Gwen Verdon: A Life on Stage and Screen (15 page)

Fosse decided to write the book himself to avoid having to deal with the problems of collaboration. He had done uncredited work on the script of
Redhead
and believed this gave him the experience to go solo. In nine pages he outlined a one-act musical and showed it to Verdon, but she remained unconvinced. She found the character and milieu stridently unglamorous. She also reminded Fosse of the unpopularity of his whorehouse ballet in
New Girl in Town
where audiences didn’t want to see seedy goings-on. He consented to engaging Martin Charnin as a co-writer and planned to use
Nights of Cabiria
as the basis for the first act of a two-act musical to be called
Hearts and Flowers
. Their priority was to fit the material to Verdon’s strengths, and Charnin learned that Fosse was to be the controlling force in all aspects of the production. For three weeks they worked together and by June 1963 there was a first draft of sixty pages. It was submitted to Fryer and Carr, and then Fosse cut off all contact with Charnin, and tried to find a composer. Cy Coleman expressed some interest but only if he could have Dorothy Fields to write the lyrics. She was interested but would not commit because the second-act musical had not been decided upon. Fosse then looked for another writer for the second act, his experience with Charnin somehow not inspiring him to want to work with him again. He found Elaine May but discovered that she was slow to work.

In the meantime Fosse signed on to direct and choreograph a new musical about Fanny Brice called
Funny Girl
. Brice was to be played by Barbra Streisand. Fosse later claimed that he was responsible for casting Streisand, but other sources claim that he thought Verdon could have played her. He supposedly asked the producers to replace Streisand with Verdon, but they turned him down. Fosse said that he worked on
Funny Girl
for seven months although another source claims that it was only one. He quit in September 1963, unhappy about producer Ray Stark. The show opened on March 26, 1964, at the Wintergarden Theatre and was a huge hit, running until July 1, 1967.

Verdon saw a change in Fosse thanks to their daughter and proclaimed that he was a fabulous father, and that being one gave him a new happiness. It was this new happiness that also made him want to give Verdon the best show she ever had. When Robert Fryer bought the rights to “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” this financial commitment made Fosse shelve
Nights of Cabiria
.

She returned to
The Garry Moore Show
for her ninth appearance on November 5, 1963. Verdon presented a modern version of “Two Little Maids from School,” sang and danced to “St. Louis Blues,” and joined the cast in a sketch about a harried husband who plans to do away with his wife. She made the first of six appearances on the CBS musical comedy show
The Danny Kaye Show
in an episode broadcast on November 20, 1963. It was filmed in Los Angeles and in it Verdon performed three dances set to nursery rhymes:“Pop Goes the Weasel,” a jazz version of “Three Blind Mice,” and a lullaby ballet, all with the Tony Charmoli Dancers. She did two duets with Kaye, “Two of a Kind” and “What Is a Woman.” The latter is said to have been spoken by Kaye as she danced. Verdon also performed two sketches. One had Verdon, Kaye and Harvey Korman playing a band of strolling players who try to help a medieval prince remember how to laugh, by jestering and square, flamenco, ballet and vaudeville dance. A photograph of Kaye and Verdon in costume for this number appeared in the
New York Times
on November 17, 1963. The second had Verdon and Kaye as a married couple, which one source describes as newlyweds and another as a couple celebrating their anniversary. They stop at a drive-in-restaurant and suffered from pratfalls caused by the staff.

A source claims that Verdon appeared on
The Jimmy Dean Show
in December 1963 but this is not confirmed. The television series, filmed in New York, was a “down home” musical comedy program that catered to country and western performance, but also featured popular music artists.

She also made her tenth
Garry Moore
Show
appearance on January 7, 1964. Verdon did a special dance to the song “I’ve Got the World on a String.” The number was choreographed by Kevin Carlyle who used sign language to teach dance to deaf mutes. Before the number Verdon explained how she understood and could speak fluently in sign language because of the deaf mute girl she befriended at school. In it, she wears a long-sleeved black dress with a white ruffled collar and white gloves. For the song we hear Verdon singing as we see her sign. She is backed up by five female dancers who also sign the words to the song, and Verdon and the dancers have their own spotlights. As the song progresses, two more backup dancers are revealed sitting in front of Verdon, and they also sign. Then the other dancers disappear and Verdon dances alone on the bare stage (which is now more brightly lit) until she is joined by male and female dancers. The number climaxes with Verdon and the backup dancers all signing and back in spotlights, and ends with a closeup of her gloved hand. The number also includes some unusual titled camera coverage of the dance.

On January 27, 1964, Verdon was one of a number of people making speeches at Madison Square Garden. This was in dual tribute to President Kennedy, who had died on November 22, 1963, and to Sol Hurok on his fiftieth anniversary in show business. The program was presented by the women’s division of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York. Verdon made her eleventh and last
Garry Moore Show
appearance on April 14, 1964. On it she did a song and dance to “I’m Old Fashioned.” On April 17, the 16th anniversary ball of the Bedside Network of the Veterans Hospital Radio and Television Guild was held at the Grand Ballroom of the New York Hilton. Verdon was one of the committee members for the event and the proceeds were used to support the guild’s volunteer services in more than one hundred hospitals for veterans. On April 22, Verdon was one of the reported 1200 guests at a party at the Texas Pavilion of the World’s Fair for Governor John Connally who was still recovering from a wound received at the time of the Kennedy assassination.

In April 1964 Robert Fryer heard from Truman Capote’s literary agent, Audrey Wood, about the “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” project. Capote had a problem with the idea of Verdon playing the story’s heroine, Holly Golightly. She was written in the novella as a girl of nineteen, and Capote had already been stung by the casting of Audrey Hepburn in the movie version, since she was 32 by the time the film was released. Verdon at 38 was also deemed too old for the part by the author, and it didn’t help her case that she was about to become a grandmother by her son. Capote agreed to meet with her. It was hoped that when he saw how young-looking she was, he would change his mind. Fosse initially wouldn’t allow it, despite the fact that Verdon had no problem with the idea. Or perhaps she did but she knew that a small humiliation was worth the price of securing the rights. Audrey Wood brought Capote to the Fosse apartment for breakfast. Fosse may have felt that she looked great and that musicals aren’t realistic anyway, but Capote decided that Verdon did indeed look too old. The option money was returned and that was the end of that. Capote would later approve 30-year-old Mary Tyler Moore to play the part in a musical adaptation, although the show closed in Broadway previews in December 1966.

Quotes from Verdon about Carol Haney were published in the
New York Times
on May 12, 1964, two days after Haney’s death. Verdon said that Haney was like a great, big husky puppy dog that never knows when it’s tired. She was so enthusiastic about everything that she never noticed the strain. When people asked Haney to slow down, she’d just babble on about some new project. On May 24, 1964, Verdon was a presenter at the 1964 Tony Awards held at the New York Hilton Hotel, which was broadcast live for television.

She was then back for her second guest appearance on
The Danny Kaye Show
, broadcast on September 23, 1964. On the show Verdon sang and danced to “Downtown.” She also appeared in a skit entitled “Jerome the Bachelor,” a spoof involving a group of bashful bachelors. In the fifteen-minute skit Verdon is dental technician Renee Miller, the blind date of Kaye’s shoe salesman Jerome. It initially scores laughs from the awkwardness of the blind date and then climaxes in slapstick comedy when Jerome’s tie gets caught in Renee’s dress and, when removing it, he rips off her dress. But it ends with touching pathos where the couple decides to go out together, and they are saved from being presented as pathetic fools. Verdon is vulnerable and funny when presenting her character’s shyness with a man. Renee is first seen meekly entering the room where Jerome is. The medium shot has Verdon with a bow in her hair and wearing a sleeveless dress and pearl necklace. She gets laughs from her repeated furtive glances, shoulder shrug and a comic smile at Jerome, and a long shot reveals that she wears a flower-patterned dress with a frilled trim and also shows her holding her hands together. Verdon supplies a desperate laugh of affirmation when it is revealed that it is Renee’s first trip to New York. She also gets more laughs from her “Yes?” after Jerome nervously clears his throat, her panicked reaction to Jerome touching her neck after the clasp of her necklace opens, and when she asks if he can fix it.

A still exists of Verdon and Kaye standing together, with her in a white high-necked layered blouse and black skirt. In her third
Danny Kaye
guest appearance (November 25, 1964), Verdon sang “I’ve Got Rhythm” and she joined Kaye in two skits. One was about a husband and wife squabbling at breakfast; in the second, she, Kaye and Harvey Korman did a parody in the movie musical style titled “The Elopement.”

On December 19, 1964, the
New York Times
reported that producers Robert Fryer, Lawrence Carr, and Joseph and Sylvia Harris planned to bring Verdon back to Broadway after an absence of five years in a two-in-one show. One segment was to be a musical adaptation of
Nights of Cabiria
and the other an original work by Elaine May entitled “The Larger World of Faith.” May was also said to be adapting the Fellini film with Fosse directing and choreographing. The music would be by Cy Coleman and the lyrics by Dorothy Fields. It was announced that the show would go into rehearsals on July 19, 1965, and open in New York on October 28 after tryouts in Detroit and Philadelphia.

Verdon was back for her fourth
Danny Kaye Show
guest appearance on December 23, 1964. She sang “There’s a Lull in My Life” and “The Song Is Ended.” She danced with Kaye in the show’s opening Christmas Waltz and in a fantasy dance where they played rejected dolls in in a child’s room. Verdon also joined Kaye and Harvey Korman in an espionage comedy sketch titled “The Spy Who Got a Cold.” She was photographed with Kaye for an article on the show in the December 20, 1964, edition of the
Washington Evening Star
television magazine “The Sunday Star.” The article was entitled “Gwen Verdon: A Dancer with Elfish Humor” and the color photograph had Verdon in a blue and green patterned dress.

Around this time there was a rumor that Verdon had been considered for the leading role in a new musical adaptation of the Arthur Laurents play
The Time of the Cuckoo
entitled
Do I Hear a Waltz?
However this is a rumor that Laurents denied. The musical had a book by Laurents, music by Richard Rodgers (who also produced), and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The director was John Dexter. Ultimately cast in the role of Leona Samish was Elizabeth Allen. The show would open on Broadway on May 18, 1965, at the 46th Street Theatre and had a reasonable run until September 25.

Verdon assisted Fosse on his next show, a musical entitled
Pleasures and Palaces
. Rehearsals began in early 1965 in New York and she left Nicole at home with their Brazilian nanny, Hermocinda. The show moved to Detroit from March for six weeks of tryouts. Another source claims that Verdon brought her daughter on the road with her and that her first word was spoken while she was in a hotelroom: The word was supposedly “bellhop.” The tryouts were not well received and Fosse rehearsed script revisions as Verdon worked on the dances and at night she watched the performances with composer Frank Loesser. The producers eventually decided to close the show on April 10, 1965, and not take it into New York.

On Verdon’s fifth
Danny Kaye Show
(February 10, 1965) she appeared in two skits. The first, “Top Hat, White Tie and Green Socks,” also features Kaye and Harvey Korman. In this three-act comedy she plays a temperamental musical comedy star who looks for a leading man to star in her next stage show and decides on an accident-prone delivery boy (Kaye). In the second, Verdon is the wife of Kaye and demands that he ask for a raise from his boss in the office. A still exists of Kaye and Verdon singing. She is dressed in a Little Bo Peep–type dress with white puffy sleeves and a white lace apron over a dark full silk skirt. The
New York Times
published a still from the show in an article by Paul Gardner called “Warming Up with Gwen” on February 7, 1965. The still showed Kaye and Verdon in the “Top Hat, White Tie and Green Socks” number where she wears a dark top and short skirt and white socks and heels. In the photograph the pair stand back to back, both of them holding their arms outstretched with hands touching. Jack Gould, reviewing the number for the
Times
, lambasted it.