Fosse (85 page)

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   “I can’t do anything but show business”: Wayne Warga, “Bob Fosse: Triple Threat Director,”
Los Angeles Times,
January 21, 1973.

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   for ten hours a day, every day for four weeks: Ed Blank, “Why Don’t They Dance in Films? Ask Fosse,”
Pittsburgh Press,
September 8, 1983.

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   “At the time the money seemed important”: Ibid.

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   “Bob was always there”: Harvey Evans, interview with the author, January 28, 2011.

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   “Robbins would make her nervous”: Ronna Elaine Sloan, “Bob Fosse: An Analytic-Critical Study” (University Microfilms International, 1983), 100.

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   “To Bob, the steps were dialogue”: Ann Reinking, interview with the author, November 15, 2010.

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   “One terrible part of the show”: Deborah Jowitt,
Jerome Robbins: His Life, His Theater, His Dance
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004), 260.

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   “You develop a certain few tricks”: Bob Fosse acceptance speech,
Dance
Magazine
awards, New York Athletic Club, April 23, 1963.

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   the cramped offices they kept: Allene Talmey, “Biography of a Musical: ‘Damn Yankees,’”
Vogue,
March 1956.

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   On Doris Day’s recommendation: George Abbott,
Mister Abbott
(New York: Random House, 1963), 253.

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   “The score”: Harold Prince, interview with the author, October 6, 2010.

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   not, he said, to Gwen Verdon: Interviews with Geraldine Fitzgerald, Gwen Verdon, Marian Seldes, and Elizabeth McCann,
CUNY Spotlight
, CUNY-TV, 1991, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Theatre on Film and Tape Archive.

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   “I thought, ‘What an extraordinary’”: Ibid.

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   Abbott made Verdon audition: Harvey Evans, interview with the author, January 28, 2011.

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   Verdon, at Fosse’s suggestion: Ibid.

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   To maximize Verdon’s time: Bob Fosse, interview with Stephen Harvey, 1983, LOC, box 60F.

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   “There’s a lot of serious material”: Seymour Peck, “‘Anna Christie’ Sings,”
New York Times,
May 12, 1957.

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   “Right away we assumed”: Harvey Evans, interview with the author, January 28, 2011.

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   “They live in their own world”: Abbott,
Mister Abbott,
249.

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   “Their life”: Ibid.

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   “The school of choreography before”: Tony Stevens, interview with the author, February 8, 2011.

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   “He was so tight with us”: Harvey Evans, interview with the author, January 28, 2011.

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   “The Red Light Ballet,” the erotic piece: No film of the ballet survives. This re-creation came from interviews with
New Girl in Town
cast members Harvey Evans and Patricia Ferrier Kiley; assorted Gwen Verdon interviews; Harold Prince; Margery Beddow’s
Bob Fosse’s Broadway
(New York: Heinemann, 1996); and audience members.

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   “It was the first time that Fosse”: Harvey Evans, interview with the author, January 28, 2011.

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   “And then at the very end of it”: Ibid.

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   “Now, I [had] never seen that”: Bob Fosse, interview with “Haddad,” 1982, LOC, box 49A.

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   “I think the pornographic ballet”: Harold Prince, interview with the author, October 6, 2010.

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   Abbott argued for narrative consistency: Abbott,
Mister Abbott,
254.

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   “They replied that it was high art”: Ibid.

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   Arriving at rehearsal the next morning: Peter Filichia, “Stagestruck,”
Theater
Week,
May 24, 1992.

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   Gwen alleged an angry mother had:
Broadway Beat with Richard Ridge,
Manhattan Neighborhood Network, June 22, 1999.

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   demanded Hal Prince deliver George Abbott: Ilson,
Harold Prince,
30.

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   To replace her, the production had to: Sidney Fields, “Four Are Needed to Replace Verdon,”
New York Mirror,
May 28, 1957.

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   “Just say the lines!”: Harvey Evans, interview with the author, January 28, 2011.

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   “You cheap son of a bitch!”: Ibid.

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   “Gwen and Fosse were now”: Harold Prince, interview with the author, October 6, 2010.

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   “I’d set my hair on fire if he”: Robert Wahls, “Gwen Verdon, the Eternal Gypsy,”
New York Sunday News,
June 1, 1975.

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   Gwen’s son, Jimmy
:
Jim Henaghan, interview with the author, January 17, 2013.

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   “She had had a breakdown”: Charles Grass, interview with the author, September 4, 2012.

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   Fosse wouldn’t seek his divorce
:
Jim Henaghan, interview with the author, January 17, 2013.

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   Fosse got the most appealing offer of his life: Louis Calta, “‘Stay Away, Joe’ Nearing Stage,”
New York Times,
March 14, 1957.

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   Feuer and Martin, producers of
Can-Can:
E. J. Kahn Jr., “The Hit’s the Thing—I,”
New Yorker,
January 7, 1956. Also E. J. Kahn Jr., “The Hit’s the Thing—II,”
New Yorker,
January 15, 1956.

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   “It’s a sounder way of appraising”: Ibid.

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   A month later, MGM called: Sam Zolotow, “‘Stay Away, Joe’ to Be a Musical,”
New York Times,
January 29, 1958.

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   “the reviews it deserved”: Harold Prince, interview with the author, October 6, 2010.

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   “It would be an affecting job”: Brooks Atkinson, “The Theater: Singing Anna Christie,”
New York Times,
May 15, 1957.

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   “Little by little”: Harvey Evans, interview with the author, January 28, 2011.

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  Fosse’s thirtieth birthday: Margery Beddow,
Bob Fosse’s Broadway
(New York: Heinemann, 1996), 12.

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   “There were long years”: George S. Kaufman, “Musical Comedy—or Musical Serious?,”
New York Times,
November 3, 1957.

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   “Bob’s choreography in the Abbott years”: Tony Stevens, interview with the author, February 8, 2011.

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   “I think of dancing as sheer joy”:
American Musical Theater with Earl Wrightson,
CBS, January 1, 1962.

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   Fosse sent those golden cuff links back to Robbins: Ann Reinking, interview with the author, November 15, 2010.

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   Jerome Robbins talked to God: Barry Rehfeld, “Bob Fosse’s Follies,”
Rolling Stone,
January 19, 1984.

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   “Fosse was doing the best he could”: Elmarie Wendel, interview with the author, November 2, 2011.

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   “The dancers started to split”: Ibid.

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   Verdon would join Fosse in Philadelphia: Ibid.

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   “We had never seen that sort of thing”: Ibid.

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   “If something
felt
wrong”: Glenn Loney, “The Many Facets of Bob Fosse,”
After Dark,
June 1972.

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   “He would come up with something”: Elmarie Wendel, interview with the author, November 2, 2011.

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   “It was Gwen who kept Bob secure”: Fred Mann III, interview with the author, February 22, 2011.

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   “You could see, from time to time”: Linda Posner (Leland Palmer), interview with the author, July 23, 2010.

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   If the dancers wanted direction: Harvey Evans, interview with the author, January 28, 2011.

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   “Gwen wanted Bobby on the set”: Patricia Ferrier Kiley, interview with the author, March 4, 2011.

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   stationed himself at the camera: Shannon Bolin, interview with the author, February 14, 2011.

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   “But that’s why Bob was there”: Ibid.

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   “At the rushes”: Patricia Ferrier Kiley, interview with the author, March 4, 2011.

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   “It’ll look like the black hole”: Stephen M. Silverman,
Dancing on the Ceiling: Stanley Donen and His Movies
(New York: Knopf, 1996), 256.

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   Replacing dancer Eddie Philips: Gwen Verdon interview,
Dance in America,
WNET archives, September 6, 1989
.

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   “The happiest times I ever had with Gwen”: Chris Chase, “Fosse, from Tony to Oscar to Emmy,”
New York Times,
April 29, 1973.

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   red convertible Fosse called Baby: Patricia Ferrier Kiley, interview with the author, March 4, 2011.

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   Up late, alone, he’d call Joan: Lisa Jo Sagolla,
The Girl Who Fell Down
(Lebanon, NH: Northeastern University Press, 2003), 244.

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   At first, she’d hear only silence: Ibid.

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   “I felt she was almost flattered”: Ibid.

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   “I’m half Irish”: Bruce Williamson, “All That Fosse,”
Playboy,
March 1980.

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   he thought of a woman, a sweet: Lionel Chetwynd, “Except for Bob Fosse,”
Penthouse,
January 1974.

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   “I’m fascinated”: Chase, “Fosse, from Tony to Oscar to Emmy.”

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   “The problem”: Chris Chase, “Fosse’s Ego Trip,”
Life,
November 1979.

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   “An attraction to death is present”: Charles Rousell, interview with the author, July 16, 2011.

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   In 1937, the American Medical Association: Leslie Iversen,
Speed, Ecstasy, Ritalin: The Science of Amphetamines
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 32–33.

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   Psychiatrists said: Ibid., 79.

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   by 1959, it was regarded almost as highly: Ibid., 29.

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   An estimated 3.5 billion doses: Ibid., 39.

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   And so, neither Fosse nor his psychiatrist: Fosse, interview with Dick Stelzer,
Star Treatment,
LOC, box 47C, folder 1.

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   “Countless nurturing parental acts”: Aaron Stern,
Me: The Narcissistic American
(New York: Ballantine Books, 1979), 9.

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   “It was a constant conflict”: Ann Reinking, interview with the author, November 15, 2010.

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   “[The narcissist’s] insatiable hungers are so great”: Stern,
Me: The Narcissistic American,
20.

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   Fosse kept a spiral notebook: “Analyst & Patient Ballet,” “Odd Ideas” notebook, LOC, box 53B.

TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS

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   called to tell him about
Redhead:
Details of
Redhead
’s conception from Bill Smith’s four-part series “A Show Is Born” for the
Newark Evening News,
June 22–25, 1959.

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   “Bob,” they said: Ibid.

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   Sidney Sheldon, told: Sidney Sheldon,
The Other Side of Me: A Memoir
(New York: Grand Central, 2005), 292–93.

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   She suggested David Shaw: Gwen Verdon interview,
Dance in America,
WNET archives, September 6, 1989.

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   Actor Leonard Stone was among the first: Leonard Stone, interview with the author, October 17, 2011.

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   “At the end of every audition”: Ibid.

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   “When [Richard Kiley] auditioned”: Joyce Haber, “Bob and Emmy and Tony and Oscar,”
Los Angeles Times,
February 2, 1975.

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   “I’d do anything to be up there”: Leonard Stone, interview with the author, October 17, 2011.

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   Variety Arts Studios, 225 West Forty-Sixth Street: Paul Gardner, “Hopeful Actors Blossom in Sun,”
New York Times,
May 14, 1962.

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   “Edith knew absolutely everything”: Dan Siretta, interview with the author, February 22, 2012.

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   Fosse brought on Donald McKayle: Facts of the McKayle/Fosse ordeal obtained via interview notes with Roger Adams (May 25, 1960), Dorothy Fields (June 1, 1960), Albert Hague (June 1, 1960), Kazimir Kokich (June 6, 1960), Robert Linden (May 24, 1960), and David Shaw (May 25, 1960); notes can be found in LOC, box 46B.

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   “He had changed”: Harvey Evans, interview with the author, January 28, 2011.

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   Fosse replaced his boyish sweater vests: Ibid.

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   “a slick dandy”: Leonard Stone, interview with the author, October 17, 2011.

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   “He was getting scary”: Margery Beddow,
In the Company of Friends: Dancers Talking to Dancers II, the Women of Fosse,
videotaped at the New Dance Group, New York, on October 7, 2007.

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   “He was a slave driver”: Leonard Stone, interview with the author, October 17, 2011.

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   Fosse made them rehearse on Sunday: Ibid.

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   Scared and angry, one of the dancers: Harvey Evans, interview with the author, January 28, 2011.

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   “You’ve got to give the dancers”: Ibid.

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   “He would spend three hours on”: James Horvath, interview with the author, January 14, 2011.

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   Fosse had two cigarettes going: Leonard Stone, interview with the author, October 17, 2011.

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   “He was so influenced by”: Harvey Evans, interview with the author, January 28, 2011.

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   “I saw Bob get really mean”: Linda Posner (Leland Palmer), interview with the author, July 23, 2010.

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   “Yes, he could be cruel”: Donna McKechnie, interview with the author, October 14, 2010.

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   scapegoats were often women and often beautiful: Leonard Stone, interview with the author, October 17, 2011.

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   “There were rumors he had”: Harvey Evans, interview with the author, January 28, 2011.

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   During these crazy nights: Bill Smith, “Fingers Were Crossed for ‘Redhead,’”
Newark Evening News,
June 25, 1959.