Born On This Day- August 24th... Stephen Fry

“You are who you are when nobody's watching.” 

Comedian, successful novelist, star of the silver screen, raconteur & wit are all part of the dazzling resume of Stephen Fry.

Perfectly cast, he played The Cheshire Cat in Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland & Mycroft Holmes in Sherlock Holmes directed by Guy Ritchie.

I thought he was hysterical as King Charles l in Black Adder. He is good personal friends with Prince Charles & his horsey 2nd wife, even though his performance in Black Adder was a parody of Elizabeth 2’s son. Other favorite performances: Oscar Wilde in Wilde with Jude Law (“a role that I was fated to play”) & 2 of my all time favorite films- Gosford Park & Cold Comfort Farm. I understand that he appears in something refered to as The Harry Potter Series of films. Please, don't make me watch them, as much as I admire Fry.

I have also enjoyed his books- The Liar, Making History, The Hippopotamus & The Star’s Tennis Balls. Fry lives in London with his husband- Daniel Cohen. He famously drives a black TX4 London cab. Mr. Fry has & maintains a nifty blog- The New Adventures Of Mr. Stephen Fry.

"My first words, as I was being born... I looked up at my mother & said, 'that's the last time I'm going up one of those.'"

Born On This Day- August 22nd... James Kirkwood

In an interesting reversal of our usual bedtime ritual, The Husband went to sleep early & I stayed up late & watched a very remarkable documentary- Every Little Step. The film travels behind the scenes of the auditions for 2006 revival of A Chorus Line to investigate the the interplay among the hopefuls. The film establishes a parallel between the events of the play itself & the offstage experiences of the aspiring performers who are auditioning. The filmmakers also work in a layer that pertains to the original inception of the musical, & its evolution from an idea by gay director/choreographer- Michael Bennett, who recorded an ensemble of dancers speaking confessionally & used that as the basis for the book of the show.

The filmmakers play those original tapes back, on-camera, resurrecting old ghosts. Composer Marvin Hamlisch also turns up revealing a racy little nugget about the history of the song- Dance: 10; Looks 3 . The film features extensive footage of the auditions themselve, on songs such as At The Ballet & I Can Do That, interweaving an aura of suspense throughout the narrative of who will eventually cast in the production itself. The title of the documentary is a reference to the lyric of that old war horse of a musical number One ("One singular sensation, every little step she takes").

Writer James Kirkwood reached the peak of his fame when A Chorus Line*, the celebrated musical, opened at the Public Theater in 1975. Executing a concept by choreographer Michael Bennett, with music by the late, great Marvin Hamlisch & lyrics by Edward Kleban, Kirkwood joined with co-writer Nicholas Dante to develop a script based on the tape-recorded reminiscences of Broadway "gypsies," the young men & women who sing & dance in the chorus lines of musicals. In 1976, his contributions to the show brought Kirkwood a Tony Award & a Pulitzer Prize.

James Kirkwood was a born in LA. His father was a director & his mother was silent film star- Lila Lee. Kirkwood was well known in the world of theater through his work as an actor, playwright, & comedian.His novels include P.S. Your Cat Is Dead (1972), Good Times, Bad Times (1968) & Some Kind of Hero (1975). He was a capable creator of popular fiction & most have gay elements, & a most of his work was adapted for the stage or screen. There Must Be A Pony is a thinly disguised story of his life with his mother that was made into a TV film with Elizabeth Taylor & Robert Wagner.

Kirkwood will always be best known for writing the book for a A Chorus Line, for which he won a Tony in 1976, as well as a New York Drama Critic's Circle Award & the Pulitzer Prize. A Chorus Line is credited with being the first Broadway musical to deal with homosexuality in a matter-of-fact way - the concept for the show came from gay choreographer Michael Bennett.

Frank Rich: "A Chorus Line was also the first Broadway musical to deal matter-of-factly with homosexuality, & from an inside point-of-view that makes its gay men seem far more accessible than the martyrs & oddballs that typified stage homosexuals in mainstream American drama of the post-Boys In The Band, pre-AIDS era."

Like The Wizard Of Oz, A Chorus Line shares the myth of finding acceptance & identity as an outsider seeking a place that feels ineffably like home.

A Chorus Line was still playing when James Kirkwood died from AIDS-related cancer at his home in NYC in 1989.

*Tiny footnotes: I auditioned for the first touring A Chorus Line in LA & didn't get very far, as I am only a serviceable dancer ("he moves well for not being a dancer"). My pal Walter Kennedy made the cut & was offered a role at the same time that has was asked to join a well known dance company. He chose the dance troupe, without regret, I believe. When I lived in NYC in the mid-1970s, I was briefly friends with Rebecca York who played Diana on Broadway.

Born On This Day- August 17th... Mae West

 

Her career started in 1907 & her last appearance was in 1978. Talented Mae West worked in vaudeville, on radio, on Broadway, in Las Vegas & in films. Her 1927 Broadway play- Sex opened to bad reviews, boffo box office, & was ultimetly closed down by the police. She was charged with & served time for "corrupting the morals of the youth". While incarcerated she ate her meals with the warden & his wife & told the press that she wore her silk panties under her prison garb.

Throughout the 1930s her films were anticipated as major events, but by the end of the decade she seemed to have reached her limit & her popularity waned; puritanism was on the rise & censorship was severely limiting her career. After making The Heat's On in 1943, West planned to retire from the screen, & went back to Broadway. In 1954, when she was 62, she began a nightclub act in which she was surrounded by her musclemen; it ran for 3 years & was a surprise success. West is the author of a rather readable memoir- Goodness Had Nothing to Do with It.

At 77 years old she appeared on the film Myra Breckinridge with Farrah Fawcett, Tom Selleck & Raquel Welch. In the mid-1970s she released an album of rock & roll covers- Great Balls Of Fire. But for me, Mae West is remembered best for her quips, including Stephen's words to live by: "Too much of a good thing can be wonderful"

Born On This Day- August 17th... Monty Woolley

Edgar Montillion Woolley was born on this day- August 17th, in 1888, in NYC. He was a professor & lecturer at Yale University & he became an actor rather late in life, appearing on Broadway in 1936.

Woolley was typecast as the sharp speaking, supercilious sophisticate. His most famous role is the cantankerous radio personality forced to stay immobile because of a broken leg in The Man Who Came to Dinner, which he performed on Broadway, on the road, & in the film version. The play is based a on the radio & press celebrity of the 1930s & 1940s, Alexander Woollcott, who was also gay.

In the early 1970s, I performed in The Man Who Came To Dinner, a near perfect piece of theatre comedy confection by George Kauffman & Moss Hart. I played the role of Banjo, a thinly disguised caricature of Harpo Marx. In a crazy coincidence, I would play Harpo Marx a year later in a rather good musical, ready to be revived I believe- Minnie's Boys.

Woolley was a teacher & trusted sidekick of Cole Porter while at Yale & throughout their lives. They enjoyed many amusing disreputable adventures together in NYC & on foreign travels.

He played himself, badly, in Warner Brother's misinformed, misrepresented, & miserable bio-pic about Cole Porter's life- Night & Day (1946), a fictionalised retelling of Porter's peculiar professional & personal life. In the film he is much older than Cary Grant's Cole Porter, but he was actually only 3 years older than his friend.which might give you a clue about the nature of some of their audacious assignations

Woolley starred in a CBS TV adaptation of The Man Who Came to Dinner in 1954, the year of my birth. Woolley appeared in the TV series- Best of Broadway.

After finishing his final film, Kismet (1955), he returned to radio. Woolley was nominated for an Oscar as Best Actor in 1943 for The Pied Piper & as Best Supporting Actor in 1945 for Since You Went Away. He won a Best Actor award from the National Board of Review in 1942 for his role in The Pied Piper.

I have it on good authority that Woolley had a passion for black men, as did Cole Porter. Bennett Cerf in his 1944 book Try & Stop Me, tells the tale of Woolley at a dinner party where he suddenly belched. A woman sitting nearby glared at him; he glared back & said: "& what did you expect, my good woman? Chimes?"  Woolley died in 1963. I could play his signature role- Sheridan Whiteside in the Man Who Came To Dinner, with my eyes wide shut.

Born On This Day- August 12th... Alfred Lunt

I have always been absorbed by these types, the glamorous theatre & film personalities of the 1920s-1960s. “The Lunts” ruled the American theater scene during that era, with their dazzling partnership. Their careers flourished at a time when even the biggest stars would do national tours & successful actors worked exclusively year-round on the stage. Their friends included other glamorous theater people: Noel Coward, Gertrude Lawrence, Helen Hayes, Mary Martin, Ethel Merman & Laurence Olivier.

There was never a question of their devotion, but the offstage union of Alfred Lunt & Lynn Fontanne was a marriage between a gay man & a Lesbian. Their presentation of themselves as the ideal couple may have been their most skillful performance.

When prodded by best buddy- Noel Coward, the couple would sometimes teasingly hint about their private lives. Their scandalous 1933 hit- Design for Living allowed the Coward & his co-stars to romp through a 3 way implying that there was sex between the 2 male characters. Design for Living remains one of my favorite plays. I remain fascinated by the ups, downs & pitfalls of a 3 way relationship .The production showcased the flawless comic gifts for which the Lunts were most admired, but they also excelled at dramatic pieces too, but the Lunts will always be known for the light comedy & the amazing chemistry.

When relaxing, they retreated in high style to their country manor- 10 Chimneys, in Lunt's home state, Wisconsin (home of presumptive VP nominee, Paul Ryan), where he could cook & redecorate while she sewed her chic clothing. The Lunts were my kind of couple; they ate off an orange crate, siting on Biedermeier chairs. The Lunts were Post Apocalyptic Bohemians, for certain. The theater was life for them, & their life was a piece of theater. Their dwellings were theatrical sets, their parties were stage shows, everyone who socialized with them was turned into audience. It was remarked that they knew next to nothing about what was going on in the world, had largely theatrical friends, usually acted together & rehearsed their parts in taxis, even in bed.

There are all sorts of marriages, I should know. Unlike in other show biz marriages, the spouses were equal stars; equally glamorous to the world & to each other, not much reason for jealousy. Passion was what they enacted on the stage. Fontanne : ''We were friends right away. . . . I loved him utterly. We were in the same profession. We were like twins. When we were acting, I always thought of him as another person. . . . I had a new lover every night, and so had he.'' '' Hmmm… sexual passion?

The Lunts had a design for living to suit them both: There would be deep devotion. . . . There would be close friendships, particularly the triangle kind that Lynn preferred: Lynn, Alfred & a gay male, kindness, courtesy, loyalty & generosity. There would be passionate, total commitment to their work.

After Lunt's death, Fontanne toasted him with a glass of champagne, saying simply, "To Alfred." We will probably not see their likes again.

Born On This Day- August 7th... John Glover

I first made note of a pair of new actors- John Glover & Meryl Streep in small parts in just 2 scenes in the film Julia(1977). They both made quite an impression in essentially tiny roles. I have watched Glover’s career with interest & have enjoyed his performances, most often playing villains, in film & on TV.

Glover has done extensive stage work on Broadway, Off-Broadway & in regional theatre. Highlights for me include an Emmy nominated turn in An Early Frost, one of the first movies to deal with AIDS & in Annie Hall, in another tiny role, he utters to Diane Keaton, the very funny line: "Touch my heart. With your foot."

He has had reoccurring roles on Frasier, Murder She Wrote, Law & Order, Brothers & Sisters, Heroes, & as Lux Luther's father Lionel on Smallville.

Glover received a Tony nomination last year as Lucky in Waiting For Godot. For me the apex of his long career was playing 2 roles, twin brothers, in Love! Valor! Compassion!for which he won the Tony & repeated the role in the film version. I really admired & was touched this very fine performance.

Glover lives in NYC with his longtime partner- sculptor Adam Kurtzman. Glover turns 68 years old today.

Born On This Day- August 2nd... Director, John Dexter

John Dexter worked & mingled with the greatest talents of his day: Laurence Olivier, Joan Plowright, Rudolf Nureyev, Paul Scofield, Richard Burton, Stephen Sondheim, Maria Callas, Anthony Hopkins, Kenneth Tynan, & Maggie Smith, among others. Often working with a nearly bare stage to draw out the audience's imagination, Dexter worked to bring freshness to his work without getting in the way of the considerable talent that he had assembled. When the producers of M Butterflyapproached him to direct, Dexter countered: “I am known to be difficult, British, homosexual, & expensive, & whilst I can, with modified rapture, admit to the first 3 charges, the last is deeply wounding.''

Dexter, with little formal education, was a leading English director of theater & opera. He won 2 Tony Awards, & was known for the sweep of his directorial imagination with contemporary plays & classics. In the late 1950's & early 1960's Dexter led the Royal Court Theater into trying new & venturesome plays. Under the leadership of Laurence Olivier, he also served for 7 years as an associate director of Britain's National Theater. In later years, as a director of opera & as director of productions for the Metropolitan Opera (from 1974 to 1981), he achieved an international reputation for a new theatre form.

He won his Tony Awards as best director for David Henry Hwang's M Butterfly, & for directing Peter Shaffer's Equus. His final Broadway production was a revival of A Threepenny Opera starring Sting.

Dexter's career led him from small, naturalistic plays to grand epics, & he moved between genres with apparent ease, although sometimes with controversy. The range of his work was demonstrated by the plays he did in association with Mr. Shaffer: the historical spectacle of The Royal Hunt Of The Sun, the farce Black Comedy & the psychological drama Equus.

Shaffer: ''Dexter directs powerfully through suggestion. Into the theatrical spaces he contrives, flows the communal imagination of an audience. He enables it to charge the action of a play with electric life. He is a master of gesture & of economy. Esthetically, his foundation ranges Noh drama to Bertolt Brecht: the plain plank; the clear light; the visual pleasure of the set. He is naturally drawn to plays which demand elaborate physical actions to complete them.''

I was fortunate enough to have spent Christmas Eve-1976 at the apartment of actor Michael Higgins who was appearing with Richard Burton in Equus on Broadway at the time. Mr.Higgins' daughter was a friend of my buddy WCK3. John Dexter was in attendance. His acerbic wit & biting tongue were a bit cruel & I was more than a little intimidated, but I sensed that beneath the satire & irony there was self-doubt & nervous tension. Being Christmas, I told him that I greatly admired his work & gave him a big hug. He died in 1990.

Good-Bye, Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

He was quite simply, one of my favorite writers, elegant & fearless. I have been reading him for more than 5 decades & my book shelves are heavy in the Vs.

He watched & reported on the decline of this once great country of ours. Gore Vidal reminded readers of our failure of education, manners on the decline, & political leaders cynical, cretinous, & closed to the reality.  He found the values & culture of his fellow Americans to be shameful, & the state of literature & pop culture, almost, but not quite, beyond words.

He had a distaste for TV, & it was a compliment to his skillful storytelling & considerable wit that he could appear with such frequency on the most popular medium to deride popular entertainment, & be welcomed back the following week to do it again.

There were few subjects for which he could not invent a quip, often memorably dismissive. Vidal could be relied on to be entertaining about almost anything: history, politics, art, journalism, theatre, sex, morals or celebrity.  Vidal: “I am at heart a propagandist, a tremendous hater, a tiresome nag, complacently positive that there is no human problem which cannot be solved if people would simply do as I advise.”

His literary output was prodigious: collections of smart, witty, biting essays, plays, screenplays, & more than 20 novels, including 7 books about our country from the American Revolution to the Korean War known as the Narrative of Empire series.

Vidal: “Our leaders can no longer write their own speeches or books, & there is some evidence they cannot read them either. Our political system has become a game for the very rich.”

His statements found detractors. Norman Mailer went so far as to headbutt Vidal while they were in the green room, waiting to appear together on a chat show. William F. Buckley called his a fag, on air & threatened to punch him on the spot.  But, Vidal appeared to relish feuds. When Truman Capote made a comment about Vidal being thrown out of the Kennedy White House, Vidal sued for libel.

Vidal derided the term “gay” & claimed that he had had sex with 1,000s of people of both genders by the time he was 25. But the great love of his life was Jimmie Trimble, an athletics star who was to die at Iwo Jima, preserving forever the image of a kind of romantic ideal in Vidal’s mind.

Vidal joined the Army after graduating from Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. He served in a transport ship, ending the war as a warrant officer. It was while on board ship that he wrote his first novel- Williwaw (1946). The word means an Arctic squall, & the novel’s setup is the effect of the storm on a crew of hot young men in cramped conditions.

In 1948, Vidal’s The City & the Pillar was published. It is a groundbreaking novel of youthful homosexuality told against the background of the story of Sodom. At the time the Kinsey Report had just been released & homosexuality was more widely discussed, & acknowledged to exist, than ever before. Vidal: “I wanted to take risks, to try something no American had done before. I decided to examine the homosexual underworld, which I knew rather less well than I pretended, & in the process show the 'naturalness’ of homosexual relations.”  Written 2 years after Iwo Jima, the book was dedicated “to JT”.

Not shocking by current standards, at the time Vidal’s book was hugely controversial, & it was described it as embarrassing, courageous, serious, social tract. Some papers which slammed the novel would not accept advertisements for it. Vidal claimed that the book affected the reviews of future reviews he received from major publications, especially The NY Times, for his later books. “He may have been right,” The NY Times stated this morning.

In the 1950s he wrote screenplays in Hollywood: The Catered Affair, I Accuse, The Scapegoat, Suddenly Last Summer & Is Paris Burning?

Vidal wrote successfully for the theatre: Visit To A Small Planet, The Best Man (which had a well-received revival this Broadway season), Romulus, & An Evening With Richard Nixon. For TV he wrote: Dark Possession, The Death Of Billy The Kid, Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, The Turn Of The Screw, State Door, & A Farewell to Arms. He found the work interesting, but only as a way to make money to buy time to write books.

I appreciate his essays the mist, but I have been lost in his elegant historical fiction where Vidal introduced real figures from the past, & combine them with gossipy asides from his fictional characters. His plots featured cameo appearances by Washington Irving, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Henry James & many others. In Empire (1987), Vidal set President Teddy Roosevelt & newspaper man William Randolph Hearst in a confrontation which becomes a reflection on the press’s power to make or break a politician.

In 1968 Vidal had a stunning success with Myra Breckenridge, a very funny spoof on the shattering of sexual barriers & a send-up of the porn industry so explicit that the book itself was labeled pornography. In his best known novel, Vidal managed to strike at young people, entertainment, writing, California, the decline of civilization & to rage about his particular concern- population control. He used sex-changed title character to repeat his vigorously held contention that only zero population growth can save the planet from starvation.

Vidal: “If the human race is to survive, population will have to be reduced drastically, if not by atomic war then by law, an unhappy prospect for civil liberties but better than starving... it may already be too late to save this ark of fools.”

Essays are my own favored written expression &Vidal’s collections are my favorites of his work: Sex, Death & Money (1968),  Reflections Upon A Sinking Ship (1969), Homage to Daniel Shays (1972), Matters of Fact & Fiction, & Armageddon (1987).

The Second American Revolution & Other Essays won the 1982 National Book Critics’ Circle Award for criticism. This collection  took on born-again Christians, politicians, universities, big business, the Churches & all those in authority, with awesome range & radical, renegade instinct to rail against established authority- clerical, academic, corporate & patriotic. Vidal observed that politics had become trivialized, with substance & debate replaced by talking heads allowed only seconds to make arguments about the future of the nation & the world.

In 1993 Vidal won the National Book Award for Non-Fiction for the collection United States: Essays 1952–1992. He followed this with a second collection of essays- The Last Empire, published in 2000.

Among my favorite books of all time are his pair of memoirs-  Palimpsest& Point to Point Navigation, in which he mentions his many sexual conquests as “ nothing special”,  compared to the pursuits of his pals John F. Kennedy & Tennessee Williams. Vidal was fond of drinking & alleged that he had sampled every major drug, once.

One of my favorite Vidal anecdotes:  During the casting of his 1959 play about a political convention- The Best Man, a talent agent proposed offering Ronald Reagan the lead. Vidal: “We all had a good laugh. He is by no means a bad actor, but he would hardly be convincing, I said with that eerie prescience which has earned me the title 'The American Nostradamus’, as a presidential candidate.”

He twice ran unsuccessfully for office. In 1960 he was a Democratic candidate for Congress in New York’s 29th district, and he ran for nomination as the Democratic senatorial candidate in 1982. Vidal would appear as himself in several cameo roles, including The Simpsons. In 2009 he was awarded the annual Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters by the National Book Foundation.

He was host for a time on the TV program Hot Line, & received the Edgar Allan Poe Award of the Mystery Writers of America in 1955. His novel of the ancient world- Creation, won the Prix Deauville in 1983.

Vidal lived in Beverly Hills, NYC, Rome & Ravello on Italy’s Adriatic coast, for more than half a century, with Howard Austen, a former advertising executive who died in 2003. Vidal & Austen chose cemetery plots in Washington DC, between Jimmie Trimble & one of Vidal's literary heroes, Henry Adams. At the end of his life, saddened by the death of Austen & many close friends, Vidal still looked to no existence beyond this one. "Because there is no cosmic point to the life that each of us perceives on this distant bit of dust at galaxy's edge, all the more reason for us to maintain in proper balance what we have here. Because there is nothing else. No thing. This is it, & quite enough, all in all."

I once played Gore Vidal, or rather I based a character, rather successfully, on the writer. The play was Tom Stoppard’s The Real Inspector Hound & my character was an acerbic, bitter theatre critic. Vidal did my homework for me. Vidal has been a major player in my rather insignificant life & I like to think that I am a bit similar to him, minus his intelligence, talent & nerve.

Born On This Day- July 14th... Post Apocalyptic Bohemian Favorite, Arthur Laurents

"Writers are the chosen people. I am happiest when sitting alone & putting my daydreams & fantasies down on paper.”

As the story goes... late for his place on a panel discussion, Arthur Laurents burst on to the stage draped in mink & announced: "Behold, a living legend!". Stephen Sondheim, also on the panel, looked up & said: "Wrong on both counts".

I just ate up his pair of memoirs- Original Story By & Mainly On Directing, chock full of great dishy theatre & Hollywood stories. He is important to me in the many ways. I admire him & his work, but most especially because he wrote the book for my favorite musical- Gypsy, which I find to be a near perfect piece of theatre. He directed 3 revivals of Gypsy,including my favorite version with my good close personal friend Angela Lansbury in 1974, & Tyne Daley in 1989 & 2009’s Patti Lupone outing.

In 2010, at 92, he directed a revival of West Side Story, a classic for which he wrote the original lean & strong book. In this production, it was Laurents's conceit to have most of the the Sharks & their girls, who are from Puerto Rico, speak & sing in Spanish & the cast would all be young & if not Puerto Rican, at least Hispanic. Laurents has explained that the idea came from his partner of 52 years- Tom Hatcher (Laurents & Farley Granger were lovers in the late 1940s), who saw & loved a production of the musical in South America. It was also Hatcher that urged Laurents to revive Gypsy! with Patti LuPone, so that the Sam Mendes directed production with Bernadette Peters would not be the last Gypsy in Laurents's lifetime.

Laurents has won 4 Tony Awards & been nominated for 6 Oscars, winning for the screenplay of The Turning Point. He was by all accounts, a real son of a bitch... but, what a talent.

His career had barely started when he was drafted into the Army in 1941. Laurents spent the war years writing training films & radio propaganda shows. He had also had come to terms with his homosexuality, & he soon lost count of the sexual experiences he had while in the Army. In Original Story By, he speaks of his lifetime of gay encounters, referring to his partners as “those unremembered hundreds.”

As a gay man living as openly as possible during some of this country's most dangerous times, Laurents was a role model of discretion & living the way he wanted to, despite public opinion & cruelty against homosexuals everywhere.

The last line of Laurents's memoir- Original Story By, speaks of Tom Hatcher, who was Laurents' partner for more than 50 years: "As long as he lives, I will." But, Hatcher died in 2006  & Laurents, in his 93rd year, adjusting to life without him. When they first became a couple, Laurents claims his mother was more disturbed that Hatcher was a gentile than that her son was gay.

Laurents led a wild life: "I drank an awful lot, I drugged an awful lot. But I think I have a built-in governor, because at any point I would say OK, I've had enough, & I'd go home to bed. I assumed everybody could do that. I was never one for going to bars, that kind of thing. I was a hopeless romantic. Well, no one could have that much sex & be entirely romantic, but the dangerous side never appealed to me."

But Hatcher was the great love of his life & their life together is one of the great love affairs. Laurents: "Tom & theatre, that's what my life has been. & that's what my book is - an effort to say thank you by doing what I can to make the theatre indestructible & to keep Tom alive."

"From Tom's pool, you can see into the heart of his garden. In summer, we swim laps every day. Often, we walk through the park, then sit on that bench, looking at the view. Yesterday, we sat there a little longer than usual, just looking at the changing light, not saying anything. But Tom reads my mind: 'You're going to live 20 more years,' he assured me."

Laurents worked in many genres. The stage was his first love, & he wrote for it for 65 years, creating comedies, romances, & serious dramas that explored questions of ethics, social pressures & personal integrity.

Laurents made his exit, upstage center, in May 2011. This is a partial list of his contribution to popular culture:

Librettos: Gypsy, Nick & Nora, West Side Story, The Madwoman of Central Park West, Hallelujah, Baby! Do I Hear a Waltz?, & Anyone Can Whistle

Direction: Anyone Can Whistle, La Cage aux Follies, The Madwoman of Central Park West, Gypsy (1974, 1989 & 2008), I Can Get It for You Wholesale (with a very young Barbra Streisand) & Invitation to a March

Plays: Invitation to a March, A Clearing in the Woods, The Time of the Cuckoo, The Bird Cage, Home of the Brave, & Jolson Sings!

Screenplays: Anastasia, The Turning Point, The Way We Were, Gypsy, West Side Story, Bonjour Tristesse, Summertime (from his play The TimeOf The Cuckoo), Anna Lucasta, Home of the Brave, Rope, Caught, &The Snake Pit

Has your life been touched by any of his work? I would be interested to know. If you are a fan, what is your favorite version of Gypsy?

This still gets to me every time... good-byes & regrets.

Born On This Day- July 10th.... Jerry Herman

As a little 10 year old musical comedy queen, I would practice kick stepping my way down the staircase at our house as my imaginary chorus sang my character’s name (I think sometimes they were actually just singing-Steve!). My parents had just been presented me with the Original Broadway Cast album Hello, Dolly! & I was having a difficult time recovering from the excitement of such infectious tunes. These hummable songs personified the “show tune”. They were tuneful, optimistic, & deceptively simple songs. I had been raised on Lerner & Lowe & Rodgers & Hammerstein, but this new guy was really getting to me. I didn’t know it in 1964, but Jerry Herman would be providing me with a musical number for descending a staircase for the next 4 decades.

Jerry Herman, who writes the music & lyrics, produced super successful & contagious tunes for the musicals: Hello, Dolly!, Mame, Dear World, Mack & Mable, & La Cage Aux Folles.

In these musicals our misunderstood leading lady would introduce a song early in the first act that stated her life philosophy: I Put My Hand In There, It’s Today, Each Tomorrow Morning, Look What Happened To Mabel, & A Little More Mascara.

The first act would end in her big soliloquy, where our heroine lifts her own spirits: Before The Parade Passes By, If He Walked Into My Life Today, I Don’t Want To Know, or I Am What I Am.

That brings us to the big “staircase” number, when the chorus celebrates how their lives have been changed by the mere presence of this woman with the title songs from Dolly & Mame, When Mabel Comes In The Room, One Person, & The Best Of Times. The song- One from A Chorus Line is a parody & homage to these songs.

Despite the formula, these shows & their wonderful & skillful songs make for superior theatre experiences. Some were super hits & others became cult favorites. Herman is the only songwriter to have 3 musical on Broadway at the same time. Many of his compositions have become pop standards. Louis Armstrong’s version of Hello, Dolly! outsold The Beatles in 1964. The movie versions of Hello, Dolly!& Mame are considered, by most fan of musical theatre, to be duds, but as a very young man I was thrilled by the film of Hello, Dolly!& saw it about 20 times. I still love Barbra (decades too young for the role) as Mae West as Dolly Levi. I was very touched that Wall-E discovered emotions from a dilapidated 20th century tape containing a loop of Put On Your Sunday Clothes.

Herman has stated that he will no longer be writing for the theatre:

“I think my style of musical has come and was very, very good to me, but is gone now. I think it's better to know when to leave than to end up with two or three shows that didn't make it. I left at my height."

Herman has long been openly gay, & was diagnosed as HIV-positive in 1985.  He is one of the fortunate ones who survived to see experimental drug therapies take hold & is still, as he turns 81 years old today, as one of his lyrics proclaims, “alive & well & thriving.”

Herman’s 1983 musical- La Cage Aux Folles was a critical & commercial smash, & also a political & social turning point.  Never before had a pair men held hands in a musical, or sung a love ballad to one another.

George Hearn’s star turn as Za Za, belting out what is probably the most dramatic Act One closer of all time- I Am What I Am, is a forceful call for dignity & acceptance, a surpassingly stalwart statement in the first days of HIV from a composer/lyricist who declared all along that he wanted only to entertain people.

I had the good fortunate to play Horace Vandergelder in Hello, Dolly! at Seattle Civic Light Opera in the late 1980s & during performances, of course I would close my eyes as the male chorus was singing the title number, & what I was hearing was “Hello, Horace!” or better yet- “Hello, Stephen!”& I was step kick-stepping down that large staircase.

Born On This Day- July 5th... Overachiever, Jean Cocteau

My husband is a hyphenate (most people in Portland are), as an artist-designer-set designer, but he is a bit of an underachiever, compared with poet-artist-playwright-actor-designer-photographer-filmmaker-boxing manager- Jean Cocteau. Cocteau published his 1st volume of poems when he was 19. He was a well regarded artist & popular man-about-town in Paris, with the success of several ballets & plays that he wrote in his late 20s. In the early 1920s, Cocteau's lover, writer Raymond Radiguet, died of typhoid fever; the despondent Cocteau escaped the pain of his loss with the help of opium. In 1930, Cocteau tried film making as the medium best suited for his artistic expression. His stylized, homoerotic films are taken from Cocteau's drawings: bold, simple strokes, accentuated eyes, minimalist outlines & profiles, & erotic, surrealistic portraits that dominate the sets of his films. In his later films, Cocteau included bits of his poetry written in his distinctive handwriting, samples of his drawings & paintings, narration, & cast himself in certain roles.

Cocteau’s work is marked by whimsical special effects & exotic landscapes & themes of narcissism, the Orpheus myth, mirrors, passages to secret worlds, fairy tales, flowers, & beautiful people in iconographic settings. In 1937, Cocteau met Jean Marais, the most famous of his lovers, & helped make his talented, handsome, & athletic protégé into one of France's most beloved movie stars. Cocteau made with Marais, such classics films as La belle et la bête & Orphée.

Cocteau by Modigliani

Cocteau encouraged artists to speak out against unjust political domination, & yet he was burdened by the open secrets of his opium use & homosexuality, which made him particularly vulnerable to attack by the right-wing government. During the Nazi Occupation, Cocteau's plays were banned & Cocteau was a victim of physical violence & homophobic insults. But still, Cocteau wrote, made films, traveled, & attracted famous friends, patrons, & protégés throughout the rest of his life. Cocteau was elected to the prestigious Académie Français. The artist died of a heart attack in 1963, just an hour after learning of singer Édith Piaf's death. He wrote more than 30 volumes of poetry, 7 novels, 24 plays, 11 ballets, 6 operas, 6 full length films, & 100s of drawings & photographs. He contributed to the worlds of publishing, graphic design, clothing design, & interior design. Jean Cocteau continues to this day as one of France's most famous, & most adored, cultural icons. A fascinating gay man of the 20th century. How about Adrien Brody in the title role of the film of his life story?

Born On This Day- July 4th... Gertrude Alice Dagmar Klasen

Gertrude Lawrence had hordes of adoring audiences in both Britain & the USA. She was the first true international superstar, a cockney who conquered adoring audiences on both sides of the Atlantic.

Lawrence’s appeal went far beyond the sophisticated international elite, she lived in the USA through most of her career, & toured the country so widely as to be a front-page celebrity from coast to coast. The Gershwins wrote Oh, Kay!,for her, where she was the first to sing Someone To Watch Over Me. Noel Coward wrote Private Lives, one of the greatest comedies of the 20^th century for her, & together they created the sparkling characters of Elyot & Amanda. Kurt Weill & Moss Hart wrote Lady in the Dark for her; Rogers & Hammerstein wrote The King & I for her, & most theater people agree that Joe Mankiewicz wrote the movie All About Eve, about her.

But by the time of her early death at the age of 54, she had made only a handful of films, now seldom seen, in which the camera failed to capture her allure. Those who never saw her magic light up a stage are left with only the recordings of her haunting & precarious singing voice as proof to her greatness.

She was Noel Coward’s best buddy for 40 years. Coward, who met her when they worked together on stage when she was 14, describes her face as “far from pretty, but tremendously alive”. Lawrence was lifelong friends & a frequent collaborator with lesbian & comic genius-  Beatrice Lillie.

Without her theatrical make-up, she was quite plain, one reason, perhaps, why her success was confined to the stage & never repeated on screen. When the curtain went up, a strange transformation would occur. Coward: “Sometimes, in Private Lives, I would look at her across the stage & she would simply take my breath away.”

At their first meeting, Lawrence told the 13-year-old Coward a few 'mildly dirty stories' & later took him into a bedroom and introduced him to the facts of life. It has been suggested that Lawrence may have been the homosexual Coward's only heterosexual experience. Coward denied this vehemently & told Gore Vidal that he had never had sex with a woman.

Vidal: “Not even with Gertie Lawrence?”

Coward: “Particularly not with Miss Lawrence.”

Lawrence had one short-lived marriage & there was a long succession of lovers, male & female, including the married actor/manager Sir Gerald du Maurier. His daughter, novelist Daphne du Maurier, bitterly resented Lawrence's role in her father's life because of the distress it caused her mother & extracted a sort of revenge by becoming Lawrence's lover.

Another love affair was with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Fairbanks: “She was very temperamental, very jealous, could be exhausting, moody, difficult - but also enchanting & alive & very funny.”

But the most controversial relationship of all was her fling with the Prince of Wales - the future Edward VIII & Duke of Windsor. Their affair infuriated his mother, Queen Mary, who disapproved of Lawrence for ever after.

By the peak of her fame in the 1930s, Lawrence was massively in debt. Her NYC lawyer observed that she spent money “like an entire fleet of drunken sailors”. To the amazement of her friends, she married the wealthy American impresario & theatre owner, Richard Aldrich.

Coward disliked him, but cabled with his customary wit: “Dear Mrs A, Hooray Hooray. At last you are deflowered. On this as every other day I love you. Noel Coward.”

Like other friends, he doubted she really loved Aldrich, but the marriage gave her financial security. Lawrence continued to have affairs with members of both sexes while a married lady.

One of her last lovers was Yul Brynner, 35 & married, was virtually unknown when he was cast in The King & I, with the 52 year old Lawrence’s name above the title & his below it.

Throughout rehearsals, there were many complaints from Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein about her singing flat. She became increasingly temperamental, & the director, the very gayJohn Van Druten, was not tough enough to handle her.

Brynner exuded masculine authority & sexual magnetism. When he spoke, Lawrence listened. Largely due to his influence, the show became a hit. But the complaints about Lawrence’s singing increased. Rodgers & Hammerstein wanted her out of the show.

Lawrence, who was in love with Brynner, had no intention of quitting, but 18 months into the run, during the heat of a NYC summer, she collapsed. She was dying from cancer of the liver. 

She told her lawyer from her hospital bed: “I don't think I'm going to get out of this place. See that Yul gets star billing. He has earned it.” She wasn't just talking about his acting.

When Lawrence died on September 6, 1952, they dimmed the lights on Broadway & in London's West End.

When Oscar Hammerstein told Brynner he would now receive top billing, he started to cry. Hammerstein : “He told me, & I believed him, that losing Lawrence was a tremendous price to pay for advancement. It was the only time I ever saw him cry.”

There is a rather good film based on Lawrence’s life that is filled with first rate musical numbers- Star!,with Julie Andrews as Lawrence. The 1968 film, directed by Robert Wise, mostly gets it right.

Born On This Day- July 1st... Farley Earle Granger

Friday, when I should have been composing a post for this, my little spot on the internet, I watched back to back Hitchcock on AMC. I thought I had seen all of Alfred Hitchcock’s Hollywood period films & some of his early British silent & early talkies, but I had somehow missed- Marnie, from 1964. I finally watched this film in amazement & afterwards I felt I needed to put together a post on my impressions of this nearly nutty psychological thriller about a frigid & fragile person, who is raped by Sean Connery, but then I thought- why, when I live it every day?

Immediately after viewing Marnie, I dug into my at least 5^th time with Rope. I am always up for a little Farley Granger. Granger had a career on stage & screen from the early 1940s- into the new century. He was well known for starring in a pair of films Hitchcock with legendary homosexual subtext- Rope & Strangers On A Train.

His first starring role in They Live by Night, directed by bi-sexual Nicholas Ray, is considered to be one of his finest film performances. Granger’s sensitive portrayal of a bank robber caught the attention of Alfred Hitchcock. While preparing to shoot Rope a movie inspired by the notorious Leopold & Loeb murder case, Granger & co-star John Dall (whose homosexuality was also well known in the Hollywood community) were cast as a pair affluent young men, who set out to commit a " Prefect Murder".

The men’s sexuality is never made explicit in the film, but the relationship between Granger’s & Dall’s characters has a strong homoerotic subtext, skillfully sewn together by Hitchcock & his actors. The film became notorious for its continuous, uninterrupted 10-minute takes, the amount of time a reel of Technicolor film lasted. It was a difficult feat as Hitchcock ran into numerous technical problems which frequently brought the action to a halt throughout the 21 day shoot.

3 years after starring in Rope, Granger again worked with Hitchcock in the classic thriller Strangers on a Train, based on the first novel by acclaimed lesbian writer Patricia Highsmith, who authored The Talented Mr. Ripley & a series of Ripley books. Although Hitchcock himself was dissatisfied with the end result, Strangers On A Train was a box office hit & the first major success of Granger’s career & is one of my favorite Hitchcock’s films.

Granger remained secretive about his private life, but his homosexuality has been widely known in the Hollywood & Broadway acting communities. Among his many lovers was Post Apocalyptic Bohemain favorite- Arthur Laurents who wrote the screenplay for Rope. Laurents speaks kindly of him in his memoir- Original Story By.

Granger had shorter affairs with Leonard Bernstein & Robert Walker, he remained friends with both of them until each of their deaths. In 1995 he was one of many on-screen actors interviewed for Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman’s ground-breaking documentary The Celluloid Closet, discussing the depiction of homosexuality in film, in particular Rope & Strangers On A Train.

Granger was a profoundly good looking actor of considerable range & style: Broadway, films, musicals, light comedies & noir. I found him to be the epitome of how to age with class. He was in a long domestic partnership with stage manager-  Robert Calhoun, who passed away on 2008. Together they had written Granger's dishy memoir, deliciously titled- Include Me Out. Granger died in the same week as Elizabeth Taylor last spring.