Read Online You Fascinate Me So: The Life and Times of Cy Coleman by Andy Propst - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Andy Propst
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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
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
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