Well, dear readers, I hate to be the one to have to point this little factoid out, but do you realize that March is now halfway over? How can that be? I guess March simply marches to the sound of its own drummer and the beat goes on, baby, the beat goes on. I mean, we’ve already had the fershluganah Ides of March. Therefore, I’d better just dig in to these here notes because if I don’t it will be April.
As those who’ve read Kritzer Time know, I saw Stop The World, I Want To Get Off as a young teen. I was very taken with the show and saw it several times. It inspired me because one person had co-written the book, music, and lyrics, directed the show, and originally starred in the show, and that person was Anthony Newley. I didn’t see Mr. Newley in the show, I saw the national tour with Joel Grey. So inspired, I began writing a show with a fellow Hamilton High student named Ellen Bank. Very influenced by Damn Yankees, which we were trying to mount a production of (we were adventurous teens), our story had a Devil theme, which is about as much as I can remember about it. For reasons that are no longer clear to me, we called this musical A Penny Ain’t Worth A Nickel. I know. I wrote about four songs for it, at least four that I can recall. Actually, I wrote no songs FOR it, I simply took four songs I’d written and stuck them in the show, including a couple that I used in Kritzer Time. They weren’t bad songs for a young teen (you can hear a couple of them if you have the Kritzer Time CD) but the “script,” I’m quite certain, was as bad as bad could be. But I think we thought it was quite brilliant. So brilliant in fact, that after attending a matinee performance of Hughie at the Huntington Hartford Theater, I approached its star, Jason Robards, Jr. and gave him the script, hoping he’d play the Devil. I did not lack for chutzpah, not one whit. He was very sweet and very supportive. He said to come see him in a couple of days. I did so, and he gave me my script back and said he’d enjoyed it, but that he was very busy. He said to call his agent if we were further along. He could have been dismissive and curt, but instead he gave me hope. Obviously, nothing ever came of that show.
At LACC, they took advantage of my musical abilities – I used one of the tunes from A Penny Ain’t Worth A Nickel, a song called Think Of The Future, and the little opening tune of that became the theater’s warning chimes that the show was about to begin or that intermission was ending. They used those for about ten years. I wrote incidental music for The Children’s Hour, I wrote some songs for a summer production of Alice In Wonderland, I wrote music to Brendan Behan’s lyrics in The Hostage, I wrote a couple of songs for Jimmy Shine, and on it went. As I mentioned in one of last week’s notes, I wrote a musical revue based on the works of Ring Lardner. But I really wanted to write a book musical – I just had no idea what that would be. When I lived in New York, I met a fellow named James Morgan who was a book writer and lyricist and who needed a composer. He’d written a musical version of an old chestnut called Fashion. Even though I didn’t really care for writing music for other people’s words, I did it. I know we did a demo of the score – but I have no idea where it might be or if I have it. The two of us also attended the Lehman Engel class, then in only its second year. That was very informative, although I still didn’t like writing for Mr. Morgan’s lyrics.
When I got back to LA, I wasn’t doing much of anything, just waiting for my daughter to be born. So, I decided to be bold and to start writing a musical version of my favorite book, To Kill A Mockingbird. I wrote about fifteen songs for it, and did the book as well. It was VERY faithful to the tone and spirit of the book. I’d have people over and play the songs and everyone professed to like them. Then one day, I went to LACC where a fellow I knew had written his own musical, All Of Us, and had staged it in the upstairs tiny theater. While I didn’t think it was perfect, it was very entertaining, his songs were eclectic and fun, and the cast was great. I thought to myself, “Myself, sit the hell down and write a musical and do it in that tiny theater.” I began writing my very first original musical, which I called Start At The Top. It was quite autobiographical in nature. The first version was in one act. It took about two months to write, and then I did indeed do a production in that tiny upstairs theater. I knew that several of the songs were very good, and the audiences really enjoyed the show. If I’m remembering correctly, I believe my stage manager was Debbie Shapiro (later Gravitte). An agent from what was then called CMA (later ICM) saw the show and was impressed by it. He invited me to his office and asked what else I had. I told him about To Kill A Mockingbird and I played him the songs and showed him the script. He flipped for it. And a mutual friend of his had also seen the show and loved it and he wanted to do another production of it at a little theater on Santa Monica Blvd. It was all very exciting and happening concurrently.
The agent, a wonderful man named Frank Levy, who would go on to be a major player in LA musical theater, arranged a reading of To Kill A Mockingbird, long before people did readings of shows. We got a bunch of wonderful actors together – some of them sang, but mostly I think I warbled. The next thing we knew a theater in Seattle had committed to do the show, and Frank had gotten Don Murray to say yes to playing Atticus. I was amazed, thrilled, excited. There was only one thing that I’d never thought to do during all of this, and that was to obtain the rights from Harper Lee. Frank sent her the script and score and told her about Seattle and Don Murray. She sent word back that while she thought it was very good and thought Mr. Murray was a good idea, she simply wasn’t going to grant the rights because she didn’t want it to be a musical. And that, as they say, was the end of that.
Meanwhile, Start At The Top went back into rehearsal to do a few performances at this little place on Santa Monica Blvd. – I think it was called the Theater of Arts or the Three Arts or something like that. For this production, the guy who was acting as producer also knew my friend Michael Burns and we asked him to do it. He said yes. Michael was a very good actor and not a great singer, but totally game. He brought in Donna Baccala to play opposite him, and we got some other good people to do it, including a couple of the City College kids who’d done the show. I really don’t remember much about the run (which I think was only about three performances). I played the piano, I do remember that, and it was not something I really enjoyed at all. But I do remember the night that Julie Andrews and Blake Edwards came – they were friends of the fellow who was acting as the producer. It was a pretty incredible evening, and she was very complimentary about the show. But I wasn’t feeling great about it – I felt that there was stuff that was getting exactly the kind of reaction I wanted, but I knew that the bulk of it was icky – too close to my own life (like, who cared) and you just couldn’t care about the lead character because he was just too damned young to be going through the angst he was going through. It was trivial. But the songs really were helping disguise the show’s unsolvable problems.
One day, the producer fellow introduced me to a young fellow named Chip Hand. Chip was an aspiring singer, who, at that time, was dating one of Pat Boone’s daughters (not Debby, at least I don’t think it was). He was also someone whom Merv Griffin had taken a liking to (if you get my meaning). Chip heard the Start At The Top songs and loved them, especially the rueful Superman Is Dead, my little anthem of lost innocence centering on a young boy’s reaction to George Reeves’ suicide. Chip took me to meet Merv at the old El Capitan Theater on Vine (also called The Hollywood Palace during the 60s) – that’s where Merv was taping his shows in the early 70s. Merv was really nice and said Chip had raved about the songs and asked me to play them. I did. I think Chip sang Superman Is Dead and I did three of four others. After I finished, without blinking an eye, Merv said, “Let’s do a backer’s audition, but on my show.” Just like that. We were booked for the following week. Just like that. We were going to do four songs. I brought along the gal from City College who had a show-stopping uptempo number, Chip did Superman Is Dead, I think we all did the opening number, all with me playing the piano. And then, and to this day I still can’t believe this happened, I got up with Mort Lindsay and the band and sang the show’s eleven o’clock number, Was It Really All That Thrilling, an anti-nostalgia song if ever there was one. Mort had done an incredible chart, and it was like a dream come true – singing on the Merv Griffin show with the man who’d conducted Judy At Carnegie Hall. I got a great reaction from the audience – lots of cheering. It was kind of a once in a lifetime moment, because it was the first moment of its kind for me. I remember the guests were William Holden and Lola Falana, and Holden, a very nice man, for some reason thought I was some sort of anti-war guy and that that was what the song was about. Merv wouldn’t let him go there, however.
The next thing that happened was someone who worked on the Merv show came to me and had loved what he’d heard and agreed to put up the money to do a third production, this time at the Stage Society Theater on Melrose (later the Writer’s Guild Theater). This time, I did some rewriting, expanded the show to two acts, but couldn’t solve the big problem of the whiny lead character, which I was now playing. So, there I was – book, music, lyrics, direction, and starring in the show. I had truly gone to Newley land, only without the success. We had a very good company, which included very early appearances by two people who would go on to bigger and certainly better things: Eric Michael Gillette, who’d spend a huge number of years with the Ringling Brothers/Barnum and Bailey Circus as their singing ringmaster, and also appear on Broadway in the revival of Kiss Me, Kate. And in our ensemble was a wonderful young man named Rick Mason. He also helped choreograph the show. Some years later, I was in New York to have a sneak preview of The First Nudie Musical at some theater showing Woody Allen’s Love and Death. I had the day to kill and in the morning I was walking down Shubert Alley trying to decide what matinee I should get tickets to (it was on a Wednesday), when who should I bump into but Rick Mason, who told me he was in a new show that was in previews at the Shubert, something called A Chorus Line. He was now using the name Cameron Mason. He asked if I wanted to see it, and I said sure, and he arranged a ticket for me. From the minute the lights went down to the end of the show I had a lump in my throat the size of Brooklyn. I was in tears for most of it, and Rick was fantastic, as was everyone. We chatted after the show, and he pointed out that there were a couple of things in the show (especially the staging of What I Did For Love) that were almost identical to things in that third production of Start At The Top. In any case, the third time was not the charm for Start At The Top, and I put it away. The show does have some very good songs, a couple of which I’ve sung over the years, Superman Is Dead and a song called You Said. It was a real learning experience, and I vowed that if I ever did anything that was even in the least autobiographical, I would never go down that wrong road again. And when I did go there, as I did in my play The Good One, and then in the Kritzer books, and then in Rewind, I remembered the lessons learned on Start At The Top and avoided each and every pitfall. Start At The Top did not play to my strengths – not enough comedy, too much maudlin. I learned to reverse the balance in favor of comedy, and frankly, I don’t think I’ve ever done maudlin since.
I’ll pick up right where we’re leaving off in tomorrow’s notes, and talk about the other shows that followed Start At The Top. For now, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because we’ve had the Ides and March is marching to the beat of its own drummer and if we don’t click right now it will be April.
There’s really not much to say about yesterday, other than I did a few errands and whatnot, but mostly kept dozing off whilst sitting on my couch like so much fish. I did manage to watch a motion picture on DVD entitled Edith and Marcel, a French film from France, and yes, directed and written by Claude Lelouch. As you might suspect, it’s about Edith Piaf and her affair with boxer Marcel Cerdan. But since it’s Lelouch it’s about much more and there is a second story running concurrently with the first. The actress who plays Edith also plays the young girl in the second story – it’s too long at two-and-a-half hours, and it’s quite odd, in that most of the songs aren’t Piaf songs at all, but originals by Francis Lai and Charles Aznavour (who also appears). The vocals are by a Piaf impersonator (I’m not sure if any actual Piaf is in the film). I enjoyed a lot of it, but I couldn’t in all honesty say it’s one of Lelouch’s stronger films. The transfer is full-frame, zoomed in image cutting off the sides of the film quite obviously. Other than that, I just ate a sandwich and some biscotti and lounged around the home environment in my bunny slippers.
Today should be a very, VERY busy day. I have packages to address in the morning, some errands to do, and then I’m hoping CDs will be here by two at the latest, at which point we’ll start boxing them up. I’ll get as many shipped as possible, with the rest going out first thing tomorrow morning. I’ll also be visiting with Nick Redman and maybe having a supper.
Let’s all put on our pointy party hats and our colored tights and pantaloons, let’s all break out the cheese slices and the ham chunks, let’s all dance the Hora and the Charleston, for today is the birthday of my very own actual darling daughter, Jennifer. So, let’s give a big haineshisway.com birthday cheer to my very own actual daughter, Jennifer. On the count of three: One, two, three – A BIG HAINESHISWAY.COM BIRTHDAY CHEER TO MY VERY OWN ACTUAL DAUGHTER, JENNIFER!!! I love you large.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do the long jog, I must do errands, I must pack up a LOT of CDs, and I might possibly have a supper. Today’s topic of discussion: What was/is your all-time favorite talk show – favorite host, favorite moment, favorite guest, the whole damn deal. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst March continues to march along to the beat of its own drummer.