Colored Lights: Forty Years of Words and Music, Show Biz, Collaboration, and All That Jazz (16 page)

Read Colored Lights: Forty Years of Words and Music, Show Biz, Collaboration, and All That Jazz Online

Authors: Greg Lawrence,John Kander,Fred Ebb

Liza Minnelli (left) and Chita Rivera rehearsing
The Rink,
1984 (Photofest)
Chita Rivera in
Kiss of the Spider Woman
, 1993 ((Photofest)
Chita Rivera in
Kiss of the Spider Woman,
1993 (Photofest)
Karen Ziemba (center), Daniel McDonald and cast performing "Leave the World Behind" in
Steel Pier
, 1997 (Photofest)
Catherine Zeta-Jones and ensemble in
Chicago
(Photofest)
Catherine Zeta-Jones in the film version of
Chicago
, 2002 (Photofest)
BELOW: Renée Zellwerger and Queen Latifah in
Chicago
(Photofest)
John Kander (left), Kaye
Ballard, Fred Ebb, and
Gwen Verdon, circa 2000
(Anita and Steve Shevett)
Chita Rivera (left).
Fred Ebb, Gwen
Verdon, and John
Kander, circa 2000
(Anita and Steve Shevett)
John Kander (left),
Debra Monk, and
Fred Ebb, circa 2000
(Anita and Steve Shevett)
Gene Kelly was sitting in the control room. Frank said it to me on the floor, and I looked over at the recording booth. I saw Gene sitting there, and I don’t know if he knew exactly what Frank was talking about, but there were gestures in his direction that would have given him a clue. I found that heartbreaking, and then the recording session started. Having not heard Frank say that he wouldn’t record the number, the engineer said, “Frank, we’d like to set up for ‘We Can’t Do That Anymore.’ Gene, are you ready?” Gene said, “Oh yes, I’m ready.” Frank didn’t say a word. Gene walked out of the booth and sang the song with him. They went on and recorded it, and I sat there open-mouthed. What did that mean? It seemed like Frank was throwing around his weight arbitrarily when it suited him, for whatever purpose people do things like that.
KANDER: There’s a funny thing — this is just my opinion and I hope that I’m not being too harsh —
EBB: Oh, go on. I like when you’re harsh.
KANDER: Something happens with people who become superstars. Their singing becomes no longer about the music that they’re singing; it becomes more about them. So sometimes if you listen to a singer early in his or her career, you really hear very interesting songs, that is, the songs are illuminated. But more and more as they grow older and become more superstarrish and powerful, the singing is more about them singing, so that everything begins to sound the same.
EBB: I don’t know how somebody of that kind of enormous stature can handle it without stooping to some kind of bullying tactic.
KANDER: But there are people who don’t.
EBB: Oh, I know, but I mean they are superstars and they need to because of their own insecurities. They need some affirmation of that status.
KANDER: I don’t know that people who are abusive should be forgiven just because they’re insecure.
EBB: They don’t know any other way.
KANDER: I think you’re right, but it doesn’t make me any more sympathetic toward them.
EBB: I’m not sympathetic to Frank or I wouldn’t have told you the story, but I’m still in awe of him. The night we recorded the show, I had the opportunity to meet Lucille Ball and Fred Astaire, and Frank afforded me another thrilling moment in my life. I’m not grateful to him for the job. I wasn’t paid any incredible sum of money, but I was grateful for the atmosphere and for meeting my own particular needs, which also include affirmation every five minutes. You didn’t come to the taping?
KANDER: I didn’t want to be there.
EBB: That was in California.
KANDER: As opposed to you saying that you were thrilled meeting all those people, I don’t like to meet those people. I become my least comfortable self in that kind of social situation. It’s not their fault. It’s something I’m not good at. Just to cap your Sinatra story, his recording of “New York, New York” benefited us enormously and we are extremely grateful. But they had to rearrange the song because he didn’t have the range to sing it. So there’s a funny kind of transposition in it that makes you feel that he is going up, but in fact he is not. He also made lyrical errors. I watched him do it on television as a matter of fact, and he made the errors, I’m sure, because he forgot the lyrics. I’ve seen this happen with other people too. If you believe that you are a superstar and you make a mistake, you come to believe that your mistake must be better than the original because you’re a superstar.

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