Read Gwen Verdon: A Life on Stage and Screen Online
Authors: Peter Shelley
On May 1, 1973, rehearsals began for the 20th annual Deering-Milliken Breakfast Show, a yearly garment industry revue held at the Waldorf Astoria. Verdon was one of the headliners for the event, which took place on May 30. An audience of approximately 2500 buyers, store shoppers, managers, and soft-good merchandisers were invited to 73-minute live morning and afternoon shows. The fast-paced music and comedy events were designed to show how Milliken fabrics would look on customers. They had a dozen performances. It was directed by Robert Moore and had book by Arnold Horwitt and choreography by Alan Johnson. Ann Reinking was among the chorus dancers; this is where Verdon said that she first met her. However this seems inaccurate as Reinking was in the cast of
Pippin
which had opened on Broadway in 1972 and she was also a chorus dancer in
Liza with a Z
.
The
New York Times
(May 31, 1973) praised the show in an article that also had photographs. Verdon was in one of them with Robert Morse, where she appears to be wearing a short nurse’s uniform and cap. An article on the show in the
Spartanburg Herald-Tribune
(July 1, 1973) also had photographs, with Verdon in three of them. In one she kneeled on a couch where Billy De Wolfe sat, he playing the Devil and she his ace seductress. Verdon is dressed in Milliken with black pants and a black and white sweater with white collar. The show is said to have incorporated an updated version of the Faust story with Morse playing Dexter Bailey, a newly dead department store head who arrives in Hell. De Wolfe was Diablo and Verdon was Nina who, learning of Bailey’s lack of interest in sex, says, “He must be from the Harvard School of Business.” The second photograph was of the Agilon special and had Verdon kneeling on the floor, holding the legs of Robert Morse, wearing a black and white short dress and backed up by a girlie chorus. The third had her as part of the cast production photograph standing on the stage.
For the summer of 1973 Fosse decided to rent his own home in Quogue, a village not too far from East Hampton where Verdon and Nicole were. His decision was made because he wanted to be with his girlfriend Ann Reinking, and knew that she could not stay with his wife. Verdon was seen to suffer with Fosse’s relationship with Reinking because she could tell that it was serious. It also didn’t help that Fosse began expressing anger toward her, after a stay in the Payne Whitney psychiatric hospital. His anger toward Verdon was described as violent, based on his envy of her and how it had been perceived that in their working relationships, she was the star.
She starred in the ABC made-for-TV horror movie
Deadly Visitor
which was broadcast on July 3, 1973. It was directed by Lela Swift. Verdon played the proprietor of a haunted boarding house at the turn of the 20th century. She took in a writer as a boarder who found himself haunted by the ghost of a previous female tenant.
Verdon, interviewed by Barbara Delatiner for the
New York Times
(July 22, 1973), she said that she enjoyed spending her summers living in East Hampton which she had been doing since 1958. Verdon liked being considered “just plain folks” and not a celebrity, and that being one was not something she would sacrifice home and family for. She enjoyed riding buses, and started after her bike was stolen from in front of the St. Regis Hotel in Manhattan. Verdon found them faster than cabs, certainly cheaper than limousines, and preferable to subways which she hated. The only downside to her bus travel is that she found that people were scornful when they recognized her, treating her as if she were invading their territory. Otherwise she found the area a pleasure, being able to walk around without makeup which was accepted. In the city if Verdon went without makeup she felt that people wouldn’t like it. They would say that she had gone to pot since they expected instant glamour all the time. At her house Verdon also had six cats and a German shepherd.
Portrait of Verdon in her made-for-TV movie
The Deadly Visitor
(1973).
Nicole, ten years old, wanted to have a yard sale to sell the massive furniture that Verdon had collected over the years that she found would not fit into the dream house. Verdon was currently renovating and trying to talk Nicole out of the yard sale because she would just as soon call in an antique dealer to get rid of it all. She was concerned over the fuss a Gwen Verdon yard sale would make and also about what people would think. The house meant a lot to her because she bought it because she didn’t want to live in California, which she didn’t like despite the fact her father and son were there. Despite a need for privacy Verdon did not consider herself a recluse, being very much a part of the social scene with a wide circle of friends in many fields besides show business. The summer would see her working for the local Democratic party campaign and raising funds for Guild Hall, the town’s cultural center.
On July 29, 1973, Verdon appeared at the John Drew Theatre in East Hampton in an evening entitled “Gwen Verdon and Friends,” also called “Divertissement of Dancers.” It was produced, written and narrated by James Lipton and had music by Cy Coleman. The event was held as a benefit for Guild Hall. On November 10 and 11, 1973, Verdon was among the artists who participated in the bazaar and auction at Lincoln Center to benefit the New York Public Library’s Performing Arts Research Center.
On November 11, she attended the gala benefit performance of the National Ballet of Washington at the City Center in New York. She performed in Act Three of
The Sleeping Beauty
as Little Red Riding Hood, wearing a costume of white dress and red cape. Verdon said that all her life she wanted to be in a real ballet and now she had the chance. The
New York
Times’ Clive Barnes wrote that Verdon was darling and proved what some people had always suspected: that she should have been a ballerina all along.
On November 18 she presided over a celebrity auction at the New York Public Library to benefit the Performing Arts Research Center. On December 9 Verdon attended an art show and auction at the Postgraduate Center for Mental Health, in support of her past work for disturbed children. In 1973 she also advertised for Colgate Toothpaste for Colgate with MFB. The copy read, “If Colgate is just a kid’s cavity fighter, how come Gwen Verdon won’t brush with anything else?” The print advertising showed a photograph of her in black leotards and holding a tambourine in front of a class of girl dancers. What made the photo interesting is that Verdon’s body was horizontally dissected by the out-of-focus outstretched arms of two of her pupils.
In early 1974 Jack Cole, very ill from cancer, was admitted into the UCLA Hospital. However it was too expensive for him so according to Paul Phillips, Verdon was called by his friend David. He wanted Cole to be in the Motion Picture and Television Memorial Hospital, the Actors Home in Woodlands, California. The problem was that they didn’t know who he was. Verdon supposedly called Lana Turner and Jane Russell and told them both to call the home to get Cole admitted. This was achieved within two hours of the stars making the phone calls. (Gene Kelly was also said to have helped.) Cole was there until February 17, 1974, when he died. In his
New York Times
obituary (February 20, 1974), Verdon was quoted about his influence. She said that when you see dancing on television, that’s Jack Cole. In Paris, what they call “Le Jazz Hot” is all Jack Cole.
It was Verdon’s doing “Who’s Got the Pain” on
Ed Sullivan’s Broadway
that had her agree to do a summer revival of
Damn Yankees
. She rejoined Ray Walston in a production directed by him which ran at the Arie Crown Music Theatre at McCormack Place in Chicago from March 26 to April 14, 1974. Playing the part of Joe was Jerry Lanning, and Harvey Evans joined Verdon in the show’s rendition of “Who’s Got the Pain.” After rehearsals Verdon invited Evans and Lanning to dinner. Evans became unavailable, and the meal between Verdon and Lanning began the first and only extended love affair of her life after Fosse. They would live together on and off for several years. Twenty years her junior, he was the son of restaurateur Al Lanning and retired torch singer Roberta Sherwood. Verdon commented on love around this time in her life by saying that “as one gets older and wiser you realize you’re not going to fall into that deep ditch of despair. You may get hurt. But you’ve had a good time.” The affair may have helped Verdon’s apparent unhappiness over the show, since she was said to be have been overweight and unable to dance Lola the way she had when she was younger. The season was planned to last for three months which would give her time to get in shape, and then arrive in New York in the midsummer. This would then allow Verdon to follow with rehearsals for
Chicago
in the fall. The
Damn Yankees
tour ended at the Westbury Music Tent; it did not go into New York.
Fosse worked with John Kander and Fred Ebb on
Chicago
from the spring of 1974. Although he had said that he was more interested in doing films, Fosse agreed to do the show as a thank you to Verdon. After all that she had given him and all that he had taken, it was his way of giving back. Fosse was also aware of the box office interest that their reteaming meant, and this would help to assure Nicole’s security which he felt was his responsibility. He had told Lionel Chetwynd in a 1974
Penthouse
interview that Verdon was one of the greatest performers that he had seen in his life. He likened doing the show to doing something for Jolson, since he thought she was
that
great.
Despite these feelings, the couple working together again would be problematic. One new factor was that the contract for the show granted Verdon a good piece of the profits and also provided for a limited pre–Broadway run. It also specified star billing with her name as large and prominent as the show’s title on posters and promotional materials which were all subject to her approval. Additionally, Verdon had approval of all creative elements including casting, scenic design, lighting, costumes, compositions, orchestrations, libretto, dance music and orchestrations, and understudies. All these advantage were presumably because she had the rights to the source play. Fred Ebb heard that the show was Fosse’s divorce gift to Verdon, although the couple never divorced. Hoping that it would be a hit, he gave her an enormous percentage of it, the royalties from the show being his form of a divorce settlement in terms of cash. Fosse also left the royalties for it to Verdon in his will.
The relationship between Fosse and Verdon had improved, perhaps because both of them had new romantic partners, and also because of her growing respect for Reinking. Verdon said that Reinking was good for Fosse because his use of her as a dancer extended his own talent. Reinking said that Verdon had always been exceptionally good to her. She as Fosse’s girlfriend became an ally to Nicole, which also helped the Fosse-Verdon relationship to become more amicable. Reinking knew Fosse’s pain of frustration over the time he missed with his daughter, and also was aware that Verdon never stopped loving him. Reinking said that his wife continued to love him in a way that he never did her and that was why Verdon was so good to her. She knew what Reinking was up against and knew that if you loved Fosse there were good and bad sides. Reinking respected Verdon as Fosse’s legal wife and Nicole as his only child, and Verdon was smart enough to know that she had to retreat if she wanted to stay close to her husband.
On May 6, 1974, Verdon received the Mother of the Year Award from the Talbot Perkins Children’ Services at their 24th annual Mother’s Day Luncheon at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. She was honored for her outstanding services to underprivileged and physically handicapped children. On June 9 Verdon attended a street fair at the Central Park West block at 69th Street to raise funds to provide five lunches a week for senior citizens of Project Find.
She also sold her house in Amagansett for a bigger place in East Hampton with more land. This new land wasn’t near the ocean as the former house had been: Set back from Spring Close Road, it was more private and more a country house with trees and lawns instead of sand and brush. The sign out front read “Verdon-Fosse.” She added a swimming pool. Fosse was no longer welcome since Jerry Lanning was now living there with Verdon in the summer. One evening she took her new lover to a party held by the Aurthurs, and came across Fosse and Reinking. However the expected scene of jealousy did not occur. It helped that Fosse preferred his home in Quogue on Long Island to East Hampton. While Fosse may have enjoyed the distance from her, he still didn’t appreciate her affair with Lanning and told her so. Fosse knew that this was the height of hypocrisy since it was inconsistent with his own demands for freedom, but that is how he felt. He might accept the double standard of his girlfriends seeing other men, but Verdon doing so was another matter.
In the summer of 1974 Verdon joined Fosse at the Broadway Arts rehearsal space and began to step through
Chicago
. After a month he brought in Kathryn Brody and Tony Stevens to assist. Stevens says that he got the job because of Verdon’s urging. They had worked together in several Ed Sullivan shows and some specials. He remembers how she told Fosse that he was a snazzy dresser, which Stevens thought was kind of weird. Some evenings Nicole and her parents would go to a Chinese restaurant for dinner like a regular family. The difference was that Fosse would go home to his own place afterwards. Verdon also attended a rough cut screening of
Lenny,
the director’s new film; he had arranged for a few close friends to see it. This was before it was officially released on November 10, 1974. She joined the others in telling Fosse that it is was wonderful.