Then and Now

by Barbara Cook

  Shortly after we married, David gave me what I referred to as the The Sermon on the Mount. Looking me straight in the eye, he declared: “Follow me and everything will be okay. Let me lead you and you’ll be fine the rest of your life.” I believed that. I thought, “I don’t have to worry about things because David knows what to do. I can just concentrate on my work. He’s got it worked out.” No surprise, then, that when I once said to a therapist that I’d married the wrong man, he instantly said to me: “You married the right one. Your neuroses dovetailed perfectly.”

  7 • BROADWAY

  WHILE DAVID AND I were negotiating married life in the suburb of Port Washington, Long Island, I of course still harbored career ambitions. In 1951, Flahooley had been a fast flop, but I had attracted attention and eventually landed great roles in City Center productions of two Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals that were already considered classics: Oklahoma!, in which I played Ado Annie, and Carousel, in which I played Carrie Pipperidge. I had a terrific time with both roles: Ado Annie was the girl who “Cain’t Say No,” and Carrie sang the joy-filled “When I Marry Mr. Snow.”

  Under the leadership of Jean Dalrymple, City Center, on West Fifty-fifth Street in New York City, was producing limited runs of these musicals. In 1953–54 we did an entire season on the road with Oklahoma! but first we played the month of September at City Center in New York; I was Ado Annie and David played the peddler, Ali Hakim. We then went on the road and had a good time together. It was during that tour that I really got to know Florence Henderson, who was playing Laurey, and we have remained friends to this day. She is a genuinely talented and thoroughly nice woman, with a particular fondness for playing against her wholesome image by shocking others.

  One problem during the tour of Oklahoma! was Mary Marlo, who played Aunt Eller and proved to be a genuine pain in the ass. She fancied herself quite the grande dame, and would make pronouncements like “You simply cannot entertain while on tour—you don’t have the proper china and crystal.” There was also a second fly in the ointment: Jerome Whyte, one of the casting directors for Rodgers and Hammerstein, who directed the tour. He insisted that I copy Celeste Holm, who had originated the role. Well, for any actor, that’s death. It’s just impossible. You have to discover the role for yourself. I was so unhappy trying to be Celeste that I began trying to make this my own Ado Annie. Jerry Whyte watched a performance, came backstage, and told me that if I continued to give my own interpretation he would see to it that I never worked again.

  By way of contrast, when I was playing Carrie in Carousel, Dick Rodgers came to watch a rehearsal and noted that I did not get the laugh Jean Darling, the original Carrie, used to get with a funny piece of business with her bustle. I said to Dick, “Why would I walk that way at only this one point when I never walk that way again in the entire show. I can get the laugh another way without the business with the bustle.” He listened and let me do it my own way.

  I played Carrie Pipperidge from June to August of 1954. Bill Hammerstein, Oscar’s son, directed Carousel, and there was no question but that it represented my best work thus far, a true breakthrough for me. With newfound confidence in my acting, I felt liberated onstage. For the first time I received major, major reviews, the general tone of which was: “This new person has happened!” I had been brought to the attention of the press and my face was everywhere. Suddenly I was being touted as the new theater discovery.

  Both Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein came to see me in Carousel and were very complimentary. Dick Rodgers was much more effusive than Oscar. Dick had an eye for the girls—well maybe it was both eyes for the girls—but he never chased me around. That may be because on the one day he asked me up to his office, I nervously opened the door to find that he had one foot gingerly positioned on a hassock; he had gout, so at least on that one day I knew I wouldn’t be chased around his desk. I remember Oscar as being very tall with a warm smile—people admired him so. He possessed an aura of goodness—a very moral person. He didn’t throw around a lot of compliments, but when he saw me in The King and I and said, “That’s the best you’ve ever done,” it meant the world.

  It was also during this time that I screen-tested for the role of Ado Annie in director Fred Zinnemann’s screen adaptation of Oklahoma! At the time of my screen test, Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman were up for the roles of Laurey and Curley, Eli Wallach was trying out for the role of Ali Hakim, and Rod Steiger was up for the role of Jud Frye. Rod was the only one from our group who was chosen to be in the film.

  My clearest memory of that test involves standing right next to the director as he filmed Joanne Woodward doing Laurey’s speech about wanting a cut-glass sugar bowl. I thought she was terrible—that she wasn’t doing anything. When she finished, Zinnemann turned to me and said, “Now, there’s a screen actress for you. She’s going to have a big career in film.” I was amazed, because standing just a few feet away I saw nothing happening, but he was certainly right.

  I liked Fred Zinnemann very much and only wish we had worked together. I was disappointed to be turned down, but since Shirley Jones was playing the role of Laurey, perhaps we were too much the same type for me to be in the film as Ado Annie. I had successfully played Ado Annie onstage but it’s often the case that actors famous for their stage performances are not chosen for the film versions of those very same shows. Carol Channing was passed over in favor of Barbra Streisand for the film version of Hello, Dolly! Julie Andrews lost the chance to play Eliza Doolittle in the movie of My Fair Lady when the producers and director chose Audrey Hepburn. And perhaps most famously, Ethel Merman never filmed Gypsy. Rosalind Russell, who played the role of Rose in the movie, is a wonderful actress, but Ethel Merman was Rose. If only her performance had been preserved forever on film.

  In 1954, I also appeared in a television soap opera called Golden Windows, playing an aspiring singer who sang off-key. It was filmed live in New York City but didn’t last long. For the most part I enjoyed the experience; it is very rewarding to know that you are reaching millions of people at the same time, but the frantic nature of live TV was very stressful. There was no second chance once those cameras rolled—you better pay attention and get it right the first time, because there ain’t no second time!

  By this point I was also studying voice, although my lessons had come about in a rather unusual way. In 1953 it was actually my husband who started lessons with Bob Kobin, the man who would become my main voice teacher. At the beginning, I was so cautious that I wouldn’t work with Bob. I would go with David to his lessons and just listen. This was partially in reaction to the fact that I had already endured two false starts with voice teachers; my first teacher was really more of a coach, a woman with whom I never really clicked, but she did help me with presentation. I remember that for some strange reason I would wear short gloves during lessons because they made me feel strong. Well, as Wally Harper used to say, “Whatever blows your skirt up.”

  After a second mismatch with a vocal coach, I was still hesitant, but I liked what I heard when Bob was teaching David, and I finally told him that I’d like to study with him. Bob based his entire technique on physiology, a very commonsense approach. We know how sound is produced—it’s not a big mystery—but many teachers don’t take that into account. Bob’s techniques, however, had a sound basis in science. Now, I know this will sound crazy, but here’s the story his wife, Joan, told me. Bob went to the slaughterhouse, collected a few cow larynxes, and dissected them, because they are, I’m told, so similar to human larynxes. He really wanted to know how the damn things actually worked.

  Armed with this knowledge of physiology, Bob developed a theory that said that you, the singer, already know how to sing, but that you must, in effect, get out of your own way. Your body instinctively knows what is required, and if you are singing properly, every note you sing should strengthen your voice. In Bob’s mind, you should be able to sing for a long time and not only not hurt yourself, but actually get better and str
onger. He didn’t want to hear about hot tea and lemon, scarves, drafts, or any of “that stuff.” He used to tell me I should be able to get hit by a bus and then stand up and sing! Bob really helped me put my voice together in a way that didn’t make me sound like I had four different voices. He would say, “This note needs to come out of the preceding one organically—it’s as if you are making a string of pearls, so it needs to be continuous, logical, and organic.”

  My singing improved, and after my success in playing Carrie in Carousel, my confidence grew. I knew I could really sing, and I now began to feel that I could definitely act as well, that I was capable of creating a flesh-and-blood character onstage and bringing the audience along on the journey with me.

  So it was that in 1954, shortly before I was cast in Plain and Fancy, I went through a period of repeated auditions for Peter Pan. I literally auditioned at least ten times but Jerome Robbins, the director, couldn’t decide between Kathy Nolan and me. Regardless of Jerry’s reputation for being mean, he was always very kind to me and clearly seemed to respect my talent, even though the role eventually went to Kathy. Because she sat in on all of these auditions, Mary Martin began to take a real interest in me and my career. Even though I didn’t get the job, she would send me little gifts—it was so nice of her. She was the biggest star on Broadway and it was all very flattering. Peter Pan played at the Winter Garden, and when we later went into that same theater with Plain and Fancy, she, knowing which dressing room I was going to be in, had written on the mirror in lipstick: “Good luck from Peter Pan. Peter loves you.”

  Well, a few years later my mother was visiting me after a performance of Candide and was in my dressing room when up the stairs came Mary Martin and her husband, Richard Halliday. I saw them coming and I froze: I could not remember Richard Halliday’s name to save my life. I knew I had to introduce them to my mother, so I decided to be honest and say to him, “I’m sorry. I don’t know how this could have happened but your name has just flown out of my head. I apologize.” Mary never spoke to me again.

  I may not have won the role in Peter Pan, but my confidence continued to grow; when I auditioned for Plain and Fancy, far from perspiring throughout the audition, I walked onto that stage feeling like I could do no wrong. I knew in my bones that I could do this. I remember singing “Mr. Snow” for Franz Allers, the conductor, and I was then asked to read a scene; when the creative team learned that I had never seen that particular scene before, they were so happy with my first attempt that the role was mine.

  I was to play a naïve Amish girl, Hilda Miller, who has lived her entire life in an Amish community without ever once venturing to a city. She runs away and has adventures, all to the accompaniment of a very entertaining score by Albert Hague and Arnold Horwitt. We had a great cast, including Nancy Andrews, Richard Derr, and Shirl Conway (the unknown Bea Arthur was Shirl’s standby). I thought the show could be a lot of fun, and I was right; this was a musical that seemed to work well right from the beginning.

  Even rehearsals were great, including a cast field trip that proved just how interesting this business can be. Part of the action in Plain and Fancy involved the full company singing “How Do You Raise a Barn?” as we gathered to build a new barn, so we all went to the Feller Scenery Shop in the Bronx, where they were building the set, in order to gain hands-on experience with the onstage barn. By hands-on, I mean literally hands-on, because we all learned to simulate a real barn raising—where to put our hands, how to hoist the planks, and how to work together just as Amish farmers would. The first time we tried to raise the stage barn, it took twenty minutes, which obviously would never do. We did it over and over, cutting down the number of minutes it took, until we finally made it within the allotted amount of time. It was so exciting that it was like winning the Derby! Audiences loved that moment in the show, but nothing ever quite touched that wonderful feeling of family togetherness we experienced in the scene shop.

  Audiences liked Plain and Fancy from the start of our out-of-town tryout, although I had a humorous (in retrospect) moment with my song “I’ll Show Him.” That particular song, which I was to sing right before running off to the carnival, had not been written as a typical soprano solo, and as a result necessitated my singing in a different style than usual. I was worried about the song and went to our director, Morton “Tec” Da Costa, and our choreographer, Helen Tamiris, to explain my solution: “I want to cut one of my songs.” Needless to say, they had never before heard those words from an up-and-coming actress, and simply looked at me before bursting out in laughter. That was the end of the discussion.

  We opened in January of 1955 at the Mark Hellinger Theatre, quickly switched to the Winter Garden for the rest of the year, and then returned to the Hellinger for the final four months of the run, closing in March of 1956, after 461 performances. I received some great notices, and when I recently looked up some of those reviews I was actually a bit startled at how enthusiastic the big critics really were. Walter Kerr, then at the New York Herald Tribune, wrote: “Barbara Cook, right off a blue and white Dutch plate, is delicious all the time, but especially when she perches on a trunk, savors her first worthwhile kiss, and melts into the melody of ‘This Is All Very New to Me.’ ”

  Something about the spirit of the show—the real sense of community it conveyed—seemed to touch people deeply. During our run, a woman who had left the Amish community wrote me; she had loved the show and sent me a few of her old Amish caps, including a very special dress-up one. I still have those caps.

  It was during Plain and Fancy that I appeared in a network television production of Babes in Toyland. The surprising thing is that I don’t have strong memories of the production, even though there were major television personalities involved; the show was produced by Max Liebman, one of the leading TV producers of the time, and my costars included Wally Cox, Dennis Day, Dave Garroway (of The Today Show fame), and the Bil and Cora Baird marionettes (the Bairds gained worldwide fame for their work on the film version of The Sound of Music).

  I actually have stronger memories of my February 1956 appearance in a television production of Bloomer Girl, but not for the right reasons. The director, Alex Segal, was difficult and for unfathomable reasons chose to make life miserable for the terrific character actor Paul Ford, who was playing my father. The length of the show had to be cut to fit the TV time format, and for some reason Segal chose to cut every scene where I was wearing bloomers. And the title of the show was . . . ?

  We had terrific choreography by Agnes de Mille, and I enjoyed singing that beautiful Harold Arlen/Yip Harburg score, including “Right as the Rain,” but when I saw a tape of the show recently at the New York Paley Center for Media I found it nothing so much as embarrassing. There I was in my Shirley Temple curls, turning in a less-than-award-winning acting performance.

  Plain and Fancy was a good experience for me, but when I remember that time I always find myself thinking about the difficult political climate. Stefan Schnabel, a wonderful character actor, played my uncle, and one day when I mentioned that I was going to an Actors’ Equity meeting, he advised me that I would be better off not going. He said people would be writing down everything that was said, taking notes on any suspicious Communist-sounding talk, so I didn’t attend. Given my liberal leanings, I now think that if I had been older and less naïve I probably would have been blacklisted. Senator Joe McCarthy had only been censured by the Senate one month before we opened. President Eisenhower had not even spoken out against the accusations McCarthy lodged against his friend General George Marshall, until he deemed it safe to do so. When I think about the fact that General Marshall devised “the Marshall Plan” to help feed starving people in Europe after the war, yet was accused of Communist sympathies, it boggles my mind. It was a tough, tough time in this country.

  8 • LEONARD BERNSTEIN AND CANDIDE

  I HAD A good time in Plain and Fancy, and it was icing on the cake when I received a Theatre World Award for my performance. Af
ter the show closed on Broadway I did a summer-stock production of the show in Pittsburgh, in which Elaine Stritch played Ruth, the Shirl Conway role. I had also performed the show with Bea Arthur when she went on for Shirl in New York, and even then both Elaine and Bea were formidable women. Bea’s performance, although wonderful, was so different from Shirl’s that it threw me, because I didn’t yet have the acting experience to deal with such a big change onstage. I was also offered the London production of the show at the Drury Lane Theatre, but I decided against that because I would have had to stay with the London company for at least six months, which I felt was too long a time to be away from David.

  So, future unknown, I auditioned for Frank Loesser’s The Most Happy Fella. Oh, I wanted to do that show so badly. It’s such a beautiful score: “Somebody Somewhere,” “Warm All Over”—those songs are as good as it gets. But, disappointed as I was not to land the show, if I had I would not have been free to take on my next musical. As is so often the case, it all started out very innocently . . .

  Just as Plain and Fancy was winding down its run in 1956, the phone rang very early one morning. David answered and passed the phone over to me. It was Ethel Reiner, one of the producers of a new show called Candide. I had vaguely heard about it—it was going to be some kind of opera/operetta/musical written by Leonard Bernstein and Lillian Hellman. I hadn’t paid much attention because I felt certain that it was not something I would be considered for, so I was surprised to get the call. Ethel wanted to know if I could sing a high C. I told her yes, though I didn’t add that I had never sung a high C, or any other note even remotely that high, in public. That little G right over the top of the staff was it, as far as my public performances were concerned.