Broadway's Most Wanted

by Tom Shea

  Julie Andrews, on the other hand, was 22 years Mary Martin’s junior, just as entrancing a musical performer, and, incidentally, the hottest movie star in the world, having just won the Oscar for Mary Poppins the year before. So when even the film editor said “when in doubt, cut to Julie Andrews,” it was pretty obvious that Andrews had become a legitimate phenomenon. Rodgers liked her so much that, following Hammerstein’s death, he penned Andrews a new song, “I Have Confidence,” that the Martin Maria probably would have never sung. But as Andrews was a Sherman tank of confidence on camera, it worked perfectly to set her character up for the balance of the film.

  10. CHITA RIVERA, BYE BYE BIRDIE

  Upon her triumphant return to Broadway in 1993’s Kiss of the Spider Woman, the phenomenal Chita Rivera was asked by a TV reporter why she hadn’t done more film work. Her answer was simple: “Darling, no one ever asked me.”

  Two of the great ironies of the musical theater are that Chita Rivera had to wait so long for a Tony (1984), and that she never made more movies. But Miss Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero has always been one of Broadway’s most admired leading ladies, an incomparable triple threat who added a spark of Latin passion to a post-Eisenhower Golden Age Broadway. Her performance as long-suffering Rose in Bye Bye Birdie, which found her doing good comedy as well as dancing the floor off, was a highlight of an already superb show, an examination of the approaching Rock era and its bewildering effects on parents and their children. The movie version, however, was a different story.

  Rose, as written to be played by Janet Leigh, was stripped of her ethnic heritage (yet named Rose De Leon, go figure Hollywood), so Rivera, not exactly box-office dynamite in Tinseltown, was dispensable. So why did they put Leigh in a black wig and make her up dark? As an apology to Rivera-lovers? Almost everything about the movie is wrong, except Dick Van Dyke and Paul Lynde, reprising their original performances, but the omission of Rivera clinches mediocre status for the film.

  Rivera and Van Dyke had tremendous chemistry on stage; indeed, that’s why the show ends with Albert and Rose in each other’s arms, and not with the high-schoolers Kim and Hugo. The movie ends with the inappropriate Ann-Margret (yeah, what a sweet high-school kid, huh?) belting out the forgettable new title song. That’s what Janet Leigh meant to the film.

  I Think I Can Play This Part

  10 Broadway Performers Who Did the Movie Version

  Few movie musicals have ever lived up to their predecessors in terms of quality. In many cases, it’s because producers courted a certain star who simply turned out wrong for the big part. Here are ten performers who rightly got a shot at recreating their Broadway triumphs on film.

  1. JOEL GREY, CABARET

  Cabaret’s grotesquely rouged-up, evil-clown Emcee was chillingly embodied by Joel Grey, playing host to the patrons of the Kit Kat Klub as well as ironic commentator on the fascism beating down the door of the Klub, and, by extension, all Germany. The Emcee’s presence at the fringes was more terrifying than the show’s more overt Nazi bullyboys, and Grey won a Featured Actor Tony in 1966.

  Bob Fosse’s 1972 film version of Cabaret, quite a different animal than the stage version, offers its own considerable pleasures, and chief among them is Grey. Essaying the Emcee again, he is more omnipresent, more malevolent, and less charming (if possible) than he was onstage, but just as memorable. He was awarded the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his work in the film version.

  2. ROBERT PRESTON, THE MUSIC MAN

  It bears repeating that before Meredith Willson’s The Music Man, Robert Preston was often cast as a hard guy or a clergyman, both on stage and on screen. Harold Hill, lightfooted but shady salesman, was neither heavy nor heavenly, but Preston took to musical theater like a duck to water. It was inevitable that he would star in the film version of The Music Man, as he was an established screen presence at the time.

  Morton Da Costa directed Preston in both the stage and screen versions of The Music Man, and though the film is a bit stagy, Preston is not. His charisma and charm burn through the screen.

  3. JUDY HOLLIDAY, BELLS ARE RINGING

  Bells are Ringing, a pleasant enough musical comedy, was set aloft by the radiance and appeal of Judy Holliday’s performance as Ella Peterson, Susanswerphone girl. Holliday received love letters from both crowds and critics, and stayed with the show through its entire 924-performance run.

  Librettists and lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green had conceived Bells are Ringing for their friend Holliday, and her legendary Tony-winning performance ensured Holliday would play Ella on screen. Although the movie disappointed, she didn’t, projecting both her sweet vulnerability and her facility with a throwaway line.

  4. WILLIAM DANIELS, 1776

  Although 1776 is basically a well-made musical play for a superb male ensemble, John Adams is definitely the starring role. And John Adams, as written by Peter Stone and Sherman Edwards, was thrillingly embodied by the abrasive yet engaging William Daniels.

  Much of the original Broadway cast of this unlikely hit recreated their roles on film, Daniels included. While the film has its weak moments, Daniels manages to duplicate the balancing act he achieved on stage, making us root for his cause while wishing he would just shut up, already.

  5. BARBRA STREIS AND, FUNNY GIRL

  It was bound to happen: Carol Channing conquered Barbra Streisand on Broadway, so Barbra Streisand naturally felt she had to conquer the world (and, incidentally, Carol Channing). Streisand blazed to superstardom in Funny Girl, the Jule Styne-Bob Merrill-Isobel Lennart musical bio of the legendary comedienne Fanny Brice. But Channing, as Dolly, bested her in the Tony race that year. So Streisand looked in a mirror and said, “Someday I will control the universe.”

  Producer Ray Stark had always imagined Funny Girl as a screen property, so giving Streisand the film was academic. Seldom has a performer been as self-assured as Streisand was in Funny Girl. So she knocked everybody’s socks off and won the Oscar in 1968. (Tied with Katharine Hepburn, actually.) She had her pick of roles after that, and she chose Hello, Dolly! and finally trumped La Channing.

  6. YUL BRYNNER, THE KING AND I

  Another impossibility: Imagine this movie without Yul Brynner. A puzzlement, yes? Did Yul Brynner ever play any other role than the King of Siam, anyway? Well, yes, roughly fifty of them, but King Mongkut was undeniably his supreme creation.

  On stage, the King was a supporting role to Anna Leonowens, created for Gertrude Lawrence. But after Brynner triumphed in the show on Broadway, the film version became much more Brynner-riffic, due to the Russian’s exotic on-camera appeal (and, incidentally, the absence of Lawrence). After the Academy Award, he never had a major stage triumph that didn’t involve the King.

  7. ROBERT MORSE, HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING

  The role of J. Pierrepont Finch is one of the juiciest in all of musical comedy, and Robert Morse became a huge star thanks to his portrayal of the ravenous corporate climber. How to Succeed… won the Tony and the Pulitzer, and Morse eagerly signed on for the film version.

  Unfortunately, much of the great Frank Loesser score is excised from the film version, and the cartoony look and style of the original production is also lost on the big screen. But Morse is in fine form, his mannerisms and charm on display throughout the piece, and he’s paired well with the beautiful Michele Lee, who took over the role of Rosemary from Bonnie Scott on Broadway. Also seen to good advantage are the priceless Rudy Vallee as Biggley, and Ruth Kobart as Jonesy, his secretary, both from Broadway as well. But it’s Morse’s show and movie all the way.

  8. GWEN VERDON, DAMU YANKEES

  Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets, and Gewen Verdón got tons of critical praise (not to mention a bushel and a peck of whoops and hollers from the tired businessmen) for her portrayal of Lola, a minion of the Devil who can ruin any man. The 1955 stage version of Damn Yankees cemented her reputation as a triple threat with sex appeal, but the film version of the musical, she
comes across less well, as her immediacy and sexiness are lost on the screen. As riveting as Verdon was live, she’s unfortunately only so-so on film.

  9. PETER PALMER, LI’L ABNER

  On film, Li’l Abner is one of the most faithful and satisfying recreations of a stage musical ever seen. Adding to the fun in Li’l Abner is the casting of physical types to fill out Al Capp’s demented comic strip worldview. And no one could inhabit the physique of man-child Abner Yokum better than Peter Palmer.

  Palmer was, as is obvious to anyone who’s ever seen him, a football player before he became a Broadway actor, but he was a natural charmer. Despite false alarms (Rock Hudson was out front one night, scaring Palmer to death), Palmer was flown to Hollywood, tested, and landed the role of Abner in the film version, with his reviews mostly of the “lovable lunkhead” variety.

  10. ELLEN GREENE, LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS

  When your first Broadway job is the calamitous Rachael Lily Rosenbloom, there’s nowhere to go but up. And up went Ellen Greene, a superb singing comedienne who landed her signature role, Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors, in 1982.

  Audrey, as written by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, is a breathy, busty, Marilyn Monroe type who longs for serenity and escape from the big city. Her two big numbers couldn’t be more different. Greene sweetly sold her “want” song, “Somewhere That’s Green,” in the first act, then ripped into the soulful gospel of the eleven o’clock number, “Suddenly Seymour.” It’s fitting that the only performer chosen to re-create their role in the big screen transfer of Little Shop of Horrors was Ellen Greene.

  All Hail the Political Honeymoon

  10 Musicals about Politics and Politicians

  Political satire is as old as the theater itself; audiences love to marvel and/or laugh at world leaders from the safe distance of a theater seat. Here are ten political musicals that gave their audiences a stumping good time.

  1. FIORELLO!

  The first hit show from Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick, this bright and brassy Tony- and Pulitzer-winning musical from 1959 was a warts-and-all portrait of the Little Flower, New York City’s irascible Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia, and the post-Tammany era which saw him shoot to political stardom.

  Tom Bosley shot to stardom as LaGuardia, giving full voice to librettist Jerome Weidman’s portrait of the Mayor as a loudmouthed enemy of corruption and champion of the Little Guy (and, remember, a Republican). One good reason for LaGuardia’s success was his common touch: LaGuardia spoke three languages, English and the musically serendipitous Italian and Yid dish, which served as a fantastic jumping-off point for the show’s big production number, a stump-speech triptych called “The Name’s LaGuardia.”

  2. OF THEE I SING

  “Wintergreen for President!” was the rallying cry in this immortal 1931 musical. John P. Wintergreen, that is, was candidate for office, and his running mate was Alexander Throttlebottom. The brothers Gershwin and librettists George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind told a huge, quasi-comic-operatic tale in brilliantly musicalized satire, with the candidate picking a bride from a beauty contest (then refusing to marry her because she can’t bake) and sweeping scenes of conventioneering and campaigning.

  Easily the most structurally integrated musical of its time, it became the first tuner to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama. The idea of giving the award to a musical was so new and unexpected, however, that the prize went only to Kaufman and Ryskind. Of Thee I Sing was followed by a less successful (and possibly even more bizarre) sequel, Let ’Em Eat Cake.

  3. EVITA

  After turning Jesus into a rock star in the early ’70s, Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber chose to do the same for Argentina’s legendary First Lady. Rice had long been fascinated by the blonde actress who married General Juan Peron and rose to iconic status after Peron assumed the Presidency. (For his part, Webber hated her, but a job’s a job.)

  The politics of the era were given short shrift, mostly declared rather than musicalized or dramatized. But in the case of one number in particular, “The Art of the Possible,” Prince cleverly staged the politics. Peron and three other generals describe the easiest way to make it to the top of the heap (travel the path of least resistance) as their rocking chairs disappear one by one, leaving Peron the last man standing.

  A studio recording was released prior to the stage production in England, with pop stars guaranteeing the hit status of the show. Harold Prince’s neo-Brechtian production was aided greatly by Elaine Paige in London and Patti LuPone in New York, both of whom offered searing depictions of this ruthless angel.

  4. I’D RATHER BE RIGHT

  The great showman George M. Cohan was lured out of semi-retirement to take a shot at portraying FDR in this 1937 Rodgers and Hart satire. Due to the popularity of the creators (Kaufman-Hart libretto) and the novelty of the casting, anticipation was almost unprecedented. And, as is almost always the result in that case, the outcome disappointed.

  Cohan, despite his quarrelsome nature during rehearsals, won raves and could have run for President himself. But the show, rightly or not, was inevitably compared to Of Thee I Sing and found wanting. Too satirical, the critics said. Too critical, too broad. Cohan, for his part, probably said something like, “Say, listen, see?” Or was that Cagney?

  5. STRIKE UP THE BAND

  This superbly funny 1930 Gershwin brothers musical betrays the cynical streak evident in their “Wintergreen” shows, as the United States goes to war with Switzerland over cheese. It was originally conceived as a bitterly satiric anti-war tract, written by George S. Kaufman, culminating in impending war against the Soviets. Morrie Ryskind revised Kaufman’s libretto, substituting the neutral Swiss for the Reds, pointing up the satire by placing all within the context of a dream.

  Hailed as not only funny and tuneful (the rescued “I’ve Got a Crush on You” and the title tune, which isn’t really the flag-waver it has become in our time) but also intelligent, the show had a run as bittersweet as Swiss chocolate—only 191 performances. Due to the superb score, the show continues to thrive in stock and amateur productions, often sporting watered-down political content.

  6. JOHNNY JOHNSON

  The great Kurt Weill collaborated with the Group Theater’s Paul Green on this anti-war zeitoper (a German term meaning “opera for the spirit of the times”) from 1936, which examined the after-effects of World War I on a small-town lad, the eponymous Johnny.

  Young Johnson tells a harrowing tale of war, of meeting an enemy soldier (also called Johnny) as pacifist as he, and of returning home, only to be hospitalized “for his own good” and turned into a street peddler. The sophisticated score played interestingly off the very uneven satire of the book, which echoed Weill’s old partner, Bertolt Brecht.

  7. MAYOR

  “How’m I doin’?” was the rhetorical question Mayor Ed Koch asked of the people of New York. He also asked it in print, in his 1984 quasi-auto-biography Mayor, which was quickly adapted into the cabaret musical of the same title in 1985.

  Featuring a book by Warren Leight (who would go on to pen the 1999 Tony-winning play Side Man) and a score by the talented composer Charles Strouse, Mayor was a small, sketch-type show that tended to flatter Hizzoner Koch and played up his strengths as a man of the people, a mover and shaker, and a publicity hound.

  8. KNICKERBOCKER HOLIDAY

  Another Kurt Weill zeitoper, this anti-fascist tract from 1938 was authored by Maxwell Anderson, adapted from Washington Irving’s novel Old Knickerbocker’s Guide to New York (and featured Irving himself, commenting on the progress of the musical). Originally a critique of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the show eventually told of Brom Broeck, the first American, so called because he wouldn’t take orders from New Amsterdam’s tyrannical Dutch governor, Pieter Stuyvesant.

  Trouble was, Anderson’s didactic book succeeded only in making his points early and too often. Weill’s great score, featuring the classic “September Song,” the Depression-era rouser “There’s Nowhere t
o Go But Up,” and the haunting “Requiem for a Soldier,” was left to pick up the slack. Knickerbocker Holiday is credited as being the first musical to use a historical figure from past history to comment on present political affairs.

  9. THE FIX

  This regional theater offering was presented by the Signature Theater Company of Arlington, Virginia, in the Spring of 1998, after London’s Donmar Warehouse premiered it in 1997. A modern, very dark tale of corruption, dirty politics, and murder, it featured a book and lyrics by John Dempsey, and music by Dana P. Rowe.

  The Fix concerns the Chandler (Kennedy?) family, the patriarch of which dies in bed with his mistress at the show’s start. The games go on from there. The scion, Cal, must keep his kinks in check and the family’s skeletons in the closet in order to rise up the ladder of public office. The Fix earned points for its unremittingly bleak outlook.

  10. 1776

  A different kind of political musical, this 1969 musical took the seminal moment in America’s history, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and brilliantly fleshed it out. As many have noted, the success of the show lay in the tension created despite the familiarity of the outcome.