He began working on a drama about husband and wife relationships. The man and woman were about my age.
I read an early draft of the script and thought it could be wonderful with Fosse’s guidance.
Things had not been going that well for me. After Charity and a couple more films, Desperate Characters and The Possession of Joel Delaney, plus a disastrous foray into TV with Shirley’s World, I began to wonder what I was doing in the business. I spent over a year working for George McGovern and he lost too. I was badly in need of help.
I returned to the man who had found me in the first place … Fosse.
We met at Elaine’s in New York for dinner. We talked about the script and about what I wanted to do with my work from now on. I asked him if he would consider me for the picture.
“No,” he said. “You’re too famous.”
“Too famous?” I asked. “But I’m an actress who happens to be famous because I’ve done a lot of pictures.”
“I know,” he said.
“But Bob,” I went on, “do you think I’m right for the part?”
“Oh yeah,” he answered. “That’s not the problem. People know you too well from all the years, that’s all.”
“That’s all?” I asked. I started to sob, right there in Elaine’s. “I can’t believe you,” I said. “You’re telling me I’m right for the part. You know I’d be good, but you won’t use me because I’m too well-known?”
“Forgive me,” he said. I was beginning to detest his “forgive me” routine.
I left Elaine’s embarrassed and worried about my future.
A few weeks after our dinner, Bob had a heart attack.
He had been working hard on the Broadway musical Chicago, starring Gwen Verdón and Chita Rivera. The word around was that Chicago was his gift to Gwen for not being overly faithful to her. He was nervous and smoking like a California fire.
When he was ready to receive visitors, I went to the hospital. He looked so pale and fragile in his hospital robe. So drawn and sad.
“Forgive me if I cry,” he said. “The nurses tell me that depression is a natural reaction after a heart bypass operation.”
I said that I understood.
“I was watching a terrible review of Stanley Donen’s picture The Little Prince on TV right after I came out of the anesthesia. It made me so angry because of how it hurt Stanley that I had another heart attack right here in the hospital.”
Bob started to cry. “Forgive me,” he said. Tears slid down his face.
I watched him with a feeling I had never had for anyone in show business. A mixture of pure compassion, appreciation, love, and helplessness. I realized how deeply I cared about him.
We talked for a while.
“I had a strange dream under the anesthetic,” he said. “More like a vision or a real picture.”
“What was it?” I asked. He never shared such things, as a rule.
“I was dying,” he said. “And my daughter, Nicole, came to me. I was trying to explain what dying felt like. I found myself doing it to rhythm. I was dying to rhythm. I sang a rhythmic song to her called ‘Every Time My Heart Beats.’ I saw the number about dying as clear as a bell. And I thought to myself, Even as I’m dying, I’m working. I’m trying to figure out how to make it into a musical.”
As soon as he described his dream to me, I saw a musical. A musical about his life, his contradictions, his addictions, his loves, his insecurities.
“Why don’t you make a musical out of your death?” I asked.
“What?” he said.
“Yeah,” I said. “I mean, when you’ve been through what you’ve been through and you have a dream of dying to a musical number, you must be ready for a new kind of musical experience.”
“What do you think it means?” he asked.
“Oh, probably something like you want to be in complete control of choreographing your own demise so it will be done right. So it’d get great reviews.”
“Yeah,” said Bob. “Yeah. Control my own death. Then I could have myself do whatever I want; the other people too.”
He began to snap his fingers to the rhythm he said he had heard in his hallucinatory dream. His eyes took on that familiar rehearsal hall glint, his shoulders hunched, and he lurched out of bed. It was as though he had no concept of how ill he was except for his depression.
A nurse bolted into the room.
“Mr. Fosse,” she said. “Please get back in the bed or you’ll have another heart attack.”
“Yeah,” said Bob. “Yeah.” He crawled back under the sheets. His eyes brimmed over with tears again. “Forgive me,” he said. “Thanks for coming.”
I gathered my things and left. On the way out I ran into Gwen.
“How is he?” she asked.
“He seems okay,” I answered. “He’s real depressed. Madder than shit over that review of The Little Prince on TV.”
“Yes,” said Gwen. “He loves Stanley Donen. Remember he started with him in Hollywood. He somehow identifies with him. When Stanley gets bad reviews, Bob feels he’s gotten bad reviews.”
“And,” I added, “maybe he even sees himself as the Little Prince.”
Gwen laughed.
“He does look like him,” I said. “But Bob plays that other part, the snake in the tree, doesn’t he?” I asked.
Gwen rolled her eyes. “Oh yes,” she said. “Oh yes.”
“Well,” I said. “I hope he’s okay. He means a lot to me. I probably wouldn’t be where I am, wherever that is, if it weren’t for him.”
“I know,” she said. “I remember it all very well. Even the fact that you wanted to understudy me, but you went on for Carol instead. I remember.”
THAT NIGHT I LAY DOWN AND CRIED ABOUT FOSSE, I HAD a premonition that he was going to die. I didn’t want to lose him and I was afraid he didn’t understand what risks he was taking with his life. I cried for hours, wanting to help in some way. So, with the man I was living with—Pete Hamill, a brilliant journalist, novelist, and screenplay writer—I sat down and we hammered out a synopsis of a musical using Fosse’s heart attack as the centerpiece for the comedy and dramatic action. We worked on it for a week. After Fosse left the hospital, we sent it to him. Weeks went by, and we never heard anything.
A few months later I heard he was making phone calls to people, imploring them to be honest and share with him their genuine opinion of what they thought of him.
When his request brought compliments, he refused to accept them. “I want degrading, scathing opinions of me,” he’d say. “Tell me the worst thing you can think of.”
Everyone knew that such an investigative approach meant Bob was getting ready to do something about his life.
When Fosse called Fred Ebb, who wrote the lyrics to Chicago and many other Broadway hits, he insisted that Freddie be excruciatingly honest about his opinion of him.
Freddie complied. He told Bob he had used him as the model and inspiration for the song “All That Jazz” from Chicago. He told him that the lyrics depicting a sleight-of-hand trickster who basically had no talent and relied on “all that jazz” to get by in life were indeed about him—Bob Fosse.
Fosse thanked him, not the least perturbed or anguished over his coworker’s opinion of him because apparently, as we’d soon learn, he’d just been given the title for the new musical he was going to do about his heart attack! All That Jazz.
• • •
AFTER A FEW WEEKS I GOT MY CALL FROM BOB.
“Hello, Shirley?” he said. “This is Bobby Fosse.”
“Oh, hi,” I said. “How are you doing? How are you feeling?”
“Good,” he said. “Really good. I’m working on a new musical called All That Jazz. It’s about me and my experience when I had my heart attack.”
“Oh,” I said. “You’re doing a musical about your heart attack?”
“Yeah. Great idea, huh?”
“It sure is. Sounds vaguely familiar to me.” I waited a beat, thinking he would
cop to it. But he didn’t. He plowed right ahead, undaunted.
“So,” he went on. “The guy is me. He has a heart attack and he dies. And it’s a musical.” Bob laughed like the Peanuts character he saw himself as. “And I want you to play Gwen.”
“Gwen?” I asked. “Why can’t Gwen play Gwen?”
“Because,” he said, “you’d be better. She’s not a movie actress and there’s no one else who could be as authentic as Gwen.”
I thought, This is my chance. I took it. “But, Bob,” I said. “Don’t you think I’m too well-known as me to play Gwen? Don’t you think I’m too famous as me?”
He hesitated, vaguely realizing that I was rubbing something in.
“Too famous?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Well, you’re famous for being a dancer from Broadway and you’d be authentic.”
“So you say the picture is authentic and that’s why you want me to play Gwen?”
“Yeah,” he answered, “it’s a true story. I mean, I’m telling the nitty-gritty truth in this thing, about me and my life and what people really think of me.”
“But the guy dies,” I protested. “You say the guy is you, but you’re not dead. How can you say that’s authentic?”
Bob hesitated for a moment. “Okay,” he said. “I promise I’ll be dead by the first preview.”
I choked. He was probably not far off the truth.
I said I couldn’t dance that well anymore and didn’t want to spend the time and effort dieting and going to class. It was a relatively small part. He made me promise to see him a few weeks later when I’d be in New York.
I met him at my apartment in New York a few weeks later. He had never been there. I had pictures of friends and people I knew from all over the world on my table. Bob spotted a picture of Fidel Castro and me. From that moment on, all he wanted to know was whether I had had an affair with Fidel or not.
He knew I wasn’t going to play Gwen in the picture. He also knew that I knew his love life and sexual proclivities were complicated and tangled. If he could find a way to smoke out some juicy details of my personal life, they might come in handy for him later, either in real life or on the screen.
The picture turned out to be the crowning achievement of Bob’s career. It was an excruciatingly honest delineation of how he saw himself. To me it was American Ibsen, a Yankee Greek tragedy.
He lived through the first preview, which relieved me no end.
Time passed, and when I decided to do my first stage show I went to Bob for recommendations and help. He was wonderful. He suggested people and spun ideas for me.
I went on a killer regimen to get myself back into dancing shape—lost twenty-five pounds, did yoga, jogged five miles a day, went back to class, took singing lessons again, and in general prepared myself for a return to the stage and performer intention.
Gwen offered to preside over my anguished hours of debating whether I could still cut it. She reminded me that knowing who you are in a one-woman show is more important than anything else. You can dance well, sing well, and act well, but if you’re not comfortable being who you are, the audience won’t be comfortable.
New styles of dancing had come along since I had last indulged myself. She pointed out TV programs that would bring me up to date.
Hour after hour she’d choreograph me, put me through my paces, and see to it that I was doing the correct spot training in the gym. She recommended Alan Johnson as my choreographer, and he worked out so well that we’ve worked together ever since. Gwen was invaluable to me.
She was in the audience when I opened my first date in Vegas, at the MGM Grand. She supported, applauded, and gave me strength and good notes.
Fosse was in the audience when I opened at the Palace in New York. He came backstage with his own notes, helpful and correct. I should take out the forced jokes. I should talk less. Keep in the comedy number I was debating about. Get a new opening costume. Otherwise … I complied with everything he suggested. He was the best.
He was generous, nervous, and hauntingly depressed as he smoked away. I wasn’t concerned, though, because depression was the state he was most familiar with. I did wonder how deep depression could go without getting really serious.
I saw him a few times after that. Then the end came. He collapsed of a heart attack on the street a few blocks from my old dancing school in Washington, D.C. Gwen was with him. They were doing repairs on the national company’s production of Sweet Charity. He lay on the curb as Gwen and others tried to help him. I wished I could have been there. He died on the street that was his “home.”
I thought of how the destinies of the three of us had overlapped. How many times I had walked that very street, going to and from dancing school. I feel I owe my beginnings to Fosse because he was the first to acknowledge me. He died doing Sweet Charity, which had launched him in Hollywood because I had acknowledged him, and in the arms of the woman I very nearly understudied on Broadway; had I done so, it probably would have prevented my becoming what I am today. The three of us understood pain. We had been trained with pain as an instructor, and although we never had prolonged discussions on the subject, we also understood how much attitude and consciousness were necessary in transforming pain. In our creative expressions we each had had to work with our consciousness and attitudes in order to find some kind of harmony on the other side.
Each of us, I believe, was playing an integral part in the others’ lives, and I believe that was destined also. Fosse and Gwen were probably in my life somehow before any of us came dancing into this world.
9
SHOWBIZ POLITICS
My initiation into political activism was inspired by Marlon Brando.
I was making fried eggs in the kitchen of my house in the San Fernando Valley when he called me.
I had been in Hollywood a few years and was still learning the ropes. When I picked up the phone and heard his soft, yet insistent voice say, “Hello, this is Marlon Brando,” I knew it was really him because of his famous tonal quality and the pauses between his words. He had a way, even over the phone, of drawing you into his decision as to what words to use. Immediately I felt responsible for fulfilling whatever request he might have for me.
“I’m calling about the proposed execution of Caryl Chessman in Sacramento,” he explained. “I’m very much opposed to capital punishment. It’s cruel and inhuman punishment, I’m sure you agree.”
I didn’t know what to say. I’d never thought about it really. But it seemed right to be against it.
“I guess so,” I said.
“Yes,” continued Marlon, “Mr. Steve Allen and I are going to Sacramento to protest to Governor Pat Brown. We want to stop this execution and we want you to accompany us.”
“Me?” I asked.
“Yes,” he answered.
“But, Mr. Brando, I don’t know anything about this. I’ve read about it, but that’s all.”
As though he didn’t really hear me, Marlon continued.
“Your presence in Sacramento will be a gesture in living up to your responsibilities as a human being.”
I hesitated. Why should anyone care what I thought of capital punishment? Why did I matter? Why did Marlon Brando think I mattered?
“But,” I said, “why me?”
He took a moment before he delivered his next pronouncement.
“You are a new and budding star,” he said to me. “Young people will be looking up to you. You carry no other baggage with you, and if you don’t take up this challenge, it will haunt you for the rest of your life.”
I looked at my fried eggs. They were charcoal.
I thought of On the Waterfront and Brando’s plea for the dockworkers’ union and how Lee J. Cobb had beaten him up.
“Well,” I said reluctantly, “okay. Just tell me what you want me to do.”
“Thank you,” he said, “I’ll do that. And,” he went on, “we missed you on the Selma march for civil rights. This will mak
e up for it.”
The Selma march? Yes, I had seen that on television, but I had not felt I should be there … Marlon had a way of making you feel guilty over things that had never occurred to you.
We talked for a while longer, and when I hung up I realized that something had happened to me. Marlon had made me think about my responsibility as a human being and a citizen for the first time. It was a complicated realization. I was sort of a new celebrity, and I was shy about expressing myself, not only because I was not well enough informed about issues, but also because I dreaded being accused of grandstanding for publicity.
It’s not that I hadn’t been educated about social caring. I had. But my awareness had been more historical.
I had come from a Mason-Dixon-line family, which means that we lived on the line that separated the North from the South. My father was from a small town, Front Royal, Virginia, and my mother was a Canadian who became a naturalized citizen of the United States. When Mother went through her citizenship studies, my brother and I went through what we could understand of it with her. Thus, our early lives were imbued with a rudimentary understanding of political, social, and individual freedom in our country.
Our family lived in Richmond, the capital of Virginia, home of nine U.S. presidents; not an insignificant historical environment to grow up in. We learned about the Civil War from the land we played on, and during vacations, historical sites such as Williamsburg, Vicksburg, Bull Run, Yorktown, and Gettysburg were places where we shuffled through fall leaves and watched fireflies on summer nights.
We became somewhat interested in the power, meaning, and manipulation of politics because both of our parents seemed interested. They both adored Franklin Delano Roosevelt. We always listened to his fireside chats on the old radio in our living room, while Daddy smoked his pipe and Mother tried to learn more about being an American. Two events are seared into my memory.
One Sunday morning in December 1941 we gathered around the radio. I was dancing to “the music goes round and round and it comes out here.” I was seven years old and I remember wearing long floppy socks to keep my feet warm. Suddenly the music stopped and an announcer came on to say that President Roosevelt would speak to the nation. He began to talk. I remember wondering what “infamy” meant when he said, “This is a day that will live in infamy” and went on to announce something about the Japanese attacking Pearl Harbor. I remember my parents cried and I couldn’t understand why. I knew it must be important because it was the first time I had heard the word “war” and it meant something bad.
My Lucky Stars Page 18