Well, dear readers, when I was fourteen years old I decided to just up and mosey on downtown to see a show. I took a bus to Pershing Square and walked over to the Biltmore Theater, which was very close by. I went to the box-office and purchased a single ticket in the last row of the orchestra. The show was a musical called The Unsinkable Molly Brown and I’d heard the LP at Wallich’s Music City in a listening booth and I’d loved it. So, when I saw the show was playing I decided that would be my first real Broadway musical. I took my seat, read every word of the program voraciously. I was especially excited that the two stars who were on the cast album were repeating their roles in the tour – the wonderful Harve Presnell, and a woman whose voice I found so unique on the album, Tammy Grimes.
After the rousing overture, the curtain rose (yes the CURTAIN, the front drape – oh, how I miss proper curtains in theaters) and on came Miss Grimes, chased by the Tobin brothers. And I fell head over heels in love with that voice, that timing, that charisma, that magic. The audience ate up the show – huge laughs, and the end of act one got a roar of approval. I was forever in love with both musicals and Miss Grimes.
I’m guessing the next time I saw her was at the Huntington Hartford Theater in 1965, doing the play Rattle of a Simple Man, playing opposite John Astin. I loved the play, loved Mr. Astin, and was over the moon about Miss Grimes. Again, that charisma, that timing, that voice. Since I’d begun going to the Hartford I was occasionally brazen enough to go to the stage door where I would ask to meet whichever actor I’d been taken with. In fact, I’d already met Jason Robards there just a month or so before – he was doing Hughie. And so, after the show I went to the stage door and asked if I could meet Miss Grimes. The nice man asked me to wait, I did, and a moment later he beckoned me inside and I was taken to Miss Grimes’ dressing room. I wasn’t nervous in the least. She was very gracious to me and I told her I’d loved her in Molly Brown and how great I thought her performance was in this show. She talked to me for a bit, and that was that. Then she did a production of Molly in one of those theater-in-the-rounds – I’d already done the show by that point, at Bluth Brothers Theater, and Fred Bluth was actually in this production. I wrote Miss Grimes a nice note and Fred got it to her before the show. After, I was taken to her dressing room, where I once again professed what a fan I was. This time was a little different, though. Her Johnny Brown was in the dressing room, Bruce Yarnell, and I found him smarmy and really off-putting and he snickered at me and acted like I was some kind of dope for having the chutzpah to come backstage. I did inform him that I’d recently done the show with Fred playing Johnny. Also, my then friend Walter Willison, with whom I’d done shows, and I went to a taping of the Danny Kaye Show at CBS. I honestly can’t remember how that came to be, but I do know we went back after the taping and talked with Miss Grimes.
Then in 1967, when I was still at LACC, she was back at the Hartford doing The Decline and Fall of the Entire World as Seen Through the Eyes of Cole Porter, a musical revue. She was great, as always. I went back after and was taken right to her – I was older, of course, and it was, frankly, a little awkward. Perhaps by this time she thought I was a stalker, but I wasn’t, just a fan. She was still nice but I knew then that I had no need to ever go backstage to see her again.
Three years later, now married and living in New York, my then wife and I, just before our return to Los Angeles, saw a production of Private Lives, starring Miss Grimes and Brian Bedford. It was a fantastic production, Mr. Bedford, whose movies I’d enjoyed, was perfect, but it was Miss Grimes’ show all the way. She milked every laugh there was, she did slow takes that brought the house down, she was, in a word, sublime. And no, I did not go backstage after. Much later, I saw her in 42nd Street. I did go backstage to say hi to a friend, but didn’t see her.
Flash forward to 1993 and we’re casting the Unsung Sondheim album. Walter Willison and I have reacquainted and he’s recommended several people to me. I knew we were doing There’s Always a Woman and one of us thought of Tammy Grimes. I said, please, call her, I’d love to have her on the album and it would be fun to see if she had any memory of me at all. Alas, it was not meant to be – she wasn’t feeling up to it, although she thanked us profusely for thinking of her. I think we tried to get her on a couple of subsequent albums, but her response always was she wasn’t up to it. She lived to a ripe old age – she was unique – no one like her before or since, and they simply don’t make them like Tammy Grimes anymore. Of course, there would be no place at all for her in today’s cookie-cutter world of musical theater, just as today’s casting and creatives wouldn’t know what to make of Ethel Merman, Mary Martin, or any of the greats. She’s now in Home, Sweet Heaven, I’m sure.
Yesterday was a busy little day. I’d had a somewhat irritating e-mail just before I went to bed, and thinking about how to respond kept me up till three. I got about six hours of sleep, got up, wrote a very measured and nice response and that worked just fine. And then the irritation and distraction I’ve been trying to avoid for the past two weeks came, as I knew it would. I responded to that instantly and did so in a way that precluded any further discussion for at least another week, so that’s good. I then answered other e-mails, and had a telephonic call with someone who’s also going to help with some Brain organization over the next few days. Then I went and had a Philly Cheesesteak sandwich and no fries or onion rings. It was quite good. After that, I came home, did some work on the computer, but had no time to do a jog. And then it was time for the first Kritzerland rehearsal to begin.
John Boswell arrived, as did our first singer, newly turned eighteen year-old Jenna Rosen. I’ve been working with her for over five years now. She ran her song, my arrangement and put-together of You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow and Not a Day Goes By. I have some notes, but she’ll be just great and for someone so young she seems to get the emotion of it. Next up was Amy Gillette. She began with Everybody Says Don’t, then did her second solo, Take Me to the World – she’s already very strong on both. Then Maegan McConnell arrived and she and Amy did their duet, Every Day a Little Death. Amy left and Maegan ran her two solos – Truly Content and Green Finch and Linnet Bird.
Then Sami, Samantha Rosenberg, and Carly Shukiar arrive and did our nightmare trio version of Getting Married Today, the one that’s the hidden track on The Stephen Sondheim Album. They’re still shaky on the wordy lyrics, but the harmonies sound fantastic. I then gave them some staging for the first two verses, to show them the style I wanted, and I sent Samantha and Carly to the other room to work out some other stuff for the rest – then I’ll finesse that. Sami ran her solo, which is More. For the entire first three years of our working together, directing her was very difficult – I would have to do extensive work at all three rehearsals and sometimes even before the show. But in the last year, since Welcome to My World, she now completely understands instantly what I want – we have the best kind of director/actor shorthand now. I literally said about four small things to her after she ran the song the first time, and the next time through all four things were there, instantly. That is a very gratifying thing.
They went on their merry way, and Marc Ginsburg came. First he did Anyone Can Whistle, then Giants in the Sky. Then Carly Bracco arrived – she’s been under the weather, but her voice sounded fine to me, even though she was marking it a bit. They did their duet, A Moment With You, then Marc left and Carly did her two solos, Another Hundred People and Dawn. Then Robert Yacko arrived and closed out the rehearsal with his three songs – Make the Most of Your Music, my arrangement of Who Could Be Blue and With So Little to Be Sure Of, and finally Multitudes of Amys. That’s the show, and John Boswell is playing and singing Send in the Clowns, a number he’s played many times for the woman who made it into Sondheim’s only hit song – Judy Collins.
After that, my stage manager came by and we went over a ton of stuff – props (I gave her several to take with her), what we need from the school in terms of set pieces and props, and I have to say she’s really organized and on top of things.
It was too late to jog, so instead I went to Gelson’s and got a small salad with red wine vinegar and nothing caloric, and four little drummettes. I came home and sat on my couch like so much fish.
Whilst eating my evening snack, I watched the first twenty minutes of a Japanese motion picture from Japan on a home grown DVD entitled The Last War. I got it because I’d gotten the soundtrack by Ikuma Dan, which I really enjoyed, and wanted to hear how it worked in the film. So far I’m enjoying it a lot. Made in 1960, it’s in scope and Perspecta stereo, and it sounds really good – color’s a bit faded. The movie didn’t come out in the US until 1967, where it was cut by twenty-five minutes, rearranged, dubbed into English, and what little I saw of that version on You Tube was terrible. But this DVD is the full-length version with English subtitles.
Then I buckled down, Winsocki, and did a ton of Brain work – all the information for the program, and other stuff I needed to get done. So, a busy day, but a very productive one.
Today is more of the same. I’ll eat, definitely jog, have our second rehearsal, hopefully pick up packages, and then find some time to relax and finish the movie.
Tomorrow is our first Brain rehearsal. What fun it will be to see all the returning original cast members – Cason Murphy, Lauren Rubin, and Alet Taylor – and the rest of our wonderful cast. I will attempt to block all of act one. Friday I’m finally getting a haircut in the morning, and then we have our second Brain rehearsal. Saturday morning is a Brain rehearsal, followed by our stumble-through and hopefully a nice meal somewhere. Sunday is sound check and show, and Monday we begin our day at ten-thirty with sound load in and a band rehearsal. Then we do a complete run-through with the band, take a break, and then it’s show time and I sure as HELL hope ticket sales actually begin at some point or we’re having a very small house. I’m actually quite irritated with a whole slew of people and as long as they have no plans to come I am going to be quite vocal about my displeasure.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do Brain work, eat, jog, hopefully pick up some packages, rehearse, and then relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you get to ask me or any dear reader any old question you like and we get to give any old answer we like. So, let’s have loads of lovely questions and loads of lovely answers and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have had the pleasure of meeting Miss Tammy Grimes on so many occasions.