Gwen Verdon: A Life on Stage and Screen (28 page)

Verdon teaches Cavett the first tap-dance she ever learned, “The Shim-Sham.” He also shows her a tap time step that he said Fosse is envious of because he could not master it. The first half of the show ends with Cavett and Verdon wearing straw hats to do hat tricks and shtick. In the second half, they talk about the period when the choreographer became the show’s director, and Verdon mentions
New Girl in Town
and the controversial ballet that was censored. She also talks about the Pony dance from that show and does it with the dancers, as well as Fosse’s audition dance that was influenced by de Mille. The new choreographer-directors demanded that dancers be able to sing and act, and Verdon explains how to breathe when called upon to sing and dance. She gets a laugh when she tells Cavett, “It ain’t easy, pal.” She does different funky dances of Fosse and Pete Gennaro, to demonstrate the next influence of dance music into musical theater. Verdon calls the first “Bubbles” but it resembles “I’m a Brass Band” from
Sweet Charity
. She explains that the difference between the two numbers is that Fosse had the bump beat going to the back, whereas Gennaro had it going forward. Another influence was elegant Spanish dance which is demonstrated with “America” from
West Side Story
and “There’s Gotta Be Something Better Than This” from
Sweet Charity
. The latter number has an added poignancy because once again it reminds us that Verdon did not get to do the film version.

Verdon points out that Cole’s estate did not get royalties after his death, since he was not credited for the choreography for the revival of
Man of La Mancha
which had opened on Broadway on September 15, 1977. She said that the American Dance Machine had referred the matter to volunteer attorneys for the Council of the Arts and arbitration was in progress. The list of influences finishes with that of the American cowboy. Verdon joins the dancers for Bob Fosse’s cowboy dance, which appears to be the same as “Cool Hand Luke,” with all wearing black cowboy hats.

She next resumed her film career in what amounts to a cameo appearance. On December 16, 1977, Verdon was one of the Guests at Heartland in the finale of the jukebox musical
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
(1978) directed by Michael Schultz. The film was shot from October 1977 to March 1978 on location at Tower Records in San Francisco, the MGM backlot, Century City in Los Angeles, and at Universal Studios. Verdon appeared in a standing group shot and wore a long-sleeved black dress with choker and uncharacteristic long hair as she sang and moved to a reprise of the title song. It is apparent that more than one take of the group was filmed since the people on either side of her differ in different shots. She was one of an enormous roster of celebrities invited to sing in the finale, a group that had been originally envisaged to imitate the famous cover of the Beatles album which depicted the band posing in front of a collage of some of their favorite historic figures and celebrities. It is reported that to attract the group, formal invitations were engraved and sent to virtually everyone in the entertainment industry. Those who accepted were treated to first-class transportation to Los Angeles, limos, luxurious hotels, champagne, a lavishly catered dinner and private tents for each of the stars in the studio’s garden room.

The surreal screen musical was based on the stage show
Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band on the Road
by Robin Wagner and Tom O’Horgan which had a brief run off–Broadway at the Beacon Theatre from November 17, 1974, to January 1975. It was released on July 24, 1978, with the taglines “Only their music could conquer the forces of evil,” “A splendid time is guaranteed for all,” and “A fantastical, musical adventure!”

Variety
described the finale as a celebrity olio. The film was lambasted by Janet Maslin in the
New York Times
and Clive Hirschhorn in
The Universal Story
. It was not a box office hit, and the soundtrack sales were equally disappointing.

On March 2, 1978, Verdon appeared as a guest artist in the Houston Ballet at Jones Hall as the debutante in Sir Frederick Ashton’s “Façade,” a 1931 musing on dance style. The piece was staged by Richard Ellis with costumes borrowed from the Joffrey Ballet. The
Times
’ Anna Kisselgoff wrote that Verdon caught the silly ecstatic state of a giddy woman swept away by a slinky Latin Lover, danced by Ben Stephenson. The writer noted that it had long been the dancer’s ambition to dance with a ballet company and, while this was not a classical role, it was still a difficult one to make convincing. Kisselgoff also reported that after her performance, Verdon was showered by flowers from the wings and, in return, she gave Stephenson her orange garter and threw a rose to the conductor, Charles Rosenkrans. On March 27, 1978, she attended the Broadhurst Theatre for the opening night of Fosse’s new show
Dancin’
that he had choreographed and directed. Verdon was also photographed at the after-show party at Tavern on the Green, wearing a choker with her outfit which would become a staple of her wardrobe in her later years.

Chicago
’s national tour began on September 12, 1977, in Boston. After playing Miami Beach and Detroit, it came to the Blackstone Theatre in Chicago. The run began there in February 1978 but Verdon joined the company in April, replacing Penny Worth as Roxie. Verdon continued when the show moved to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles from May to June 1978 and then to the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco from June 27 to August 5. In Los Angeles at the Civic Light Opera production, some of the language of the show was modified by Cy Feuer and Ernest Martin who had helped produce the original Broadway show. They also asked that the number “Class” be cut entirely. Fosse and Verdon both objected to the requested changes and the company petitioned against them. She had otherwise campaigned against censorship, being on the New York Board for Commisssioners of Libraries and having had seen libraries take “unacceptable” works off the shelves. Ultimately minimal changes were made.

Verdon commented in the
Biography
episode on Fosse that around this time, she was worried about her husband and his use of Dexedrine. Verdon reasoned that Fosse acted this way, even though he knew better, because he felt he was running out of time.

Fosse had originally planned to start filming
All That Jazz
in early 1978 but the casting of Richard Dreyfuss as Joe did not pan out. Production would go on hold for six months until the replacement, Roy Scheider, was available. This was after Fosse had been persuaded by the producers not to play the part himself. When Scheider was ready, filming began in October 1978 in New York. Fosse cast Leland Palmer as Audrey Paris, the character he had based on Verdon. In her book
Sage-ing While Age-ing
, Shirley MacLaine reported that he had wanted her to play the part of Audrey, but she declined because she felt she couldn’t dance well enough any more. MacLaine was interviewed in the Mark McLaughlin documentary
Hollywood Singing and Dancing: The 1970s
and spoke about Fosse’s desire for authenticity for his film. When she told him that her playing Audrey was as unauthentic as his Gideon character dying in the film, Fosse replied that if she would play Audrey then he promised that he would be dead by the first preview. She still passed.

Scheider said that Verdon was at rehearsals and at the shooting of some scenes, like the Air-otica number. After Fosse would film a certain part of it, he would go to her and ask what she thought. Verdon would offer her opinion, in the same way that Joe does with Audrey. When the film went over budget, Columbia Pictures closed it down before it was finished. Luckily 20th Century-Fox agreed to finance the shooting of the final scenes after they were shown a rough cut. This explains why the film has two studio credits. When shooting was over, Verdon was allowed by Fosse to see a rough cut. She supposedly evaded him after the screening, then walked home in silence with Nicole. Verdon called Fosse the next day to tell him what their daughter had said about the film—that she thought that the daughter was the only one who cared whether Joe Gideon lived or died.

The film was released on December 20, 1979, with the tagline “All that work. All that glitter. All that pain. All that love. All that crazy rhythm. All that jazz.” It was praised by Vincent Canby in the
New York Times
but received mixed reviews in
Variety
and in Clive Hirschhorn’s book
The Columbia Story
. However, it was a box office hit and also earned Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor.

Palmer in the film resembles Verdon, except that she wears her hair in a fuller, longer style and does not have the same fire-red hair color. Audrey as Verdon is shown to be a consultant to Gideon as he asks her opinion on casting. This is not surprising given that she is playing the lead in the show they are doing and the dance numbers that he choreographs. At the auditions Audrey’s kindness is shown when she stops the Nicole character, Michelle (Erzsebet Foldi), from pointing and laughing at an inept dancer, and her humor is shown when she laughs at Gideon’s pleasure at watching dancing twins.

The film has some interesting moments for her. Audrey laughs to herself and to Joe when the Fred Ebb character, Paul Dann (Anthony Holland), sings the number “Take Off with Us.” When she is rehearsing a solo dance number and Joe enters the room, she does not let him see her falter, presumably fearful that he will replace her. He tells her that he is only doing the show because Audrey wants to play a part she is too old for. She replies that he is only doing the show because of guilt over her, for never going one day when he was faithful to her. Earlier Joe had told Angelique (Jessica Lange) that he screwed up his marriage to Audrey because he cheated every chance he could get. After viewing the “Take Off with Us” number that Joe has revamped into Air-otica, Audrey tells him it’s the best work he has ever done, but she is angry and calls him a son of a bitch. At the cast table-read of the script, she gives him a look when Joe admits that he is not too familiar with it, and more when she reads lines that everyone else thinks are funny. Audrey has another good moment when she explodes at Nurse Blake (C.C.H. Pounder) after getting a bill from her for Joe’s treatment, since the nurse had initially refused to do anything when he had had his second heart attack.

We see Audrey dance at the solo rehearsal and for the “Hospital Hop” after the show’s company is told about Joe’s hospitalization and they have a party. She also sings and dances in the climactic hospital hallucinations medley. Audrey is the main vocalist for “After You’ve Gone.” The number shows that Palmer’s singing voice is not like that of Verdon and it is photographed more for Palmer’s vocal than for her dancing. Fosse does not showcase her in the same spectacular way he does for Ann Reinking for “You Better Change Your Ways,” which suggests that perhaps Palmer does not have Verdon’s individual dancing style.

Audrey Paris (Leland Palmer) and Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider) as alter egos for Verdon and Bob Fosse in
 
All That Jazz
 
(1979).

Verdon also appeared in the documentary
Hollywood Singing and Dancing: The 1970s
. She talked about how the narrative of
All That Jazz
was not that accurate in terms of her life with Fosse and was made more theatrical than real. She gave Gideon’s drug-taking as an example since she claimed that if Fosse was as drugged-up as the character, he would have never been able to work. Verdon acknowledged that the character’s womanizing was closer to the truth and reported how she would tell auditioning women to wear revealing clothes and full makeup because she knew that Fosse was turned on by it. Later she said that the character of Audrey was not like her at all, though she thought the film was magnificent. Verdon cited the scene when Gideon is rushed to the hospital after having a heart attack as an example of Fosse’s theatrical fiction. In the film, Audrey is sad but in real life Verdon was not. She was more mad because Fosse wanted to get out of the hospital, and she had to use the fact that they were not legally divorced to keep him in hospital. She said he hated her for it but he was obviously very ill and it was clearly the best thing to do.

Roy Scheider commented on Verdon and Fosse in the
Biography
episode on Fosse. He said that he found Verdon to be a sincere and principled person but Fosse was not. To Fosse, she was like a model of decency and yet there was something rueful and bad-boy about him that Verdon found attractive too. Verdon later also spoke about the film to Charlie Rose in an interview broadcast on March 9, 1999. She said that the closest thing to the truth in it was the relationship between the Nicole character and the Reinking character.

On December 3, 1978, Verdon joined Peter Gennaro to dance at the Shubert Theatre to celebrate the 50 year anniversary of the Neighborhood Playhouse’s School of the Theatre. The evening was also a fund-raiser for the playhouse’s new repertory company.

In February 1979 Verdon was asked by Fosse to supervise the touring company of
Dancin’
since he was busy filming
All That Jazz
. This was to perform simultaneously with the Broadway show which would run until June 27, 1982. Fosse was co-producing the tour and he apologized to her for offering what he considered such a lousy job. Verdon said she was grateful for it. She commented that when you get older and can’t cut it any more, the greatest thrill was to work with dancers who could. Verdon later said that she didn’t like the job, because she didn’t like being the boss. Kathryn Doby had overseen the Broadway production until she left to be in
All That Jazz
, and Verdon took over with what Doby considered less than perfect results. Doby wanted the dances done the way Fosse had envisaged but she thought that Verdon tried to make them a little easier. The short cuts she suggested she said were more practical, and Verdon also insisted on derivations that were unknown to Doby. An example was one number which she thought had come from “Who’s Got the Pain.” Since Fosse was absent, Verdon was the deciding voice despite Doby’s objections.