Gwen Verdon: A Life on Stage and Screen (9 page)

There were two scenes in the play where Verdon was called upon to act and here she was also coached by Fosse. In the scene where Lola tells Joe that she was the ugliest woman in Providence, Rhode Island, Fosse wanted Verdon to reveal a secret about herself to provide the meaning required. He suggested she think about something she did that she now felt guilty about, so Verdon recalled the times when she was a kid and she used to steal things. However she did not like using such personal things in her work to fill in for something in a scene because she worried that she wouldn’t be able to remember that thing every night. Verdon felt it was better to have some sort of technique you can call on, just as a dancer does, to prepare to perform. This need would be met with her further studies with Sanford Meisner in her next show,
New Girl in Town
.

Tryouts were held in New Haven with three previews from April 2, 1955, and then Boston for three weeks. One problem that was encountered: Audiences were more interested in the baseball and the character of Lola than the love story between Joe and Meg. She had a late entrance into the story and only had one solo number, “Whatever Lola Wants.” Verdon didn’t complain because that was not her nature, but she was still aware of the situation. The authors didn’t want her to detract from the love story, but it was clear that Verdon had the potential to be a show stopper. They decided to build up her part, giving her two new songs and a new dance, and her character was made more sympathetic. In New Haven, the song “A Little Brains, a Little Talent” was added before “What Lola Wants” in the first act.

Richard Adler was unhappy with Fosse’s choreography for the new number. Verdon was doing tiny bumps where she moved nothing but her hips, as if she was adjusting herself inside her panties. Adler felt this was not enough because he said his friends didn’t know what she was doing. She apparently became angered at what she interpreted as being spoken to in a derogatory manner. Verdon supposedly replied with expletives, telling Adler that her friends thought what she was doing was terrific. Fosse agreed with Verdon and the number wasn’t changed.

Among the other alterations:Abbott had Adler and Ross change the rock music that accompanied “Two Lost Souls” to make it sound like “There Was Once a Man” from
The Pajama Game
. (When Verdon did the show ten years later in Chicago and Westbury, the orchestration was restored to the rock sound.) The number which appeared at the end of the first act troubled producer Harold Prince. It featured the baseball players at a party where one of them stood on a chair wearing a gorilla suit under a Yankee uniform, terrorizing them as they danced around him in a game of musical chairs. Verdon was also part of the number, doing
a pas de deux
with George Marcy. At the first preview, Fosse decided to play the part of the gorilla. Prince wanted the number scrapped but Fosse refused to take it out of the show. Abbott convinced Fosse to come up with another number. Verdon would say that she was sorry to see the gorilla ballet go because she thought it was fabulous. Fosse’s alternative number was created for the scene where the baseball hero’s fan club does an entertainment for him. Thinking of the grunting South American dance that was the current rage, he came up with a duet based on the mambo, and Adler and Ross provided the song “Who’s Got the Pain.” He worked on the number with Verdon, which was to be danced by her and Eddie Phillips. The performers wore tight black pants, bright Caribbean tops, and the little hats that would become a Fosse trademark. Prince was pleased with this number, which was original in Fosse’s use of athleticism.

The show came to the 46th Street Theatre and had a preview on May 2, 1955, which was a benefit for pre-adoptive nursery care by the Spence-Chapin Adoptive Service. It opened on May 5, 1955, and would run to May 4, 1957, there and then from May 6 to October 12, 1957, at the Adelphi Theatre. For the opening night performance, tickets were printed to resemble ballpark tickets, listing rain check provisions, gate numbers and the game being played. “Heart” and Verdon both stopped the show; there was praise for Stephen Douglass and Ray Walston, but the greatest excitement was over her. In the
New York Times
, Lewis Funke wrote that she “gives brilliance and sparkle to the evening with her exuberant dancing, her wicked, glistening eyes and her sheer delight in the foolery.” He described Fosse with Verdon as one of the evening’s heroes and wrote that the dance numbers “are full of fun and vitality.”

Despite the good reviews, the producers continued to tinker with it. They felt it was too long, and also the audiences didn’t like how Lola climatically turned back into the ugly old crone she had originally been. The number “Not Meg” was cut and a second act number was moved into the first, which saved twenty minutes. The ending was also altered. Now the Devil changed Lola back in to a beautiful seductress again. Baseball-associated gimmicks used were actual bright stadium lights on the stage and in the orchestra, and hot dogs were sold at intermission. However the box office take was not what was hoped for. Perhaps those who predicted that baseball musicals were jinxed were right. The producers looked at their advertising which had Verdon in a baggy baseball uniform. She looked adorable and funny but not sexy. They replaced it with an image of Verdon in her underwear in her Lola number. This also referenced the number in the show which was funny, and the song, which had become popular after having been recorded by Sarah Vaughan. The “Playbill” cover and the cover of the original cast recording which was recorded on May 8, 1955, were also changed to this effect. Ironically Verdon is dressed in a baseball uniform in some of the photographs taken at the recording session. As a result of the strategy, business rose dramatically. Another reason to change Verdon’s costume was that it was felt that the advertising should remove references to baseball because people originally were confused as to whether the show was about the South or baseball. The producers wanted to downplay the sports angle and highlight the popular themes of regained youth as symbolized by Faust and sex.

Stephen Douglass and Verdon in a posed shot from the stage show
Damn Yankees
(1955–1956).

The show received industry acclaim when it won Tony Awards as Best Musical, Verdon as Best Actress in a Musical, Ray Walston as Best Actor in a Musical, Russ Brown as Best Featured Actor in a Musical, and Fosse for Best Choreography. The original cast recording was released by RCA Victor on June 1, 1955. During the run Verdon would be replaced for individual performances by Sheila Bond, Gretchen Wyler and Devra Korwin.

The
New York Times
of May 15, 1955, reported that Mary Loos and Richard Sale would next film
Gentlemen Chase Redheads
and that Verdon would leave
Damn Yankees
in May 1956 to appear in it. The husband-and-wife producing team said that they had begun to write the story and that they planned to start filming in the summer of 1956. Jeanne Crain was also said to be slated to play a starring role. The plot involved a group of
Time
magazine researchers who dig into a story that redheads, like Cleopatra and Queen Elizabeth 1, still rule the world nowadays. This film was never made.

Damn Yankees
was the subject of a photographic essay by Peter Stackpole in
Life
magazine (May 16, 1955). There was also an accompanying article that described the nine months that it took to bring the show to Broadway. Verdon was shown in baseball costume among “The Big Pool of Talent”—the eighty-three participants which includes producers, authors, actors, designers, production staff, singers, dancers, and orchestra. She was one of the fourteen principal actors and referred to as “the Devil’s accomplice.” In a photo Verdon wore what appeared to be jeans and a sweater as she tried out steps in the rehearsal hall as the other dancers watched. She was also photographed flying with Eddie Phillips on stage in the “Who’s Got the Pain” number; with Walston as an irate Satan; and with Douglass performing “Whatever Lola Wants.”

Her success was also signified by her getting the cover of
Time
magazine on June 13, 1955. In the accompanying article by Roger S. Hewlett were photographs of Verdon with Stephen Douglass in
Damn Yankees
, director Abbott, Verdon in
Can-Can
, her son Jimmy and his grandparents, and Verdon as a hula dancer at age nine. The article ended with Verdon’s idea that she only gave herself five more years as a dancer. It was said that she received many long-term contract offers which she was in no hurry to sign because “I don’t want to get lost.”

Verdon made the first of two appearances on the television comedy-musical variety show
The Colgate Comedy Hour
. The series was filmed live in New York with segments telecast from Los Angeles. The episode broadcast on July 10, 1955, had George Abbott as special host and was devoted to the songs of Richard Adler and Jerry Ross, specifically those they had written for
The Pajama Game
and
Damn Yankees
. Verdon performed “A Little Brains, a Little Talent” but strangely, Abbe Lane did “Whatever Lola Wants.”

In the July 12, 1955,
Look
magazine there was an article about Verdon entitled “Beauty and Baseball.” Publicizing
Damn Yankees
, she was seen in photographs from the show as well as backstage in a strapless long black dress, and in the theater alley racing to a matinee. In the last shot Verdon wore a long fur coat and carried two parcels that appeared to contain clothes and a hat. She commented about it, saying that among other things, she had found out that stardom meant you were always in a rush.

On July 21, 1955, Verdon was presented with the Most Outstanding Actress in the Musical Comedy Field Award for her
Damn Yankees
performance by the Dance Educators of America at the Park-Sheraton Hotel. On December 11 she was one of the participants in “Cocktail Revue,” the Equity Library Theatre entertainment presented at the Belmont Plaza Hotel. Broadcast on the same night was the
Colgate Comedy Hour
salute to George Abbott. Verdon and Fosse were credited as dancers in the show. She was not part of the national touring company of
Damn Yankees
, which began in New Haven on January 21, 1956, having been replaced by Tybee Afra and then Sherry O’Neil.

Verdon released an album of her singing with Joe Reisman and His Orchestra entitled “The Girl I Left Home For.” She appeared on the album cover dressed in black sweater and slacks, red waist sash to match her red hair, and lying on a wooden bench. The album reveals that perhaps Verdon’s vocals are better suited to the theater than to records and the concert stage, with a voice that is reminiscent of Helen Kane but with more range. The song choices are an interesting mix of ballads and up-tempo numbers. She does three songs that Betty Grable had performed in the film
Meet Me After the Show
(in which Verdon had also appeared):“It’s a Hot Night in Alaska,” “Bettin on a Man” and “No-Talent Joe.” Another notable choice is a slowed-down version of “I’ve Got the World on a String” which Frank Sinatra had made famous with a 1953 recording. The album was reviewed in the
New York Times
by John S. Wilson on February 19, 1956. He wrote that the allure that is such an important part of her stage presence did not transfer readily to disks, so that she was heard on the album in “diminished and diluted form as a comedienne with a minor and little sense of comic projection.” Wilson praised her choice of interesting offbeat songs but wrote that she was “unable to overcome a lackluster blandness in her delivery.”

Verdon, Ray Walston and Stephen Douglass did a special performance of
Damn Yankees
at New York’s Treasurers Club on March 18, 1956. The next day the
New York Times
reported that Verdon and Walston were among the actors who had been nominated for awards by the Lambs for their noteworthy overall contribution to the theater. Silver mugs, emblematic of the traditional pewter mug of the Lambs, would be presented at the group’s annual gambol at the Waldorf Astoria on April 21. Verdon was chosen as one of the winners of the awards but Walston was not. It was reported in the
New York Times
on April 22, 1956, that she attended the ceremony to receive it.

In
Life
magazine (March 19, 1956), Verdon was featured in the fashion section modelling new spring clothes. She was seen in one color and eight black-and-white photographs wearing attention-getting outfits from top collections under the headline of “A Star’s Fling at Spring. Verdon Teaches Upstaging.” The text proclaimed her a seasoned show-stealer and the star of Broadway’s
Damn Yankees
, “like any girl who has a little zest, a lot of nerve and enough cash to be able to upstage anyone in a crowd.”

For the April 1956
Theatre Arts
magazine, Verdon authored the article “Musical Comedy. The Theatre’s Awkward Adolescent” which was accompanied by a
Damn Yankees
photograph of her with Stephen Douglass. She expressed how she felt about the fact that the dramatic side of musicals was behind the musical side in terms of sophistication and how the idea that the musical comedy had come of age was a false one. Verdon claimed that part of the reason for this was how musicals were created, where lines for the book were often ad libbed in rehearsal by the director and actors. One downside to this practice was that lines often regurgitated the plot which a musical number had just advanced so that an actor mouthed program notes rather than real dialogue. She was also critical of the forms of comedy in musical comedies (frequently gags and pratfalls) did not arise from the dramatic situation itself. Verdon claimed that this kind of material was provided because of a feeling that musical comedy performers were not dramatic actors capable of giving characterizations of any depth. She offered some solutions to the problem, suggesting that the show’s book be prepared in advance as much as the musical numbers were, and that directors be employed from the legitimate theater rather than those with only experience in musical comedies. She also suggested that the choreographer’s role in the show might be extended to give them complete control of the musical, dance and dramatic direction. Here she admitted that this was an ability not all choreographers had, giving Michael Kidd, Jerome Robbins and Fosse as the only examples she was aware of. This argument prefigured Verdon’s insistence on Fosse directing her later show
Redhead
. Other ideas she had were having a librettist-director (like Garson Kanin) work in combination with said choreographers; and that stage directors and writers should study acting so that they could analyze a play and help an actor achieve a truthful performance rather than just mimic line readings given to them. Verdon ended the article on a note of hope: She was confident that eventually a show’s book work would catch up with the music and lyrics and they would merge so thoroughly that works of genuine integrity would be the rule rather than the exception.