Broadway Tails (8 page)

During previews, the writer and director decided Fritz’s calm disposition wouldn’t prompt the creature to hurt him. They asked if Fritz could run offstage as if he were attacking something. While it made sense, it was hard to do. I had searched for a dog that was very calm so he wouldn’t upstage the action. Fritz rarely got excited about anything, and that’s what made him perfect for the first-act scenes. So each day during rehearsals, I tried toys, balls, every food from Milk-Bones to steak, but the most he would do was get center stage and then trot toward the wings. I was at a loss. I couldn’t find anything in his daily life with me that would make him run. And the director was politely asking when I would make it work because it would really help the scene. I was stumped. Then one day I saw my friend Mary Lee walking her dog. It was a little black poodle named Fleur, and she had a diaper on. I asked why, and Mary Lee said Fleur was in heat, and it was the only way to keep the apartment clean.

Then it hit me. What was the one thing Fritz had done well all his life? Be a stud. So I asked Mary Lee to bring Fleur to the theater. I made her my assistant and put her stage right. I went up and got Fritz and gave him to the stage manager, stage left. On cue I had them release Fritz, with Mary
holding Fleur behind the curtain next to me. When Fritz hit center stage, I called his name, and when he looked, I pulled the curtain back. There he saw Mary holding this little black poodle. He took one sniff and ran to her like a bat out of hell. At the moment he hit the wings, I sent Mary Lee and Fleur one way and I grabbed Fritz and went in the other direction. I said to him, “Sorry, buddy, you missed her. Maybe you’ll get her tomorrow night.” The director and writer were thrilled. When I told them how we did it, they couldn’t believe it. For the rest of the run it worked perfectly. Fleur was soon out of heat, but it didn’t matter. Fritz was determined he was going to get that girl one day, and he kept on trying.

The next night, a half-hour before the curtain went up, I was called to the stage door. An officer from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) stood there—a very large man, in full uniform with badge and gun—asking to speak to the animal trainer. I said, “That’s me.” He said, “We’ve received complaints about a dog being drugged in this show, and we’re here to investigate.”

“Drugged?” I said. “We would never drug an animal.”

“Well, the complaint says that someone has tranquilized a dog,” the officer said.

All of a sudden it made sense to me. It only took a few seconds for Fritz to walk offstage and the creature to enter with the puppet. Animal lovers must have thought the only way to make it happen was to drug the dog. I started to laugh, and I told the officer the story. He did not laugh. We worked it out with the stage manager to show him the puppet. While he was intrigued, he said he still had to see the scene in question to make sure no animals were being harmed. So now I had to handle a poodle in heat, Fritz, and an ASPCA officer to make sure no one got hurt, all at the same time. Once the officer had watched the scene, he thanked me for being so cooperative and said he would write up his report.

We thought it was over and done with until the next night, when he was there again. This time he was more apologetic but said another complaint
had been filed, so he had to come back. He was a little more talkative and wanted to know more about the show. I introduced him to the cast, and he got a big kick out of it. The third night he came to the stage door and asked me to say he had been there the whole night. There was another complaint and he wanted to get home. We shook hands and he assured me that after three observations, they could now close the case. Our creators loved the fact that the audience was so in tune with the play.

This was the first time that I really understood the power of animals onstage. I had always been amazed at the positive reaction to Sandy and my other dogs—but here we were showing an animal being mistreated. Instead of understanding it was just a play, the audience was concerned about the welfare of the animal. It was a great lesson for me in two ways: It reinforced that I needed to be able to prove we always did things humanely. It also showed me that the audience’s reaction to animals onstage is much stronger than what they would feel watching a movie or a television show.

Audiences that were coming to see the show in previews loved it, and the word of mouth was great. The show scared the pants off you. Because of the audience reaction, we were sure it was going to be a hit. One of the producers was the famed restaurateur, Joe Kipness, who planned a lavish opening party. We even had our wardrobe department make two little black tuxedos for the Westies. They looked so cute.

Opening night was a black-tie affair, just like old Broadway. The audience loved the show, and we had to take eleven standing ovations. It was incredible—the audience would not stop clapping. We went to the party on cloud nine. Everyone waited anxiously for the reviews. As the papers started coming in around midnight, the mood changed. The first review was bad. The second was worse. And the
New York Times
was worst of all. The major complaint was that the creative team had taken this piece of classic literature and turned it into a horror show. They took a highbrow stance on how the story was changed for a few cheap thrills. The critics obviously didn’t look around at what the audience was doing during the curtain calls.

While it looked bad, the cast was hopeful. Our other producer, Terry Allen Kramer, made it clear she planned to make it work. We’d do an advertising campaign and ignore the critics. But the next day when I went to the theater, there was a crew ripping out our beautiful scenery and putting it in the trash. It seems the Nederlanders wanted their rental money up front because of the poor reviews. Terry tried to persuade them to give her a break, but they wanted it that day or else. She couldn’t meet the deadline. It was a cold-blooded thing to do, and we couldn’t understand it. We finally figured out the reason soon after that. It seems that at the same time we were opening, a new musical was getting rave reviews on the road. The show was waiting for a New York theater to become available, and the star was very interested in playing the Palace. The theater owners saw our bad reviews as an excuse to bring in a musical that would make them a lot more money than a play, and they took it. A week after they threw our set out on the street,
Woman of the Year
moved in, with Lauren Bacall making her first Broadway appearance in nearly twenty years. And they were right—
Woman of the Year
was a big hit, ran for a long time, and made a lot of money.

Fritz and Snowy were out of a job before they knew it. The sad thing was, they had really enjoyed the experience of being loved by all those people—especially Snowy. The writer, Vic Gianella, took a particular interest in Snowy because he was the underdog, and Fritz got all the attention. After it was over, I saw Vic, and in passing he said he wished he could have Snowy. I said, “You want him?” He said, “Could I?” And I reassured him that I could think of no better home for this dog. It was love at first sight and the least I could do for the man. Snowy lived a very full and healthy life. Vic stayed in touch over the years and let me know when Snowy died. Before all the props were thrown away, Vic got to the theater and salvaged that beautiful puppet dog Bil Baird had made. He kept it on the top of his couch and would often freak out his friends by pretending that it was Snowy.

Fritz was too good a soul to send back to the breeder. He was perfect for someone who needed a quiet dog. Around that time my mother’s dog
passed away of old age. Even though she and my dad swore no more dogs, I conveniently made an excuse for them to babysit Fritz, and after that, he never came home to me again, the first of many “show” dogs and cats they adopted. He was the best pet. He would ride in the front baskets of my parents’ bikes and soon became a local celebrity. He made his daily rounds, getting treats from all of their friends. He did a few more commercials and print jobs for me, and lived a long and happy life.

Annie
was such a big hit that they started preparing for national tours in 1978, and Simon & Schuster even asked me to write a book about Sandy. That summer the producers asked me if I would be interested in training the dogs for the first and second national companies. Now with Sandy, I had just made it all up as I went along, and the prospect of doing it again with a different dog was a little scary, but I was very interested.

At the time, I was being represented by one of the big New York animal agencies. They helped negotiate my new contract and were taking 15 percent of all my earnings. They were trainers themselves, and, as I quickly learned, having my competitors negotiate for me was not a very good idea. As the summer progressed, I was writing my book
Sandy: The Autobiography of a Star
, and thinking about rescuing dogs for the tours. I kept talking to our general managers about when I was going to be able to start. In September I asked again and was told that my agents had said I wasn’t qualified to do the road companies—so the general managers had hired them instead of me.

I felt betrayed both by the show and my agents. I was in the theater because I loved it, and I thought people would genuinely support my work. Plus, the fact that the producers had agreed to hire another animal trainer made me doubt my abilities. I subsequently fired my agents and received all my back commissions. I started to think about going back to acting and forgetting all about animal training. Maybe
Annie
had been a one-time deal with a special dog. But soon after that I was asked to work on
Camelot
and
Frankenstein
, so by 1981, I had three Broadway credits to my name. It seemed I was slowly building a reputation for my ability to train animals for live theater.

One person who always had faith in me was Martin Charnin, the creator and director of
Annie
. He had written the lyrics for a new musical based on the book and movie
I Remember Mama
. Martin asked me to train a cat for this show. Still feeling somewhat doubtful about my credentials and my expertise, I turned him down. I said, “Martin, I really don’t know anything about cats. They’re difficult animals to train. I’ve had cats, but they don’t really listen to people.” They ultimately contacted my old agents, but from what I’ve been told, the cat they provided didn’t work out, and they ended up using a stuffed cat in the production. The next time Martin came to me was when he asked me to train the dogs for the third and fourth national companies of
Annie
because he was unhappy with the job done on the first and second companies, and he felt I could do it right. I’ve always been grateful to Martin for being the first to trust me and give me the chance to demonstrate my talents to the Broadway community.

In September 1981 I was again contacted by
Annie
’s general managers because they were representing Martin’s new musical
The First
—the story of Jackie Robinson. It was a baseball musical about breaking the color barrier and accepting people for who they are. Martin was born and raised in New York City, and Jackie Robinson had been one of his heroes when he was growing up. As they were conceiving the musical in rehearsals, they decided they needed a very strong finish to the end of the first act, when Jackie Robinson takes the field for the first time at Ebbets Field. Historically, the crowd booed and jeered. Knowing that Jackie Robinson was very
superstitious, someone in the stands threw a black cat onto the field, where it died. Despite all that, Jackie Robinson played the game and became one of the all-time greats.

They decided to have David Alan Grier, the young, unknown actor from Yale who was playing Jackie Robinson, come center stage. We hear the crowd boo, jeer, and shout racial slurs. The writers decided that it would be amazing to have a real black cat land on the stage as the curtain came down—a brilliant idea. Martin came to me again, knowing that I was now successfully providing the dogs for the new
Annie
road companies. His confidence in me, and the recognition I was receiving from other Broadway directors and producers, made me think I should give this a try. All I had to do was figure out how to train a cat.

I took the same approach that I had taken with Sandy and fell back on the experiences I had with animals as a kid. My mother loves cats, so we always had them when I was growing up. I remembered that the cats were very independent. They were friendly, but if you called them, they usually ran the other way. If you picked them up, they would stay with you a little while, and then get off your lap. They didn’t show any desire to do anything for humans, except at feeding time. I remembered how, no matter where they were, they would come running when they heard the can opener. Then they would rub against my mother’s legs, demanding their food. I thought this was the one thing a cat could be counted on to do—come when it was feeding time. The question was, could I find a cat that would be motivated to do that eight times a week, on a stage, in a Broadway theater, in front of 1,500 people?

True to my promise that I would always try to use rescued animals in shows, I went back to the best resource I had—the animal shelters in and around New York City. I was looking for a cat that was very outgoing, that was sure of himself, and that would want to eat every night at the same time. When I called my friends at the shelters and told them what I was looking for, they really thought I had lost my mind. But with all the
goodwill that I had given to these shelters, people were willing to let me look. While I had thought that shelter dogs had a poor life, I was really saddened by the state of the cats—thousands and thousands of kittens being born wild because people didn’t spay and neuter their cats. Cats that were emaciated, cats that were frightened, cats that were sick, cats that had been abused—and, at that time, much less likely to be adopted than dogs. In and around the New York City area, I was able to view 200 cats in a day.

At the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in New York I found exactly what I was looking for—a black cat that came right to the front of the cage and wasn’t afraid of strangers. He was a very large tomcat that might have been someone’s pet at one time, because he was somewhat domesticated, not wild. He was slightly emaciated, so I knew that he was probably very hungry. I took him out of the cage and brought him into the examining room. He stood purring on the examining table, being petted. I opened a can of cat food and he dove in with a ferocious appetite. I thought this cat might work, so I adopted him and called him Champ.

I had been called at the beginning of September, knowing the first preview performance was in mid-October. There was no sense bringing this cat to rehearsal and getting him used to the actors because he would only be interacting with one person onstage. There was no reason to get him used to the company and all of the commotion of the singing and dancing. I decided to wait until the week before we actually got into the real theater to bring the cat in. Meanwhile, I brought him home and set him up in one of my bedrooms so he didn’t have to deal with the dogs. Each night I would feed him on a stool. Before I fed him, I would put him on the stool, take a little piece of his cat food, and throw it from the stool onto the floor about three feet away. He would jump down to get it and then come back up. So we created a game where before he got his full meal, he would jump off the stool to chase a little piece of food.

About a week after I’d adopted Champ, I brought him into a rehearsal hall in New York City. Martin loved my idea: I was going to be in the wings
with my stool, and at the right moment, I would throw a piece of food onstage. The cat would leap about four or five feet to get it, just as the curtain was coming down. We hoped that it would have the desired effect. A week before the previews started, we went in for tech rehearsals. I asked for a quiet time onstage when the actors weren’t there, just to get the cat used to the theater, and they graciously granted me the time.

Now, there’s one thing I know for sure—there’s no sure thing with an animal. Even though this cat had done this behavior perfectly in the confines of my home, the theater was a very large space. I didn’t want him getting spooked, running and getting hurt by the scenery, or crawling out into the audience. I had a black collar on him that matched his fur, and then I got a little piece of fishing line so that he would always be leashed but the audience wouldn’t be able to see it. Every day during the supper hour, I would go in and try to teach the cat to get his food. Champ did very well, just like at home—he was hungry, he did his bit, and at the end he got his full meal and was very happy. The first time we tried it with David Alan Grier, the sets, the lights, and the sounds of people yelling and booing confused Champ a little, but by dress rehearsal he was doing it perfectly.

The night of our first preview was very exciting. We had a great cast, a great musical, and a subject that we all believed in. As the first act came to a close, David Alan Grier came center stage—Jackie Robinson was taking his rightful place on the baseball field. We heard the jeers and the slurs. We heard a voice over the speakers shout, “Hey, Jackie, here’s something for you,” and that was my cue to throw the piece of meat onstage. It worked perfectly. The curtain came down, and I picked up Champ and brought him back to the dressing room where he happily ate his meal. We had accomplished the job. I had trained my first cat for a Broadway show, and it was exciting. We did it the next night and it was successful. I was thrilled—until I had my second brush with law enforcement. The next night, a half-hour before the curtain went up, I was called to the stage door, and there was the same officer who had investigated us on
Frankenstein
. He was asking to speak with the animal trainer. I looked at him and said, “Remember me?”

“Oh no, not you again,” he said. “We received complaints that a cat is being abused in this show and they sent me here to investigate—seems I have a reputation in the department for liking Broadway shows.”

“You know I would never abuse an animal,” I said.

“I didn’t know it was you,” he said. “The complaint says that someone has been throwing a cat onstage.”

This was something we hadn’t counted on. By the end of the first act, the audience was already so emotionally involved with the character and the plot that no one expected to see a cat fly out onto the stage. Because it was so quick, they didn’t know where Champ came from, and they were assuming he had been thrown from a great height. People thought someone had actually thrown a cat onstage in the same way that they had during Jackie Robinson’s first appearance at Ebbets Field.

I invited the officer in, got him a cup of coffee, and explained to him, while the stage manager was there, exactly what we were doing. While he understood, met the cat, and saw the situation, he said he still had to actually witness the performance so that he could put in a report that no animals were being abused. He stood behind me in the wings, saw me bring Champ out, put on the safety line, then do the behavior just as the curtain came down. This time he laughed. He thought we had handled it perfectly and didn’t understand why people thought we were hurting cats. He would write it up in his report that no cats were abused and said he would probably see us soon. Two nights later he was back at the stage door, having received another complaint from a patron who felt that cats were being abused in the production. He seemed to like talking to the chorus girls on this show. So, for the second time he watched as we did the same behavior, thanked us very much for the coffee, and went back to the ASPCA.

By the end of the first week, it was apparent we needed to make a change. Although the incident was historically true, that one behavior was hurting the play by shifting the focus from Jackie Robinson to the cat. Martin and the writers decided they had to cut it, and I understood. After that, as the first-act curtain came down at each performance, a stagehand
threw a fake watermelon onstage from a ladder in the wings. It had the desired effect—the audience was appalled by the action.