Everything Was Possible: The Birth of the Musical Follies (Applause Books) (8 page)

On Friday, I helped the stage managers prepare. The week—not to mention the years—of preparation was coming to an end.
Follies
was about to begin in earnest. Several songs were still not written, the Follies sequence wasn’t fully formed, and there was no ballroom-dance couple. But on Saturday, at ten A.M., a motley assortment of people with a variety of different talents would converge for the first time in the service of the collaboration that would result in
Follies.

IN THE REHEARSAL STUDIO,
THE FIRST WEEK, JANUARY 9—15

 

 

 

 

S
ince I had been asked to help open up, I made certain I was there on time. In fact, I was the first to arrive. The three stage managers followed shortly. There was work enough for all four of us: lights on, tables and chairs checked, scripts and music collated for all the actors, and so on. Although the day marked the official beginning of rehearsals, there was a decidedly social aspect to the morning’s activities. I had no idea exactly who was going to show up, only that it was to be quite a crowd.

The next to arrive was Terry Marone, the official from the union for actors and stage managers, Actors’ Equity Association. She was a fixture on the first day of rehearsal for all Broadway shows. A former singer and dancer, she was responsible for making certain all the proper union paperwork was completed, including contracts, insurance, and pension and welfare forms. Any performers who weren’t members had to join, and she was to take them through the process; the three Las Vegas showgirls were likely candidates. And once all Equity members were assembled, she had to read the rules and regulations out loud. As Terry unloaded her papers and laid out her forms on a table in the hall, John Grigas hovered, helping her get organized. The forms were complicated, and as he separated the different forms into neat piles, he muttered, “Some of these actors are really very dense. I’m sorry to have to say it, but I’ve been in this business for a long time.” Terry, in her capacity as a union administrator, said, “I have also been in this business for a long time, but I can’t talk about it anymore.”

I posted a couple of messages on the callboard. From George Furth, author of the book of
Company:
“The next thing is the best thing. Good luck with the next thing.
Follies
is beautiful. Warmly, with love, George Furth.” A letter from Louis Botto, an old-line theater journalist who was hoping to do a piece on Hal for
Look
magazine: “Dear Harold Prince: Thank you for letting me read
Follies.
It is to the American musical what
Virginia Woolf
was to the American drama. It takes its form one step further than
Company,
and higher praise I cannot bestow.”

The actors started arriving around nine-thirty. And they were quite a group. Mary McCarty, a zaftig woman in her late forties, had made a splash in 1949s
Miss Liberty,
but hadn’t been on Broadway since
Bless You All
in 1950. Her career had included a lot of nightclub work, and she had recently opened her own “Eastside niterie,” appropriately named MaryMary. She would play Stella Deems, who would lead the group of old Follies girls in “Who’s That Woman?” Hers was a secondary character, but her backup dancers would include every woman listed above her in the show’s program. This number would prove to be a highlight. Fifi D’Orsay was to play Solange LaFitte, the Follies’ resident French person. She had been calling all week to check on this or that, so often that Hal stopped taking her calls, always happening to be unfortunately unavailable. She arrived fully made-up, a librarian’s chain hanging from her eyeglasses, in a sweater, plaid pants, and a pageboy hat, and she talked a mile a minute in her heavily French-accented English, greeting everyone with “ ’Allo, babee” and calling everyone “chickie-poo.” Turns out she was from Montreal and had never been to France, but never mind. She was a bundle of nerves. And then there was Ethel Shutta, at seventy-four the oldest member of the cast, who trudged up the stairs, solid, standing firm in her sensible orthopedic shoes. When she was hired, she wrote a four-page thank-you letter to casting director Joanna Merlin, telling her how happy she was to be cast, since she had been sure her career was over. She was the one holdover from one of the show’s previous incarnations, having been cast by Stuart Ostrow when he held the option, and had written to Hal when she heard that he had the show. “You won’t have heard of me,” she began, but what she didn’t know was that when Hal was eight, he had stood in line at his school with all the other boys to get the autograph of one classmate’s mother, who, they said, had been a Follies girl. The classmate was Georgie Olsen, and his mother was Ethel Shutta. Michael Bartlett was to play Roscoe, the old tenor who serenades everyone with the opening song, “Beautiful Girls.” He looked as old as Ethel did, and seemed a little bewildered, his eyesight less than perfect. But his silver-white hair and mature girth gave him an aura of faded grandeur. Ethel Barrymore Colt, a member of the famous theatrical family, was always gracious, although she looked as if she had ventured a little farther downtown than she was used to. Somewhat out of her element, she stayed pretty quiet. Gene Kelly’s younger brother, Fred, who had been running a dancing school in New Jersey, played a small role. He, too, was a quiet figure, keeping to himself most of the time. Sheila Smith, Broadway’s stalwart leading lady standby, most recently for Angela Lansbury in
Mame,
had her own part this time but was also called on to cover the leading women. Low-voiced, dark-haired, and slim, she had the poise of a dancer and the look of someone who had seen it all. Justine Johnston, a full-figured character actress with an operatic voice, would play Heidi Schiller, a singer from Vienna, who, years ago, had had a waltz written specially for her. She would shortly be elected Equity deputy for the company, with the responsibility of seeing to it that management behaved and that rehearsals were run by the rulebook. As rehearsals progressed, she could be seen glancing at the watch she wore permanently around her neck. Justine wasn’t someone to tangle with.

The rest of the company was full of good New York character actors—among them Dick Latessa, Helon Blount, Charles Welch, Dortha Duckworth, and John J. Martin. Of course, the dancers looked great—young, slim, attractive, alert, and cheerful; they seemed to be a source of limitless energy and stamina. When the first casting call went out, bona fide ex–Follies ladies showed up, looking nothing like their old photographs which they presented as current. Few could actually act.

While looking for something in the stage managers’ office, I found a list of actors who had been considered for the show. The task was to find old Hollywood stars, regardless of whether they could sing. Among the men: Van Johnson, E. G. Marshall, Peter Lawford, Jim Backus, Howard Keel, Craig Stevens, Jack Albertson, John Raitt, Don Ameche, and Ray Middleton. And the women: Rhonda Fleming, Joan Bennett, Kitty Carlisle, Barbara Cook, Gloria DeHaven, and Jane Wyman. So Alexis Smith, Gene Nelson, and Dorothy Collins fit right in, as did the woman who was about to make a somewhat grand entrance.

Working her way up the stairs, wrapped in fur, wearing a black wig and teardrop-shaped sunglasses, and carrying a small suitcase covered in fabric of brightly colored flowers, came Yvonne De Carlo. Of all the actors in the show, she was considered to have the best “name” because of her recent television experience as Lily, the mother in
The Munsters,
a ghoulish family situation comedy created somewhat as a humorous twist on Charles Addams’s cartoons and characters (who had their own series called
The Addams Family).
Arriving in Hollywood in 1940 from Canada with a pushy mother, Peggy Yvonne Middleton yearned for a career in the movies, which happened once she changed her name to something more exotic-sounding. Taking her mother’s maiden name, De Carlo, she landed the title role in an audience-pleaser titled
Salome, Where She Danced.
She had found her niche, and continued to portray harem gals and dance hall gals, mostly with a fair amount of flesh showing. As Leonard Maltin put it rather succinctly, “her starring roles didn’t usually require much in the way of emoting, but she gamely rose to the occasion when something more than looking beautiful was required.”
The Munsters
had become a camp favorite, and Yvonne De Carlo quite embodied the spirit of the show, driving around Hollywood in a car outfitted like a hearse. New York’s autograph hounds, a scruffy group of men who followed celebrities around town, didn’t take long to find out where
Follies
was rehearsing, and although they often toted movie magazines with photographs of Alexis and Gene, and even Dorothy and Ethel Shutta, Yvonne was the catch. Her daily outfits rarely changed and the dark glasses were standard attire when she ventured out into the real world. After a while she even mustered a sense of humor about herself, reporting that a cab-driver, looking in his rearview mirror, had remarked, “Hey, lady, why do you wear those sunglasses? What do you think you are, a movie star?” She was playing only a featured role, Carlotta Campion, but it was being beefed up for her. Although she had “also starring” billing, right below the title, her name was equal in size to the four principals, and she had the line all to herself. Before long, nicknames were established for the stars of the show: “the big four” for Alexis, Gene, Dorothy, and John, and “the big one” for Yvonne. Make no mistake about it, until she sat down at the table and became one of the gang, she was our resident movie star. After she had greeted everyone and had settled herself in, I handed her a script. She looked around and remarked, “Hey, this is some classy joint.”

She was also aware that there were photographers in the room. Martha Swope, reigning photographer for both ballet and theater, was on hand, snapping both candid shots of everyone gathering and milling about and a few posed shots to be used for promotional purposes until production shots of the finished show could be taken later on.

The creative staff—Hal, Steve, Michael, and Jim—arrived and huddled quietly in the stage managers’ office for a pep talk, not unlike a group of coaches about to face their team for the first practice of the year. People who were working on the show elsewhere came as well—the press agents, the music copyists, staff from Hal’s office, the hair and wig designer, the makeup designer, the advertising agent, and others. There was much joviality, greetings, laughter, all tinged with nervous expectation. It’s an exciting moment—a gathering of people, many of whom have never worked together before, who are about to embark on a creative journey together. When you see everyone in one place at one time, it means one thing: the clock has started ticking. Everyone in that room, no matter what his or her area of focus, had a lot to do to prepare for the first preview in Boston, which was now just six weeks away. Alexis quipped quietly to Ruthie, “This feels like a lousy cocktail party.” Not missing a beat, Ruthie shot back, “Without the booze.”

Surprisingly, Alexis and her costars were a little nervous, despite having had a head start. Their comfortable routine was now being invaded by what seemed like an enormous group of strangers. There was amusement as the actors portraying the four leads in their youthful past introduced themselves to, well, themselves. The young versions may not have had striking physical similarities to their elder counterparts, but the personalities matched. Playing Young Buddy was Harvey Evans, an ageless Broadway chorister with a cheerful outlook on life, full of smiles and goodwill. He greeted everyone like a long lost friend. Virginia Sandifur, the Young Phyllis, was tall, dark-haired, and slightly removed from the fray. Phyllis to the core. Kurt Peterson, the Young Ben, cast only last week, was personable and relaxed. He had piercing eyes, but a nice demeanor. He was living with Victoria Mallory, the actress hired to play Young Heidi Schiller. They had been in school together, had fallen in love, and played opposite each other in a production of
West Side Story
at Lincoln Center. It was nice to have a couple already in place among the company. Marti Rolph, Young Sally, was fresh and bubbly, just in from Los Angeles. She had a wide-eyed Sally-like enthusiasm for New York and everyone in it and seemed genuinely thrilled to be here.