You Fascinate Me So: The Life and Times of Cy Coleman (21 page)

Coleman’s response was to suggest taking out the beat, changing the title from “You Wanna Bet?” to “Sweet Charity” (since both scan the same). Everyone agreed, and Fields returned with the new lyric in short order. Such quickness on the part of both Coleman and Fields was one of the things that had cemented the relationship between Fosse and Verdon and the songwriting team. As Verdon’s son put it, “[My mom] felt like privileged in a way and honored to work with somebody like [Coleman]. And I think that Bob felt the same way in terms of that, maybe more so because of his professionalism that Bob saw. I mean, Bob saw that he knew what he was doing, and they liked to work with people who performed and who weren’t just all talk.”
18

The last musical revision to the show in Detroit did not, however, come as easily. It centered on the number that opened the second act, a revival number called “Gimme a Rain Check.” Coleman recalled, “It felt terribly old-hat. [Fosse] did ten versions of that number and not one of them worked.” Coleman knew that it was a number that could sink the show by the time it reached the Palace, so he and Dorothy wrote a new one—“The Rhythm of Life.” “It was inspired by Bach with a lot of interweaving polyphonic musical lines and was quite a challenge for Dorothy. She worked at it like a jigsaw puzzle and put the lyric together one phrase at a time.”
19

Once it was finished (and while Fosse was on a trip back to New York), Coleman taught it to the ensemble so that it was ready for Fosse to hear when he returned. Fosse, however, did not want to hear “Rhythm.” He vowed he would make “Rain Check” work.

Coleman’s reaction was fiery: “I was furious. Finally I left him a note, and I told him, ‘I’ve given up. You’re going to die with ‘Rain Check.’ You’ve died every time you put on ‘Rain Check’ and you are going to die some more with it. Have a good time. I’m through.’”
20
The ultimatum was enough to spur the director-choreographer forward. When Coleman arrived at the theater the next day, Fosse had already staged half of the new “Rhythm of Life” number.

It was the last change to the score before the company headed back to New York in January to prepare for both the show’s debut and that of the newly refurbished theater it would be playing. Anticipation for both events, among both public and press, was high.

In the days leading up to the opening, the newspapers were filled with stories about what theatergoers could expect in the historic building, which was becoming New York’s second-largest legitimate theater. The Nederlander Organization had hired scenic designer Ralph Alswang to create a new lobby, and under his guidance it had reverted to its origins: “You now have the original ceiling. We had to break through plaster to get to it. We found crystal chandeliers 5 feet wide, 7 feet high, in dressing rooms and they now hang in the lobby.” In the theater’s interior Alswang used red as the dominant color in another attempt to make the gargantuan theater appear more intimate: “We use color architecturally to make the volume of the space seem smaller.”
21

Beyond the restoration, the theater was also outfitted with an exhibition that drew from the Museum of the City of New York’s Theater Collection. Mementos, portraits, and caricatures were on display throughout the theater’s lobbies and foyers.

On opening night, January 29, 1966, the theater was jammed to capacity, filled with “black ties, perfume and Paris gowns.”
22
The performance, set to begin at 7:00 p.m., didn’t start until 7:30 and was followed by a sumptuous party at the Starlight Roof at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, where Columbia Records, which had invested in the show, taped interviews with members of the glittering crowd and released them on an LP to help promote the company’s cast album for the show.

When the reviews started to appear, the cast and creative team found that they had a sizable, if not unqualified, hit on their hands. There was almost unanimous praise for Fosse’s work. Norman Nadel, in a review that appeared in both the
Sun
and the
New York World-Telegram
, said that Fosse told Charity’s tale “in the crystal-clear language of the dance, individual and ensemble.” Stanley Kauffmann started his notice in the
New York Times
with “It is Bob Fosse’s evening at the Palace.”

Verdon’s performance, too, received undivided acclaim. It was described as “glowing” by Richard Watts Jr. in the
New York Post
, and John McClain in the
Journal-American
said, “She has never been in better form.”

As for Simon, who already had two hits (
Barefoot in the Park
and
The Odd Couple
) running on Broadway, he received some of the reviewers’ strongest criticisms. In the
New York Herald Tribune
, Walter Kerr wrote that Simon’s book “skimped sorely and unexpectedly on the comedy, apparently because bittersweet is to be the mood of the hour.” Watts quibbled with the ending, admitting that he only wanted to see good things for Verdon, and in
Newsday
George Oppenheimer found himself admiring the fact that Simon’s writing was both “humorous and tender” but concluding that the overall book did “not add up to a happy total.”

The songs, too, garnered wildly divergent responses. In the
Daily News
John Chapman found the score “considerably above average” and even made mention of how the songs were “deepened with fascinatingly modern internal rhythms by the arranger, Ralph Burns.” But Kauffmann’s review in the
Times
read, “Coleman here joins the company of the many current show composers who supply appropriate rhythms but no tunes that can be remembered.” As for Fields’s work, Kauffmann added that she had written lyrics that were “no more than serviceable.”

One of the things none of the critics picked up on was an instrument that had made its way into the orchestra pit of the Palace Theatre. To give the show its mod sound during numbers like “Rich Man’s Frug” and “The Rhythm of Life,” an early synthesizer from the Chicago-based company Cordovox was being used. In some interviews later in his life, Coleman would claim that by using this device, “I brought electric into the pit for the first time.”
23

As for the theatergoing public, they seemed to read only the raves for the show, and lines began to form at the Palace Theatre box office immediately after the opening. Two weeks later
Sweet Charity
was doing standing-room-only business, prompting
Variety
to proclaim that it was “apparently due for a smash run.”
24

Equally poised for potential for hit status were Coleman and Fields’s songs on their own, thanks to the myriad recordings that came out in tandem with the show’s tryout and opening. Barbra Streisand recorded both “Where Am I Going?” and “You Wanna Bet?”; Tony Bennett released a single with “Baby, Dream Your Dream” on one side; Sylvia Syms waxed “There’s Gotta Be Something Better Than This” and “Poor Everybody Else”; and Peggy Lee, who introduced “Big Spender” as part of her set at the Copacabana in November 1965, several weeks before the first public performance of
Sweet Charity
in Philadelphia, had gone into the studio to preserve her sultry rendition of the song.

The way in which Lee came to this number beautifully illustrates both Coleman’s relationship with the singer and the way he actively promoted his work in the months before the show’s opening. He would often tell the story of how he called Lee in the hope of getting her to record “You Wanna Bet,” but as the conversation continued he came to realize that she wasn’t interested in the song. She hedged by asking about how the show was going.

Coleman recalled that the conversation proceeded: “So I said, ‘I’m working on a new song.’ And she said, ‘What’s it called?’ ‘It’s called ‘Big Spender.’ She said, ‘That’s an interesting title.’ I said, ‘Yeah, it’s kind of an interesting song. It’s a group number. All of the girls are lined up and they sing it. It’s about boredom. It’s about how it’s this line that they throw out every night: ‘The minute you walked in the joint.’ And it’s being brilliantly staged by Bob Fosse.’ She said, ‘Sing me a few bars.’ So I did, and she said to me, ‘I could make a hit record out of that.’ And I said, ‘No. It’s a group number. It isn’t really a song per se.’ And she said, ‘Well, make it a song, and make a demo and send it to me.’ So I did and she was right.”
25

Beyond the covers of the show’s tunes, many of which were on the Top 40 Charts at
Billboard
for the first half of 1966, the sheet music from Coleman’s Notable Music was selling briskly as the show opened. Estimates were that, before
Sweet Charity
had been open a full week, “1,200 and 1,500 copies of each of the 12 songs in the show” were sold.
26

The cast album, recorded on February 6 and released within the month, helped to publicize the show further, spurred ticket sales, and, in one instance, compelled a critic to reconsider his initial opinion of the Coleman-Fields score. In a March 19 column in
Newsday
, George Oppenheimer wrote, “My first reaction to Mr. Coleman’s music was not overly favorable. After hearing it a second, third, and numerous other times, I am prepared to eat copious crow, sprinkled, I hope, with Miss Fields’ lyrics which I admired greatly then, now and always.”

By spring, as the cast recording was moving gently up Billboard’s Top LP Chart, peaking at number 92, more recordings of the score began to appear as Coleman’s work attracted the attention of other musicians. Skitch Henderson released an album that put a big-band sound to the music. More important, this LP preserved in toto one melody that survived only in part as a small snippet of underscoring in the final
Charity
score. Coleman had originally composed this tune, titled “When Did You Know?,” for a ballet that Fosse had at one point envisioned in the show. It was something that Coleman returned to nearly fifteen years later when writing
Barnum
. Outfitted with a lyric by Michael Stewart, it became “Love Makes Such Fools of Us All.”

Along with Henderson’s LP, a semi-studio cast album was released by the Roxy Theater Orchestra and Chorus, and later Bobby Hackett and Ronnie David released an LP with one side dedicated to
Sweet Charity
numbers. Somewhat ironically, this latter album paired the
Charity
songs with ones from Jerry Herman’s
Mame
, which bowed at the end of May and which, along with
Man of La Mancha
, proved to be formidable competition for the Coleman-Fields-Simon show as awards season in New York kicked into gear.

When the Tony Award nominations were announced, it looked as if
Sweet Charity
could emerge as the winner of the season. The show received nine nominations, the most of any show that year, including two nods for Fosse (director and choreographer categories), while Coleman and Fields, Verdon, and Simon garnered a nomination apiece. Just behind
Charity
were both
Mame
(eight nominations) and
La Mancha
(seven nominations).

Charity
ultimately won in only one category: Fosse picked up his fifth Tony for his dances. The other awards were distributed almost evenly between the chipper
Mame
, where Angela Lansbury, Beatrice Arthur, and Frankie Michaels were winners, and the serious
Man of La Mancha
, which received not only the much-coveted best musical award but also best score, best director, and best actor prizes.

Nevertheless,
Sweet Charity
remained one of the top attractions on Broadway and settled into a 609-performance run, evolving into a property that would become a successful business unto itself and require Coleman’s attention for the next three to four years. Perhaps more important, however, was that the show had brought the composer together with another lyricist with whom he could enjoy a long-term partnership. As 1966 progressed, they found themselves very much in demand as one of Broadway’s top songwriting teams.

15.
“In Tune”

Before
Sweet Charity
opened, the pairing of Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields struck many as incongruous, principally because of the difference in their ages. Furthermore, as Gwen Verdon’s son, James Henaghan observed, “To me, she didn’t look like the person who would write those kinds of songs. She looked like a kind of matronly lady.”
1

But as Coleman pointed out when asked how Fields stayed in touch with the pulse of the times—in both
Charity
and
Seesaw
—in a 1977 interview with Lynn Summerall for WBJC radio in Baltimore: “She was a philosopher and somewhat of a psychiatrist. . . . She saw aspects of life and the various staples of life, let’s say, that don’t change. For example, the song ‘Where Am I Going?’ I’ve had a lot of young people come over to me and say, ‘That’s my story.’ And I tell them that the woman who wrote it was seventy years old, and they ask, ‘How did she know that about me?’ . . . I don’t think she necessarily had to go to a discotheque or follow the charts at
Billboard
to know what’s happening to do her lyrics. All she had to do was know the show and just write human nature.”

It wasn’t just Fields’s commonsense approach to her craft but also her openness to the way theater was changing that allowed her to work so easily with Coleman. In the middle of 1966, just as
Annie Get Your Gun
(for which she and her brother Herbert had written the book) was being revived, she talked about how musicals had evolved since she began her career in 1928 and pointed to
Sweet Charity
as an ideal example. “The curtain closes just once through the entire show, at the end of the first act,” she told syndicated reporter Joan Crosby, adding, “Now there are all kinds of pieces of elaborate mechanical devices which eliminate the need to close the curtains to change the scenery. This also means the secondary love story—the one that always took place before the curtain—has been eliminated.”
2

Fields’s son, David Lahm, believed that on some levels his mother was “ready for it,” by which he meant the chance to work as the business and styles were changing. “She was one of the lucky ones. Most of her colleagues by the time they had reached her age were on the shelf. They couldn’t get a show. They could hardly work. But she found Cy or vice versa, so she had a chance to go around a whole second time.” Lahm also noted that his mother’s work with Coleman gave a certain symmetry to her career. “She’d started with Jimmy McHugh, who was something of an entrepreneur like Cy.”
3

For whatever reason, the Coleman-Fields team had clicked, and in mid-1966 they embarked on a second show together,
Keep It in the Family
, a musical adaptation of Samuel Taylor’s play
The Happy Time
, which had enjoyed a healthy eighteen-month run on Broadway at the start of the 1950s. It revolved around a world-renowned photographer who visits his family in Canada, where he inspires his teenaged nephew with his free spirit. The show, to be produced by David Merrick, reunited Coleman with N. Richard Nash, who had written
Wildcat
, and according to the first announcements about the project the new musical would star French actor Yves Montand, who was riding the crest of his newly established fame in the United States thanks to movies like
Goodbye Again
and
My Geisha
.

Coleman and Fields took Nash’s first draft and started conceiving numbers for the project. They were quickly able to provide a title song, since they had begun work on a sprightly number coincidentally called “Keep It in the Family” for
Sweet Charity
. Other trunk songs from this show fit easily into the new one, and by Nash’s second draft the show had moments for both “Pink Taffeta Sample Size 10” and “Poor Everybody Else.”

Coleman and Fields also wrote a trio of new songs for
Family
, ranging from a gentle jazz waltz (“Meat and Potatoes”) to a lightly Gallic ballad for which they contemplated two distinct titles. In scripts the number is indicated by the name “In the Spring (An Old Man’s Fancy),” but when Coleman wrote it out it bore the title “I’m Way Ahead.” Years later he and Fields would write another, completely different song with the same name. The third song that they finished for
Family
was “So What Now?,” a stirring anthem for Montand’s character.

The project remained on the team’s docket through the beginning of 1967, at which point they withdrew because they learned that Montand would not be available for the show for another two years. When this happened, producer Merrick brought in a new songwriting team, John Kander and Fred Ebb, who had just had their first show,
Flora, the Red Menace
, on Broadway in the spring of 1965. The project, under the name
The Happy Time
, eventually reached the stage with Robert Goulet as its star in 1968.

Given that Coleman and Fields wrote over two dozen tunes for
Charity
in just about eight months, the fact that they developed a mere fraction of that in the same length of time for
Family
may seem surprising; but it is important to note that there were still matters regarding
Charity
that required some of their attention.

Most notably, negotiations for the film rights had to be taken care of during the second half of the year. From the moment the show opened on Broadway, there was speculation about a film version. Initially, it looked as if Joseph E. Levine (executive producer of films ranging from
Godzilla, King of the Monsters
to
Long Day’s Journey into Night
) would acquire the musical for Embassy Films. The company also happened to hold the rights to
Little Me
, and Levine was still heavily promoting his company’s plans to produce it with double truck (two-page) ads in such industry papers as
Variety
. In short order, however, other studios expressed interest in the property, and eventually the rights went to Universal Pictures for $500,000.

Coleman never forgot the irony behind the musical’s being bought by this particular studio. After all, he and Universal had a checkered history. As he remembered some years later: “They offered me a partnership deal where we would split everything down the middle, but the prospect of tying myself up for so long scared me to death so I reneged on the deal and wrote ‘Sweet Charity.’”
4
After all, writing for the movies wasn’t a match for him temperamentally. As he observed late in his career, “When I score a film . . . [I] come in at the end. Everybody’s gone home and they’ve had all the fun.”
5

Along with speculation about which studio would bring
Sweet Charity
to the screen, rumors began to abound about who might play the role, and among the names that circulated through columns was that of Ann-Margret, who wanted the role “more than anything,” according to Alex Freeman’s May 17 column in the
Hartford Courant
. Shirley MacLaine flew to New York specifically to scout for shows that might become film vehicles, and it was she who ultimately snagged the part.

Universal put one of its top men in charge of production: Ross Hunter, the man who had also brought
The Art of Love
to the screen; and as news of the studio’s deal and the movie’s star became public, so too did the name of the movie’s director and choreographer. Bob Fosse would make his Hollywood debut behind the camera, reprising his work in both capacities on film, which was considered by many to be one of the most important on the company’s docket.

Even as tongues wagged about the movie, talk in columns in New York and beyond also included speculation about who might star in a national tour of the show and who might be a substitute for the seemingly irreplaceable Verdon on Broadway when she took her vacation. In one instance, this all started before the show opened on Broadway. Gretchen Wyler (who had followed Verdon in the role of Lola in
Damn Yankees
) hinted in a club act that she would be starring in a national tour; then, before the show reached its two-month mark, columnist Louis Sobol hinted that Mitzi Gaynor, who had won hearts for her work in films like
South Pacific
, was a possibility for both Broadway and on the road.

By April Robert Fryer was unwilling to confirm when, or even if, a national tour would be launched, citing the fact that a company crisscrossing the country could have a negative impact on the brisk ticket sales the production was enjoying in New York. At the same time, however, he was able to report on the progress that had been made for international companies. Chita Rivera (star of
West Side Story
and
Bye Bye Birdie
) had agreed to star in London as Charity. Rehearsals were slated to begin in late 1966 or early 1967. As for other international incarnations of
Sweet Charity
, Fryer had his eye on Jeanmaire (who had had a Broadway hit with
The Girl in Pink Tights
) to play the role in Paris, and he told the
New York Times
that he would be willing to “wait for years” to have her play the title role.
6
A German company that would play Vienna, Berlin, and Munich, according to Fryer, would be headed by film star Johanna von Kosczian (whose screen credits overseas included a 1957 remake of
Victor/Victoria
and
The Marriage of Mr. Mississippi
).

Fryer made all of this sound like a fait accompli, but within a few months plans changed, particularly with regard to
Charity
in the United States. The producers struck a deal to serve as “entertainment consultants for Caesar’s Palace, the new Las Vegas hotel” and in this capacity would bring their two current New York hits—the other being Jerry Herman’s
Mame
—there.
7

The deal was unusual—and financially attractive. The hotel agreed to finance the entire venture and guaranteed a sixteen-week run for each new production. After this, should the hotel’s management not exercise an option to continue either production’s engagement, the producers would have a second full-scale incarnation of the show, theoretically ready for touring. But as Joe Cohen noted in the August 17 issue of
Variety
, the stage at Caesar’s was “larger than will be found in most legit houses,” meaning that there would be an expense related to downsizing elements of the physical production once a tour commenced.

Within a month the producers announced who would play Charity in Vegas: Juliet Prowse, who gave a breakout performance in the movie version of Cole Porter’s
Can-Can
playing Claudine, the role originated onstage by Verdon. Subsequent to
Can-Can
, Prowse’s credits stretched to several other films, including the Elvis Presley flick
G.I. Blues
, and numerous television appearances.

The full company came into focus quickly after this announcement. Elaine Dunn, who had been in
John Murray Anderson’s Almanac
over ten years before, snagged the role of Nickie, and Paula Kelly, who was just beginning her stage and screen career, would play Helene, Charity’s other best bud at the Fan-Dango Ballroom. Ronald Holgate, who had been in shows like
Milk and Honey
and
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
was cast as Vittorio; he played the role briefly on Broadway while the Las Vegas company rehearsed in New York. Similarly, the man cast as Oscar in Las Vegas, Peter Lombard, had done a stint in the Broadway
Charity
when he stepped in for a vacationing John McMartin.

The opening date in Las Vegas was set for December 29, but before the show could even start rehearsing there was one other issue involved with taking
Charity
to Vegas. The show had to be streamlined so that it could be performed twice a day and not distract gamblers from the action at the casinos. To this end Simon’s book was drastically pruned and three of Coleman and Fields’s songs—“You Should See Yourself,” “Charity’s Soliloquy” and “I’m the Bravest Individual”—were cut.

The revisions did not in any way dampen the critical and popular reaction to the show when it bowed in Caesar’s Circus Maximus. When reviews began appearing during the first days of January 1967, Prowse, her co-stars, and the creative team were all garnering raves.

In the January 3
Los Angeles Times
, John L. Scott wrote that the show was “90 minutes of uninterrupted enjoyable action” and that Prowse “seems to have limitless energy and scores particularly with her superb dancing.” In the
Van Nuys Valley News
, John Cronan reported, “Caesar, who has brought an ‘orgy of entertainment’ to his Las Vegas strip palace, reached new highs with the Broadway musical hit ‘Sweet Charity.’”

The January 11
Variety
review echoed these sentiments, stating that the idea of bringing a Broadway show to Vegas was “paying off handsomely—firstnighters were enthusiastic in their praise and reservations are coming in far in advance.” As for Prowse, the review stated: “This role will certainly carve a deep notch in her zooming career.”

During the time before the Las Vegas opening, Coleman had also begun to refocus on his career at the keyboard; notable in this regard was a one-night-only appearance that he made in June at the request of producer Arthur Cantor at the American embassy in London. The event, called “A Very Informal History of the American Musical Theatre,” gathered a starry crowd of theater and political notables and featured not only Coleman, who played some of his own songs, but also Barbra Streisand, who was then appearing in
Funny Girl
in London. Coleman’s portion of the evening focused on contemporary songwriting, and during the course of his set he performed “Hey, Look Me Over” (sharing the story about his difficulty performing it) and a handful of tunes from
Little Me
. In conclusion, he described how singles released in advance of a show could serve as marketing and promotional tools, at which point he introduced Streisand, who opened with “Where Am I Going?” before delivering a medley of songs from
Porgy and Bess
and her hit from
Funny Girl
, “People.”