Gwen Verdon: A Life on Stage and Screen (8 page)

The cast of the made-for-TV musical
Once Upon an Eastertime
(1954): (from left) Verdon, Bobby Clark, and Doretta Morrow.

In the March 1954 edition of
Esquire
magazine was the article “Gwen Verdon: The Anatomy of Glamour” by Robert W. Marks. She appeared in four photographs by Eve Arnold in dance class, in bare feet wearing black-laced pants, a bra and bare midriff, and a black string necklace. Marks described Verdon offstage as “all alertness, sensitivity, freshness” and quoted a telegram she received from Darryl F. Zanuck: “This is to apologize for not having noticed you before.” The article also described a recent day when Verdon was sitting in the window of a 59th Street Longchamps, having lunch and watching the people pass. Suddenly she noticed that they were no longer passing. A crowd had gathered and were watching her and she became terrified. They might have seen her as the theater’s newest glamour star, a target for hungry stares and the longing looks of those who needed symbols with which to feed their fantasies. Verdon could not accept the idea that she had such a special beauty which could impress or console others. In her mind she was still the stumbling, squint-eyed, undesirable little girl and the crowd had come to yell “There is ‘Boot’s Verdon!” She also told Marks about the happiest moment of her career: She walked along a Florida beach wearing a scanty bikini and there were no crowds or a need for her to be rescued by lifeguards. Nobody yelled “skinny” or “Boots.” Nobody even looked at her twice. She at last felt she could be herself and that she had arrived.

It was at this time that a friend suggested she try to get producer Robert Fryer to help her obtain the rights to a play by Maurine (sometimes spelled Maureen) Dallas Watkins entitled
Chicago
which had been directed on Broadway by George Abbott in 1926. The play had also been adapted into two Hollywood films, one a silent comic crime drama of the same title in 1927 and the second a romantic comedy called
Roxie Hart
(1942) starring Ginger Rogers. Roxie was based on the real-life Beulah Sheriff Annan, who had been charged with murdering her lover in 1924 and found not guilty. Verdon had supposedly seen the Rogers version on television one day while she was flipping between it and coverage of the Army-McCarthy hearings in Washington and knew that something about Roxie interested her. “She’s a nobody of a character whose life is passing her by [and] she doesn’t like that. She wants desperately to
do
something. Her way of judging her life is whether or not it’s had importance for others.” The film presented Roxie as innocent of the crime, which was not true of the play or the silent film version. Verdon became obsessed with one day playing Roxie, and did her own research into the murder. Producers had told her that they would back any project that she wanted to do. However they balked at this one. They couldn’t understand why she wanted to play such a “bum.” Verdon would have to wait to try again.

The
New York Times
of May 6, 1954, reported that Verdon had renewed her contract to continue in
Can-Can
. Bob Fosse is said to have gone out with her after the show on May 13, 1954, which was also the opening night for his Broadway show
The Pajama Game
. On June 13, 1954, the
New York Times
reported that Verdon would leave
Can-Can
on September 4 to play the role of Gladys in Columbia Pictures’s
Pal Joey
. She was to co-star with Marlon Brando and the film was to begin production in October. After that, Verdon was said to have three movie offers from Britain to choose from.
Pal Joey
was going to be directed by George Cukor and also star Barbara Stanwyck as Vera. Another proposed arrangement had Billy Wilder directing Brando and either Marlene Dietrich or Mae West as Vera. The Brando-Verdon production of
Pal Joey
was not to be. Columbia would eventually make their version of the Broadway musical in 1957 with Barbara Nichols as Gladys and Frank Sinatra in the title role. It is not known what happened to the three British films.

The
New York Times
on August 27, 1954, reported that Verdon was now scheduled to leave
Can-Can
on September 6 to make a movie (its title is not mentioned). This date was confirmed in the
New York Times
on September 5. It had been announced in the
Los Angeles Times
in August 1954 that Fox had purchased the film rights to
Can-Can
and they intended to cast the French ballerina Jeanmarie and Verdon. But after this announcement came the news that it was delayed until 1956. In April 1955
Variety
reported that Nunnally Johnson was to direct and Cary Grant and Jeanmarie were to star. Then in March 1956 Dick Powell was to direct and the film was to be shot in Paris. In April 1956 Henry King replaced Powell. By October 1958 Vincente Minnelli was negotiating to direct with Marilyn Monroe to star.

The film finally went into production with Walter Lang directing from August to October 1959 with Frank Sinatra and Shirley MacLaine cast in the lead roles. Verdon was overlooked for the part of Claudine in favor of Juliet Prowse, with Claudine’s Broadway song “If You Loved Me Truly” cut from the soundtrack. Hermes Pan staged the dances, and it is said that Verdon agreed to coach Prowse in her numbers. Prowse had played an uncredited dancer in the United Artists musical comedy
Gentlemen Marry Brunettes
(1955) which was the next film project for Jack Cole and Verdon. It is thought that the women had met on this film which led to Prowse getting Verdon to help her on
Can-Can
.

Released in March 1960,
Can-Can
received some notoriety after Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet premier who was on a trip to the United States, was brought to the film’s set to view a special performance.
Can-Can
was not a box office hit.

Gentlemen Marry Brunettes
, directed by Richard Sale, was shot from September 8, 1954, to early January 1955 at the Shepperton and MGM Studios in England and Paris Studio Cinema in France. Based on the novella “But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes” by Anita Loos, it was a sequel to
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
. Fox had considered protesting the production of the film because they felt that it would infringe upon their rights to make a sequel. So in order to avoid any complications, screenwriters Sale and Mary Loos (the niece of Anita) changed the names of the characters and much of the plot, retaining only the title and the idea of two American singers going to Paris.

Connie (Jeanne Crain) and Bonnie Jones (Jane Russell), sisters and nightclub performers, work in Paris. Verdon appeared in a flashback to 1926 with Rudy Vallee at a party. She has two lines, “She’s disenchanted? We’re all disenchanted” before she dances and disappears into the crowd. Verdon wears a sparkly brown sleeveless flapper dress with waist sash, black bonnet and red beads, and has a long cigarette holder. However she cannot be spotted as a backup dancer in the scene once Russell and Crain appear in sparkly silver dresses to dance on a table as Mimi and Mitzi Jones to “Miss Annabelle Lee.”

The film had its world premiere in Chicago on September 22, 1955, and opened in New York on October 29 with the tagline “See ’em sizzle in the big, buxom, beautiful musical!” The film was lambasted by A.H. Weiler in the
New York Times
and Ronald Bergan in his book
The United Artists Story
.

Playing a maid, Verdon had an additional dance sequence filmed in the Jones sisters’ hotel room but it was cut. The
New York Times
(June 5, 1955) reported that the British Board of Film Censors supported the American Production Code Administration decision to cut Verdon’s dance sequence. The British censors found both her dance and costume objectionable, though it was said that the sequence would be retained for the American release. However the dance is missing from prints available in America
and
Britain. On the same date in
Daily Variety
it was reported that the dance was cut because Verdon wore a garter high on her thigh, which wasn’t acceptable. Other sources claim that in the number she was a Dior model who sheds her garments one by one, and that the number was deemed obscene for dancing that was too sexy in a costume too brief. In the September 23, 1955,
Hollywood Reporter
it was suggested that the reason for the cut was that she wore a rose in the wrong place. A still exists of Verdon’s burlesque costume for the number: a brief one-piece with flowers on the top and in her crotch, a garter linked to suspenders and black stockings, a big “chocolate box” bow at her back, black high heels, long black gloves and a feathered picture hat, and she holds a white parasol. Verdon herself would describe the cut dance as “just humorous and kind of athletic.”

While she was in Paris, Verdon was asked by Robert Griffith, Fred Brisson, and Harold Prince to be in their next Broadway show
Damn Yankees
. The female lead was Lola, who was the Devil’s right hand, and the part required someone to dance but also sing and act. Carol Haney may have seemed like the producers’ obvious choice for the part and it may have become a career advance for her, but she was presumably contracted to stay in
The Pajama Game
in the part of secretary Gladys Hotchkiss, which was then running on Broadway. Haney’s connection with Verdon also had the women look similar, though Haney at 5’6” was taller than Verdon’s 5’4” and she had a deeper speaking voice. The producers had approached Mitzi Gaynor and the French ballet dancer Jeanmarie, but both had rejected the part. Verdon said that Marilyn Monroe wanted the part but other sources say she turned it down. Apparently the show’s choreographer, Bob Fosse wanted Verdon. Although she had limited singing experience, the producers were willing to take a chance on her because of her spectacular dancing talents.

But Verdon initially turned them down. She preferred to stay with Cole rather than return to Broadway. Cole was unimpressed with the offer and believed that playing such a part would be debasing Verdon’s talent. But the producers persisted because they wanted her, and eventually she agreed and they got her. So once again Verdon said goodbye to Cole and hello to Fosse.

Director George Abbott had helped author Douglass Wallop adapt his book
The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant
into a musical for Broadway with songs by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross who had done the same for Abbott’s previous show,
The Pajama Game
.
Damn Yankees
, a retelling of the Faust legend, was set during the 1950s in Washington when the New York Yankees dominated major league baseball. There was a feeling that musicals about baseball were jinxed because you couldn’t show the game on stage, and those that had tried in the past were failures. However the producers Fred Brisson, Robert Griffith and Harold Prince moved ahead. Verdon said that after she had been cast she nearly lost the job when she went dancing with Abbott. They were doing the merengue at Roseland and he was on the wrong beat. Verdon started to count for him and Abbott was not pleased.

Fosse was as leery about working with Verdon as she with him. Although she had not been asked to audition for the show’s producers, Fosse wanted her to audition for him. He knew that she was good but he did not know whether she would be good
for him
. Fosse was intimidated by her reputation. He had heard that Verdon could be difficult, that she was a high-class snob with an iron-clad pedigree and a hatred of the kind of Broadway dancing she considered to be animated wallpaper.

The producers arranged for them to meet in a dance studio on Broadway at 64th Street. He showed her some ideas he had for the choreography for her number “Whatever Lola Wants.” Watching Fosse slithering and stalking his way through the oldest stripping tricks in the book, observing his winks and blinks and finger curls that she could tell came from weeks of careful preparation, she was impressed. As he worked out when she should breathe and laugh and smile and how much, her incredulity became enthusiasm. Her enthusiasm gave him confidence and his confidence increased her enthusiasm. She asked him to do it again and made suggestions, which he appreciated. For Lola’s advance on the baseball player Joe Hardy, Fosse had her stop and scratch an itch on the back of her leg with one toe. Verdon found the move hard to do in high heels because they affected her balance. Since Fosse wanted to keep the moment in, he brought to rehearsal a pair of oversized high heels to show her that it could be done. He would tell her that he did this because he never asked people to do what he was not willing to do himself.

The couple was more than compatible. She admired his technique and he admired her body, her enthusiasm, her desire for perfection, and endless energy. Verdon would say that when Fosse got a-hold of her, she was a great dancer but he developed and “created” her. She got the job and they agreed to work together. Abbott was to direct the singers in the show and Fosse to do the dances, even when they appeared in the middle of a song.

Damn Yankees
rehearsals began on March 7, 1955, over separate spaces on different floors at the Waltons Warehouse, and the first run-through was held on March 20, 1955. Abbott supposedly had less faith in Verdon’s acting abilities so he is said to have minimized her dialogue, until he saw that she had a disarming and comic vulnerability. She credited Fosse as being more helpful to her as an actress than Abbott, who had reportedly told her, “Say the words and get off.” Verdon also found that he was equally difficult because he gave line readings. This would make her tear her hair out.

Verdon had done her own research for Lola by spending time on English Avenue observing the attitude of Cuban–Puerto Rican people, and she also learned a pseudo–Spanish accent for the part. She imagined the character as a child, more funny than sexy, in the way she copied Lola Montez and the movie ladies of the ’30s and ’40s who flared their nostrils and used eye attitude to be sexy. However ,Verdon acted it straight rather than funny, meaning every word. Fosse helped her get the character from the dialogue in the Lola song, and he worked to the classical music of Aaron Copland and Morton Gould which helped him with the oddball phrasing of the dance steps. The Lola number was designed to showcase her combination of sexiness and humor. Fosse and Verdon worked together to present a dance that was a parody of the bump and grind routines that they were both familiar with from their mutual experience in burlesque. It was also a continuation of the comic vamping that Carol Haney and he had employed for “Hernando’s Hideaway.” Verdon would give sole credit to Fosse for choreographing the number, which was a sign of her lack of vanity and generosity. But an examination of the dance reveals that while his touches are the small movements, the strides and turns are typically hers.