by Barbara Cook
I was blown away when I heard the score for Music Man at Herbert Greene’s apartment. That was the first time I’d heard that rhythmic singing, that speak/sing dynamite rhythm that propelled the show forward like a train leaving the station, keeps gathering speed, faster and faster, until you just surrender to the sheer glory of the movement. I really did feel all of that even when it was just Herbert singing at the piano. I was knocked out. People forget that Meredith was a conservatory-trained musician, having played in both the John Philip Sousa band and in the New York Philharmonic under Toscanini and Stravinsky, and that training and experience showed.
The nice thing for me was that everybody seemed to want me for the role of Marian, the River City librarian and piano teacher who falls for con man Professor Harold Hill. Even though the role seemed to be mine, Frank Loesser, who was one of the producers of the show, had asked to hear me sing. He wanted to put his stamp of approval on the whole thing, and when he said, “Sing some high notes,” I just ripped off a few high C’s and E’s. It was just what he wanted. He seemed to like big and loud, to the point that on his studio wall he had hung a sign that read: LOUD IS GOOD, LOUDER IS BETTER. Because everyone seemed to want me for the show, I don’t remember sitting by the phone wondering the usual “Oh, am I gonna get this show?” I had already worked with Morton Da Costa when he directed Plain and Fancy, and I think he was instrumental in helping me land the show. Tec was particularly well known for his work on straight plays, like No Time for Sergeants and Auntie Mame, but I sure had a great time with him on the two musicals we did together.
The Music Man had actually been a long time in arriving. I think Meredith worked on it for about five years, writing book, music, and lyrics, although Franklin Lacey helped him with the book (while receiving credit only for his work on the story). I think there were something like thirty drafts of the book! Tec himself also deserved credit for parts of the book, because originally the character of Winthrop, my little brother in the show, was, to use the word of the time, spastic. His big thing was going to be crashing the cymbals together every now and then, but onstage that gimmick is not as useable or funny and lighthearted as Tec’s idea of having that cute little boy speak with a lisp. Tec’s change was a really smart and important decision, one made even better by the fact that the young boy they cast, Eddie Hodges, was adorable. A darling kid.
I met Bob Preston briefly before we started rehearsals, and when those rehearsals began, in the fall of 1957, the show seemed to work right from the very first day. We had a great rehearsal period in which we jelled with a sense of family. In fact, one day during rehearsal Meredith came to me and said, “Now I know who you are. You’re my mother. I wrote about my mother!”
Meredith was a very young-looking, handsome fifty-five-year-old at the time of the show, and he was a friendly, nice, and generous man. On opening night he gave me the most beautiful present—a heart from Tiffany. When you opened the heart you had two hearts, and when you opened that further it became a four-leaf clover. On the inside of each of those four hearts he had had engraved the beginning bars of all four of my big songs in the show. Then, when you closed the heart up, on one side it said “Barbara,” and on the other it said “Marian.” It was so thoughtful, the nicest opening-night gift I’ve ever received. He gave Bob a gold cigarette lighter, and while we think of that differently now, at the time it was a great gift.
Meredith’s generosity extended to his wife, Rini, to whom he gave the most extraordinary present on opening night. It was an antique lorgnette that was encrusted with diamonds, rubies, and emeralds. There were also engraved initials, which read in order, NB to JB, JB to LR, and MW to RW. The first initials stood for Napoleon Bonaparte to Josephine Bonaparte, next came Jim Brady to Lillian Russell, and, finally, Meredith Willson to Rini Willson. The story was that when Meredith first saw this lorgnette he asked the owner if he would add his and Rini’s initials. The man agreed and the initials were added. Rini was, of course, thrilled. However, the truth is that Meredith had all of the initials added and never told Rini about it. He just wanted to please her, even if he had to fib to do it.
Before we went out of town we had a “gypsy run-through” (for an invited audience of theater friends) on an empty stage with just piano and work lights. The response was enormous. Gigantic. Even then, when the piano struck up “Seventy-six Trombones” for the final bows, rhythmic clapping from the audience started instantly. And then—the audience stood. Those jaded, seen-it-all Broadway gypsies were standing to applaud. This was in 1957, when standing ovations were rare. Now, God knows, they’re de rigueur, no matter how good or bad the show. When we played the show, our audiences never—I mean never—failed to clap to the “Seventy-six Trombones” scored bows.
Tec gave us a big speech the next day about how just because our friends and family liked us, we shouldn’t think we had it made. He told me later that the response at the gypsy run-through had scared him because he thought we might get complacent. I liked Tec very much—he was so easy to work with and gave me room to explore the character. We had only one disagreement, which occurred when he tried to show me how to put my arm around someone onstage. I disagreed strongly. You can’t do that—the way we touch others is so personal, so individual. It was really no big deal, but it bothered me at the time. I said to him, “You have to back off.” That was it for disagreements. The rest of the time we got on very, very well. David also helped me with the character of Marian, but he never, ever talked against the director. He would just give me really helpful notes that deepened my understanding of the role.
When we went out of town to Philadelphia, the opening number, with all of the traveling salesmen singing on the train was just not working. They’d sing, “He’s a music man / and he sells clarinets to the kids in the town . . . with the big trombones and the rat-a-tat drums / Big brass bass, / Big brass bass”—it was all fully orchestrated and it just didn’t land with the audience. Tec solved the problem with two terrific ideas: first, he cut the orchestra, so you could really hear the guys a capella. They supplied the rhythm and the entire song was built around that rhythm, without a single note of music underneath. In addition, Tec also had the actors jiggle up and down in their seats. They hadn’t been jiggling before. Now they’d sing “To the kids in the town” and you’d see all the guys jiggling as if they were really on a train. It was electric. The audience loved it! So simple and so good. Stephen Sondheim has gone on record as stating that “Rock Island” is one of the best opening numbers in musical-theater history.
People loved the music right from the start, but Meredith made changes and even wrote a new song on the road to try and replace “Iowa Stubborn”—
Oh there’s nothing halfway about the Iowa way to treat you,
If we treat you, which we may not do at all
I can’t remember what he wrote, but it lasted exactly four performances before everyone decided it wasn’t as good as “Iowa Stubborn,” which went right back in.
One of my big songs, “My White Knight,” kept changing. The song was originally much longer, because Meredith told me it was intended to be a kind of counterpart—a balance—to Bob’s big song “You’ve Got Trouble.” But that very long version of “My White Knight” didn’t work in the scene. Meredith wrote so many variations of the song that I ended up performing twelve different versions of it. That’s right—twelve. It was hard! During those out-of-town tryouts I’d go onstage thinking, “Now which version do I sing tonight?”
I was the leading lady but not the above-the-title star—I hadn’t earned that yet. I knew the show represented a big opportunity for me, but Bob carried the show, no question about it, and he was sensational. He had developed a very effective manner of speaking/singing his songs, à la Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady. His family used to sing, and he had a great sense of rhythm and pitch, but he wasn’t a trained singer. That didn’t really matter because he was just so damn good onstage. He wasn’t a trained dancer either, but he mo
ved just like one onstage.
He actually had only one mishap out of town, when, in our last week in Philadelphia, he started losing his voice at the final matinee. As his voice grew weaker and weaker, he started getting kind of crazed. His standby, Larry Douglas, who was married to Onna White, our choreographer, had to finish the performance. Of course we were still out of town, so Larry hadn’t been fully rehearsed. The stage manager would read a line to him offstage and then he’d say it onstage, and that’s how we played the scenes on that Saturday. It was pretty crazy!
We felt we had a good shot on Broadway because the response out of town had been sensational, but you just never know. Our producer was Kermit Bloomgarden, who was also the producer of the play Look Homeward, Angel, which had opened in November 1957, one month before we were to open at the Majestic Theater on December 19. When we were in Philadelphia with Music Man, Bob showed me a telegram that Jo Van Fleet, who was starring in Look Homeward, Angel, had sent him right after they opened to sensational reviews; her telegram read: “Come on in, the water’s fine.”
Our opening night on Broadway felt like we were riding on top of a tidal wave. Kermit threw a big party at Sardi’s, and in those pre-Internet days, everyone waited for the newspaper reviews. When they came in they were sensational. John Chapman in the New York Daily News raved that The Music Man was “one of the few great musical comedies of the last 26 years,” comparing it to Of Thee I Sing and Guys and Dolls. Whew!
Now, sixty years later, I retain a very clear memory of going home on that opening night, and as I was opening the door of our apartment, my husband stopped me and said: “Wait a minute, do you realize what’s happened? You’re a hit in a hit.” And of course I was thrilled. Then my next thought was, “Oh my God—now I have to do this for how long?!”
Actually, I think if you want to, you can learn a great deal from a long run. I know I did, because I had a sold-out audience of 1,600 people waiting for me every single night, and to keep myself interested I would give myself tasks. The purity of my singing—the vocal quality and simplicity of emotion—these things have always mattered to me, and one of the tasks I set for myself in a song like “My White Knight” was to sing it as simply and purely as I could, without unnecessary gesture. I’d ask myself: “Do you have the courage to just stand there and not have to do something? Can you just be there for that song, at one with the audience? Can you do that?” It’s still a task I set for myself.
Once you get into the swing of a long run, the routine becomes second nature. Every day around four-thirty or five I’d get very sleepy, so I’d take a little nap. Then I’d have a light dinner before going to the theater to get ready. It was the anticipation that was hardest, but once I got started, I gave it everything I had. Before I knew it I had done the show 373 times . . . It all lies in the approach, because if you try to get by at half-speed, not only does that make the performance seem endless to you, the actor, but it also cheats the audience. I understand how and why that can happen, but when I’ve seen it—Streisand walking through Funny Girl and Merman in Gypsy—it’s so disappointing.
When Merman was “on,” however, she was electrifying. Filled with supreme confidence. For all of her bombast, she still made it seem real. She was nothing less than a thrilling force of nature. I saw Gypsy four or five times, both because my friend Julienne Marie replaced Sandra Church in the title role, and because that show thrilled from the start: the first thing you heard was one of the greatest overtures ever written, followed by a terrific book, the classic Styne and Sondheim score, and the great Ethel herself. When she charged down that aisle, trumpeting “Sing out, Louise!” you knew you were about to go on a great journey. What a night of theater.
And, boy, did Ethel have a mouth on her. One of her closest friends was Benay Venuta, who corroborated the following story. When Benay was Merman’s understudy or standby, they would often have dinner together between shows. One day when Benay came to fetch her, Merman was putting on a turban and she was very carefully pulling out little curls all around the edge of the turban. Benay took one look and said, “Jesus Christ, Ethel, what’s with the curls? Don’t you know the whole point of wearing a turban is to get that sleek look?” Ethel replied, “Fuck you, Benay. It gives me softness.”
And then there’s this one: a friend of mine played piano in the pit for one of her shows, and during the run, the cast and all the musicians were invited to a party at the very swanky apartment of one of the wealthy Park Avenue–type ladies. Ethel and my friend happened to be leaving together when he said to her, “How kind of Mrs. So-and-So to have a party for us.” Whereupon Miss Merman said, “That c--t, she’s so cold you could tap-dance on her tits!”
To get back to long runs for a moment, I can’t say I didn’t have moments when my mind completely wandered. I can remember standing onstage in the middle of a song and realizing I had no memory of having sung the beginning of the song—I was thinking about what I was going to have for dinner or the shopping I had to do. Panic would seize me because at that moment you instantly think, “Oh my God—let me get myself back here right now! This is scary!”
I had started to think of myself as an actress first and a singer second—a big step. I hadn’t received any formal training as an actress, so I learned the lines, did what was written on the page, and then tried to develop the character, bit by bit, until she became a real person. David was an enormous help to me on all of my shows and helped me see the whole character of Marian Paroo, just as he had with that of Julie Jordan in Carousel. However, even in Music Man I was still learning and made some terrible mistakes. One time Bob Preston and I were on the footbridge and I came on with my big hat and accidentally dropped it on the stage in front of the footbridge. What I should have done was find a way to pick up the hat as I left, but I didn’t—I did not clean up my own mess before I left the stage. Bob had to pick up my hat and carry it off—terrible of me.
We recorded the original cast album right after we opened. Back in the 1950s the recordings were made in one day, the second Sunday off after opening. It was a marathon recording session but well worth it. The album ranked at the top of the charts for twelve weeks, won the Grammy Award for Best Cast Album, and sold one million copies, while remaining on the charts for nearly five full years—245 weeks! We received two weeks’ salary for recording the album but never a cent more.
I loved working with Bob Preston. He was such a good actor that it was very easy to work off of him. I felt safe with him onstage. We had a really wonderful working relationship, and I’m glad it didn’t turn into anything more than that, because he was prone to having affairs with his leading ladies. When he did the show Ben Franklin in Paris there were lots of headlines about his having an affair with his leading lady. His wife, Catherine, was a beautiful, sweet woman, but she sure didn’t have it easy with Bob.
Bob and I had a truly great professional relationship, and Catherine was wonderful—she had a beautiful, motherly presence. There was something very calming about her. Occasionally David and I would go out with Bob and Catherine, but not very often. I have a funny memory of going with them to a wonderful Japanese restaurant Bob kept talking about. Sashimi was a relatively new thing—remember this is 1958—and my reaction was: “Raw fish? Are you kidding? You’re going to eat raw fish?!” Bob insisted, “You’ve got to try this.” Off we went to the Saito Restaurant, which was really a kind of gourmet Japanese restaurant, complete with beautiful little private rooms. The food was superb, and during the ensuing years I grew to really love sushi and sashimi. In 1958, however, the thought of eating raw fish felt like visiting another planet.
Bob presented a very interesting dichotomy—very gregarious, seemingly open, but at the same time extremely private. Each night before the show began he would come into my dressing room and we’d talk about the day—politics, what was happening in the world, a great one-on-one conversation. And yet, after each of these encounters, he would leave and I felt as if I didn’t really kno
w him at all.
Our conversation would end, Bob would go onstage, and wow! He was sensational—funny and touching: The audience just didn’t expect this staggering star turn from him. He had played sidekick to Gary Cooper in Beau Geste and been a second-tier Hollywood guy in films like The Macomber Affair. There really wasn’t a lot of sexuality in his films, but onstage—whoa! Very sexy.
Bob was a great team leader because those preshow talks weren’t just for me. He really did spark the company. Bob would get on the loudspeaker backstage and talk to us before the show started; it wasn’t an “Okay, let’s win one for the Gipper”–type speech, but rather a joke or something fun. The company adored him and he was very, very easy to get along with. When it comes from the top like that it helps the cast pull together, and as a result we had a very good company. I think Hugh Jackman was like that on The Boy from Oz.
Bob had it written into his contract that he and I each were allowed two-week vacations and that we could take our vacations at the same time. He said he didn’t want to play the show with anybody else, and I never did play it with anyone else, except for that one performance with Larry Douglas in Philadelphia and a very few performances in New York when Bob fell ill.
And then there was David Burns, who played Mayor Shinn. He was a wonderful actor who went on to play the male lead in Hello, Dolly! with Carol Channing, but he was also a very raunchy kind of guy. When I think about his shenanigans now it all seems funny as hell, but at the time I got all prissy about it. Maybe it came from my husband—he didn’t even like me to say “damn.” God forbid I’d say “shit.” At the time, I just thought, “I’m a lady, and, Davey, you don’t do that in front of me.” Miss Priss of 1957. Here’s what Davey was like: Christian Dior died while we were in rehearsal; and, though I didn’t actually see this firsthand, I was told that when David heard the news he tied a black ribbon around his penis and would say to the guys: “Isn’t it a shame about Christian Dior?” Very funny.