You Fascinate Me So: The Life and Times of Cy Coleman (7 page)

During his time at Café Society Coleman got some terrific notices, including one in the November 26 issue of
Variety
: “Coleman is an artistic pianist who should be left more to his own musical resources than confined to an act. He’s a terrific 88er when he’s on his own or with light background.”

And while Coleman was doing nightly stints downtown, he was also starting a new television gig on
The
Kate Smith Show
. Singer Smith was finding her career, which had begun in the 1930s, greatly galvanized by her work in the new visual medium, and Coleman got to enjoy some of the rewards of her newfound success. By his account he ultimately appeared on thirty-five (or nearly a full year’s worth) of the shows, which were a cross between a variety special and infomercial, most performers being required to plug a certain product during their spot on the program.

Coleman’s task, beyond playing, was to offer up a brief pitch for one of the show’s sponsors, Libby’s Vienna Sausage. He not only had to talk about the product; he had to sample it on camera, and it inspired a lifelong hatred for the miniature frankfurters. He held on to the memory, in his inimitably wry way, by keeping a tin of them in his office until the time of his death in 2004.

But even as Coleman was biting into the sausages, he had to be thinking about something else. He and McCarthy had a tune that was beginning to make a big splash. It was a song that would significantly redirect the course of Coleman’s career.

6.
“Tin Pan Alley”

Throughout 1952, despite his exhausting, sometimes nearly around-the-clock career, Coleman managed to find time for a social life, particularly with his bandmates and the ever-growing circle of acquaintances he met in the clubs.

Both Mundell Lowe and drummer Ray Mosca, an intimate of Coleman’s who would officially join the trio in 1956, remembered their nights out after appearances in the clubs. Sometimes they would head to another place to drink and perform, and sometimes they would just head back to someone’s apartment for a night of chatting, drinking, and music making.

At Coleman’s side, too, on many of these nights was his songwriting partner, Joseph A. McCarthy Jr., as well as McCarthy’s girlfriend and future wife, the former film siren Veronica Lake, who had catapulted to stardom in the early 1940s in films like
Hold Back the Dawn
,
This Gun for Hire
, and
So Proudly We Hail
. Her stunning good looks and the wave of blond hair that cascaded over one eye (a modern visual equivalent would be Jessica Rabbit’s crimson ’do in
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
) made her the apple of every G.I.’s eye, and along with Betty Grable she was one of the choice pinups during World War II.

She had fallen on hard times by the early 1950s, and as Lowe remembered it, “Things had gone bad for her [in California] and she had moved back to New York. I think she was working as a hostess at one of the upscale restaurants or something like that. Anyway, she and Cy and Joe McCarthy were friends, so she came by [the club], and we all had a drink and had a laugh before we departed and went home.”
1

Bassist Bill Crow, who was working with the Don Elliott Quartet at the time and would occasionally sit in with Coleman, also remembered McCarthy’s and Lake’s presence. “He used to love to hang out at jazz clubs, and for a while he was going with the movie star with the long hair, Veronica Lake. They would come into the Hickory House and wait for us to finish, which was something like 3:30, and then they would take us clubbing.”
2

Crow also recalled that McCarthy’s drinking could become problematic: “He liked to go up to Harlem and hang out at the after-hours joints. And he was not a very good drunk. He would get angry. His idea of having fun was to break up the joint. A lot of times—if they saw him coming—the place would suddenly close.”
3

On the nights when barhopping wasn’t on the agenda, the musicians might head to Coleman’s place off Central Park, or sometimes, as Mosca said, “We’d head down to Joseph McCarthy’s house in Greenwich Village, where he was living with Veronica Lake.”
4

It was on one such night downtown that, Lowe remembered, “Joe and Cy started messing around with the tune ‘Why Try to Change Me Now?’ And that’s where it started—about four or five o’clock in the morning.”
5
After Coleman and McCarthy refined the song, it found its way to singing legend Frank Sinatra, who was at a crossroads in his life and career.

It’s difficult to imagine Sinatra as ever being on hard times, but in 1952 the singer was at a low ebb personally and professionally. He was deeply in debt. His tumultuous marriage to Ava Gardner was considered front-page news. CBS had canceled his television show. And, after the failure of the film
Meet Danny Wilson
at the beginning of 1952, Universal Pictures had opted not to renew his contract for another film.

Sinatra’s currency was so low that the
New York Times
review of
Meet Danny Wilson
and its premiere began with a description of the surprisingly subdued reaction that had greeted the actor-singer when he had appeared at the film’s opening, commenting, “Perhaps it is the beginning of the end of an era.”
6
Perhaps worst for Sinatra was the situation that he faced at Columbia Records, where he and producer Mitch Miller were at loggerheads. Things there were so bad that Sinatra was about to be fired.

As the year progressed and Sinatra saw that his time with Columbia was running out, he recorded a series of tunes that seem to be designed to editorialize on his situation, including “There’s Something Missing,” “The Birth of the Blues,” and “Don’t Be Afraid to Go Home.” In his final session for the label, on September 17, 1952, he recorded “Why Try to Change Me Now?”

Coleman was present on the day of the recording with Percy Faith and His Orchestra and found that the singer had changed the melody of the opening section of the song somewhat. He didn’t say anything and later described listening to the record: “It sounded so natural, the way Frank did it, that I thought to myself, ‘He’s right!’ So I left it that way. So I changed the music! That’s the first and only time I’ve ever done that.”
7

When reviews of the disc started to appear, it was the A side recording of “The Birth of the Blues” that attracted attention, while Coleman and McCarthy’s song garnered scant praise. The November 1
Billboard
review, for instance, said simply that Sinatra had delivered “the pretty ballad with warmth and taste.” Nevertheless, by the time January 1953 rolled around, it wasn’t “The Birth of the Blues” that appeared in the
Variety
listing of “Songs with Largest Radio Audience,” but rather “Why Try To Change Me Now?”

In retrospect, comparisons between the two sides seem unfair, because each has its allure. The A side is a powerhouse of vocals and brass, with an orchestra led by Axel Stordahl, while the B side is quiet, almost silent in contrast, strings delicately wafting around and under Sinatra’s wistful tones. This combination of vocals, arrangements, and orchestrations established the songwriting team of Coleman and McCarthy and proved an enduring hit for years to come. The song also paved the way for their Broadway debut as a songwriting team, which would come in a new revue being planned by John Murray Anderson.

Anderson had burst onto New York’s theatrical scene in 1919 as the writer, director, and producer of
The Greenwich Village Follies
. The show was heralded by the
New York Times
, which enthused about the production’s songs and its visuals, adding, “and where it does not win outright on these points it scores on novelty, burlesque, and comedy.”
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The show went on to run 232 performances (enough to certify a hit in the days before shows that run for decades) and spawned additional editions through 1924.

After that Anderson went on to larger revues, such as the
Ziegfeld Follies of 1936
, and new musicals, including a little-known Rodgers and Hart trifle set during the Revolutionary War,
Dearest Enemy
, and the team’s circus extravaganza,
Jumbo.

Anderson’s eye—which could marry taste with extravagance to sublime effect—attracted the attention of Hollywood as well as the Ringling Brothers Circus. From 1942 to 1951 he was responsible for putting together the glamorous three-ring event that thrilled audiences nationwide, and he even staged the musical and dance numbers for Cecil B. DeMille’s 1951 big-top Technicolor epic,
The Greatest Show on Earth
, which boasted a cast that included Charlton Heston, Betty Hutton, Dorothy Lamour, and Jimmy Stewart.

Anderson had anticipated returning to the theater during the 1950–51 season with a revue titled
John Murray Anderson’s Almanac
, and there were even reports that he had secured Vernon Duke and Ogden Nash to write the show’s songs. But this production never materialized, and instead Anderson directed a new incarnation of Leonard Sillman’s
New Faces
franchise in 1952, followed by
Two’s Company
, a revue that brought none other than screen legend Bette Davis back to the stage.

The latter show received decidedly mixed notices, limping through three months of performances on Broadway. With
New Faces
, however, both Anderson and Sillman were at the top of their game. The production introduced a host of performers who would become household names, notably Eartha Kitt, Paul Lynde, Carol Lawrence, and Alice Ghostley.

Given the runaway hit status that
New Faces of 1952
was enjoying, Anderson found that he could once again begin putting together his
Almanac
revue, and as late as December 1952 producers were vying to back the project, which according to period reports would cost $200,000 (close to $2 million by modern standards) to produce.

For the show’s headliner, Anderson signed Hermione Gingold, giving the noted and quirky British actress her Broadway debut. Across the Atlantic Gingold had built a solid reputation through her appearances in numerous West End revues, most notably the long-running hit
Sweet and Low
, which opened in 1943 and ended up playing for nearly six years, becoming something of a tourist attraction for American soldiers in London after World War II.

For subsequent generations Gingold’s work in such musical bonbons as this and
Almanac
was eclipsed by her memorable performances in other roles, on both stage and screen. She won a Golden Globe Award for her performance in the movie musical
Gigi
, in which she sang “I Remember It Well” with Maurice Chevalier, and she earned a Tony Award nomination for her portrayal of Madame Armfeldt in Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s
A Little Night Music
.

In
Almanac
Gingold was paired with Billy De Wolfe, who was also making his Broadway debut. Yet he wasn’t an untested commodity, being already quite well-known for his wit as a master of ceremonies in clubs in New York and beyond. In addition, he had just appeared with Ethel Merman in the film version of
Call Me Madam
.

Almanac
’s comedic elements were bolstered by the addition of Orson Bean, who had been making a name for himself around New York in spots like the Blue Angel, and who would go on to enjoy a several-decades-long career as a funny man on the big and small screen and onstage.

Anderson plucked another artist out of New York’s nightclub scene. He cast the velvet-voiced singer Harry Belafonte after catching him at the Village Vanguard. Belafonte recalled Anderson as “an effervescent figure, always just in from Paris and making an entrance with two or three theatrical grand dames.” Belafonte remembered getting the call about
Almanac
when the producer announced, “I’ve selected you to be in my revue. That means you’re with the best there is!”
9

Belafonte was the show’s principal male vocalist, while Polly Bergen, who had just begun her ascendancy as both an actress and a singer in film and on television, was the lead female vocalist. As the revue’s singing and dancing couple Anderson cast Carleton Carpenter, who had started his career on Broadway and was at that time enjoying a string of film successes (
Summer Stock
, with Judy Garland, and
Take the High Ground!
, which was opening just as
Almanac
began rehearsals), and Elaine Dunn, who would make a name for herself on television variety shows in the 1950s.

The show also featured a host of future luminaries as singers, dancers, and showgirls (or, as the souvenir book labeled them, “Almanac Beauties”). In the last category audiences got an early glimpse of Tina Louise, who had been in Anderson’s
Two’s Company
and would later appear on Broadway in shows like
Li’l Abner
before taking the role that she would be most identified with: that of glamorous movie star Ginger Grant on the television series
Gilligan’s Island
. In the male chorus Anderson cast Larry Kert, who later originated the role of Tony in
West Side Story
. In the female ensemble there was Kay Medford, who would later play two memorable mothers: Mrs. Peterson in
Bye Bye Birdie
and Mrs. Brice in
Funny Girl
.

And while Anderson was in charge of the show’s spectacular production numbers, it was British actor-director Cyril Ritchard, just a few years away from his turn as Captain Hook opposite Mary Martin’s
Peter Pan
, who staged the non-musical sections of the show, while song-and-dance man Donald Saddler was on hand to choreograph.

Just as he had with the cast, Anderson assembled a first-rate team of writers for
Almanac
. Several sketches came from Jean Kerr (best remembered for penning the essay
Please Don’t Eat the Daisies
, the play
Mary, Mary
, and the book for the musical
Goldilocks
, which she wrote with her husband, theater critic Walter Kerr). Other material came from a trio of writers who had provided material for Gingold’s work in Great Britain.

The bulk of the show’s songs came from a team making its Broadway debut: Richard Adler and Jerry Ross. The men would go on to write two of the most enduring hits from the 1950s:
The Pajama Game
(which opened just five months after
Almanac
) and
Damn Yankees
. But other songwriters also contributed, including Belafonte himself, Sheldon Harnick (future writer of shows like
Fiddler on the Roof
and
She Loves Me
), and the team of Cy Coleman and Joseph A. McCarthy Jr.

For a brief period in preproduction Anderson had toyed with the idea of calling his new show
Harlequinade
, and even though he ultimately reverted to his original
Almanac
conceit, he gave the show the subtitle “A Musical Harlequinade,” perhaps simply so that he could justify the opulent concept he had for the opening, when all of the main company members were introduced as stock commedia dell’arte characters.

From there the revue cascaded into solo sketches for Gingold and De Wolfe, as well as ones that paired them. The other central performers had their own spots. Bean performed monologues, Belafonte was seen in three numbers, Carpenter and Dunn had spots in each act, and Bergen was deployed as a soloist throughout.