Mark Griffin (10 page)

Working on the
Follies
would allow Vincente an opportunity to work with collaborators as diverse as Fanny Brice, Bob Hope, the Nicholas Brothers, and future MGM choreographer Robert Alton. One participant especially excited Minnelli’s imagination: an exotic, utterly scandalous import from the Folies-Bergère named Josephine Baker.

Nearly forty years after designing Baker’s jaw-dropping ensembles for the
Follies
, Vincente could still vividly recall encasing “her svelte figure in a shimmering sari” for “Maharanee,” a musical number in which one of Baker’s admirers pays tribute to her by singing, “Who brings glamour to cafes, to the Ritz and Zelli’s, in her Schiaparellis? . . . It’s the maharanee.” For “Island in the West Indies,” Minnelli outfitted “the Black Venus” in a scandalously brief thong “ornamented by white tusks.” Though it was Act II’s “Five A.M.” that inspired Minnelli’s pièce de résistance: Baker as a weary trollop, returning to her flat at an ungodly hour wearing an extravagant, nearly one hundred pound gold mesh gown offset by a plum-colored ostrich cape. Only the finest would do for Vincente’s glorious bird of paradise.

Although Minnelli fixated on what F. Scott Fitzgerald referred to as Baker’s “chocolate arabesques,” he was equally exacting with every other aspect of the production. “I don’t think there has ever been a greater disciplinarian or a more exacting perfectionist in the musical theatre than Vincente Minnelli,” composer Vernon Duke observed. “Where other directors wasted a lot of valuable time wrangling with costume designers, arguing with overpaid stars or kidding around with chorus girls, with Vincente—once the rehearsals started—it was all work and no play. We all felt like cogs in Minnelli’s magical wheel and kept ourselves well oiled.”
¹¹

It was Ziegfeld’s greatest star, Fanny Brice, who stole the show both on stage and off during the run of the
Follies
. Whether spoofing Busby Berkeley’s over-the-top extravaganzas in “The Gazooka” (a “Super-Special Musical Photoplay in Techniquecolor on the Widescope Screen”), lampooning the modern-dance movement in “Modernistic Moe,” or romping as the beloved Baby Snooks, Brice was the comedic centerpiece of the whole shebang,
though after the curtain came down, the star was continuously plagued by ill health and bouts of insomnia.

Fanny Brice (as Baby Snooks) getting the best of Bob Hope in
Ziegfeld Follies of 1936
. “Vincente Minnelli, who doesn’t appear on the stage at all, is the star of the new
Ziegfeld Follies
. . .” wrote Elliot Norton in his
Boston Post
review. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE SHUBERT ARCHIVE

During the show’s two-week tryout in Boston, the creative team realized that
Ziegfeld Follies of 1936
was shaping up as too much of a good thing. As Ira Gershwin noted, “This
Follies
was rare in that although the customary out-of-town phrase ‘It needs work . . .’ applied, the problem here was one of wealth of material rather than lack. . . . We had too much show with too many elaborate production numbers.”
¹²
After a major overhaul, a significantly scaled back
Follies
was finally judged ready to meet an audience, which it did in December 1935.

While Fanny Brice almost always ran away with the reviews, she was for once eclipsed by another in the notices that appeared the day after the opening: “Vincente Minnelli, who doesn’t appear on the stage at all, is the star of the new
Ziegfeld Follies
, which had its world premiere last night at the Boston Opera House,” wrote Elliot Norton in the
Boston Post
.
¹³

This was followed a week later with another, even more glowing tribute: “It is the well-pondered opinion of this column that Vincente Minnelli . . . has a greater theatrical genius than the late Florenz Ziegfeld. . . . With all his vast capacity, [Ziegfeld] never had any such amazing ability to create and project theatrical beauty as has this Italian-American.” It was high praise
and well deserved, though Minnelli would later quip, “I got out of Boston not a moment too soon before I was either canonized or burned at the stake.”
¹⁴

The
Follies
would be further fine-tuned in Philadelphia, but while it was there, an exhausted Fanny Brice collapsed on stage. As the star carried much of the show, the producers prayed that Brice would be well enough to bring the production into New York. Miraculously, the comedienne rallied, and
Ziegfeld Follies of 1936
made its Broadway debut on January 30. By early May, however, Brice was out of the spotlight altogether after her doctor diagnosed neuritis of the spine. Rather than attempting to replace their one-of-a-kind headliner, the producers decided to temporarily close the show with plans to bring it back after a summer hiatus. Vincente would describe the laying off of both cast and crew as “another example of the Shubert’s up-yours philosophy.”
¹⁵

Before it reopened in September,
The New Ziegfeld Follies of 1936-1937
(as it had been retitled) required some revamping, as much of the show’s topical humor had become dated during the months the production was on hiatus. Minnelli wasn’t called back to assist with the retooling, as his services were already required on the next Shubert-produced opus.

Billed as “Vincente Minnelli’s Gay Musical,”
The Show Is On
^o
would be the first production to feature the director’s name above the title. And just in case any theatergoers missed it, the playbill would include another reminder: “The Entire Production [was] Conceived, Staged and Designed by Vincente Minnelli.”
^p
John Murray Anderson, goodbye. As Vincente later noted, “Given carte blanche, I filled it in as if it were a Southern belle’s dance program.”
¹⁶
Among those invited to contribute original songs were friends Vernon Duke, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, Hoagy Carmichael, Harold Arlen, and Yip Harburg (who would be called in to doctor the show as well).

In preparing musical material, Minnelli remembered a sort of parody of a Viennese waltz that George and Ira Gershwin had begun but dropped before they went to Hollywood to work on the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers vehicle
Shall We Dance
.
^q
Vincente sent a telegram to the Gershwins asking them to revisit their “Straussian take-off” so that he could work it into the show. The Gershwins came through, and “By Strauss,” with its lilting melody and inventive rhymes (“Ya ya ya—Give me Oom-pah-pah!”) became one of the highlights of
The Show Is On
.

“It is practically my life ambition to see them both on the same stage,” Minnelli said of Bea Lillie and Bert Lahr, the stars of
The Show Is On
. Reporter William A. H. Birnie observed of the revue’s director: “His remarks are low-keyed and polite, as if he were coaching a church benefit . . . but even such veterans as Lillie and Lahr pay strict attention to what he says.” PHOTO COURTESY OF THE SHUBERT ARCHIVE

If
At Home Abroad
had offered audiences a picture-postcard tour of the globe,
The Show Is On
would make the theater itself the evening’s primary destination. “The thought just came to him when he was walking in Central Park one afternoon,” Marion Herwood said of her employer’s inspiration for his latest revue. “He wanted to do a bigger, newer, more unusual musical than had ever been done before. The subject he liked was the show game. . . . He thought of contrasting the old and new, of revealing scenes with the color and glamour of the ’90s and then following this with ultramodern jazz song numbers.”
¹⁷

As for featured performers, Minnelli had very definite ideas: “I can think of only one leading comedienne, and that would be Beatrice Lillie. The comedian, of course, must be Bert Lahr. It is practically my life ambition to see them both on the same stage.” Lillie needed little convincing: “It may be safely concluded that when an invitation came along to play in a new musical under the direction of Vincente Minnelli, who handled
At Home Abroad
, I set off at a fast trot for cocktails at his studio. Vincente’s gentle salesmanship
may have done it—perhaps he picked up the technique when he worked for Marshall Field’s Chicago department store.”
¹⁸

Even the inimitable Lillie would have to be on her toes to keep up with her seasoned costar—one of the most original and outrageous talents in the business. Whether he was refining his trademark “gnong, gnong, gnong” in a burlesque house or delighting millions of moviegoers as the Cowardly Lion in
The Wizard of Oz
, Bert Lahr was a certified showstopper. The master buffoon was also “the worryingest rehearser in the business,” according to sketch director Edward C. Lilley.
¹⁹
A fidgety, neurotic button-twister, Lahr seemed light years away from the elegant, eternally composed Lady Peel. Yet they clicked, both on stage and off. And
The Show Is On
gave these two ingenious comedians ample opportunity to display their sublime chemistry and individual versatility.

Lillie was a caution as a nineteenth-century crooner perched high on a “perilously migratory moon,” warbling “Buy Yourself a Balloon” while flinging garters into the audience. Bert Lahr had them rolling in the aisles with “The Song of the Woodman,” Arlen and Harburg’s send-up of Nelson Eddy-style anthems such as “Stout-Hearted Men.” Appearing in lumberjack regalia and wielding a papier-mâché ax, Lahr offered an ode to deforestation:
What do we chop, when we chop a tree? A thousand things that you daily see. A baby’s crib, the poet’s chair, the soap box down at Union Square
. “That song was written specifically for Mr. Lahr’s talents—to point up his immense mimicry and range,” says Arlen scholar R. Bobby. “Minnelli said, ‘There’s a spot in the show where I need a great number for Lahr.’ Arlen and Harburg were in Hollywood and they came up with this hilarious song which shows how brilliant they were at writing material for a specific performer.”
²⁰

David Freedman, whom Vincente dubbed “The master of all sketch writers,” had been responsible for some of the wittiest material in
Ziegfeld Follies of 1936
. For
The Show Is On
, he managed to top himself, though it certainly didn’t hurt that his writing partner for “Mr. Gielgud Passes By” was none other than Moss Hart. In the sketch, Bea Lillie embodied the actor’s nightmare—a chatty latecomer who yaks her way through a performance of John Gielgud’s
Hamlet
. Reginald Gardiner’s frustrated Gielgud finds himself competing with her as he attempts to portray Shakespeare’s Melancholy Dane. Lillie’s thoughtless chatterbox explains that an opening night is the one place she’s certain to meet up with her friends and have a nice, long chat.

During rehearsals for
The Show Is On
, Minnelli was profiled by the
World-Telegram
’s William A. H. Birnie, who noted that Vincente looked “as if he had wandered out of an art gallery and wished he could remember his way back.” The reporter also observed Minnelli directing: “His remarks are low-keyed and polite, as if he were coaching a church benefit. But an attentive visitor notices that even such veterans as Bea Lillie and Bert Lahr pay strict attention to what he says.” Birnie’s portrait of Minnelli included a certified eyebrow raiser: “He shies away from any activity that might be considered effeminate.”
²¹
This after Vincente had confessed an affinity for Tchaikovsky symphonies and Whistler etchings and owned up to taking dancing lessons at Arthur Murray’s.