by Barbara Cook
The Kennedy Center Honors were the icing on the cake for me; just to be mentioned in the same breath as those incredible artists was a gift. I had been hearing rumors that I might receive the award—hints from Michael Kaiser and Adrienne Arsht—but if there is anything I’ve learned from sixty-plus years in the business, it’s that talk is cheap and nothing’s real until it happens. For at least a dozen years Jerry Kravat and a Washington-based friend, Lester Hyman, had been lobbying on my behalf, which is not at all an unusual thing for people to do. Typically, supporters begin writing letters, contacting other people, suggesting that their favorite be honored.
Even as Jerry began this campaign for me all those years ago, he didn’t believe it would actually happen. He said, “I don’t think there’s a chance in hell that this will come through, but let’s go through the motions and see how it turns out.” And I thought to myself, “If this should happen it will make everything okay. It will make those years when I was unemployable, when I couldn’t stop drinking, when I should have been doing my best work in the theater, okay. It will make it all okay.” So when I heard I was on the short list, I was excited but tried not to get my hopes up too high or think about it too much. Adrienne and Michael had both been telling me for a long time that things looked good for me, and they said it so often that I finally said to Adrienne: “Listen, I need to tell you that after all you and Michael have said, if this doesn’t happen I’m going to have to kill both of you!”
It’s embarrassing now to think about how much I wanted the honor. I didn’t believe it would happen. I wonder if anyone does. You’re officially informed of the honor by letter, and the funniest part was that even after the public announcement had been made and I had received the letter asking me to accept the honor, I still had trouble believing it. (Steven Spielberg said that he had to have his assistant read it to him twice before he believed it.)
The honors encompass a weekend of events in Washington, D.C.—the first weekend in December. It’s all surprisingly low-key. On Saturday night they have a dinner at the State Department, where they come up behind you and put the medal around your neck while the secretary of state talks about you and your career. The placing of the medal may be low-key, but make no mistake, it is still a big deal.
So too is the ceremony itself at the Kennedy Center, on Sunday. Along with your four fellow honorees, you sit in a special box with the president and first lady while others pay tribute to your career. You don’t have to work, but in effect you end up taking the best curtain call imaginable! Adam was with me as my escort, and I just wish Jerry Kravat and Wally Harper could have been there as well. They had both died a few years before this happened, and I sure thought about them that night. Patti LuPone, Audra McDonald, Sutton Foster, and others paid tribute to me from the stage and it was overwhelming. When all was said and done, the strongest feeling I held inside was one of being understood. Somebody “got it.” A lot of people “got it.” As an artist I couldn’t have asked for more.
18 • AS OF TODAY
BROADWAY TODAY IS a far different place than it was in the late 1950s and early sixties. Perhaps the biggest difference lies in the way careers now develop. In those days you didn’t suddenly go from featured player to headliner. You had to earn it. That tradition of really earning your name above the title has vanished. The stakes are so high now that producers want to import a well-known Hollywood name, even for a limited run, in order to pack the theater, turn a profit, and make a quick getaway. Some theater stars do exist, of course—Sutton Foster, Kelli O’Hara, and Audra McDonald come to mind—but half a century ago, shows would have been written for them. These talented women now perform in concerts not just because they want to, but also because they have to. It used to be that you didn’t do concerts and cabaret on the side—you just landed another show. Now it could be years between musicals, even for the biggest names on Broadway.
They tell me now that I was part of Broadway’s Golden Age, the era that really seemed to start with Oklahoma! in 1943. I know that Show Boat in 1927 changed the playing field, but with Oklahoma! the entire landscape of musical theater changed. You could no longer get away with the unadulterated silliness that was nothing more than an excuse for songs, and, following the lead of Oscar Hammerstein II, creators now utilized an integrated approach, combining dialogue, music, lyrics, and dance in order to tell a meaningful story. Well, my first show was Flahooley, in 1951, and the truth is I didn’t know I was part of any golden age. I wish somebody had told me. I would have had a lot more fun.
Sometimes I ask an audience, “Do you think we’re in a golden age now?” I hear a lot of moans coming back at me. Well, we could be. I think what we have to do is enjoy every day just as much as we can because thirty years from now you could wake up and they’ll tell you that you were in a golden age, and you’d feel like a fool if you didn’t.
For a long time I wasn’t fully aware of how much of my own life I put into interpreting lyrics, into communicating on a very personal level with the audience. But when I was accepting the Sondheim award from City Opera, in my acceptance speech I said: “I thank you so much for this. I think by giving me this award you not only honor my work, but you also honor my life, because that’s what I do—I put my life, everything that ever happened to me, the good and the bad, into these songs.” I believe art that is authentic can be healing. I suppose that I’ve come to think of myself as a salesman, because I really do believe that what I have to say through my songs can help people.
Putting your life into your art—this is what I try to teach students in the master classes I conduct at venues like the Boston Conservatory of Music, and at Juilliard. “Stop worrying about how you look and how you sound. Concentrate on what you are trying to say with this song.” The words have to matter: Who is the character? What are they really singing about? Are they singing one thing but meaning another? Oftentimes students come in and they just want you to know right away that they can SING, in capital letters. They come on like singing machines. Then—slowly, slowly, slowly, I get them to be human beings again. It almost always works. It’s quite exciting and very moving.
If I had to put it into one sentence, the most important lesson I want to instill in singers is: “You are enough.”
I tell my students: “Work toward embracing yourself and who you are. You don’t need to look like anybody else. You don’t need to sound like anybody else. Have the courage to give us your true self.
“You are enough.
“You are always enough.
“We are always enough.”
When any of us sings what has come to be known as the Great American Songbook, it’s not about showing off vocally à la American Idol. You want the song to sound conversational. We’re Americans—sing like you talk. That’s what Sinatra was so great at—that sense of conversational intimacy with the listener.
When I teach master classes, I often think of a wonderful piece of advice from my ex-husband. Shortly before David died, Adam went to visit him in Los Angeles. Adam asked him, “Dad, can you tell me what you think is the most important thing you learned from Lee Strasberg?” He thought for a moment and then simply said, “Be there.” That said it all as far as I’m concerned. That’s what I impress upon the students. We need to “be there” as performers, but also need to “be there” in life. It’s not always easy to do, but it is infinitely rewarding.
We all change as we age. I sure as hell hope I am not the same person I was fifty years ago. Change really is the only constant in life, and acceptance of that change can be rough, but essential.
In the interesting way that today’s complicated family life sometimes unfolds, I finally saw my ex-husband after twenty-five years when Adam and I went to Italy for the wedding of his brother Jacob—David’s son with his second wife, Beth. Adam and I flew to Rome, and when we were shopping for china in Portofino right before the wedding, Adam happened to glance toward the door and then whispered to me, “Mom, David LeGrant just wa
lked in.” Adam had not seen his father in eighteen years, but our joint reunion was pleasant—no bickering, no recriminations, just mother, father, and son together again for a brief moment.
Adam had not seen David for so many years because David had proved to be just as difficult toward Adam as he was with me; when Adam was growing up, he would tease him about not being athletic, in effect deriding him for not turning out exactly as David wanted and envisioned. Now, as adults, we could speak calmly, genuinely glad to see each other. We had all changed. I was so very happy about this turn of events: I had wanted David back in Adam’s life, and now he was.
When Adam turned fifty, in 2009, I gave him a big birthday party, and David returned to New York for the first time since 1978. The good feelings engendered by our meeting in Italy remained, and as long as we stayed away from certain subjects we could have talked twenty-four hours a day. David remained difficult, but we all are in our own ways, and I was very grateful that he had played such a huge part in my life.
When David died, in July of 2011, I was surprised that it hurt so much. We had been divorced for forty-six years, and while I’ve never once doubted that the divorce was the right thing to do, whatever animosity I once held toward him had long since faded. I felt so bad when he died, and I think it’s because his death brought back the memories of our life together, sending me back to that time and place when we were so young, in love, and with all of our adult lives ahead of us. I loved David. He was the father of my beloved son, and for those reasons I felt his loss with a depth of feeling that surprised me. Memories can be wonderful, but they can also wound.
At the time of David’s death I had one of those two a.m. soul talks with a close friend. We were pondering whether either one of us had ever truly been in love. I think that very few people experience real love, by which I mean honest-to-God you-want-to-put-the-other-person’s-needs-before-your-own kind of love. It sure doesn’t happen often. I was in a deep first love with Herb Shriner that contained a certain degree of madness, because I was obsessed with him. But did I love him? Infatuation is totally different from love. David? I cared about him certainly and I was obviously attracted to him. But—did I love him to the depths of my soul? I’m still not sure. Arthur? I don’t know. I just don’t know.
As you get older, you realize more fully just how mysterious life can be—wonderful and puzzling, damaging and life-affirming. You may not have the physical gifts you possessed as a youngster, but you can draw on all of your experiences in an attempt to understand what it all means and to continue going on. I think back to a long-ago afternoon rehearsal at Avery Fisher Hall. I was sitting in the front row with Arthur Schwartz as the fellow onstage was singing “Dancing in the Dark,” the masterpiece Arthur wrote with Howard Dietz.
I said, “God, Arthur, it must feel so good to have written such a gorgeous melody.” And he said, “Yes, but you know, very few people know what the song is about.” Now, I have to admit, the music is so compelling that I, like so many others, thought it was a lovely song about dancing.
But—the song, as Arthur explained to me, is about life and death. The transience of life. The aching beauty we can never quite hold on to.
Howard Dietz wrote:
Dancing in the dark till the tune ends.
We’re dancing in the dark and it soon ends.
We’re waltzing in the wonder of why we’re here.
Time hurries by. We’re here and gone.
Looking for the light of a new love
To brighten up the night. I have you, love.
And we can face the music together
Dancing in the dark.
Wally and I performed that amazing song at our first Carnegie Hall concert in 1975, but I’d sing it differently now. This song, like all great art, speaks to us in different ways at different stages of our lives, precisely because we all keep changing. We become older and acquire a different understanding of the dark. Same thing with the Rodgers and Hart song “I Didn’t Know What Time It Was.” I recorded that in the 1950s for an all Rodgers and Hart album of ballads, and while my voice was fine, I can sing it now with so much more feeling and drama, for one reason:
I’ve lived.
19 • STILL CAPABLE OF WONDER
I’M EIGHTY-EIGHT YEARS old and realize that I have arrived at the fourth stage of womanhood:
Childhood
Adolescence
Maturity
and . . . “You look wonderful!”
And, wonderful or not, I still believe I’m a work in progress. I’m still learning, still excited, still frustrated, but most of all still in the game. I don’t make a point of memorizing reviews, good or bad because what matters is to keep growing, but Stephen Holden in the New York Times reviewed me fairly recently in terms that really resonated with me: “In whatever she sings, you sense a lifetime’s experience being addressed from a perspective that is still capable of wonder. . . .” It’s true. Perhaps when we get older we reexperience the sense of wonder we felt as youngsters, only now it’s mixed in with a sense of gratitude. Note how the light hits the leaves on the tree. Look at the everyday beauty surrounding us . . .
I try to be fully present when I sing. If I’m fully engaged, there is a chance that my soul, for lack of a better word, can touch the souls of other people, and then there can be healing. We are, finally, so alone in this world, but sometimes, if only for a few moments, there can be a whole group of people blending with one another. No matter what the medium, through authentic art can come healing.
I don’t sing the way I used to. In some ways, I sing better. Better than I did five years ago, and I believe I’ll sing even better five years from now (that is if I’m still around; I sometimes forget how old I am). I don’t have the range I used to have, and my voice has surely gotten darker, but I have more and more courage to move deeper and deeper into the lyrics. I don’t sing “Glitter and Be Gay” anymore, but I can pack a lifetime’s worth of beauty and joy and pain into a lyric in a way I never could have fifty years ago.
In twelve-step programs you are taught “You will learn not to regret the past.” Well, I do regret the past, lots of it. I regret not being active in the theater when I was in my prime. It’s painful to think of all those missed opportunities. But Adam, who is very wise in so many ways—certainly wiser than I am—sees the big picture in a way that I don’t, and said something helpful to me on that very topic: “Mom, this is your journey. And where you are is pretty great. Look at you. Still singing. Still working. Respected in the business. Still with a thriving career. A lot of those people who were active when you wanted to be don’t work anymore, or they are no longer with us. So—this is your journey.” And that really helped me. Wally used to tell me: “We’ll keep going until you drop onstage—with your walker!”
I can still feel a bit of a twinge of jealousy when I see or hear about someone getting a great career opportunity that I wish I had. “Oh damn. Why didn’t I get that?” But it’s only a twinge. I used to play a game with myself about career opportunities that centered on: “How would I feel about this if Florence Henderson got it?” Back in 1955, my face was on a giant billboard overlooking Broadway for Plain and Fancy. That billboard was huge! It was very impressive. The problem was that I just couldn’t take it in. The best I could do was to think, “Well, if Florence Henderson was on the billboard I’d be impressed, so maybe the fact that I’m up there means something.” I liked Florence a lot. We had formed a fast friendship while touring a whole season together in Oklahoma! but I was making her the gauge for my own career. That thought process is completely foreign to me now. I can put aside thoughts of jealousy and immediately say to myself, “You know—that belongs to them. It’s okay. This belongs to me. It’s all okay.”
And it really is.
Sometimes life is so hard. But it’s the only game in town, and we sure as hell didn’t make the rules—so either we give up, which some people do, or we play along the best we can, and along the way there
is glory, too.
I’ve been able to grasp bits of that glory all along the way.
I remain, most of all, grateful.
PHOTOS SECTION
My handsome father in his World War I cavalry uniform.
Striding down the streets of Atlanta with my mother—and already in a New York state of mind.
Mrs. I. W. Curry’s dance troupe entertaining at Fort Benning, Georgia, army base, 1944.
Tamiment, Pennsylvania, 1950. The best possible summer stock experience—and where I met my husband.
Flahooley, 1951. My first Broadway show—with the Bil & Cora Baird Puppets.
Ali Hakim and Ado Annie. Touring in Oklahoma! with my husband, David LeGrant. Photofest
Backstage at the Blackhawk Hotel in Chicago with David, touring in Six on a Honeymoon. I’m still not sure why he had those bandages!
As Carrie in Carousel—even more fun than playing the lead role of Julie. Photofest
Plain and Fancy—the show that put me on the map. I still have the wedding caps a lovely Amish woman sent me. Photofest
Candide rehearsals with our director, Tyrone Guthrie. Photofest
Singing Leonard Bernstein’s showstopping “Glitter and Be Gay” in Candide.
Publicity photo from the 1956 television production of Bloomer Girl, complete with Shirley Temple curls.
With the adorable Eddie Hodges as Winthrop in The Music Man.
Robert Preston: the first, best, and sexiest Professor Harold Hill. Photofest