find”: Leo Lerman, “At the Theater,” Dance Magazine, January 1963.

  [>] every night, Edith: Warren Allen Smith, interview with the author, August 19, 2012.

  [>] Fernando Vargas, the studio’s co-owner, heard: Ibid.

  [>] “Fosse loved the front room”: Dan Siretta, interview with the author, February 22, 2012.

  [>] He and Gwen worked: Sally Hammon, “Scene at a 1st Rehearsal: The ‘Little Me’ Cast Meets,” New York Post, September 6, 1962.

  [>] He had one composition book: Fosse’s Little Me composition notebook, LOC, box 44C.

  [>] “I would pass Variety Arts every night”: Dan Siretta, interview with the author, February 22, 2012.

  [>] Barrie Chase returned to New York: Barrie Chase, interview with the author, April 21, 2011.

  [>] “We’d talk for maybe an hour”: Ibid.

  [>] “It looked like we couldn’t have one”: Jan Hodenfield, “Bob Fosse Feet First,” New York Post, April 21, 1973.

  [>] Neil Simon was rewriting constantly: Neil Simon, Rewrites: A Memoir (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), 110–12.

  [>] “You know at this point”: Richard and Betsy Gehman, “The Seven Caesars,” Theater Arts, November 1962.

  [>] “You mean I got to say it exactly this way?”: Gilbert Millstein, “This Caesar Has to Take Orders,” New York Times, November 11, 1962.

  [>] “He always seemed like he wanted”: Feuer and Gross, I Got the Show Right Here, 235.

  [>] “Basically, Sid was a brilliant”: Linda Posner (Leland Palmer), interview with the author, July 23, 2010.

  [>] “There was a joke”: Richard Lenon, “The Conquest of the Seven Caesars,” Newsweek, November 26, 1962.

  [>] “It was during the Cuban Missile Crisis”: Mervyn Rothstein, “The Seven Lives (and 36 Costumes) of Sid Caesar,” New York Times, November 1, 1998.

  [>] Simon took calls: Ibid.

  [>] “I don’t think there is any”: Loney, “The Many Facets of Bob Fosse.”

  [>] “I’ve never been in this position”: Simon, Rewrites, 113.

  [>] standing in tuxedos at the back: Neil Simon, Bob Fosse Memorial, Palace Theater, October 30, 1987, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Theatre on Film and Tape Archive.

  [>] “Bob very simply put his arms down”: Ibid.

  [>] Fifteen minutes later, when Fosse was: Ibid.

  [>] “If all the theatrical platitudes of”: Walter Kerr, “‘Little Me’—Tour de Farce for Sid Caesar,” Los Angeles Times, December 2, 1962.

  [>] “I have the feeling”: Whitney Bolton, “Theater,” New York Morning Telegraph, November 26, 1962.

  [>] “If it’s a boy, Nicholas”: Gottfried, All His Jazz, 156.

  [>] “I can’t explain it”: Robert Wahls, “Bob Who? Bob Fosse!,” New York Sunday News, November 26, 1972.

  [>] “I’ve been dancing since”: Bob Fosse acceptance speech, Dance Magazine awards, New York Athletic Club, April 23, 1963.

  [>] “He was so charming and sweet”: Kristoffer Tabori, interview with the author, February 23, 2011.

  [>] “After his number, he came over”: Ibid.

  [>] “I adored him”: Rita Gardner, interview with the author, February 14, 2011.

  [>] “I could see him really helping her”: Kristoffer Tabori, interview with the author, February 23, 2011.

  [>] Joey seemed softer, with a natural confidence: Ibid.

  [>] “Fosse had an incredible sense”: Ibid.

  [>] She could remember flipping between: Robert Wahls, “Gwen Verdon, the Eternal Gypsy,” New York Sunday News, June 1, 1975.

  [>] having lost Jerome Robbins to script: Deborah Jowitt, Jerome Robbins: His Life, His Theater, His Dance (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004), 346.

  [>] and, he thought, for Gwen: LOC, box 44A, note to Perlman.

  [>] approached Stark and Merrick with the idea: Bob Fosse/Jack Perlman correspondence, LOC, box 44A.

  [>] the rider stated: Rider to Fosse’s Funny Girl contract, June 28, 1963, LOC, box 44A.

  [>] tabled the rights discussion in good faith: Fosse’s handwritten farewell letter to Funny Girl company (September 1963), LOC, box 44A.

  [>] The lyrics, he said, made no sense: Gottfried, All His Jazz, 162.

  [>] Fosse heard Stark had placed: Fosse’s farewell letter to Funny Girl company.

  [>] he wrote a six-page letter explaining: Ibid.

  [>] fired off a telegram threatening: Ray Stark telegram to Bob Fosse, September 17, 1963, LOC, box 44A.

  [>] pulled her aside: Linda Posner (Leland Palmer), interview with the author, July 23, 2010.

  [>] Palmer’s hotel-room phone rang: Ibid.

  TWENTY-FOUR YEARS

  [>] “Nicole kept Bob in life”: Ann Reinking, interview with the author, November 15, 2010.

  [>] he vowed to put aside, for her: Tony Stevens, interview with the author, February 8, 2011.

  [>] “When Nicole came along”: Fred Mann III, interview with the author, February 22, 2011.

  [>] “He’s a fabulous father to Nicole”: Suzanne Daley, “Stepping into Her New Shoes,” New York Times, June 21, 1981.

  [>] “There was this point of great happiness”: Paul Rosenfield, “Fosse, Verdon and ‘Charity’: Together Again,” Los Angeles Times, July 21, 1986.

  [>] decided Verdon, at thirty-eight, was too old: Martin Gottfried, All His Jazz (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 1998; first published by Bantam in 1990), 161. Citations refer to the Da Capo edition.

  [>] Fosse and Verdon didn’t see Nazi Germany: Ibid.

  [>] heard at Gus Schirmer’s apartment: “Fosse Account of Events” (Jack Perlman’s notes on Charnin suit), LOC, box 26C.

  [>] told him to see Fellini’s film: Ibid.

  [>] “Harlequin is a well rounded”: “Gwen Verdon as Brokenhearted Harlequin,” Life, April 14, 1958.

  [>] midway through, Fosse knew: “Fosse Account of Events” (Jack Perlman’s notes on Charnin suit), LOC, box 26C.

  [>] Fryer admitted he felt only so-so: Ibid.

  [>] privately encouraged Fosse to stay: Ibid.

  [>] That night Fosse could not sleep: Ibid.

  [>] “Bob would be furious if”: Laurent Giroux, interview with the author, December 13, 2010.

  [>] In nine pages: 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.

  [>] Fosse got a similar response from: Jack Perlman’s notes on Charnin suit, LOC, box 26C.

  [>] the Tango Palace: Bob Fosse’s notes for “Dance Hall,” LOC, box 26D.

  [>] This time Fryer, Carr, and Verdon: Jack Perlman’s notes on Charnin suit, LOC, box 26C.

  [>] Fryer and Carr suggested Martin Charnin: Ibid.

  [>] “The first day I met Fosse”: Martin Charnin, interview with the author, December 3, 2011.

  [>] Shopping for a composer, Fosse reached out: Jack Perlman’s notes on Charnin suit, LOC, box 26C.

  [>] “One man did a great big”: Susan Loesser, A Most Remarkable Fella: Frank Loesser and the Guys and Dolls in His Life (New York: Donald I. Fine, 1993), 242.

  [>] “I knew we had trouble”: Lionel Chetwynd, “Except for Bob Fosse,” Penthouse, January 1974.

  [>] “Bobby worked morning, noon, and night”: Phyllis Newman, int
erview with the author, February 9, 2011.

  [>] “He would always be checking with her”: Don Emmons, interview with the author, April 18, 2011.

  [>] “In rehearsal, Loesser told me to”: Stan Page, interview with the author, July 15, 2011.

  [>] suggested they cut their losses: Jo Loesser, interview with the author, May 9, 2011.

  [>] “Well, so the kid doesn’t go”: Margery Beddow, Bob Fosse’s Broadway (New York: Heinemann, 1996), 36.

  [>] “The cast was so distraught”: Kathryn Doby, interview with the author, November 27, 2010.

  [>] “Women are very attracted to power”: Jan Hodenfield, “Bob Fosse Feet First,” New York Post, April 21, 1973.

  [>] “It takes two to play that game”: Christine Colby, interview with the author, March 20, 2011.

  [>] “We were almost done with Bob’s new”: Kathryn Doby, interview with the author, November 27, 2010.

  [>] Fosse watched as “Tears of Joy” evolved: Ibid.

  [>] “That’s how far the cast would go”: Ibid.

  [>] Fosse took actor John McMartin for a drink: John McMartin, interview with the author, November 8, 2010.

  [>] Fosse held a backers’ audition: Jack Perlman’s notes on Charnin suit, LOC, box 26C.

  [>] “I tried in Middle of the Night”: Paddy Chayefsky, “Not So Little,” New York Times, July 15, 1956.

  [>] “grasping, vicious, and pandering”: Paddy Chayefsky, “In Praise of Reappraised Picture-Makers,” New York Times, January 8, 1956.

  [>] “I swore I’d never again let”: Cecil Smith, “Chayefsky: Disciple of Making It Right,” Los Angeles Times, November 7, 1954.

  [>] “I decided to form my own company”: Richard W. Nason, “Glimpse of a ‘Goddess,’” New York Times, August 18, 1957.

  [>] “I thought he was a funny fellow”: Seymour Peck, “Exit from Realism,” New York Times, November 5, 1961.

  [>] “I meant the play to be”: “Chayefsky Talks about ‘Josef D.,’” New York Times, February 15, 1964.

  [>] He had taken a part-time teaching position: Clyde Haberman, interview with the author, April 13, 2011.

  [>] “From that time on”: Shaun Considine, Mad as Hell: The Life and Work of Paddy Chayefsky (New York: Random House, 1995), 245.

  [>] They got to work in Paddy’s office: Jack Perlman’s notes on Charnin suit, LOC, box 26C.