Gwen Verdon: A Life on Stage and Screen (21 page)

Douglas asks Verdon how she got the part in
Sweet Charity
and she jokingly replies, “I’m a friend of the director.” Verdon tells of one show that
she
wanted very badly that she was not wanted
for
:
New Girl in Town
. Douglas says that he found out that one of Verdon’s secret desires was to perform on Broadway holding a mike. He asks her why she is so thrilled by it, and Verdon tells him because when she sees people on television and in nightclubs holding the mike, she thinks they look at ease and casual. He hands her a mike and sings “I’ve Got a Crush on You” for Nicole with piano accompaniment, as photographs of Nicole are shown as a baby and as a little girl.

After the commercial break, Verdon is dressed in an off-white shirt with a red tie and gray slacks. Jack Lord places a pink lei on Verdon when he appears and she and Douglas kneel at a table of luau food. The head chef of Trader Vic’s, Louis Low, who provided the food, makes an appearance. Verdon eats the smoked raw fish that Low cuts and offers, and says that it is good, and wipes her hands on the blue tablecloth. Back in the chairs, Douglas speaks of his distaste for eating raw fish and Verdon says that she has eaten raw octopus where all the little tentacles touch your face. Following Lionel Hampton’s appearance Verdon introduces Paddy Chayefsky. He talks about his play
The Latent Homosexual
which he refuses to do on Broadway, and which she considers brilliant. Verdon describes his protest as very important and Chayefsky claims that it is against the future as a “technocratic society” in which people’s only function is to produce and consume.

She removes her lei and joins Cy Coleman at the piano. He accompanies Verdon as she sings “You Should See Yourself” from the stage version of
Sweet Charity
. The coverage of this performance is disappointing since the camera partially views Verdon behind Coleman and she is blocked by his piano microphone. He reports that Verdon worked on the film though he doesn’t say that she wasn’t cast as the title character, and that he admires her precision. She jokes that she’s like the IBM machine Chayefsky was talking about, though he did not specifically mention IBM machines; rather cogs in the wheel of machinery. Douglas brings out a chorus of little girls in colored leotards and white stockings to perform “Big Spender” using a metallic rail. They don’t do the original Fosse choreography, but this is not a surprise given their age. After the number Verdon speaks to some individually, and she comments that she knows Mrs. Yvonne Hall as the person who worked with the girls because Nicole has been on one of her shows. Verdon says that the girls did a beautiful job. When the show’s guests are back sitting in chairs, Coleman talks about how Andre Previn tried having computers compose music independently. Verdon says it did not work because he had to go back and fix it. Coleman says the World’s Fair Expo had computers approximating the sound of instruments to which Verdon comments, “Be careful. We’ll have another musicians strike.” Under the show’s closing music, Douglas thanks her for a delightful week.

On January 22, 1969, she was one of the 500 stage friends attending a 35-minute tribute before the matinee of
Mame
at the Wintergarden Theatre to Lawrence Carr, who had died on January 17. Verdon reminisced about Carr, and in response to her request the audience gave a standing ovation to him because she said he always wanted to know what it felt like to get one.

She returned to
The Ed Sullivan Show
for her fifth appearance on March 2, 1969. She plays a girl put in a crate and shipped to a desert location for a sheik’s entertainment. When the box is opened, Verdon is reading a book, and says, “My agent said he booked the Sahara. But the Sahara Sahara?!” She gets out of the box and is dressed in a pink body stocking with pink tail and gold vest, gold waistband, gold necklace, and a gold headband with pink flowers. After being chased by the sheik, Verdon entraps him in her crate and dances for his four male guards, whistling “Big Wind Blew In from Winnetka.” She also sings lines from “Jeepers Creepers,” “Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t My Baby,” and “Stout Hearted Men.” Verdon takes the swords from the men saying, “C’mon fellas. Hand over the hardware,” and adds, “Talk to them nice, they’ll do anything.” She then leads a group dance with the guards and the three belly dancers, as we see that the sheik uses a sword to progressively cut his way out of the box. When the sheik has cut a hole in the top of the box, the guards direct Verdon to a carpet on the ground. She poses on it and the carpet is lifted into the air. An optical effect is used for the flying of the carpet for her escape, as she waves goodbye to the guards. The sheik jumps up and down in frustration.

Verdon was a Tony Awards presenter on April 20, 1969, broadcast live by NBC. The show took place at the Mark Hellinger Theatre and she presented the award for Best Choreography to Joe Layton for his work on the musical
George M
. Verdon appears to the sound of “If My Friends Could See Me Now.” She is dressed in a long high-collared black dress with a tie and striped patterned sleeves, and her hair is bouffed up at the back and swept off her forehead. Verdon states that, of all the creative people involved in making a musical successful, the choreographer is by far the most underrated, overlooked and underpaid. She laughs and then reveals, “I don’t really believe that but my husband’s a choreographer and he told me to say it.” On May 2, 1969, Verdon was co-chairman of the ball that honored the 21st year of the Bedside Network at the New York Hilton Hotel.

On
The
Ed Sullivan Show
(June 1, 1969), Verdon, Marie Lake and Dee Erickson performed the dance “Mexican Breakfast.” She wears a yellow pants suit, a yellow blouse and neck-scarf, and has sunglasses in her hair. The dance was choreographed for Verdon by Fosse. The photographic coverage sometimes uses closer angles rather than long shots which is passable because the angles don’t get too close so as to lose the effectiveness of the performance. It is also cyclic as it opens and closes in an extreme long shot of the three ladies posed in a spotlight. This 1969 number received a modern review when Beyoncé used it as inspiration for her 2008 music video “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It).” Directed by Jake Nava, it was shot in black and white, unlike “Mexican Breakfast” which was in color. It has choreography by Frank Gatson and JaQuel Knight and incorporates J-Setting choreography. Beyoncé said she saw a video of “Mexican Breakfast” on YouTube “and I said, ‘This is genius.’” She advised that they kept a lot of the Fosse choreography and added the down-south J-Setting, where one person does something and the next person follows. The song has a faster tempo than the original and the costuming is also different. The video caused a sensation and won the MTV Best Video, Best Choreography and Best Editing Awards.

Verdon made her only guest appearance on the NBC talk show
The Joan Rivers Show
which was taped in New York and seen on June 22, 1969. In Hollywood she made the first of two appearances on the ABC variety and talk show
The Dick Cavett Show
, broadcast on July 7. She made her only guest appearances on the ABC family musical comedy show
The Hollywood Palace
in an episode broadcast on October 11, 1969. In the show Verdon sang and danced “The Psychedelic Stomp” which was set in a Western bar with male dancers, and she participated in a Beatles medley. In the latter she sang “Can’t Buy Me Love” with Bing Crosby and Engelbert Humperdinck, “With a Little Help from My Friends” with Dick Shawn and Bobby Gentry, and joined the cast in “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.” She begins singing “Can’t Buy Me Love” standing at the back of the stage wearing a black glittery sleeveless dress with a large white feather boa around her neck. After dancing among four dancing boys, she pushes them away separately and joins Crosby and Humperdinck on a raised step to continue “Can’t Buy Me Love.” Verdon then leaves the men, singing an “uh-uh” to follow the song’s lyrics of “no.” For “With a Little Help from My Friends” she joins Dick Shawn and Bobby Gentry on the steps and they lock arms until Shawn leads her offstage. For “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” Verdon is back on the steps with the men and the chorus dancers behind them. All the lead performers step down onto the floor to stand in line and sing the song. The coverage of this last number oddly includes the audience in the bottom of the frame, necessitating that the performers remain in a long shot.

On October 12, 1969, Verdon was a co-chairperson for supper parties held at the homes of Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Steinmann and Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Farkas after the world premiere of the film
The Madwoman of Chaillot
at the Plaza Theatre. The evening proceeds went to aid the Postgraduate Center for Mental Health in its cooperative research with the Maferr Foundation. Verdon’s second and last guest appearance on
The Carol Burnett Show
was broadcast on November 3, 1969.

The Fosses retreated to Amangansett for the summer of 1969. The marriage was strained by the fact that neither had an income, and the couple were living off their savings. He accepted an invitation to dinner with the Hal Princes and the Neil Simons. Fosse claimed that Verdon’s absence was due to illness, but the feeling was that they didn’t want to be together. The Princes and the Simons planned on spending the rest of the summer in Majorca and invited the Fosses to join them, but he did not answer. But it was at this dinner that Fosse learned that Prince would not be directing the film version of
Cabaret
, that he had directed on Broadway. It had been a monster hit running from November 20, 1966, to September 6, 1969. The film was going to be made at the Bavaria Studio in Munich and would be Fosse’s next directing job.

Verdon returned to
The Merv Griffin Show
which was broadcast on January 6, 1970. Also in January, Fosse rehearsed with Verdon and six male dancers the number “It’s a Fine Fine Day” that he had choreographed for her next appearance on
The Ed Sullivan Show
. This would be her seventh and final appearance and was broadcast on February 1, 1970. For the number Verdon was dressed in a sparkly gold striped jacket with black tights and a gold-trimmed black hat. The number is another that seems to have been inspired by “I’m a Brass Band” from
Sweet Charity
. After she did the number, Sullivan calls her over for a chat. After asking if she can say hi to her father, she says “So long, pop. I’ll see you Tuesday.” She made her second guest appearance on
The Dick Cavett Show
on February 9, 1970. Verdon was back on
The Merv Griffin Show
for her final guest appearance on April 27, 1970. She also returned to
The Mike Douglas Show
for her second week of co-hosting duties from May 4 to 8, 1970. With Cyril Ritchard, Verdon appeared on the PBS biographical drama series
NET Playhouse
. The episode, broadcast on July 14, 1970 (some sources give it as November 26, 1971), was divided into two parts and the one featuring her was entitled “Actors Choice.” In it she and Cyril Ritchard read pieces written by Lewis Carroll, including a portion of
Alice in Wonderland
. Verdon made her only guest appearance on the ABC television talk show
Girl Talk
on August 24, 1970.

An article in the
New York Times
by Jean Hewitt on September 7, 1970, on the demand for organic food reported that a few months prior Verdon had bought a supply of ladybugs and praying mantises to wipe out the insects in her organic Central Park West rooftop garden. The article included a photograph of a praying mantis in her garden. It was reported that Verdon grew organic tomatoes and shipped them to her summer home in Southampton, Long Island, for her family to eat there, and there was an accompanying photograph of tomato plants in her garden. Additionally there was a photo of Mrs. Ben Sackheim who was said to have shared Verdon’s garden. Verdon was quoted as saying she estimated that 75 percent of the food she served Fosse and Nicole was organic. When they ate out, Verdon preferred dockside seafood restaurants where the catch was as fresh as possible. Her motto was “Keep it simple, keep it pure.” Verdon decried convenience foods, saying that anything organic could be prepared in an hour.

On November 1, 1970, she was among those singing hits from the Dorothy Fields songbook for a tribute paid to the lyricist at the Museum of the City of New York. Verdon also made her only guest appearance on the NBC variety program
The Don Knotts Show
, broadcast on January 26, 1971. In the show she performed “I Won’t Dance” and “It’s a Fine Fine Day.” She also dueted with Knotts on “Do You Love Me?” and joined him and his other guests, the King Cousins and Tommy Smothers, to sing “Mame.” Additionally, she appeared in a skit with Knotts playing his cleaning lady who doesn’t understand English.

She was a performer at
The 1971 Tony Awards
which were held on March 28 at the Palace Theatre. Verdon appeared four times in the evening as part of a salute to 25 previous Best Musical Tony winners to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the awards. She first appears for
Can-Can
briefly doing the title dance, including high kicks and cartwheels and a split. She wears black tights with a black draw-string blouse, blue-striped white billowy skirt, white pantaloons, a black choker, and a blue ribbon in her hair. After doing the final split, Verdon is helped up by a man and handed the envelope to present the award for Best Choreography to Donald Sandler for
No, No, Nanette
.

The tribute to
Damn Yankees
has her singing “Whatever Lola Wants” with Ray Walston. Verdon appears through a silver curtain, dressed in the same black tights but with a black senorita skirt with red petticoat and a red flower in her hair. There’s an insert shot of the audience when she slips down her skirt, under which she wears a tiny black skirt and a corset over her body stocking. (On Dick Cavett’s show in 1977 she explained that television censorship could never allow her to show the act of taking off her clothes even though she never totally stripped for the number.) The number is abbreviated from the original, as many of the numbers in the evening are, but she retains some of the Fosse choreography including the removal of gloves and the shaking of her bottom.