Razzle Dazzle
Page 49
Most of all, I thank my parents, who let me scurry down to Florida, turn their lanai into a writer’s colony, and work for hours undisturbed. Without them, there would be no book, no writer, no life.
© ANNIE WERMIEL
MICHAEL RIEDEL has been the theater columnist for the New York Post since 1998. His twice-a-week column in the paper has been called a “must-read for the city’s theaterati” (Chicago Magazine), “a guilty pleasure” (New York magazine), and “brilliant” (Daily Telegraph). Before working at the Post, he wrote features at the New York Daily News and was the managing editor of TheaterWeek. Riedel is the cohost of Theater Talk on PBS and a weekly panelist on Imus in the Morning. A graduate of Columbia University, he lives in New York City.
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NOTES
Chapter One: The Ice Age
1. William Goldman, The Season: A Candid Look at Broadway (New York: Limelight Editions, 1984), 340.
2. Stuart W. Little and Arthur Cantor, The Playmakers (New York: W. W. Norton, 1970), 228.
3. Jerry Stagg, The Brothers Shubert (New York: Random House, 1968), 356.
4. Milton Esterow, “Scalpers’ Profit on Shows in a Year Put at $10 Million,” New York Times, December 11, 1963.
5. Esterow, “Scalpers’ Profit on Shows.”
6. Ibid.
Chapter Two: The Phantom
1. Foster Hirsch, The Boys from Syracuse: The Shuberts’ Theatrical Empire (New York: Cooper Square Press, 2000), 231.
2. Philip J. Smith, interview with author.
3. Foster Hirsch, The Boys from Syracuse, 15.
4. Brooks Atkinson, Broadway (New York: Limelight Editions, 1985), 14.
5. Hirsch, The Boys from Syracuse, 45.
6. Syracuse Journal, May 12, 1905.
Chapter Three: Mr. Lee and Mr. J. J.
1. Stagg, The Brothers Shubert, 70.
2. A. J. Liebling, The Telephone Booth Indian (New York: Broadway Books, 2004), 118.
3. Hirsch, The Boys from Syracuse, 167.
4. Hirsch, quoting U.S. Representative Emanuel Cellar, The Boys from Syracuse, 217.
Chapter Four: While There Is Death There Is Hope
1. Gerald Schoenfeld, Mr. Broadway: The Inside Story of the Shuberts, the Shows, and the Stars (Milwaukee, Wisc.: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, 2012), 32.
2. Hirsch, The Boys from Syracuse, 226.
3. Schoenfeld, Mr. Broadway, 46.
4. Richard Crossman, The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston), 11.
5. Schoenfeld, Mr. Broadway, 55.
6. Hirsch, The Boys from Syracuse, 269.
7. Schoenfeld, Mr. Broadway, 86.
Chapter Five: Bastards, Criminals, and Drunks
1. Hirsch, The Boys from Syracuse, 254.
2. Joseph Berger, “Goldman & the Shubert Estate Settlement,” New York Post, May 3, 1974.
3. Edith Evans Asbury, “First Wife Gets Shubert Estate; Children of 2nd Held Legitimate,” New York Times, August 9, 1963.
4. Nora Ephron, “Shubert Sent Love Letters to Wife He Was Shedding,” New York Post, August 7, 1963.
5. Berger, “Goldman & the Shubert Estate Settlement.”
6. Hirsch, The Boys from Syracuse, 269.
7. Berger, “Goldman & the Shubert Estate Settlement.”
8. Hirsch, The Boys from Syracuse, 258.
9. N. R. Kleinfield, “How a Shubert Fund Produces and Directs,” New York Times, July 10, 1994.
Chapter Six: Changing of the Guard
1. Richard Rodgers, Musical Stages: An Autobiography (New York: Da Capo Press, 1995), 302.
2. Laurence Bergreen, As Thousands Cheer: The Life of Irving Berlin (New York: Viking, 1990), 547.
3. Michael Riedel, “One Day Put a Tune in My Life,” New York Post, July 2, 2010.
4. Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn, Notes on Broadway: Conversations with the Great Songwriters (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1985), 98.
5. Martin Gottfried, All His Jazz: The Life and Death of Bob Fosse (New York: Bantam Books 1990), 150.
Chapter Seven: New York, New York, a Helluva Mess
1. Ken Mandelbaum, Not Since Carrie: Forty Years of Broadway Musical Flops (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991), 153.
2. Fred Siegel, The Prince of the City: Giuliani, New York and the Genius of American Life (San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2005), 4.
3. Greg David, Modern New York: The Life and Economics of a City (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 10.
4. George J. Lankevich, New York City: A Short History (New York: New York University Press 1998), 197.
5. Lankevich, New York City, 197.
6. David, Modern New York, 11.
7. Vincent J. Cannato, The Ungovernable City: John Lindsay and His Struggle to Save New York (New York: Basic Books 2002), 526.
8. Carl Weisbrod, interview with author.
9. Sidney J. Baumgarten, interview with author.
10. Anthony Bianco, Ghosts of 42nd Street: A History of America’s Most Infamous Block (New York: Harper Paperbacks, 2005), 26.
11. Lynne B. Sagalyn, Times Square Roulette: Remaking the City Icon (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001), 42.
12. George Chauncey, Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890–1940, (New York: Basic Books, 1994), 339.
13. Cannato, The Ungovernable City, 537.
Chapter Eight: The Coup
1. Murray Schumach, “Shubert Empire Fighting a Financial Crisis,” New York Times, December 11, 1972.
2. Kleinfield, “How a Shubert Fund Produces and Directs.”
3. Abel Green, “Shuberts’ 3 New ‘Exec Directors’; Show Biz Ponders Power Struggle,” Variety, July 12, 1972.
4. Hirsh, The Boys from Syracuse, 272.
Chapter Nine: Rotten to the Core
1. Stuart Ostrow, Present at the Creation, Leaping in the Dark, and Going Against the Grain: 1776, Pippin, M. Butterfly, La Bête, and Other Broadway Adventures (New York: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, 2006), 65.
2. Gottfried, All His Jazz, 253.
3. Murray Schumach, “State Investigating Charge By Deposed Shubert Heir,” New York Times, December 21, 1972.
4. Hirsh, The Boys from Syracuse, 272.
5. Murray Schumach, “Deposed Head of Shubert Empire Seeks to Oust 3 Successors,” New York Times, January 8, 1973.
6. Robert D. McFadden, “Shubert Figure Loses Court Bid to Regain Empire,” New York Times, April 10, 1973.
7. Gary Pearlman, “Give My Regards to Broadway: Guts, Greed, and Betrayal,” Palm Beach Times, November 20, 2012.
Chapter Ten: Horsing Around
1. John Dexter, The Honourable Beast: A Posthumous Autobiography (New York: Routledge/Theatre Arts, 1993), 45.
2. Dexter, The Honourable Beast, 84.
Chapter Eleven: The Paintman Cometh
1. Ralph Blumenthal, “Shubert Grants in Drama Linked to Buying of Paint,” New York Times, April 16, 1974.
2. Joseph Berger, “The Paint Truck That Carries Cash,” New York Post, July 17, 1974.
3. Joseph Berger, “Goldman and His Charities,” New York Post, April 17, 1974.
4. Joseph Berger, “Shubert Pair Deny Conflict,” New York Post, March 30, 1974.
5. Berger, “Shubert Pair Deny Conflict.”
6. Ralph Blumenthal, “Shubert Fund Directors Refuse Lefkowitz Request to Step Aside,” New York Times, May 10, 1974.
7. Jack Newfield, “Nadjari: In His Heart He Knows You’re Guilty,” Village Voice, October 17, 1977.
> 8. Richard F. Shepard, “Producers Define Shubert Support,” New York Times, May 15, 1974.
9. Shepard, “Producers Define Shubert Support.”
10. Ibid.
11. Joe Nicholson, “Lefky Hails $2M Shubert Decision,” New York Post, April 14, 1977.
12. Lawrence Van Gelder, “Goldman Is Taking Leave of Absence from Shubert Post,” New York Times, March 20, 1975.
Chapter Twelve: The Jockey
1. “Backstage with A Chorus Line,” Ideastream, May 20, 2008, http://wclv.idea
stream.org/programs/backstage-with/chorus-line-0.
2. Michael Bennett, tape-recorded interview heard in Every Little Step, 2008.
3. Bennett, interview heard in Every Little Step.
4. Jeremy Gerard, “Michael Bennett, Theater Innovator, Dies at 44,” New York Times, July 3, 1987.
5. Ken Mandelbaum, A Chorus Line and the Musicals of Michael Bennett (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989), 60.
6. Gerard, “Michael Bennett.”
7. Tommy Tune, interview with author.
8. Lawrence Cohen, interview with author.
Chapter Thirteen: The One
1. Mandelbaum, A Chorus Line, 100.
2. Ibid., 117.
3. Ibid., 144.
Chapter Fourteen: The Interloper
1. Michiko Kakutani, “The Great Theater Duel and How It Affects Broadway Theaters,” New York Times, September 14, 1980.
2. Vincent Canby, “Nederlander Family Building a Theater Empire,” New York Times, July 18, 1967.
3. New York Newsday, January 20, 1971.
Chapter Fifteen: I Love New York, Especially in the Evening
1. Lankevich, New York City, 219.
2. Ibid.
3. R. Thomas Collins, NewsWalker: A Story for Sweeney (Virginia: RavensYard Publishing, 2002), 96.
4. Harvey Sabinson, interview with author.
5. Francis X. Clines, “Mayor Plans New Times Square Cleanup,” New York Times, October 28, 1975.
6. Bianco, Ghosts of 42nd Street, 207.
7. Collins, NewsWalker: A Story for Sweeney, 92.
8. Selwyn Raab, “Screeners Block Baumgarten Bid for a Criminal Court Judgeship,” New York Times, December 22, 1977.
9. Philip H. Dougherty, “Letting the Theater Spotlight New York,” New York Times, January 25, 1978.
10. James P. Sterba, “ ‘I Love New York’ Campaign Going National,” New York Times, July 7, 1978.
Chapter Sixteen: The Coiled Cobra
1. Howard Kissel, David Merrick: The Abominable Showman (New York: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, 1993), 324.
2. Leslie Bennetts, “Scrooged: David Merrick Faces His Final Curtain,” Vanity Fair, December 1989.
3. Bennetts, “Scrooged.”
4. Frank Rich, “Confessions of the Butcher of Broadway,” New York Times Magazine, February 13, 1994.
5. Rich, “Confessions of the Butcher of Broadway.”
6. Kissel, The Abominable Showman, 452.
Chapter Seventeen: The Bernie and Jerry Show
1. Martin Gottfried, All His Jazz, 365.
2. Clive Barnes, “Cleaning Up the Great White Way,” New York Post, April 6, 1978.
3. Kakutani, “The Great Theater Duel.”
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. N. R. Kleinfield, “I.R.S. Ruling Wrote Script for the Shubert Tax Break,” New York Times, July 11, 1994.
7. Kleinfield, “I.R.S. Ruling Wrote Script.”
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Richard Corliss, “A Dickens of a Show,” Time, October 5, 1981.
Chapter Eighteen: The Jockey and the Godfather
1. Kevin Kelly, One Singular Sensation: The Michael Bennett Story (New York: Zebra Books, 1991), 239.
2. Kenneth Turan and Joseph Papp, Free for All: Joe Papp, The Public, and the Greatest Theater Story Ever Told (New York: Doubleday, 2009), 465.
3. Robert Fox, interview with author.
4. Kevin Kelly, “The Next ‘Chorus Line’?” New York, December 24, 1981.
Chapter Nineteen: Civil War
1. “A Times Sq. Youth Shelter Seeks Evictions to Expand,” New York Times, January 28, 1979.
2. Bianco, Ghosts of 42nd Street, 248.
3. “A Times Sq. Youth Shelter Seeks Evictions to Expand.”
4. Sagalyn, Times Square Roulette, 58.
5. Ibid., 61.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid., 65.
8. William E. Geist, “New Broadway Hotel Gets the Once Over,” New York Times, October 12, 1985.
9. Sydney H. Schanberg, “Portman’s Progress,” New York Times, March 13, 1982.
10. Nicholas Van Hoogstraten, Lost Broadway Theaters (New York: Princeton Architectural Press), 137.
11. Bernard Hughes, “On With the Show, Not the Hotel,” New York Times, February 10, 1980.
12. Roberta Brandes Gratz, The Living City: How America’s Cities Are Being Revitalized By Thinking Small in a Big Way (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989), 358.
13. Michiko Kakutani, “Broadway Is a House Divided,” New York Times, January 24, 1982.
14. Kakutani, “Broadway Is a House Divided.”
Chapter Twenty: And the Winner Is . . .
1. Ethan Mordden, Ziegfeld: The Man Who Invented Show Business (New York: St. Martin’s Press 2008), 142.
2. Maury Yeston, interviewed by Speakeasystage.com, January 2011.
3. Gratz, The Living City, 355.
4. Gratz, The Living City, 365.
5. William Ivey Long, interview with author.
6. Samuel G. Freedman, “How an Uneasy Alliance Helps Shape Broadway,” New York Times, April 1, 1984.
Chapter Twenty-One: CAT$
1. Freedman, “How an Uneasy Alliance Helps Shape Broadway.”
2. Ibid.
3. Samuel G. Freedman, “Cohen Resigns From Theater League: Producers Criticize Remarks at Tonys,” New York Times, June 5, 1985.
4. Michael Walsh, Andrew Lloyd Webber: His Life and Works (New York: Abrams, 1989), 112.
5. Walsh, Andrew Lloyd Webber, 16.
6. Sheridan Morley and Ruth Leon, Hey, Mr. Producer! The Musical World of Cameron Mackintosh (New York: Back Stage Books, 1998), 16.
7. Cameron Mackintosh, interview with author.
8. Walsh, Andrew Lloyd Webber, 118.
9. Andrew Lloyd Webber, interview with author.
10. Josh Ellis, interview with author.
11. Walsh, Andrew Lloyd Webber, 126.
Chapter Twenty-Two: Mesmerizing Temptation
1. Kelly, One Singular Sensation, 358.
2. Kevin Kelly, “Falling on Its Funny Face,” New York, February 28, 1983.
3. Don Shewey, “How ‘My One and Only’ Came to Broadway,” New York Times, May 1, 1983.
4. Kelly, “Falling on Its Funny Face.”
5. John Breglio, interview with author.
6. Kelly, One Singular Sensation, 374.
7. Carol Lawson, “Broadway; Scott to direct ‘Design for Living’ at Circle in the Square,” New York Times, May 4, 1984.
8. Cameron Mackintosh, interview with author.
9. Lawrence K. Altman, “Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals,” New York Times, July 3, 1981.
Chapter Twenty-Three: End of the Line
1. “Anti-hero?” Chess in Translation, March 24, 2011.
2. Leslie Bennetts, “Backstage Drama,” Vanity Fair, May 1988.
3. Robin Wagner, interview with author.
4. Kelly, One Singular Sensation, 401.
5. Nan Robertson, “Michael Bennett Leaves Musical,” New York Times, January 23, 1986.
Chapter Twenty-Four: The British Are Coming! The British Are Coming!
1. Rick Elice, interview with author.
2. Harold L. Vogel, Entertainment Industry Economics: A Guide for Financial Analysis (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 390.
3. Morley and Leon, Hey, Mr. Producer!, 91.
4. Ibid., 92.
6. Walsh, Andrew Lloyd Webber, 176.
7. Ibid., 178.
8. Ibid., 218.
9. Ibid., 203.
10. Sagalyn, Times Square Roulette, 278.
11. Walsh, Andrew Lloyd Webber, 179.
12. Frank Rich, “Broadway: The Empire Strikes Back,” New York Times, March 29, 1987.
13. Ron Alexander, “After Opening at the Majestic, Gala at the Beacon,” New York Times, January 27, 1988.
14. Walsh, Andrew Lloyd Webber, 219.
15. Jeremy Gerard, “ ‘Phantom’: Scalpers’ Bonanza,” New York Times, January 20, 1988.
16. Jeremy Gerard, “Shubert Stages a Dramatic (and Musical) Comeback,” New York Times, April 8, 1987.
17. Bennetts, “Backstage Drama.”
18. Robert Fox and Tim Rice, interviews with author.
19. Schoenfeld, Mr. Broadway, 186.
Chapter Twenty-Five: Pick-a-Little, Talk-a-Little
1. Mervyn Rothstein, “The Hellinger Theater Is Leased to a Church,” New York Times, February 8, 1989.
2. Michael Riedel, “What the Butcher Forgot to Tell You,” New York Daily News, February 20, 1994.
3. Rich, “Confessions of the Butcher of Broadway.”
4. Riedel, “What the Butcher Forgot to Tell You.”
5. Jon Wilner, interview with author.
Chapter Twenty-Six: Nothing Matters
1. Mervyn Rothstein, “How a High Roller Bets on Broadway,” New York Times, June 3, 1990; David Owen, “Betting on Broadway,” New Yorker, June 13, 1994.
2. “Curtain Call,” Page Six, New York Post, November 29, 1993.
3. Rothstein, “How a High Roller Bets on Broadway.”
4. Sagalyn, Times Square Roulette, 53.
5. Bianco, Ghosts of 42nd Street, 215.
6. Ralph Blumenthal, “Real-Life Courtroom Drama May Play on Broadway Stage,” New York Times, November 15, 1991.
7. Susan Saulny, “A Dignitary Examines Community Court,” New York Times, December 16, 2003.