Party Animals

by Robert Hofler

  Shoji screens divided the rooms, and in the morning, some guests from the mainland complained of the bright morning light flooding their bedrooms. Every room opened to the outside, and occasionally Allan would forget to warn a novice guest before he or she descended a few stone steps to the beach and triggered the alarm system. Within seconds, half a dozen security guards would appear and point their guns.

  Most people found it to be a very impressive house. Arthur Laurents wasn’t one of those people. “It was on a ratty beach of rock and cut glass,” he recalls. Even more unappetizing was the sight of Allan in swim trunks. “Not pleasant,” says Laurents. “He had his jaws wired shut and he ate like a pig.”

  Chocolate cake, it seems, topped Allan’s list of favorite foods the weekend that Laurents and Holt visited Surfhaven, even though not much of it got through the wires coursing through his teeth, which had recently been snapped shut—again. “Allan took a knife and cut through the cake, spreading the chocolate all over his breasts. Don’t ask me why,” says Laurents.

  He then made a kind offer to his two guests from the La Cage aux folles battlefield. “Why don’t you take a nap and I’ll have this guy come in and blow you?” Allan offered.

  Holt and Laurents declined the invitation. The potential blow-jobber was, in Laurents’s estimation, “a kid who had done West Side Story in high school, and Allan was using me to impress him. He looked like a frightened lamb.”

  twenty-one

  Spring Breakdown

  As La Cage aux folles came together, Allan attempted to resuscitate his reputation in Hollywood after the ill-fated double blowouts of Can’t Stop the Music and Grease 2. It was not an especially auspicious choice with which to make his comeback, but Where the Boys Are spoke to Allan. Just as Grease was his hopelessly romanticized rendition of what were tragic times at Highland Park High, WTBA symbolized his Lake Forest College days as he wanted to relive them, with the Fort Lauderdale spring break thrown into the mix. No matter that the original Where the Boys Are is a fairly standard-issue run-of-the-mill beach-blanket-bingo movie circa 1960. Its ultrawaspish stars, from Jim Hutton and George Hamilton to Yvette Mimieux and Paula Prentiss, loomed as the idealized copies of the Illinois frat boys and sorority girls whom Allan wrote about incessantly in his “Through the Keyhole” gossip column.

  Equally important, Allan could make the remake fast, he could make it cheap at $5 million, and he could do what he did best: create a few new stars and party with them in the process.

  The new Where the Boys Are let Allan reexperience spring break, albeit thirty years later, the upshot being that he got laid this time around. “We shot scenes of spring break, driving up and down the beach looking for beautiful people to be in the movie,” says the film’s production manager, Neil Machlis. As they cruised down the boulevard off the beach, Allan waved from his rented Cadillac. As always, it was the casting process that really got his juices, creative and otherwise, flowing. “Want to be in a movie?” he cried to every shirtless buff guy on the sidewalk. “Hi, I’m Allan Carr. I’m the producer of Grease.” It was his Florida update on his recent pickup line, “Cash or career?”

  For any college boy or coed who doubted his sincerity, Allan pointed to a couple of cameramen in his entourage, who followed in another car. Allan possessed an eye for talent—or, at least, physical beauty—and to prove it, the footage shot on his Fort Lauderdale tour convinced the film company ITC to green-light the Where the Boys Are remake.

  For a few days in April 1983, as Arthur Laurents and company toiled away on La Cage aux folles in New York and Allan trolled the beaches of Fort Lauderdale, it was for Allan the best of both worlds, combining as he did the Hollywood of Where the Boys Are with the Broadway of a new musical. Once he finished with the Florida college boys, Allan took his talent search to Los Angeles, where he found himself completely smitten by a twenty-six-year-old actor named Howard McGillin. In time, McGillin would earn himself a place in The Guinness Book of Records for clocking in more performances in the title role in The Phantom of the Opera than any other human being. But in 1983, McGillin struggled to support his wife and son, and needed to establish himself in the entertainment business. Along with dozens of other actors who auditioned for the role of the “son,” Jean-Michel, in La Cage aux folles, McGillin waited his turn to sing the love song “With Anne on My Arm,” in which the character Jean-Michel professes his love for his fiancée.

  Unlike those other contenders, however, McGillin inspired Allan to call the long, arduous audition process to an abrupt halt. Suddenly, it wasn’t the sweet strains of Jerry Herman’s ballad that kept Allan’s ears buzzing as he followed McGillin out of the Debbie Reynolds Studios and into the asphalt heat of the parking lot on that unduly warm spring day in North Hollywood.

  “You’re going to be a star!” Allan called out. He then reintroduced himself to McGillin, and launched into a promo of not La Cage aux folles but Where the Boys Are ’84. Since McGillin had never seen the original beach-blanket movie, the on-the-spot offer to appear in the remake impressed him. “You must come up to my house,” Allan continued. “It’s a great house. Ingrid Bergman used to own it. You’re going to be the star of Where the Boys Are!”

  Despite McGillin’s audition for La Cage aux folles, that Broadway project quickly evaporated into the white glare of the sun-baked smog over the San Fernando Valley. For an actor in search of any and all credits, those seven words—“You’re going to be a movie star!”—summed up, if not his every dream, then at least next month’s rent.

  Over the next few weeks, as Allan shuttled back and forth between New York City, to take care of La Cage aux folles business, and Fort Lauderdale, to scout Where the Boys Are locations, he found ample time to entertain McGillin at Hilhaven Lodge and introduce him to potential writers and directors for Where the Boys Are. McGillin reread the script many times to help audition other actors whom Allan liked. “I was drawn into this crazy roller-coaster period of about two months,” says McGillin. There were incessant phone calls to McGillin’s house. When the actor’s wife answered, Allan wanted to know, “Is the star there?” Every time Allan called, the conversation would lead to “Get up here. Right away.”

  It didn’t much matter what day of the week or what time of day. Early one Sunday morning, McGillin found himself unceremoniously summoned to Allan’s house. “I was leery, and it didn’t help that he came to the door wearing a bathrobe. But Allan was very respectful of [heterosexual men]. That’s true,” says McGillin, who years later came out as a homosexual.

  Only once did McGillin consider saying no to his movie mentor’s demands, and that minor stab at recalcitrance coincided with his son’s second birthday party. McGillin had invited his closest friends to celebrate the big event, held on a Saturday, when the phone rang early that morning. “You must be at the Universal Sheraton today. It’s the final audition,” announced Allan.

  McGillin couldn’t help but wonder: Hadn’t he already been put through several final auditions?

  Two hours later, the currently unemployed but future movie star walked down the hallway of the Universal Sheraton, where dozens of other twenty-ish actors were preparing to audition for Where the Boys Are ’84. Many of them brought entire wardrobes. In the middle of such planned chaos, McGillin watched as Allan jumped from suitcase to suitcase to check out clothes. “This shirt is fabulous!” he told one boy. “My dog wouldn’t be caught dead in those shorts!” he told another.

  What McGillin didn’t know was that sometime between his first audition for La Cage aux folles and his umpteenth reading for Where the Boys Are, Allan needed a haircut, which led him to Jerry Esposito’s small hair salon, which operated in a cottage on Fountain Avenue in West Hollywood. While having his hair shampooed, cut, and blow-dried, Allan happened to glance up at his haircutter’s mirror and spotted the black-and-white headshot of an attractively broody young man who reminded him of Monty Clift before the car accident. He asked Esposito, “Who’s that cute guy?” />
  Always the performer, Alan Solomon dons a Cub Scout cap and shows some leg at his home in Highland Park, Illinois, 1940s.

  FREDDIE GERSHON COLLECTION

  Ann-Margret and Tina Turner share a laugh over Allan’s gift, at the Tommy subway party, New York City, 1975.

  SAL TRAINA / WWD © CONDE NAST PUBLICATIONS

  Elton John, decked out in his Local Lad-inspired regalia from Tommy, enjoys a pensive moment in the subway during the premiere party, 1975.

  SAL TRAINA / WWD © CONDE NAST PUBLICATIONS

  Ann-Margret goes all out, and then some, to play Roger Daltrey’s mother in Tommy, 1975.

  PHOTOFEST

  The Cycle Sluts delight Allan’s more liberal guests, but shock Hugh Hefner, Rex Reed, and a few charter members of Hollywood’s old guard, 1975.

  ONE INSTITUTE COLLECTION

  Roman Polanski receives a standing ovation amidst roving violinists at the Rolodex Party, Malibu, 1977.

  PETER C. BORSARI

  Allan brings together the worlds of Hollywood actors and Hollywood rockers, in this case Joan Collins and a pink-wigged Elton John.

  FREDDIE GERSHON COLLECTION

  The ultimate fan, Allan re-creates Sandy’s bedroom from Grease in Hilhaven Lodge, and dubs it THE OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN ROOM.

  PHOTOFEST

  John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John pay the proper respect to their newly svelte producer on the gymnasium set of Grease, 1978.

  PHOTOFEST

  Grease producer Robert Stigwood, in stripes, shares a laugh with the Bee Gees. Barry Gibb, far right, writes the movie’s title song, 1978.

  PHOTOFEST

  During the Discoland shoot in New York City, gay protesters confuse the film with Cruising starring Al Pacino. Regardless of those problems (and others), Steve Guttenberg, Randy Jones, Valerie Perrine, David Hodo, and Bruce Jenner continue to romp through the streets of Greenwich Village, 1979.

  PHOTOFEST

  Valerie Perrine, surrounded by the Village People, lands in a big glass of champagne for the “Milk Shake” song in Can’t Stop the Music, 1980.

  PHOTOFEST

  How many pecs can one pool hold? Allan goes for the maximum number with the big “Y.M.C.A.” muscle fest in Can’t Stop the Music, 1980.

  PHOTOFEST

  Can’t Stop the Music opens in New York City with an extravagant outdoor circus-themed party at Lincoln Center, 1980.

  ROBIN PLATZER/TWIN IMAGES

  Siblings unite: Liza Minnelli offers her congratulations to sister Lorna Loft during the Grease 2 festivities at Studio 54, 1982.

  ROBIN PLATZER/TWIN IMAGES

  Allan ogles Maxwell Caulfield at the Grease 2 party in Hollywood, 1982. Later, he has serious second thoughts about his casting choice when the movie tanks at the box office.

  PETER C. BORSARI

  Allan manages a discreet striptease that upstages his Grease 2 star Michelle Pfeiffer, who arrives at the New York City premiere with her husband, Peter Horton, 1982.

  ROBIN PLATZER/TWIN IMAGES

  Allan demands that the La Cage aux folles cast album be ready in record time for the opening-night party. At work in the recording studio are (left to right) Jerry Herman, Arthur Laurents, George Hearn, Gene Barry, Thomas Z. Shepard, and Fritz Holt.

  PHOTOFEST

  Harvey Fierstein and Jerry Herman celebrate with Angela Lansbury at the Broadway opening of the two writers’ new musical, La Cage aux folles, 1983.

  ROBIN PLATZER/TWIN IMAGES

  La Cage aux folles star Gene Barry shares the stage, but not the Palace Theater elevator, with one of the Cagelles.

  PHOTOFEST

  “You’re a star”: A barber-shop photo leads Allan to his Where the Boys Are ’ 84 favorite, Russell Todd, 1984.

  PHOTOFEST

  Just follow the stars: Oscar statues, plus a few million tulips flown over from Holland, adorn the Shrine Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles on March 29, 1989.

  PHOTOFEST

  Rob Lowe’s Prince Charming serenades Eileen Bowman’s Snow White to the tune of “Proud Mary” during the Cocoanut Grove opening number of the Academy Awards, 1989.

  LOS ANGELES TIMES

  Before the bad reviews roll in, Allan looks upbeat in the company of Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, Bob Hope, and Corey Feldman in the Club Oscar greenroom, 1989.

  ALEX BERLINER/BEIMAGES

  Rob Lowe, an instant Oscar disgrace, hides in the background as Patrick Swayze, Bruce Vilanch, and Allan smile for the camera during the Academy Awards telecast, 1989.

  ALEX BERLINER/BEIMAGES

  Allan inaugurates his basement discotheque at Hilhaven Lodge, its walls (and his caftan) festooned with ersatz Egyptian hieroglyphics, 1978.

  PETER C. BORSARI

  “An actor,” the haircutter replied. “He comes in here. His name is Russell Todd.”

  “Put me in touch,” said Allan. Which led to his pushing aside McGillin for the male lead in Where the Boys Are.

  Allan’s turn of affection may have had less to do with love, lust, or anything in between than pure business. Where McGillin chose not to sign with Allan’s new company, Anonymous Management, Russell Todd became a client. The result: McGillin ended up playing second stud, his role reduced to the bookends of humping Lorna Luft over the credits and reuniting with her in the film’s last reel.

  As Allan prepped Where the Boys Are, he continued to work on casting La Cage aux folles, where “Everyone from Danny Kaye to Milton Berle to Dick Shawn to Jack Carter to Robert Alda” wanted to star, he told people. Instead, Arthur Laurents cast two actors somewhat less known to the general theatergoing audience: George Hearn and Gene Barry.

  The two actors had their doubts. Wearing a blue blazer, Barry looked like he’d just walked off Rodeo Drive for his audition and sang “What Kind of Fool Am I?” but not before having long talks with his wife and children about playing a gay man onstage. (“I don’t play the homosexual part of Georges,” he would later say. “I play the love he feels for Albin.”) Hearn also felt he’d put his masculinity on the line, and required a shot of whiskey before he sang “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” in drag. “It was the longest walk I took in my life,” he said of taking the stage that day. Regardless of the actor’s inner turmoil, Allan bought it.

  “Hearn walked in wearing a dress and looking like Arlene Dahl,” Allan said of the winning audition, “and he walked out looking like Ann-Margret at Caesars Palace.” After hearing Hearn and Barry, Allan opined, “We knew we could go ahead with the show,” as if the project was ever in danger of falling apart for lack of thespian interest.

  While Fierstein considered George Hearn and Gene Barry gifted performers, he knew dozens of talented gay actors from his Off-Off-Broadway days, and felt strongly that only a fellow homosexual could bring the required pathos to the roles of Georges and Albin.

  “I insisted on openly gay leads for the show, and Laurents called me a bigot. He called me a lot of things,” says Fierstein.

  Laurents didn’t think a performer’s sexual orientation made much difference. “Harvey, an actor is an actor,” he kept saying.

  Fierstein challenged him. “You can have the greatest twenty-year-old actress with natural talent and star quality and you can train her brilliantly, but she cannot play a grandmother. There are things life hasn’t shown her. Most gay actors have been beaten all their lives on some level, economically, politically, emotionally.”

  In the show’s anthem, “I Am What I Am,” in which Albin defiantly registers his pride in being a gay cross-dresser, Fierstein found special fault with casting a heterosexual: “George Hearn gave his body and soul to that role, he worked that thing. He worked his ass off. He cared about that role. But there is a lifetime of shattered pain in ‘I Am What I Am.’ Those were the battles.” (Later, when the show had run on Broadway for over a year, Laurents cast a gay actor in one of the lead roles. According to Fierstein, “I’m probably one of the three people in the world, living or dead, who Arthur apologized to. He called
me to say, ‘You are so right. What a difference it makes!’”)

  Allan supported Laurents in these contretemps. “An actor is an actor,” he believed. Also, he felt strongly that his director, a Broadway veteran, knew best, adopting Laurents’s credo “from the orchestra rail to the backstage” as a kind of iron-curtain divide that protected him from Fierstein’s complaints.

  Casting wasn’t marketing, and it was here, on Allan’s turf of how to promote and advertise La Cage aux folles, that Laurents and his producer finally butted egos.

  While everyone involved with the musical saw it as “an entertainment,” the gay subject matter continued to make it a difficult sell, and investors weren’t the only ones to resist its charms. Broadway’s significant homosexual contingency could keep the show running for, maybe, six weeks. But how did Allan capture that much larger core audience—that is, very mature heterosexual tourists—and get them to fall in love with the first gay couple in Broadway musical history?