Then and Now (21 page)

Just after Wally died, Audra McDonald told me that she had a dream about him. She was visiting him in heaven and he said, “I almost didn't get in here, you know.” “Why?” she asked, and he showed her his liver. “So how did you get in?” she persisted. And he showed her his heart.

For all the glamorous success and excess of his life, he was in some ways still the little boy from Akron, Ohio. When in 2003 we were invited to perform in the party scene of the Metropolitan Opera's annual New Year's Eve production of
The Merry Widow
, Wally was enlisted to conduct the orchestra. When he got up for the first rehearsal it just overwhelmed him—and he started to cry.

I miss him very much.

I WAS HAVING
a great time giving concerts all over the world, and Jerry Kravat kept it all the more interesting by constantly thinking up new opportunities for me. Jerry wasn't just a manager—he was Jerry Kravat Entertainment Services and had his fingers in lots of pies and his toes in lots of rivers. He was a workaholic and really went all out on my behalf. He was constantly on the phone drumming up work for me and always thinking in terms of “What's the next big event we can do for you?”

He was responsible for my playing the Metropolitan Opera House in January 2006, an event he worked on for several years. Along with Yves Montand and Vladimir Horowitz, I became one of only three solo artists who have been presented by the Met itself as part of their regular season.

Most of the time when I'm performing I have my nerves pretty much under control, but occasionally, before a big concert, when I'm standing in the wings, waiting to walk out, I can frankly be scared. That's no good, and the Metropolitan Opera concert was definitely one of those occasions. But—I've developed a way to help myself through times like that. The first thing I do is plant my feet firmly on the floor and imagine I'm getting power flowing into my body from the depths of the earth. Then I think of how fortunate I am to have the gift of being able to sing. I tell myself to go out and give it back. Give the gift back. That gets me out of the
realm of ego, and then I don't worry about what people will think about my singing or what they might think about my appearance. I'm calmer. After a couple of songs, I'm comfortable and having fun.

I was more than a little nervous to be singing at the Metropolitan Opera House, but while waiting to go on I wasn't so nervous that I failed to notice how worn the curtain appeared from the back. I thought about the number of times it had been held for great artists like Luciano Pavarotti, Marilyn Horne, Renée Fleming, Placido Domingo, and the amazing Leontyne Price. WOW! I had such respect for those giants.

When I walked onstage that night at the Met, the entire audience stood up, applauding. It was an extraordinary moment. I had never dared dream about appearing at the Metropolitan Opera House. Me? Barbara Cook, little nine-year-old Barbara Cook deserting her playmates to go inside to listen to the Met's Saturday-afternoon broadcasts? I had terrific guest artists that night: Josh Groban, Elaine Stritch, Audra McDonald. It was, in short, a thrilling night for me.

It was also Jerry's idea to celebrate my eightieth birthday, in 2007, with New York Philharmonic concerts at Avery Fisher Hall. Here I was, back at Avery Fisher twenty-two years after the
Follies
concerts, and I had a ball. Singing again with the Philharmonic—I think anyone would be hard-pressed to come up with a better way to celebrate an eightieth birthday.

Sadly, one year after the birthday concerts Jerry died. We had worked together for twenty-nine great years and we had a terrific journey together. How I miss him. He was my manager, but more than that, he was my friend.

Although
Mostly Sondheim
and
Barbara Cook's Broadway!
were
successes, they were one-woman concerts, just as were the nights at the Metropolitan Opera and Avery Fisher Hall. I still had not returned to Broadway in a musical since 1971's
The Grass Harp
, a situation that changed in 2010 when I appeared in the Roundabout Theatre's production of
Sondheim on Sondheim
, a compilation of Stephen's work sung by a cast of eight.

This was not a traditional book musical, but rather an overview of Stephen's amazing career in the theater. Filmed interviews with Stephen supplied the narrative flow and served to introduce the various numbers. Material doesn't get any better than these extraordinary songs, and when James Lapine asked me to appear in the show, I said yes immediately.

Still, I was nervous before we started. Not only was this my first Broadway musical in over thirty years, but it was not exactly going to be low profile. I was also eighty-two years old, and worried about having the stamina to do eight shows a week. There was concern about remembering all the words because I sometimes forget a few lyrics when I do my shows and concerts. When that happens, I fix it and carry on, but I felt I couldn't do that in this show. I talked to James about it and he kindly arranged a monitor for me. I remember glancing at it a couple of times, but just knowing it was there took a great load off my shoulders.

We had a great cast including Vanessa Williams, Norm Lewis, and Tom Wopat, and while I was nervous, I was also eager. Stephen was not in the rehearsal room each day, leaving the direction to James Lapine, but he came to a later run-through, along with Frank Rich. He gave us very specific notes after our run-through: how he preferred us to pronounce certain words, when to guard against “scooping” notes. A lot of people think of Stephen as tough and intellectual, and that his work reflects a certain edginess. I
think one reason why I relate to his work so well is that I enjoy bringing out the warm and human side of his work. He is, in fact, a very caring, emotional person. He is exacting about his work, but he is also a very appreciative audience, and a very emotional one as well. When moved, he cries easily.

Surprisingly, I didn't have any trouble reentering the world of performing eight shows a week. We opened in April of 2010 and ran for our scheduled three months; I was thrilled to receive a Tony nomination, along with my fellow octogenarian Angela Lansbury, who was appearing in
A Little Night Music.
Much as I would have liked to win, I knew that Katie Finneran was going to take home the prize for her hilarious performance in
Promises, Promises
. But, fifty-plus years after I had won the Tony for
Music Man
I had received another nomination and was very happy about that fact.

And then, miracle of miracles: the Kennedy Center Honors.

When I received the honor in December of 2011 I was overwhelmed. Never, never, never did I think that would happen for me. There are so many who have deserved the honor and never received it. Maybe they died too soon, which matters because you have to show up to receive it. In essence, it's a lifetime achievement award, and I was so pleased to be in that group of five honorees which included Meryl Streep, Yo-Yo Ma, Neil Diamond, and the great saxophonist Sonny Rollins.

Some people may think I don't belong on that list. The truth is that much of the time I wonder about it myself. I know I'm good. But am I Jimmy Cagney good? Am I Gregory Peck good? Am I Fred Astaire good?

On the night the awards ceremony was shown on television I was working and couldn't watch the telecast. When I came offstage my assistant, Louise, yelled, “You're trending! You're trending!” I
had no idea what the hell she was talking about. She might as well have been speaking Swahili, but she was actually talking about Twitter. Evidently I was one of the top-ten subjects being tweeted about worldwide. Somebody sent me those tweets and I looked through many of them, scrolling through dozens and dozens of lovely messages. My favorite tweet, of course, was: “Who the fuck is Barbara Cook?” I liked that one because part of me was thinking, “Who the fuck thinks Barbara Cook deserves to be a part of this amazing group of people?”

The Kennedy Center Honors were the icing on the cake for me; just to be mentioned in the same breath as those incredible artists was a gift. I had been hearing rumors that I might receive the award—hints from Michael Kaiser and Adrienne Arsht—but if there is anything I've learned from sixty-plus years in the business, it's that talk is cheap and nothing's real until it happens. For at least a dozen years Jerry Kravat and a Washington-based friend, Lester Hyman, had been lobbying on my behalf, which is not at all an unusual thing for people to do. Typically, supporters begin writing letters, contacting other people, suggesting that their favorite be honored.

Even as Jerry began this campaign for me all those years ago, he didn't believe it would actually happen. He said, “I don't think there's a chance in hell that this will come through, but let's go through the motions and see how it turns out.” And I thought to myself, “If this should happen it will make everything okay. It will make those years when I was unemployable, when I couldn't stop drinking, when I should have been doing my best work in the theater, okay. It will make it all okay.” So when I heard I was on the short list, I was excited but tried not to get my hopes up too high or think about it too much. Adrienne and Michael had both been
telling me for a long time that things looked good for me, and they said it so often that I finally said to Adrienne: “Listen, I need to tell you that after all you and Michael have said, if this doesn't happen I'm going to have to kill both of you!”

It's embarrassing now to think about how much I wanted the honor. I didn't believe it would happen. I wonder if anyone does. You're officially informed of the honor by letter, and the funniest part was that even after the public announcement had been made and I had received the letter asking me to accept the honor, I still had trouble believing it. (Steven Spielberg said that he had to have his assistant read it to him twice before he believed it.)

The honors encompass a weekend of events in Washington, D.C.—the first weekend in December. It's all surprisingly low-key. On Saturday night they have a dinner at the State Department, where they come up behind you and put the medal around your neck while the secretary of state talks about you and your career. The placing of the medal may be low-key, but make no mistake, it is still a big deal.

So too is the ceremony itself at the Kennedy Center, on Sunday. Along with your four fellow honorees, you sit in a special box with the president and first lady while others pay tribute to your career. You don't have to work, but in effect you end up taking the best curtain call imaginable! Adam was with me as my escort, and I just wish Jerry Kravat and Wally Harper could have been there as well. They had both died a few years before this happened, and I sure thought about them that night. Patti LuPone, Audra McDonald, Sutton Foster, and others paid tribute to me from the stage and it was overwhelming. When all was said and done, the strongest feeling I held inside was one of being understood. Somebody “got it.” A lot of people “got it.” As an artist I couldn't have asked for more.

BROADWAY TODAY IS
a far different place than it was in the late 1950s and early sixties. Perhaps the biggest difference lies in the way careers now develop. In those days you didn't suddenly go from featured player to headliner. You had to earn it. That tradition of really earning your name above the title has vanished. The stakes are so high now that producers want to import a well-known Hollywood name, even for a limited run, in order to pack the theater, turn a profit, and make a quick getaway. Some theater stars do exist, of course—Sutton Foster, Kelli O'Hara, and Audra McDonald come to mind—but half a century ago, shows would have been written for them. These talented women now perform in concerts not just because they want to, but also because they have to. It used to be that you didn't do concerts and cabaret on the side—you just landed another show. Now it could be years between musicals, even for the biggest names on Broadway.

They tell me now that I was part of Broadway's Golden Age, the era that really seemed to start with
Oklahoma!
in 1943. I know that
Show Boat
in 1927 changed the playing field, but with
Oklahoma!
the entire landscape of musical theater changed. You could no longer get away with the unadulterated silliness that was nothing more than an excuse for songs, and, following the lead of Oscar Hammerstein II, creators now utilized an integrated approach, combining dialogue, music, lyrics, and dance in order to
tell a meaningful story. Well, my first show was
Flahooley
, in 1951, and the truth is I didn't know I was part of any golden age. I wish somebody had told me. I would have had a lot more fun.

Sometimes I ask an audience, “Do you think we're in a golden age now?” I hear a lot of moans coming back at me. Well, we could be. I think what we have to do is enjoy every day just as much as we can because thirty years from now you could wake up and they'll tell you that you were in a golden age, and you'd feel like a fool if you didn't.

For a long time I wasn't fully aware of how much of my own life I put into interpreting lyrics, into communicating on a very personal level with the audience. But when I was accepting the Sondheim award from City Opera, in my acceptance speech I said: “I thank you so much for this. I think by giving me this award you not only honor my work, but you also honor my life, because that's what I do—I put my life, everything that ever happened to me, the good and the bad, into these songs.” I believe art that is authentic can be healing. I suppose that I've come to think of myself as a salesman, because I really do believe that what I have to say through my songs can help people.

Putting your life into your art—this is what I try to teach students in the master classes I conduct at venues like the Boston Conservatory of Music, and at Juilliard. “Stop worrying about how you look and how you sound. Concentrate on what you are trying to say with this song.” The words have to matter: Who is the character? What are they really singing about? Are they singing one thing but meaning another? Oftentimes students come in and they just want you to know right away that they can SING, in capital letters. They come on like singing machines. Then—slowly,
slowly, slowly, I get them to be human beings again. It almost always works. It's quite exciting and very moving.

If I had to put it into one sentence, the most important lesson I want to instill in singers is: “You are enough.”

I tell my students: “Work toward embracing yourself and who you are. You don't need to look like anybody else. You don't need to sound like anybody else. Have the courage to give us your true self.

“You are enough.

“You are always enough.

“We are always enough.”

When any of us sings what has come to be known as the Great American Songbook, it's not about showing off vocally à la
American Idol.
You want the song to sound conversational. We're Americans—sing like you talk. That's what Sinatra was so great at—that sense of conversational intimacy with the listener.

When I teach master classes, I often think of a wonderful piece of advice from my ex-husband. Shortly before David died, Adam went to visit him in Los Angeles. Adam asked him, “Dad, can you tell me what you think is the most important thing you learned from Lee Strasberg?” He thought for a moment and then simply said, “Be there.” That said it all as far as I'm concerned. That's what I impress upon the students. We need to “be there” as performers, but also need to “be there” in life. It's not always easy to do, but it is infinitely rewarding.

We all change as we age. I sure as hell hope I am not the same person I was fifty years ago. Change really is the only constant in life, and acceptance of that change can be rough, but essential.

In the interesting way that today's complicated family life some
times unfolds, I finally saw my ex-husband after twenty-five years when Adam and I went to Italy for the wedding of his brother Jacob—David's son with his second wife, Beth. Adam and I flew to Rome, and when we were shopping for china in Portofino right before the wedding, Adam happened to glance toward the door and then whispered to me, “Mom, David LeGrant just walked in.” Adam had not seen his father in eighteen years, but our joint reunion was pleasant—no bickering, no recriminations, just mother, father, and son together again for a brief moment.

Adam had not seen David for so many years because David had proved to be just as difficult toward Adam as he was with me; when Adam was growing up, he would tease him about not being athletic, in effect deriding him for not turning out exactly as David wanted and envisioned. Now, as adults, we could speak calmly, genuinely glad to see each other. We had all changed. I was so very happy about this turn of events: I had wanted David back in Adam's life, and now he was.

When Adam turned fifty, in 2009, I gave him a big birthday party, and David returned to New York for the first time since 1978. The good feelings engendered by our meeting in Italy remained, and as long as we stayed away from certain subjects we could have talked twenty-four hours a day. David remained difficult, but we all are in our own ways, and I was very grateful that he had played such a huge part in my life.

When David died, in July of 2011, I was surprised that it hurt so much. We had been divorced for forty-six years, and while I've never once doubted that the divorce was the right thing to do, whatever animosity I once held toward him had long since faded. I felt so bad when he died, and I think it's because his death brought back the memories of our life together, sending me back to that
time and place when we were so young, in love, and with all of our adult lives ahead of us. I loved David. He was the father of my beloved son, and for those reasons I felt his loss with a depth of feeling that surprised me. Memories can be wonderful, but they can also wound.

At the time of David's death I had one of those two a.m. soul talks with a close friend. We were pondering whether either one of us had ever truly been in love. I think that very few people experience real love, by which I mean honest-to-God you-want-to-put-the-other-person's-needs-before-your-own kind of love. It sure doesn't happen often. I was in a deep first love with Herb Shriner that contained a certain degree of madness, because I was obsessed with him. But did I love him? Infatuation is totally different from love. David? I cared about him certainly and I was obviously attracted to him. But—did I love him to the depths of my soul? I'm still not sure. Arthur? I don't know. I just don't know.

As you get older, you realize more fully just how mysterious life can be—wonderful and puzzling, damaging and life-affirming. You may not have the physical gifts you possessed as a youngster, but you can draw on all of your experiences in an attempt to understand what it all means and to continue going on. I think back to a long-ago afternoon rehearsal at Avery Fisher Hall. I was sitting in the front row with Arthur Schwartz as the fellow onstage was singing “Dancing in the Dark,” the masterpiece Arthur wrote with Howard Dietz.

I said, “God, Arthur, it must feel so good to have written such a gorgeous melody.” And he said, “Yes, but you know, very few people know what the song is about.” Now, I have to admit, the music is so compelling that I, like so many others, thought it was a lovely song about dancing.

But—the song, as Arthur explained to me, is about life and death. The transience of life. The aching beauty we can never quite hold on to.

Howard Dietz wrote:

          
Dancing in the dark till the tune ends.

          
We're dancing in the dark and it soon ends.

          
We're waltzing in the wonder of why we're here.

          
Time hurries by. We're here and gone.

          
Looking for the light of a new love

          
To brighten up the night. I have you, love.

          
And we can face the music together

          
Dancing in the dark.

Wally and I performed that amazing song at our first Carnegie Hall concert in 1975, but I'd sing it differently now. This song, like all great art, speaks to us in different ways at different stages of our lives, precisely because we all keep changing. We become older and acquire a different understanding of the dark. Same thing with the Rodgers and Hart song “I Didn't Know What Time It Was.” I recorded that in the 1950s for an all Rodgers and Hart album of ballads, and while my voice was fine, I can sing it now with so much more feeling and drama, for one reason:

I've lived.