Anyone who has ever availed themselves of the Off-Off-Broadway experience in New York City, whether as a performer, a crew member or simply “one of those little people out there in the dark,” will truly sink their literary teeth into Caravan to Oz, a splendid history of one family’s journey into a most exciting period in the American theater in the Big Apple. Anyone who hasn’t ever availed themselves of the Off-Off-Broadway experience in New York City, whether as a performer, a crew member or simply “one of those little people out there in the dark,” will truly sink their literary teeth into the book all the same. And in any case, this two-hundred-and-seventy page tome laden with stunning photography, emerges as a wondrous history lesson even to those not necessarily theater-oriented. To be succinct, it’s nearly impossible to put down once begun reading. The book bears vague similarities to Edie, the smash recounting of Warhol superstar Edie Sedgwick, except that in this case the story is actually told by the subjects in question, along with additional input by such legends of the Off-Off-Broadway scene and the cultural world at large as Tim Robbins, Bob Heide, Robert Patrick, Crystal Field, Mike Figgis, Mark Lancaster, Ritsaert ten Cate, and the late Ellen Stewart.
The caravan begins its initial drive down life’s highway in the Westchester, New York enclave of Bronxville, where actor-writers George Edgerly Harris II (hereafter referred to as George Sr) and his wife Ann launched a family of six eventual children, namely and in order George Edgerly Harris III (hereafter referred to as G3), Walter Michael Harris, Frederic Joseph Harris, Jayne Ann Harris (today Harris-Kelley), Eloise Alice Harris (today Harris-Damone) and Mary Lucille Harris, hereafter referred to as Mary Lou. After the family relocated to Belleaire, a suburb of Clearwater in Florida, and spent several years there in which all six of the children proved themselves extremely adept at both performance and self-producing various extravaganzas, the family once again headed north and took up residence on the Lower East Side, slowly assimilating themselves into the world of Off-Off-Broadway which had already begun coming into its own ten or more years earlier with the advent of LaMaMa Experimental Theater Company, the Living Theater, and the Caffe Cino. By the late 1960s, Walter Michael (not merely an actor-singer but a very impressive and self-taught musician) had established himself as the youngest original cast member of the hit musical Hair on Broadway, while George Sr took a role in The Great White Hope and subsequently took the show on the road, and mother Ann assumed a featured part in the classic horror film The Honeymoon Killers, alongside Shirley Stoler and Tony LoBianco. G3, meanwhile, trotted off to San Francisco to find his own path and, aside from being reportedly the first person to stick flowers into the gun barrels of the police during the Summer of Love in Haight-Ashbury while living on a commune, also began exploring drag artistry under the name Hibiscus as a founding member of the pioneering troupe The Cockettes. Upon his self-imposed termination in Hair, Walter Michael also ventured to Northern California to join his big brother but opted for a more spiritual path, ultimately becoming a monk of the Holy Order of MANS (although he did eventually return to the theatrical fold after a fashion). Once reborn as the theater company The Angels of Light, the girls of the family along with their mother settled into a happy existence as literally the First Family of Off-Off-Broadway besides appearances on a triumphant tour of several European countries.
The story also has some disturbing twists and turns. Hibiscus ended up as one of the earliest-known victims to succumb to the AIDS crisis. It’s also notable that brother Fred offers no input to the book whatsoever, leaving a reader wondering exactly what his side to the story might be. The Harris Sisters, however, continued to find fame as a trio within the cabaret club spectrum during the 1980s and 1990s (occasionally making appearances with the renowned downtown actor-singer Bobby Reed), and the entire book is interlaced with lyrics written by mother Ann for such shows as The Sheep and the Cheapskate, There Is Method In Their Madness, and Sky High. It’s almost a little too much to take in upon just one reading, to realize exactly how incredible this superb family of eight managed to accomplish in one lifetime together. But by the last page, one can’t help but feel a sense of peace, as well as the hope that anything in life is truly possible given the right brand of dedication and talent.
Caravan to Oz is available by ordering here. Do yourselves a favor and grab a copy.
The first time I even heard the name Julie Wilson, I was twelve. I’d begun saving my allowance every month to make a trip to the old Disc-O-Mat record store in the city on 58th and 3rd because they sold Broadway albums for $3.99 apiece, so I’d buy three or four at a time. One of the first was Gypsy, and the liner notes explained that countless tours of the show had also starred such women as Mary McCarty (of whom I knew because I was a big fan of the TV show “Trapper John MD,” and I had no idea she was also a singer) and Julie Wilson, who I’d never heard of at all. So I just sort of put her name on a back burner and figured I’d get around to her eventually. I had a lot of learning to do, after all.
A few years later, in my late teens and when I started getting into cabaret proper, was when I really started learning exactly who Julie Wilson was and what she meant within entertainment circles. From what I could gather aside from her sensational facial beauty and perfect physique, she’d been somewhat of a big Broadway star and did a few movies, married a big Broadway producer named Michael McAloney and had two sons with him, went through a messy divorce, and all the while maintained a career as a major cabaret star at clubs like La Maisonette and The Persian Room. And was particularly known for wearing her hair in a beautifully-coiffed chignon with a gardenia attached over her left ear, much like Billie Holiday. Nice. But by the time I came along, apparently her voice wasn’t nearly what it had been in her heyday, and what she relied on most was talk-singing her way through the songs and managing to still thoroughly communicate the essence of the lyrics. By that point I’d still never seen her on stage, although I heard a few albums and honestly couldn’t figure out what the big deal was. That, clearly, was the naivete of a precocious seventeen-year-old who believes they know everything.
In 1990, I got my very first job as an entertainment journalist, for a magazine called Night & Day. And my debut assignment was covering the MAC Awards, which at that time was presented at Symphony Space. Receiving the Henry Luhrman Memorial Award that year just happened to be Julie Wilson. I didn’t know Hank (Henry) at all, he was before my time and had just died of AIDS sometime shortly prior. But in the course of her speech she revealed that she’d been in semi-retirement out of town and that it was Hank and his longtime partner Hilary Knight (best known for illustrating the “Eloise” series of children’s books) who had convinced her to come back to NYC and start over. Well, she started over but good; she got booked at the Carlyle and stayed three weeks. Bear in mind that up to this point I’d still never seen her perform on stage.
Well, I guess my coverage of the MAC Awards must have been pretty good, because three days later they had me sauntering off to the Ballroom to review Peggy Lee. Which was excellent. Then to the Duplex to review Judy Carne’s comeback show. Which wasn’t so excellent. Then I got wind of the fact that Mollie Taylor Martin (no relation to me) would be doing a show at Don’t Tell Mama that weekend, so I asked my editor John Hammond for clearance and he said yes. Mollie and I had done summer stock together on the Bucks County/Pocono/etc circuit in ’86. You can imagine my surprise walking into the club and literally smack into Julie, looking very beautiful with her chignon but no makeup and no gardenia and ordinary street clothes. She smiled at me, and I said, “Oh! Miss Wilson! Congratulations on the award the other night!” and kissed her hand. She said, “Well, aren’t you a gentleman! Although you look about twelve. What’s your name?” I said, “It’s Andrew Martin, but you wouldn’t know me.” She said, “Oh, but I do! You’re that new young man who writes the reviews. Are you reviewing our Mollie?” I said, “Well, yes. What brings you to see Mollie?” She said, “I dated her uncle for a time. Have you seen her perform?” I said yes, she and I had done summer stock together. Julie took my arm and said, “Well, then we have to sit together and you tell me all about yourself!” and steered me into the room to a table. But I didn’t tell her all about myself, because she did all the talking. She talked about how her older son (Mike) was planning to move into his first apartment on his own but she wouldn’t let him because it had no refrigerator, and how her younger son (Holt) was trying very hard to have an acting career and make a living, and the whole thing was frankly dizzying. So that was really the beginning of the beginning. We became friends and always had a wonderful time talking together. But she wasn’t like this “mega-star Julie Wilson person,” she was just Julie. And she was fabulous.
A couple of years later, at someone’s show at Eighty Eights (I can’t remember whose, I apologize), I brought my mother as my date (which I was wont to do when she was still mobile, because she loved going out to shows in the city). And Julie happened to be at the show, so we all had a drink downstairs afterwards. The meeting between Julie and my mom went off like a Roman candle. As many know, my mom was on TV a lot when she was a kid, so she and my grandmother were always running to coffee shops for snacks and stuff in between shoots, and there was this one day when they stopped in at (I think) Child’s around the corner from the Roxy. And of course Julie worked at the Roxy as one of the showgirls. My mom told Julie, “You know, this one day when I was eight or nine, you stopped in at the coffee shop around the corner from the Roxy and ordered a coffee to go. And I told my mother, ‘Mommy, I think that’s the most beautiful girl I ever saw in my whole life.'” Julie, of course, dissolved in peals of laughter when she heard my mother tell her this. So then, of course, THEY became great friends. In a lot of ways, Julie was like a second mother to me in that respect; if the three of us were hanging out at a show together and I said something to my mom in a snappy tone, Julie would say, “Andrew, don’t TALK to your mother that way!” and my mother would say, “Yes, you LISTEN to Julie!” So it was a lose-lose for me, but it was brilliant.
I was on my hiatus from cabaret during my marriage, we’re talking between 2001 and 2008, so other than occasionally attending a show if I had to cover something for New England Entertainment Digest or a similar publication, I really sort of kept my nose out of it. But I did know that Julie suffered her first stroke at that time. I didn’t see her again until the autumn of ’08 when I came back onto the scene, and even though she walked and spoke more slowly and seemed a bit feeble, she was the same old Julie when I ran into at Joan Crowe’s show at Metropolitan Room. And it was NOT like having to talk to an old lady who’d lost her marbles; she’d have suffered none of that gladly. Her first words when she saw me (even if a bit slurred) were, “Andrew, where’ve you been and how’s your mother?” God bless her.
She did a brand-new show in ’09 at the Met Room, and by then she couldn’t sing anymore at all; she performed the songs more or less as monologues. But even that was unequivocally brilliant and the utter essence of cabaret communication. I brought my cherished friend Alice Kane with me, and we had the most marvelous evening, slurping down Grasshoppers and watching Julie. Her eleven o’clock number, as I recall, was Brecht/Weill’s “Surabaya Johnny,” and by the time she got to the end of the final verse, screaming, “TAKE THAT PIPE OUTTA YOUR MOUTH, YOU RAT!!!” we were all absolutely mesmerized. THAT was Julie as only Julie could be on a stage, musicality or not.
The very last time we got to speak was (I believe) at the ’13 MAC Awards. The afterparty, specifically. I don’t know what prompted me to bring it up, but I asked if she knew that my then-husband and I had seen “Below,” a thriller that just happened to star her son Holt as the captain of a doomed submarine (my ex was crazy about submarines, don’t ask). She smiled and said, “You know, Holt brought me to the premiere. They treated me like a queen, which was very nice, and then the movie started. And it wasn’t very good. And then came THAT SCENE. You know the one, where he’s in the shower.” (There’s a scene where Holt is in the shower, fully naked from the back. Which for me was the best part of the movie, but I digress). She continued, “I was horrified. The lights finally came up when it was over, I slapped him on the arm and said, DON’T YOU EVER DO ANOTHER MOVIE WHERE EVERYBODY GETS TO SEE YOUR TUSHIE!!!”
Oh, my darling Julie. I can’t believe you’re gone today. Go with God, my sweet gardenia-bird.
I’m writing this piece in the first person, which many know I’m not usually wont to do. It simply isn’t my way as a journalist, because I was taught that the best way to express reportage was to keep oneself out of it completely, other than being the mechanism that moves the narrative along on its literary way. But this time around, I have no choice. As many know, in the late fall of 2011, I saw the publication of my first book, All for the Best: How Godspell Transferred From Stage to Screen. Surprisingly, or perhaps unsurprisingly, this was borne from an article I wrote here on The Andrew Martin Report earlier that year. At the same time, an author named Carol de Giere was also very hard at work on a book of her own, entitled The Godspell Story: Inside a Transformative Musical (presented by Scene 1 Publishing) which, unlike mine, covered not merely the way the book transferred from a stage musical that began as a college play and became a worldwide cultural phenomenon before a cult film, but every possible aspect of the show from its earliest germination to how it’s viewed today. De Giere, it should be noted, is quite possibly the globe’s greatest expert on the work and life of composer/lyricist Stephen Schwartz (her previous book, Defying Gravity, is also a masterfully academic glimpse into the career of this wonderful creator of musical theater for Broadway and beyond). And as such, besides including Schwartz to supply an in-depth Foreword, she has, through almost-unfathomable research, managed to create a tome that could best be described, pardon the pun, as the definitive Bible of the entire Godspell journey. I should note that I was among those persons singularly honored to be interviewed by de Giere for her project and I’m thrilled to have my book listed in the Bibliography as a resource. But this is, for me, small potatoes compared to the privilege of reading the book and soaking up such voluminous knowledge, to which I and so many others were so previously unexposed. Reporting from the very first nanosecond of the show’s development by John-Michael Tebelak in 1970, de Giere wondrously illustrates Godspell‘s conception and the winding path it took from Carnegie-Mellon University to Cafe LaMaMa to the Cherry Lane Theater to a planetary success which continues to this day. She has left absolutely no stone unturned, not merely by dint of her in-depth interviews with members of the original company and the creative team (including profiles of those who’ve since left us, including the late great Lynne Thigpen). But this doesn’t even begin to describe what the book delivers, namely an entire and oft-staggering treatise which at times can leave the reader gasping for air. DeGiere’s attention to detail is overwhelming, and whether the reader is a newcomer to the show’s flock of die-hard fans or a longtime member of same, it all transpires to be most brilliantly educational. In point of fact, Carol de Giere and The Godspell Experience are but two of all good gifts around us, sent from heaven above. So thank the Lord. Thank the Lord for all his love. And purchase a copy!
Bobby Banas (left) in “Let’s Make Love, alongside Marilyn Monroe
A certain clip on YouTube recently went extremely viral on the Internet, showing a sextette of dancers in 1964 on Judy Garland’s weekly CBS Sunday night program engaging in an energetic routine to the novelty song “The Nitty Gritty,” as voiced by Shirley Ellis (also well-known for her recording of “The Name Game”). Featured front and center was a young male dancer, whose dark hair and black button eyes made him an immediate standout, aside from his impeccable rhythm and the fact that he was tearing into it like his last meal. His name turns out to be Bobby Banas, and besides how brilliant he was in that particular performance, before and after that he’d already made featured appearances in such films as West Side Story, The Unsinkable Molly Brown and as one of the chimney sweeps in Mary Poppins, besides being known as the boy who kissed Marilyn Monroe in Let’s Make Love and a plethora of television appearances, which included a famous episode of Get Smart! He’d also made his first initial click in Peter Pan on Broadway with Mary Martin and the subsequent television version on NBC. Banas later became a much-desired choreographer as well as dance teacher in the Los Angeles area, and counted numerous notable names among his students. He’s mostly retired now from the world of terpsichore, but occupies his time as a Rosarian (an expert on rose blossoms). And The Andrew Martin Report couldn’t be more thrilled that the gentleman, now in his very early eighties, found the time to grant us an interview.
ANDREW MARTIN: When you were growing up, did you always know you wanted to be a dancer? Or was it simply that you started in dance classes in any way reluctantly and eventually people came to see that you had a genuine talent for it? Where did the passion for it really begin?
BOBBY BANAS: I must say that I didn’t know I wanted to be a dancer at that time. It wasn’t until 1941, when the war broke out. Both my parents decided to take jobs, and since they were both from Pennsylvania, my dad became a Military Chief Inspector for the steel mills in McKeesport while mom became a propeller inspector for Curtis Wright in Erie. They were wondering about what was to become of my sister and I, of course. Well, it so happened that our grandmother, dad’s mother, was widowed and lived on a small farm in Windber. Dad thought he could help his mother financially and that it would be a great place for us to grow up, and he and mom visited twice a month. And there was a dancing school in town. So on one of dad’s visits, he went to look it over and to see if Sis and I could take dance lessons. Well, that was the beginning. The teacher’s name was Agnes Shontz, and she taught just about everything; ballet, jazz, tap, acrobatics and ballroom. I guess she thought Sis and I would be a miniature version of Fred and Ginger. So Sis wore a beautiful pink gown, and I a black tuxedo, and we danced to Strauss waltzes at parties, weddings and recitals. It was fun. And as we got better at it, she taught us some lifts and spins. At the same time, my grandmother was a heavy churchgoer and she was Russian Orthodox, so we were obliged to go. I eventually became an altar boy for four years and thought of priesthood. But on Saturday evenings, the church had social gatherings at the church hall, and I was blown away when all of a sudden the music would get loud with accordions and violins and balalaikas. The crowd would start to chant when a couple of dancers headed for the room, flip-flopping, knee-spinning, jump-splits and coffee-grinders. I started jumping up and down and couldn’t stand still, because I wanted to join in. It seemed like every clan in Russia was there doing a ritual dance. When the last group finished, everyone in the room grabbed a partner and it was polka time. One Sunday on our way to church, as my Sis and I were walking through town, I heard this unbelievable sound of voices and hand-clapping. I stopped, and it was a storefront with painted windows, so you couldn’t see inside. Once again it was though I was struck by lightning. Here were these voices intoning, “Bless me, O Lord, Hallelujah!” in an infectious pounding rhythm, and my body responded as though someone had taken control of my limbs. I started to dance spontaneously. My sister was saying “Robert, we’re going to be late for church!” and I barely heard her. But I turned and reluctantly headed in her direction.
AM: I understand that your first real dance job on Broadway was in the chorus of Peter Pan at quite a young age. What was that experience like and what were the standout moments? Conversely, how did it differ from doing the television version later?
BB: Well, first you have to understand what led up to that. After the war ended, Dad headed to LA to search for a brother of his. He didn’t have luck tracking him down, but he fell in love with the weather and sent for all of us. Sis and I started dance lessons again, but she became interested in boys and completely lost interest in dance. I continued on, got a scholarship with the Michael Panaieff ballet school and also a scholarship to Hollywood Professional School. I was going to continue theater and dance at UCLA when I graduated, but I attended an audition for Carousel at the LA Civic Light Opera and got cast as Enoch Snow Jr. Then Kiss Me Kate, Annie Get Your Gun, Brigadoon, Plain and Fancy, and then Peter Pan. Which went to Broadway, and I loved being on Broadway. We played at the Winter Garden for six months, and then Mary Martin got tired, so we closed and did the TV version. But it could only be shown once, as NBC couldn’t get the rights to re-broadcast it at the time. They did eventually, though, and it still gets shown, which makes me happy.
AM: You did so many films as a dancer at the beginning of your career for which you were uncredited. Do you resent that at all? Or was it just sort of, “all in a day’s work?”
BB: Well, I started in film and television in the 1950s, where first I did a lot of rock’n’roll movies for the producer Sam Katzman. As far as TV, I did Danny Kaye’s show, Dinah Shore’s show, Milton Berle’s show, “Hollywood Palace,” and “Hullabaloo” later, and then even later I was on a special with Lindsay Wagner and a bunch of others. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. I worked all the time. And yes, it was unfortunate to sometimes not be credited. But I will say, Steven Spielberg always went out of his way to credit everybody. I was in both “Hook” and “Always,” and he was very generous about giving credit. At the time I was starting out, getting credit didn’t really matter to me. All I wanted to do was dance. But looking back on it now? Sure, I should have been credited. We all deserved it.
AM: Can you describe what the experience was like of making West Side Story? How did you feel when it won the Oscar that year?
BB: West Side Story was a big boost to the cast members. Having worked with Jerome Robbins twice before, in both Peter Pan and the film version of The King and I, I felt confident that I had a good chance of getting the job. But when I saw a lot of unfamiliar faces at the casting call, I figured he’d brought all of his Broadway cast members and this was a publicity stunt. After getting five auditions and getting picked with some other local guys, I was proven wrong about that. Up until the awards came out, I thought it was just another musical. Boy, was I wrong. All the doors started to open when you said you’d been in West Side Story. I was getting jobs right and left, and that’s when I started to choreograph and teach.
AM: What was it like to work with Marilyn Monroe on Let’s Make Love, and did her death have a profound effect on you?
BB: Working with Marilyn Monroe was a dream. But to be choreographed to kiss her, at the end of the dance number…oh, I thought my heart would explode. What was so funny was, during the end of the dance number, she grabbed me and Alex by the hair before she was to swing around one of the poles. Well, I had a lot of pomade in my hair, and after grabbing it she flew around the pole and lost her balance. She turned to the director and said, “I think someone has too much grease in his hair.” OOPS! So they sent me to makeup to wash my hair. I returned, and the number began again. Now the end was approaching, and I was supposed to kiss her, so I hit her lips with mine but slid across her face. So I turned to the director and said in a low voice, “I think someone has too much grease on her face.” To which they both laughed. Of course it was sad to learn of her death. I felt the same when I learned about Natalie Wood. Both had unusual circumstances and questionable facts about the truth.
AM: Can you describe what the process was like of making Mary Poppins?
BB:Mary Poppins was a delight to work on. All of us sweeps were hired on a higher rate for the stunt-like dancing we were to be doing. DeeDee Woods and Marc Breaux were so nice to everyone, it was more like a family and made everyone feel at ease. I also worked with DeeDee on Li’l Abner and she was a gem there also. It was a lot of fun, with a lot of very energetic dancing originally choreographed by Michael Kidd.
AM: Do you have any one film performance of yours that you’d consider your very favorite of all?
BB: I guess I’d have to say working with Marilyn Monroe. I became the envy of all the other male dancers because of the kiss. but it was a great experience to work with Jack Cole, who gave me a lot of strength and posture to better my dance technique.
AM: Is it at all surprising that the clip of “The Nitty Gritty” from the Judy Garland show has gone so viral recently? What do you remember most about doing that show? And was that your choreography?
BB: I can’t BELIEVE what has happened with the “Nitty Gritty” clip. Several years ago a friend said he had a copy that he found somewhere. He gave me one, I looked at it and put it away. I didn’t think it was anything to get that excited about, and that was that. Then I guess someone else found a copy, and posted it on YouTube. Then someone else posted it on Facebook and the sh*t hit the fan. I was getting e-mail and calls, and questions about who was which dancer besides me, and all types of remarks wanting to know what type of dance it was. Yes, it was my choreography and my own interpretation of the song. Peter Gennaro was the choreographer for Garland, but he had to go to New York that week for some reason and his assistant didn’t have any idea what to do with the tune, so the director asked me to come up with a dance and that was the result.
AM: I’m told that when you were teaching, one of your students (who adores you) was my pal Tracy Nelson. What other notable students have you had, and what do or did you enjoy most about teaching?
BB: I just started to teach and I enjoyed it so much. I started the Bob Banas Musical Dance Company, with young kids and older ones. We performed at City of Hope, the World Martial Arts Competition at the Sports Arena, Rug Concerts, the Hollywood Press Club, the opening of shopping centers, and so many other venues. I’ve done lectures at different universities, I taught at the Dick Grove School of Music, and I’ve done a lot of work with disabled children. Some other students I’ve had were Cher, Barbara Hershey, Susan Clark, John Travolta, BarBara Luna, Charmian Carr and Bruce Lee, to name a few. Teaching is like giving back, helping and encouraging those who wanted the thrill of performing on stage with music and lights before a live audience. Some had the talent to pursue further, but for some reason had other dreams. But they took with them the great experience of having done it. And there were a few that went on to become professionals.
AM: Obviously the world of theater-dance had lost a lot of wonderful people in the last thirty years. Who of your contemporaries do you miss the most? And who do you still treasure most as friends?
BB: It’s so hard to name those dancers I worshiped most. I always thought Gene Kelly was great, but never had the chance to work with him. I did get to work with Bob Fosse and loved his work, Jack Cole had a great style, and I loved studying ballet with Michael Panaieff.
AM: What is an average day like for the Bobby Banas of today?
BB: Well, I’m a professional Rosarian now, taking care of people’s roses. One of my clients is Debbie Reynolds, with whom I’ve been privileged to work on the movies Say One for Me and How the West Was Won besides The Unskinable Molly Brown. Usually I’m up at 5 AM to start with a client in Malibu, then off to Westwood, Beverly Hills and Studio City. My busiest time is just after New Year’s, when I get to prune all the roses back and prepare them for dormancy. Then in spring I get to revive them and prepare for the first bloom. I’m always at a nursery buying supplies, and checking out the new rose additions for the coming year.
AM: What advice would you offer to the average young man of today, no matter how talented or not, who wanted to try to make it as a dancer?
BB: To become a dancer today, I must say, is totally different from when I started out. Hip-hop and acrobatic tumbling seems to dominate the dance scene now. The show “Glee” kind of represents the old style along with some hip-hop, but they add vocals to make everybody a triple threat. It does represent Broadway and in musicals in film and television, but in my day I had to study ballet, tap, ballroom, primitive, modern, acting and jazz. Now, it seems, if you can throw a back-handspring or a few coffee-grinders, you can call yourself a specialty dancer. Granted, any precision group dancing can be as effective as well as someone who spins on his head. Break dancing and hip-hop qualify as effective, of course. But I’d rather see West Side Story, Carousel, The Unsinkable Molly Brown and Mary Poppins.
It was an unusually-warm Wednesday night in April of 1990 when your humble reporter stumbled into the now-defunct Broadway Baby, a wonderful piano bar on Amsterdam Avenue between 79th and 80th Streets on the Upper West Side, and met singer Marieann Meringolo for the first time. There was already scuttlebutt about her; she was known for having the potential to become the likes of another Jane Olivor for her incredible vocal precision and carriage on a stage. Like the aforementioned, she wasn’t exactly the prettiest peach on the tree (although undeniably glamorous) and in fact was quite aloof and somewhat mistrustful of someone she’d just met for the first time. But when she sang…oh, when she sang…she transformed instantly into a Botticelli angel. It was a mere two seasons later that she had a bonafide cabaret hit on her hands with the brilliant Wonderful, Wonderful: The Songs of Johnny Mathis in New York City besides Fire Island and beyond, and has since gone on to phenomenal glory in the arena whether at Feinstein’s with a wonderful evening of the music of Michel Legrand, or her Ladies tribute concert honoring the ouevres of such giants as Streisand and Warwick. However, it is with her most recent offering, Orchestrated!, which features her alongside a seven-piece band replete with lush ornamentation including a full section of brass, that the lady has completely come into her own as a major cabaret star with which to be reckoned. In point of fact, if this show doesn’t cement her success and elevate her to the stardom previously achieved by someone along the lines of the late Nancy LaMott or Eva Cassidy, there is simply no justice in this world. Yes, it’s THAT good.
It should be noted right off the bat that the majority of Meringolo’s selections mostly comprises material she’s done in previous shows, which (as she explains, are being done because while she’s been making her most-recent living as a headliner on cruise ships, are showcased with a full orchestra in tow, and she wanted to bring the beauty of the sound to the cabaret world) are really not the sort of catalog that others might choose to bring to a new cabaret act. This, however, is no obstacle to the miraculous Meringolo; it’s material that might otherwise crumble in the hands of a lesser-accomplished artist and yet somehow she’s owning every moment. In the more-than-capable sight of musical director Doyle Newmyer, she manages to take such songs as “Thou Swell,” “The Windmills of Your Mind,” “Fever” and “I’m a Woman” and transform them instantly into personal anthems. And a favorite old standby of hers, “Italian Menu,” is rendered into genius. More than this is her tribute to Dionne Warwick in a medley of no less than eight songs by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, and a tribute to Streisand that features a coupling of “Where Is It Written?” and “I’m the Greatest Star.” And Meringolo does include new music, notably two tunes by Marsha Malamet, “Crazy Love” and “I Am Blessed.” In point of fact, she couldn’t possibly have gotten any single element of the show more pointedly correct. It was certainly no secret in the nightlife world that she was already on a path to greatness, but Meringolo now possesses a maturity previously unwitnessed, not to mention an ability for sustaining an important note in a song, that trumps every possible ace .
And then there’s the band. Oh, goodness, where to begin? Aside from the aforementioned Newmyer, she’s got the legendary John Loehrke on bass, the brilliantly-animated Ayodele Maakheru on guitar, Sipho Kunene doing a wonderful job on percussion, Richie Vitale blowing on the trumpet, Jonathan Kantor on alto sax (who is REALLY outstanding), and the terrific Charlie Gordon on the trombone. The fact that JP Perreaux is loaning his eye to technical direction is merely the icing on the cake.
Marieann Meringolo and Orchestrated! will return to the Metropolitan Room, 34 West 22nd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, on Friday, August 2nd at 7 PM for one night only. Run. Do not walk. And run QUICKLY!!!
(Note: this piece was originally published in my monthly publication, CaB Magazine, on October 1st, 1992. It recently resurfaced on the Internet and I thought it was appropriate to post here for posterity).
Comic actress Judy Graubart still laughs about being married to Bob Dishy. “It only took us twenty years to do it!” being that the two began their relationship when both were members of Second City over twenty-five years ago. Now, six years later, the two are enjoying happiness both from each other’s company and the arrival of their son, Sam. Graubart, however, has much else to be happy about.
Growing up in Chicago as a rabbi’s daughter, Graubart began her initial performance path in after-school improvisational classes and programs from age five. “It was great for me,” she says over coffee at City Bakery. “I was an overweight kid and extremely nearsighted, and being insecure about all of that, so being involved in these little acting groups just pulled me out of that. It allowed me to think I was funny, and…I just loved being a part of dramatic activities.”
She honed her skills further at sleepaway camps following the death of Rabbi Graubart when Judy was eight, but didn’t get serious about performing until her attendance at the University of Chicago. “I did some productions in college, which were fine,” she says, “but my real break came because of a boyfriend I had, who was good friends with David Steinberg, and he was with Second City at the time. And so I began working as sort of the everything-girl at the club itself. I was a bouncer, I did my share of cocktail waitressing with my share of spills and no tips until finally I really knew the show, and they needed someone to be “the woman” one night; Second City was generally five or six guys and one or two women. So I stepped in and became the Man Who Came To Dinner. I just stayed. And before I was done with school, Second City did a United States tour through the Theater Guild, so I guess the rest is theater history. I’d been planning to be a French teacher, since my major was Romance Languages, but I wound up doing all of this instead. And I love doing improvisation. It’s not easy to do well; I think the ability to improvise successfully is there if actors are willing to relax and use it, but it can be hard to do a scene with somebody if they aren’t skilled in it. There were guys I had to work with who would just butcher what we were doing, and then I remember working with someone like Peter Boyle, who was TERRIFIC. I kept think that working with Peter was like talking with someone from your hometown; someone with whom you just speak a common language.”
The tour ended in New York, and Graubart transplanted herself here along with other members of the company. And distinguished company it was; Robert Klein and Fred Willard were in the company with Judy back in the Windy City, along with the aforementioned Steinberg, and the tour also featured Avery Schreiber and Jack Burns. Following other club dates with members of the company and Second City’s Broadway presentation in the early 60s, Graubart landed an audition and a job at Upstairs-at-the-Downstairs. “I had no money at the time, and I still owe Rod Warren for a sweater he loaned me some cash for,” she laughs. She stayed at the club for a year-and-a-half. “It was unusual for me at the beginning; you know, Second City was revues and this was revues, but Second City was improvised and these shows were scripted. What’s funniest to me is that I don’t remember doing the shows as much as I remember hanging out with Madeline Kahn and Janie Sell, and Dixie Carter and Lily Tomlin, hiding in the kitchen from the AGVA man, and going to the movies between shows, and having fried-egg sandwiches at the Warwick drugstore counter. It was a great time.”
Several plays and commercials continued to put bread and butter on Graubart’s table for a time, she was even a commercial spokeswoman for Cheer detergent. “I got so much mileage out of that,” she tells me. “It was just a bunch of spots of this character seeing how white she could get her clothes with Cheer. And it wasn’t just in the States; I’d gone to Germany to do some spots in German. Actually, it was about that time that Second City went to do a show in London, so I felt pretty international. I did some traveling around that time, France, and Israel. I thought I should cleanse my little Jewish soul after working for Cheer in Munich,” she laughs again. “Do you know, when I was having our son in 1986, I was trying to do some of those hokey Lamaze exercises, where they ask you to recite a mantra. Well, somewhere from the depths of my memory came the Cheer commercial I’d done in German. I started reciting “Cheer, it will get your clothes white as a ghost,” in German.”
Graubart managed to keep the bill collectors from the door and satisfy her artistic self, including the television version of Paul Sills’s “Story Theater,” shot in Canada with a cast of such Second City alums as Richard Libertini, Melinda Dillon, Dick Shawn and Valerie Harper, and then one day came the opportunity to audition for the new children’s educational program “The Electric Company,” produced by the Children’s Television Workshop. She landed the job and would stay with the show for its full seven-year run through 1978, creating characters that would delight children all over the country. “It was such a wonderful feeling to land a show as a regular, a show that was doing some good instead of just being a sitcom or something.” Again she was in illustrious company; Bill Cosby was a regular for the first two seasons, Rita Moreno would be with the show for some time, and other cast members included Todd Graff, Skip Hinnant, Luis Avalos, Hattie Winston, Lee Chamberlin, Melanie Henderson, June Angela, Gregg Burge, Irene Cara, and then-virtually-unknown Morgan Freeman. “It was marvelous that they welded together this group of different ethnic types and different energy levels. I guess I was the low-energy person in the family, except when I was doing a character like Jennifer of the Jungle, swinging on the vine and doing my “Oyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoy” yell.”
And she still tries to see fellow cast members when she can. “I run into Skip and Lee and Hattie all the time, and my husband Bob is going into a film being written by Todd Graff (“Used People”). Luis is hard to track down, because every time I’m on the Coast I try to call him and there are a zillion Luis Avalos-es in Southern California, but one day I’ll hit the right one. And as for Morgan, it’s been fantastic watching him achieve what he’s achieved. It’s a pity that he seems to have a sore spot about doing the show, but I think he’s just so lovable. I remember we used to have these workshops, sketch development workshops, where we had to do a lot of improv-inspired exercises which I was used to, having done all of that stuff with Second City. And I remember Morgan just not having any of it; just going “I’ve worked this hard as an actor to get here, just so I could play children’s games with a bunch of adults?” And the other thing I remember is that Morgan and I used to have crossword-puzzle races. It was great. We were a family, really; we spent a lot of time together off-camera.”
Following her stint, she co-starred with Alan Arkin in the cult-comedy/sci-fi film “Simon.” “A great experience and a very funny film, but way ahead of its time,” Graubart tells me. “If it’s finding an audience now on Comedy Central, that’s terrific. I had a ball making the film.” Other than the odd commercial and voice-over, Graubart has spent the last few years concentrating on being Mrs. Bob Dishy and the mother of six-year-old Sam. Is there ever conflict between the couple, being that Dishy is a slightly more recognizable name than his wife? “I don’t think so,” she muses. “Truthfully, I’d have to think about it…no, I don’t think there is. Although he always told me there was,” she laughs. “I’m always so happy when Bob lands a project that there really isn’t room to feel anything else about it. But there’ve been times when projects would pop up that he’d initiate, or I’d initiate, and I’d want to do them with him, and he’d just look at me and say, “Judy, we are NOT the Lunts!” Which, like any good Jewish girl, would send me to bed for a week, but…no, seriously, we don’t compete. We’re actors seeking work, and there’s a tremendous support system there.”
Now that Sam is firmly ensconced in school, Graubart is actively beginning to seek work again. In fact, a very promising project is lurking around the corner even as you read this. “There’s a series of children’s books out now, called “The Magic Schoolbus,”which star a character named Mrs. Frizzle. She’s a schoolteacher who wears kind of funny clothes and weird shoes; her shoes are sculpted like animals, elephants with trunks and such. They’re wonderful books, and they’ve been gaining popularity. Anyway, they’re trying to develop a tape to go with the books, and as we speak, it looks like I’m Mrs. Frizzle. I don’t know that anything’s going to come of it because I never count chickens, but we’ve recorded it, and it’s probably in the mixing process now, and…we’ll see. Actually,” she continues, “I was telling Sam’s teacher that I was going to be Mrs. Frizzle, and she looked at me really sadly. She said, “But you CAN’T be Mrs. Frizzle! I’M Mrs. Frizzle! Look at my shoes!!” Poor thing, I hope she’s not too depressed. Anyway, I promised myself that no matter what happens, by the end of the year I was going to start looking for work seriously again, so keep an eye out.”
We promise. In any case, whether she’s Judy Graubart, Mrs. Dishy, Sam’s mother or Mrs. Frizzle, she is a consummate delight…and as one of the performers New York has missed so much in recent years, it’ll be nice to see her become the apple of the city’s eye again.
When Grease first opened Off-Broadway at the Eden Theater on February 14th, 1972, barely anybody including its stars (headed by an unknown fellow named Barry Bostwick and a gal named Carole Demas, besides a couple of ladies by the names of Adrienne Barbeau and Ilene Kristen, and a chap named Alan Paul) remotely imagined that that the show would not only saunter to Broadway, but by 1980 become the single longest-running show in the history of New York when it displaced Fiddler on the Roof. It has since retained distinction as the fourteenth-longest-running Broadway show of all time. The show has had two very successful revivals since then, in 1994 and 2007 respectively, not to mention the mega-smash film version that was the undisputed hit of the summer of 1978, starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. And among the other legendary talents to be borne from the show was a very robust young lady by the name of Kathi Moss, who memorably created the role of Cha-Cha Di Gregorio and managed to virtually walk off with the entire second act of the show when she steals Danny Zuko (Bostwick) from Sandy Dumbrowski (Demas) and wins the high school dance competition as televised live.
If her work in Grease hadn’t already cemented Moss loudly and clearly as a Broadway legend, she won the chance to prove it all over again in Nine in 1982, directed by Tommy Tune and which would go on to win a Tony for Best Musical (in the season in which Dreamgirls was heavily lauded to sweep the entire shootin’ match). She spent most of the first act dressed as a nun in full habit, singing backups in her rich female tenor, and then almost disrobe completely to embody the role of the whore Saraghina on the songs “Ti Voglio Bene” and “Be Italian” with a chorus of four young boys. It not only stunned the audience at every performance, but Moss made theater history when she and the kids performed it on the Tony Awards in 1983, tambourines in tow.
Other than a brief turn in Grand Hotel in the early 90s, Moss didn’t return to Broadway again but stayed busy in regional theater, and kept her friends close, among them your humble reporter. She once said, “Nobody will ever know how hot it was to wear that nun’s habit night after night under those goddamned lights . Whenever I got to remove that wimple and that tunic and finally feel the cool breeze through the lace shorts, I was the happiest woman on Broadway.” And then she fell into blissful marriage with her husband Tom Quinn, who she loved more than life itself.
Which is why it was so awful, just a mere matter of weeks ago, to learn that she’d fallen victim to a fatal blood disorder known as cardiac amyloidosis. Her families from Grease and Nine rallied together to put together a benefit concert at the Signature Theater on January 14th to help with the costs of the illness, but Kathi shuffled off her mortal coil just a few days later, peacefully and painlessly and in the arms of her cherished Tom. As it rightfully should have been. And once again, her families from both shows gathered to share their memories with The Andrew Martin Report.
Alaina Warren Zachary, who created the role of Ilsa von Hesse in Nine, was one of the rare few who worked with Moss in both shows. “Of the Grease experience,” she says, “Pat Birch will corroborate that Kathi was an amazing dancer, for a large woman. For this reason, she was made the official dance captain of the show. She traveled to London and other places, to teach the original Pat Birch choreography to many Grease companies. In the program, and according to the union, Kathi was listed as Dance Captain. BUT in typical Kathi style, she insisted on being called the Dance Queen. So you will find that listing in our programs. But wait, there’s more; Kathi, being Kathi, wanted more than the acknowledgement of Dance Queen. She also requested a tiara. Probably both Pat Birch and Louis St. Louis can back me up on this. And if memory serves, she was presented with a tiara. Kathi had her own expressions, as any one who knew her well can tell you. One that lingers (and it usually referred to timing for a step or who knows what all) was “block-a, block-a block-a.” She, so fond of telling stories, was the first person I ever heard who said “long story short.” And one of my favorite facial expressions was when Kathi would close one eye and look at you. Outside of our onstage/backstage times in Grease and Nine. I was the person who recommended her to Tommy Tune, when we learned the Saraghina from the workshop would not be continuing on to Broadway with us. So Kathi auditioned and became the Broadway Saraghina. But she never shared the royalties that the workshop folks received. As I was saying, outside of our Broadway adventures, we played together as girlfriends. Kathi had a car and I was starting to think about buying a weekend place in the Hudson Valley, so Kathi decided we’d take a drive and look at real estate upstate. Probably the year was 1983 by then. I remember we stopped at a little antique shop in Cold Spring, where I found a lovely simple gold and amethyst bracelet, which is my favorite to this day. But that’s not the story I wanted to share. We had so much fun looking at houses that we decided to get a motel room, and continue looking at houses the next day. Of course it was a spontaneous decision, so we hadn’t packed anything. We bought toothbrushes and toothpaste, but we had no pajamas and no other clothes than what we were wearing. It was Kathi who suggested (and I still laugh about this) that we take down the drapes and wear those around the motel room. Which we did. Toga style. The last story I’m sharing was a phone conversation I had with Kathi. After becoming a weekender upstate around 1984, I sold my Chelsea condo and moved full time to the Chatham area. I knew at some point that I would need to return to the city in order to pick up one more year to qualify for an AFTRA pension, and that year turned out to be 1997. I’d been away from New York for a long time, away from my performing pals, my agents, the casting people and all the Broadway society that had been a vital part of my life from 1971-1985. So, naturally, I had trepidation about returning. How would I pick up the threads of my active, prosperous performing career after an absence of more than ten years? What would I say to everyone? Kathi, on the phone, had the advice. She said, ‘Coma. Tell them you’ve been in a coma for ten years.’ So typical of Kathi humor.”
Alan Paul, who of course followed his marvelous success in Grease as a member of the Manhattan Transfer, has equally wonderful memories of Moss. “She was such a great talent,” he says, “with a dynamic voice, that needed no mic to reach the far corners of the balcony. She was also a great swing dancer. We shared a little secret while in Grease. When we started out Off-Broadway at the Eden Theatre, the entire cast was on a favored-nations clause, making a big $280 a week. Kathi’s role as Cha-Cha, and my characters of Johnny Casino and Teen Angel, didn’t make our appearances until the second act, so we figured we were getting paid the same amount as everyone else while putting in half the time. On many occasions, we would sign in an hour before the start of the show and then sneak out to do whatever we wanted. It used to drive our stage manager, Tommy Smith, completely nuts. But we never missed a performance, so he gave us slack.” Paul continues, “Another fond memory of Kathi was with her dog, Chichornya, named after the Russian folk song. He was an Afghan, absolutely beautiful, but the stupidest dog I ever met. Kathi lived in an apartment downtown that was on the third floor, and had a balcony overlooking the street below. One day, Kathi left her dog on the balcony to run some errands, and when poor Chichornya saw Kathi exit the building, he jumped three floors to get to Kathi, breaking both his back legs. Fortunately, they were able to pin together his legs and he was his jolly self again, except he now walked with a limp. Seeing how traumatic this must have been for Chichornya, it was a logical assumption on Kathi’s part that the probability of this scenario ever happening again was nil to slim. Well, unfortunately, that was not the case with Chichornya. Three months later, he once again jumped off the balcony, three floors in order to get to Kathi, and once again broke both his hind legs. He healed again and, as far as I know, Kathi never put him out on the balcony again and they lived happily ever after.”
Entertainer Nancy Hillner, now a sought-after theater teacher in Rhode Island, never actually worked with Moss but chimed in, “In 1974 after seeing Grease, I used to ‘second-act’ the show often. I had auditioned for the national tour a year or so earlier before I had even seen the show, and wanted to see what I had missed out on. I enjoyed it so much, and I kept going back because they looked like they were having so much fun, especially Kathi. I can still see her hand-jiving!” She continued, “I knew Kathi from Charlie’s, a theater restaurant across from the Royale. I worked the coat room, and Kathi and the rest of the Grease gang would sit at table twelve, a big round table near the front. She enjoyed her cocktails and liked to stay late, and we would chat/dish about mutual friends. One good friend (whose name I won’t mention) at one point did the show with her, and when I asked Kathi how she was, she didn’t pull any punches; she said she was awful! I truly loved how honest she was, but just in case people might know who it is, let’s just say I loved her brutal honesty about people. I also remember when she lost all of her Cha-Cha weight. What a difference! If I had to sum her up, I’d say she was always there with a smile, she loved having a good time, and her talent was a knockout.”
Dee Etta Rowe (now Dee Etta Rowe Ferraro), also from the original cast of Nine as Olga von Sturm, said, “I didn’t know Kathi at all, until she joined us in the workshop. But I thought she was perfect for the role. She was very professional, fit right in with all of us even though she joined the cast later on, and was always very nice to me. And oh, how she loved to laugh. Nothing ever seemed to bother her at all!! Kathi was very kind, and loving, and talented. It was a pleasure to have worked with her and shared the stage with her!!”
Though Walter Charles wasn’t an original cast member of Grease, he became the first original replacement as Vince Fontaine and later scored success in Sweeney Todd, Cats and La Cage Aux Folles. “Kathi and I were close friends during the years I was with Grease, in the first National & Broadway companies,” he says. “Although, we hadn’t seen each other for some years and had lost touch, I was, like all her devoted friends, devastated to learn of her illness and passing. It just seems so inconceivable. For the years I was in Grease with her, she shared one of her Christmas traditions with me; we’d get into an old station wagon she had, a Country Squire or something, and she’d drive to this Christmas tree stand downtown that she liked. We get our trees, tie them to the roof of the car, then drive back uptown, park, and go to a sweet shop that used to be on Central Park South called Rumplemayer’s. We’d sit at a table and have a hot chocolate together, with whipped cream! Then she’d drop me at my place, I’d unload, we’d get back into the car, and help her unload at her place. We laughed the whole time. We were also the “fact-finding committee”, which was part of a larger Equity committee during the musician’s strike during the 1970’s, and which closed down the musicals for about twenty-seven days, I think it was. Kathi and I were on the phone constantly with each other, or meeting up at her place or mine. She was a loyal, trusted friend during that time in my life, I will never forget her, and will always hold her memory close to my heart.”
Colleen Dodson (now Colleen Dodson Baker), who created the role of the Gondolier, says, “My favorite memory of working with Kathi on Nine was her grace under pressure at the rehearsal for the 1982 Tonys. Anita Morris and ‘A Call from the Vatican’ were rejected because it was too risqué, so the producers decided to go with Kathi and ‘Be Italian.’ I’ll never forget waiting for our rehearsal to start; we were in the house at the Imperial watching the Dreamgirls cast rehearse, and when Jennifer Holliday started singing her heart-stopping number, “And I Am Telling You,” we fell silent. You could tell by how somber the Nine girls got that we all had the same thought – how are we EVER going to follow THAT?! But then our time came, and Kathi took the stage. Nothing was going to intimidate her. She was a total star. Powerful and radiant. She owned her talent, her love of our show, and she reveled in the chance to perform her number. She showed us all the way that day, the night of the Tonys, and every performance she did during her run of Nine. I can’t see the YouTube clip of ‘Be Italian’ on the 1982 Tonys without thinking back to that afternoon.”
Nancy McCall created the role of Arabella in Nine, later finding fame as the booking manager for both Palsson’s and Steve McGraw’s on West 72nd Street, the home of such Off-Broadway hits as Forbidden Broadway, Forever Plaid and Bittersuite. “It is easy to remember Kathi’s generosity. One night, she treated a group of us to dinner at Barbetta. And her opening night present of the mini-tambourine, with ribbons in the Italian colors, was a treasure. There are stage memories, but a standout was her generous, radiant smile, when I was an ensemble tambourinist.”
As if none of this was enough, Katie Hanley (the original Jan in Grease and later a star of the movie Godspell and heavily featured in Xanadu) said, ” I will never forget the first rehearsal for the cast ofGrease at the Eden; the opening night memories are still with me every Valentine’s Day. As each actor walked into the room, I was struck by the amazing casting. Kathi and Tim Meyers walked in together, and their enviably deep friendship was apparent from the beginning. When Kathi read her first line, the power and talent in that gal had us exploding with laughter, along with every audience she played to. One of the highlights of the show was her entrance into the prom in her outrageous poofy yellow dress, booming out, “They call me Cha-Cha, ’cause I’m the best dancer at St. Bernadette’s.” And was she EVER! She took that stage and filled it with so many delicious moments, and was a major contributor to the success of Grease. I just wish she’d been in the movie!! Selfishly,” she continued, “my favorite moment in the show was just before ‘It’s Raining On Prom Night.’ There were only a few of us onstage, and I was fortunate enough to have been positioned with my back to the audience, frozen, and looking up at Carole Demas. It was great to be part of the audience, soaking up Kathi’s intro. I go to YouTube for a listen every now and then, and get fed by all that is in her voice. I should point out that I didn’t see Kathi again after I left the show, but in spite of all the years that have gone by, my memory of her is fresh. Those intelligent, big eyes…the face of a doll, her powerful voice, amazing dancing feet, and a presence that exuded generosity of spirit, authenticity, no-nonsense wisdom, and a refreshing sense of humor about herself, all rolled up into one who is impossible to forget.”
Linda Kerns created her own stir in Nine as Helga von Sturm, and remembers, “As well as the many laughs (and Kathi had the greatest, heartiest laugh of anyone I know) we had in our dressing room, during the run of Nine, one of the things I remember with great fondness is the ‘Champagne Saturday Nights.’ Kathi started a tradition of someone (usually herself) bringing in a bottle or two of Freixenet to wrap up the week. Then one holiday (I think it was a Christmas), she presented each of us with the greatest tallest champagne glass, which I STILL HAVE! Thru several moves, one of them across the country, that glass has gone with me to remind me of the wonderful times we had. It sits proudly on a shelf in my home, and using it is never out of the question.”
Even Raul Julia’s intrepid dresser, Susan Wright, has her memories of Moss. “I think of our Nine year with so much fondness and happy memories, and Kathi was a big part of that. I loved her number in the show. She sparkled and shined with joy, and was so lusty. The lust absolutely poured out of her! Sometimes I wonder what those kids really thought was going on. I know Raul thought she was wonderful, and so great in that role. We all did. Who couldn’t?”
Jim Wann wasn’t even a member of either cast; he was busy starring in Pump Boys & Dinettes in ’82 at the Princess Theater. But he, too, absolutely adored her. “I am remembering, with a big smile, Kathi Moss paddling around on that little round thing on wheels that Pat Birch put her on at the Kennedy Center in Hot Grog. Talk about a low budget! She also sang her ass off in Country Cabaret and especially in Nine. She made me, a country boy, want to be Italian just to hang out with Saraghina. And well, maybe I shouldn’t mention this, but everyone thought she was brave for dating Roger Howell. Who I love, too.” He continued, “I have thought of Kathi often through the years. We worked together a few times, and I never had a bad moment in her company. She was always great-hearted and generous with me, and she always made my work come alive in a way that made folks want to laugh and applaud. To me, she was a true theater person, who reminds me of all the best reasons to have friends in the theater.”
And Carole Demas, not merely a legend of Broadway for creating the role of Sandy in Grease but also of children’s television, and who is still knocking it out of the park in concert as recently as just a few weeks ago in the Westchester town of Irvington, said, “My husband, Stuart Allyn, owned a recording studio on Broadway and West 58th Street years ago. He was engineering and producing an album with our St. Croix friend and client, Llewellyn Westerman, a tall, broad shouldered sailor by trade (never a motor-ever!) and ‘Calypso King Of The Virgin Islands’ several times over. Llewellyn plays guitar, sings in a sweet, deep voice and writes true Calypso; the poetry of the islands, full of his observations of life, the beauty of his home, his political ideas–his songs were (and still are) the real Calypsonian deal. I was singing backup, creating the soaring, mysterious soprano voices of mermaids for his song, ‘Underwater.’ All was well, and I was having a great time, until he decided I should sing some Calypso stuff–not exactly my ‘ting,'” she laughed. “He also needed a low, rich woman’s voice to join with mine. But it was after 10 PM. Who to call? I hadn’t seen Kathi in ages, but I called her, full of apologies for the hour and the short notice. In fifteen minutes, she was in the studio. Llewellyn met my weak protestations that ‘I wasn’t sure I could sing Calypso’ with a hearty, ‘Take off your shoes, girl, and just sing it!’ Kathi wasn’t exactly experienced singing Calypso, either, but her shoes were off in seconds and we wailed, rocked and crooned, swaying and stomping in our bare feet, screaming with laughter, until well into the early morning. Unforgettable. Kathi was absolutely fearless, and I will be grateful to her forever for helping me find my groove. The woman had a direct connection to the joys of life.”
Long story short, as the lady herself would say, Kathi Moss will remain sorely missed by the Broadway community as well as the legions of fans she so completely embraced with her talents. One more angel now sings with the feathered choir, in a rich deep tone that will caress the clouds forevermore and always steal the show. Ti voglio bene, mia cara signorina.
The Three Degrees. (From left, Helen Scott, Freddie Pool, Valerie Holiday)
One of the most wondrous things about growing up in a showbiz family is that from a very early age you find yourself attending concerts. If you’re even luckier, those concerts encompass a wide range of styles and tastes.
The very first I ever attended were Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts with the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center. My recently departed cousin Barry Finclair was one of their violinists, so he always got us great seats. But the first solo concert I ever saw was PDQ Bach, when we were visiting relatives in Poughkeepsie. I was maybe seven at the time, I hated it and I fell asleep midway through. In retrospect, I so wish I hadn’t, because Peter Schickele is a genius.
Aside from all the Broadway shows I ever saw and have seen, not to mention thousands of cabaret acts, concerts are my favorite things to attend. The first one I really remember clearly was Carly Simon, at Hofstra in 1980. This was before she caught stage fright, right around the same time when “Vengeance” was a big hit. I want to say it was a good show, but it really wasn’t. She did all the big hits, like “Anticipation” and “That’s The Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be” and “Legend In Your Own Time” and “Nobody Does it Better,” not to mention “You’re So Vain,” but she was also trying to transition into harder rock and it was a study in fruitlessness. But I love that I got to see her.
Then in ’82, Mom took me to an Elly Stone concert at the Bottom Line, may it rest in peace. THIS was a big deal. I don’t expect half of you reading this to know who Elly is or remotely care, but she’s kind of a legend; she was the star of “Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris” and was basically considered the new American Piaf in her day. My mom was such a fan that Elly was and still is considered a goddess in our house (I’m friends with Elly now, all these years later, and she thinks that’s hilarious). But that was the night I fell in love with concertgoing. We actually sat through the second show, and it was also the night I became acquainted with the wonderful work of Kitty Hendrix, who sang backup for Elly and also became a friend of mine. Plus, who wouldn’t want to be thirteen years old and taken to see a show at the Bottom Line?
A year after that I had a chance to see Pete Seeger in concert, which really gave me my love of folk music. He was doing a very informal show in Westchester as a benefit for the Clearwater Project, with which he’s fiercely committed to clean up the Hudson River. As a special treat, he invited Arlo Guthrie to come up on stage and join him to duet on “Guantanamera.” To call it glorious would be an understatement. Which is why, when I was in college in 1986, I took an elective seminar called “The American Folk Tradition,” hosted by Mary Travers. Every week she would have a guest from the folk music world come and do an interview for about forty minutes, and then they’d do a mini-concert for the rest of the hour, sometimes joined by Mary and sometimes not. Because of that, I got to see such artists as Odetta, Judy Collins, Richie Havens, Buskin & Batteau, and the New York Choral Society. The best was on the last day of the seminar, when she had Peter Yarrow as her guest. After the interview, they got up together and sang “Lemon Tree” and “500 Miles,” and then Peter said, “Mary, that was fun, but I keep feeling like there was something missing.” Then we heard a guitar strum from the back of the house, we all turned around, of course it was Paul Stookey, and we all went wild. He strolled down the aisle, playing and singing “The Wedding Song” and joined them on stage, and they gave us a blissful concert for the next hour. It was other-worldly.
That same year, David Bowie played at the Garden with his “Spiders from Mars” tour, and they just happened to add a second date. So my friend Jessica, who is a major Bowie fan, called me and said, “Look, they’ve added a second date and I have no money. If you can get us two tickets I’ll be your friend forever.” Now, I am not the biggest Bowie fan on earth by a longshot, but I knew what a great show he puts on plus I’d never seen a show at the Garden, and I had the cash so I got us the tickets. Whether I’m a fan of his or not, I cried my eyes out when he sang “Jean Genie.” It was THAT good.
That was the same year that the Monkees (minus Michael Nesmith) embarked on their “Pleasant Valley Sunday” tour, and it was coming to Pier 86 (when they still did concerts there). So my friend Sandy begged me to get tickets for her and myself. I had a mad crush on Peter Tork, so I didn’t exactly need a lot of persuasion. We attended together, and they were amazing, but best of all was that for their opening acts they had Herman’s Hermits featuring Peter Noone, as well as Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, and The Grass Roots, with whom I’ve had a lifelong love affair (and they sang EVERYthing, “Sooner or Later,” “Live for Today,” “Midnight Confessions,” “The River Is Wide,” you name it).
Right around that same time and through the late 80s, I caught three shows at the Bottom Line that absolutely changed my life for their greatness. The first was Phoebe Snow (again with friend Jessica). The second was Laura Nyro (with a boyfriend whose name I can’t remember) and the third was Janis Ian (alone, but we were all united as one in her genius). I had a ticket to see Joan Armatrading three weeks later, but that afternoon I caught a vicious flu and had to give the ticket to a friend.
In 1990, my life was to rearrange when I was offered a job as a cabaret reviewer and features contributor for a magazine called Night & Day. My very first assignment was to review a Peggy Lee concert at The Ballroom. And I’d not been a huge fan of Peggy Lee until then, but this was an assignment, after all. So I spent days figuring out what to wear, what to do with my hair, even what pen to bring with me to take notes. Miss Lee walked out onto that stage with a nine-piece band and knocked my socks off; it was the sweetest trial by fire anyone could ever experience at twenty-one years of age, to be shown into the Ballroom, guided to the best seat in the house, encouraged to order anything I’d like to eat or drink for free, watch Peggy Lee for an hour, go home and write about it, and then GET PAID!
As if that wasn’t enough, four days later they sent me to the Beacon to review a major concert experience called “Heartstrings.” They rented me a limo, and my cherished friend Kim and I got all gussied up and attended the show and the party afterwards at Citicorp Market. It had a core cast and a script of which the theme was a fable about AIDS infiltrating humanity, and I was afforded the opportunity to discover some really fantastic musical theater performers (including a sensational vocalist named Mary Beth Purdy, who brought the house down when she sang “Come Rain or Come Shine” and has also become a friend of mine since then) but even more than this, it was hosted by Christopher Reeve (darling man, who I got to meet that night and may he rest in peace) and Marlo Thomas, and included such delicious moments as Tommy Tune dancing to “Kicking the Clouds Away” with a chorus of beautiful girls and Barbara Cook knocking all of us on our asses by singing “Love Don’t Need a Reason” by Peter Allen.
The next ten years were spent with attending a LOT of cabaret and jazz shows, two highlights of which were Dr. Hook at the Village Gate and Chaka Khan at the Blue Note (and she is so short you can’t believe it). Then came 2001, when sort-of-ex-husband and I met (long story, we were together and then apart and together again and then apart and now we’re sort of…I’m not sure), and I’m thrilled to say that he LOVES concerts. The first was Jane Olivor at Westbury, about seven weeks after we met because we’re both major fans, and we subsequently attended four more of hers at different venues. (As most of you know, Jane and I eventually worked together on a project and she did me dirt, so I refuse to ever see a concert of hers again. Whenever the lunatic does one). But we attended a whole big bunch of them together. The memorable standouts are of course Cher (in her first Farewell Tour, hee hee) at the Garden, Bette Midler in the “Kiss My Brass” tour (also at the Garden, on the memorable night she was flying off stage on the carousel horse to end the first act and it got stuck in mid-air), Linda Eder at Carnegie Hall (to which we brought his parents, who bitched about my getting such crappy seats), and Il Divo at Radio City.
And then there was the night, in 2002, when he said to me, “Let’s catch a concert at Jones Beach this summer. Look up who’s playing. You pick the artist.” So I looked it up, and there happened to be a Three Dog Night concert, and I worship Three Dog Night. But the problem with a Three Dog Night show is that there’s never a guarantee that Chuck Negron will be in shape to go on, and if he’s not in shape to go on, they cancel altogether and don’t give refunds. So I figured we shouldn’t chance it. I said, “Styx?” He said no. I said, “Supertramp?” He said no. I said, “Pat Benatar?” He said, “Certainly not. I hate her.” (So much for me picking the artist, and I should have known then that the marriage was in trouble). So then I said, “How about Hall & Oates, with Todd Rundgren as an opening act?” THAT idea he liked. So we got tickets. And they put on a GREAT show; they sang every hit except “Private Eyes.” The downside was Rundgren, who had cocaine running down his face from the moment he came out to sing “Hello, It’s Me.”
Now, I also have this friend named Jennifer. Our birthdays are two days apart, so we can never forget. And she always goes out of her way to get me something incredible as a gift. That’s my Lovey. (I call her Lovey and she calls me Bunny. Don’t ask, it’s a friend thing). Anyhow, in ’07 she called me and said, “So what am I getting you this year?” You should also know if you don’t already that I collect giraffe statuettes. Fifty-eight and counting, to be precise. So I said, “A crystal giraffe from Swarovski.” She said, “No giraffes. I’ve given you enough giraffes.” So I said, “A set of All-Clad cookware. My friend Susan Scudder says you have to be married for forty years before you earn a set of All-Clad.” She said, “I’m not buying pots. What do you want more than anything that you can’t afford?” I said, “Get me a ticket to the Streisand show this autumn at the Garden.” She said, “But that’s October. I want you to enjoy it on your birthday.” I said, “You’re asking me, I’m telling you. I’ll wait three months to enjoy it if it means I can see Streisand.” So she got me a ticket, and the show was on a Monday night (the 9th, if I recall, John Lennon’s birthday). As I was dressing to go to the show, she called me and said, “I know how much you’re looking forward to tonight and I hate to ask this, but they’ve added a second show for Wednesday and if you can possibly wait, I can get you upgraded to a Skybox in one of the Club Suites for that night.” So I waited the two nights. And it was the best thing I ever did. I saw Streisand from the best seat in the house.
Much more recently and as many of you know, I’ve been taking a lot of road trips with dear childhood friend George. Mostly New England but also Long Island. Anyway, all of a sudden after one of our trips this summer he offered me a ticket to go with him to the Beacon and see the Dukes of September, which is Boz Scaggs, Donald Fagen of Steely Dan, and Michael McDonald of the Doobie Brothers. Would YOU say no? So of course we went, and it was absolutely magical.
The reason I bring all of this to light is because last night, Scott Barbarino (my cherished publisher at NiteLifeExchange.com) invited me to come see The Three Degrees do their show at Iridium. This will probably be their last time in New York; they’re hitting the road in a few days to do concerts in Japan again. For those of you unfamiliar with The Three Degrees (and shame on you if you are), they’re the female vocal trio who scored a huge hit in 1974 with the song “When Will I See You Again?” The current group is not comprised of the original members, which started in Philly in ’63, but they are three fabulously-talented women named Valerie Holiday, Helen Scott and Freddie Pool. And their energy is mesmerizing. It was literally one of the greatest concerts I have ever seen. Of course they sang that hit, but also “Dirty Ol’ Man,” “Shake Your Groove Thing,” “Maybe,” and did an incredible tribute to their fellow artists from Philadelphia (The O’Jays, McFadden & Whitehead, The Trammps, etc).
In closing, it was a trip to the moon on gossamer wings. And I can’t wait to go see another concert. Soon.
About seven years ago, a dear friend of mine and I sat at a little bar on Ninth Avenue in the West 40s one night, knocking back a few and having some laughs, when he suddenly said to me, “You know you’re my favorite journalist of all time, right? Well, when the time comes, I want you to write my obituary.” I said, “Oh, honey, STOP!! Don’t be morbid!! And anyway, you’re gonna bury us all!!” He said, “No, no, I won’t. People might remember who I am, maybe for a little while, but I want you to promise me that you’ll write my obituary when the time comes.” So I said, “Fine. Should I ask if you have a title for this little opus I’m supposed to write?” He said, “Yes. I want you to call it Requiem for a Paperweight.” And we laughed and ordered another round and smoked a few more cigarettes as usual, and I figured that was the end of it. But it wasn’t. He died this morning. And writing this article may well be one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do, but I’m keeping the title as per his wishes.
The world has lost a wonderful gentleman named Ron Palillo. Most people probably know him best as the iconic character Arnold Horshack from the megahit sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter on ABC for four seasons. Yes, he of the signature gravelly laugh, dorky clothes, comical Brooklyn accent and explanation of his moniker (“I’ll have you know that Horshack is a very old and RESPECTED name. It means, ‘The cattle are dying.'”) Whether he was joining a religious cult, becoming a figure not unlike Peter Finch in the movie Network or merely hanging out with his fellow Sweathogs, Horshack was to the 1970s what Urkel was to the 80s or Screech was to the 90s, in pop-culture parlance. And millions will never forget him or the joy he brought to the cultural landscape.
But I don’t want to talk about Horshack right now. I want to talk about Ron, the man I was blessed to know so well for over twenty years, and the joy he gave me personally as a friend.
In 1990 I got my first job in journalism, writing reviews and features for a now-defunct magazine called Night & Day. One feature of which I was particularly proud was an interview with my dear friend Shirley Stoler, which gave me great pleasure to write. So a few days after it was published, I was hanging out at Don’t Tell Mama on Restaurant Row having a drink at the bar when all of a sudden this guy came over and started staring at me. A little bit short, not a bad body and really luminescent skin. He looked an awful lot like Ron Palillo, but something was different; maybe he’d had his nose bobbed or something. So I smiled at him. He said, “Do you happen to be Andrew Martin?” I said yes, I was. “Oh, I love your writing so much! I was just reading your interview with Shirley Stoler the other day and I absolutely adore her. My name’s Ron Palillo.” I nearly spit my drink out of my nose. “I THOUGHT that was you!! HI!! Oh, I’m so pleased to meet you!! HUGE fan!! So you’re visiting New York, then?” By this point his lover Joey came over and joined us, Ron made introductions and explained that no, he and Joe were living in New York now, they’d just moved back and gotten a place in Chelsea. By three or four drinks later, the three of us were already great friends. They literally poured me into a cab to take me home to Queens after I gave them my phone number and they gave me theirs, and we all promised to see each other soon. Now, everybody knows how it works in entertainment circles in New York; you always promise you’ll see each other again and nine times out of ten you don’t. But this, I learned, is why nobody should have ever underestimated Ron Palillo.
About three weeks later, on a Friday night, I took my buddy Jim Loftus to see someone’s cabaret act at Rose’s Turn on Grove Street (I have absolutely no recollection whose cabaret act it was, so I apologize to whomever they are and I hope I gave you a nice review). We went downstairs after the show to sit by the piano and hear my friend Peter Gloo play and my other friend Elaine Brier sing, when all of a sudden Ron and Joe walked in. As soon as they saw me, they made a beeline for us. “Andrew! Why haven’t you called? You promised!! Never mind, it’s nice to see you now. May we join?” Of course I said yes and introduced them to Jim. Who, once they were seated, said, “Am I dreaming this? Did you honestly just introduce me to Arnold Horshack and now he’s sitting here with us?” I assured him it wasn’t a dream. We all got lit as lords and had a wonderful evening.
So, for at least the next year and longer, I kept in touch with them (I was never quite as friendly with Joe as I was with Ron, but Joe was always very happy to see me wherever it was). In due time, Night & Day Magazine folded, I was then moved over to the New York Native newspaper and then I parted company with them also, and after a few months away from it all except for occasional freelancing at magazines like Details and Lear’s, I started my own magazine, CaB. So I asked Ron if he might possibly be so gracious as to grant me an interview. Believe me, he needed no bidding; he was delighted to know that I’d be writing about him, and invited me to swing by the apartment he and Joe were subletting in Chelsea. It was really a little nothing of a building, a very innocuous brownstone, and then I got to their apartment and nearly died. It was the most luxurious duplex I have ever seen, and I’ve been to some pretty luxurious duplexes in my day. I said, “You and Joe actually LIVE here? This isn’t a movie set or something?” He said, “Andrew, it’s called being on a hit show for several seasons.”
Then we did the interview. He spoke of growing up in Connecticut and how lonely he was most of the time as a kid, how much he wanted to be a star, how his gravelly laugh as Horshack was actually his father’s death rattle as he lay dying of cancer, how frustrated he’d always been after Kotter because nobody would take him seriously as an actor, and all kinds of other things nobody else could have possibly known about him. Then he showed me his drawings; he’d begun working as an illustrator for children’s books (one in particular, The Red Wings of Christmas, had been written by his dear friend Wesley Eure, who was best known as the star of the Sid/Marty Krofft series “Land of the Lost” and also as the longtime lover of Richard Chamberlain). He also spoke with desperate passion about his best friend, actress Debralee Scott, whom he loved more than life itself. It was an amazing interview and frankly left me more than a bit dazed.
For the next decade, Ron and I continued to have an absolute blast. He and Joe and I had mutual friends in the form of a couple, two wonderful guys named Woody Leatherwood and Larry Scheraldi, who threw the most wonderful parties imaginable at their apartment on West 39th. (By this point, Ron and Joe had taken a new apartment on 49th Street). I recall one night in particular when Ron and I and our other friend Tommy Femia decided to play “The Movie Game” This is where the first person names a movie, the second person names someone who was in that movie, the third person names another movie that person was in, and it just goes around and around until someone can neither name a person or a movie that goes with the subject. The whole point is to be as obscure as possible so you stump the next person. Ron really thought he was gonna get Tommy (the world’s best Judy Garland impersonator) out of the game when, after I named Vigil of the Night as the movie and Ron volunteered the name of Rita Page, Tommy looked at both of us and in his best Garland voice said, “She played my mother in Little Nellie Kelly.” Ron’s jaw dropped to the floor and he said, “That’s it. I’m out of the game. I give up.” It was adorable.
Then, in ’02, my ex-husband and I had four friends from out of town staying with us for Gay Pride Week, and one night after we took everybody to see the Empire State Building, we went to the same bar I mentioned in the first paragraph, on Ninth Avenue between 45th and 46th. We were all having a ball, then I got up to go to the bar and get another drink, and who should be standing at the jukebox but Ron. I said, “Oh, no you’re NOT, Ron Palillo!!” He turned around, saw me, came over and gave me a huge hug hello and then joined our table. The guys were absolutely beside themselves that “Andrew knows Arnold Horshack!!”
Ron was an absolute and understandable mess the day Debralee Scott died in 2005. It wasn’t hard to comprehend why; they were as close as brother and sister, and she and he and Joe were always constantly in each others lives. But I’d never seen him so upset and distraught. Hence, the night he insisted on meeting me for drinks at that bar. And also hence why he decided that I should write his obituary.
One of the very last times I spoke to him by phone was after he appeared in the opening number of the TVLand Awards. He said, “I hate that they trotted me out as HIM one more time, but I made a little cash and got to see some old friends. If Alison Arngrim (Nellie Oleson from “Little House on the Prairie”) hadn’t been there I never would have gotten through it. Hey, do you know her?” I said that I most certainly did. He said, “Isn’t she the best? One of the funniest women on earth, and a brilliant actress, outrageously intelligent and the warmest creature you could imagine,” and he just sang her praises for well over a half hour.
Ron and Joe moved to the Palm Beach area a couple of years ago, and while Ron wasn’t particularly happy about it, he was certainly proud of their home. Our very last conversation was a couple of months ago, in Facebook Chat. He was extremely worried that he might have had cancer from all the smoking, he said he’d developed a cough that sounded a lot like his father’s, but that he’d begun seeing a respiratory therapist and that so far was so good. Then this morning, Joe came downstairs, saw Ron clutching his chest, called an ambulance and they set off for the ER, where he died shortly after arriving.
And so here we are tonight. Ron is gone and my heart is aching. But it’s not aching for myself. It’s aching for Joe. It’s aching for his siblings. It’s aching for all the social misfits out there like I was, who knew that in Arnold Horshack we had a friend for life. It’s aching for those people who were ever lucky enough to know him. And by now I’ve lost enough friends to also know that it’s not about all the things we didn’t get to do or having the chance to say a final goodbye, but all the things we DID get to do and all the chances we had to say a hello.
Thus, all there is left to say is one last hello. Rest in peace, my wonderful Paperweight. I love you.
In 1985, cabaret unwittingly found a new fair-haired boy in their midst. Kevin Scott Hall had arrived in New York City from Maine in his early twenties, and seemingly wasted no time in establishing himself as a permanent and powerful presence in piano bar and on stage. Nearly three decades later, armed with an endless arsenal of tenacity and staying power besides bucketfuls of talent in a variety of areas, Hall has evolved from a vibrant singer and recording artist (including the CDs Live at Middle, New Light Dawning and Holiday Spirit) to a respected university lecturer, vocal coach and teacher (he created the That Singing Feeling workshop), cabaret columnist for EDGENewYork.com, and even a published novelist with his book Off the Charts! Having turned fifty merely two weeks ago from the time of this writing, he also announced what will sadly be his very last cabaret act ever, which premiered at Don’t Tell Mama on Wednesday, July 18th as a birthday celebration and plays its second show on Saturday, July 21st. If the gods are kind, however, someone will convince him that this can’t be the last time. It’s a brilliant presentation beyond words; Hall retains his marvelous pop/rock sensibility as always and simply dazzles. His voice hasn’t lost one micro-ounce of its glorious tenor timbre lo these many years, and clearly he can still wrangle a tune with the best of them, whether Joe Flood’s “I’m In a Hole,” “Come to Me as a Bird” by Julie Gold, Carrie Underwood’s “Last Name,” or “True to Yourself” by Karen Benedetto. He’s aided as always by the spectacular Clare Cooper at the piano as well as Steve Marks on bass, Bernice “Boom-Boom” Brooks on percussion, and Allison Mickelson and Alex Bertrand-Price on background vocals. And the show isn’t without its angst-ridden moments; he recounts making headlines as a stabbing victim in Hell’s Kitchen in 1994. But the show as a whole is a true celebration of the glorious person that is Kevin Scott Hall, and indeed should be witnessed by all who can attend the 6 PM show. He also somehow found the time to grant us an interview in the midst of his busy schedule:
ANDREW MARTIN: We can all assume that when you were growing up in Maine that a career in performance was a focus of yours. But was cabaret something you always wanted to do? What drew you to it?
KEVIN SCOTT HALL: That was actually not true, at first. I was so shy and, frankly, bullied, that I was afraid to get involved in anything at school. I was just biding my time. I was a writer first. However, I did like listening to 45 rpm records and American Top Forty with Casey Kasem every week. And my father played–and still plays–piano, so he gave us an education in standards. There were a lot of parties around that piano, so it was like growing up with a piano bar in the house. I didn’t really have theater aspirations until I was in college and decided to try out for a play, Charley’s Aunt, and got the small but comic role of Brassett, the butler. Then I got the bug. Later, after moving to New York, I was drawn to the piano bars. I guess in some ways it reminded me of home. And I stayed there!
AM: Can you describe what it was like when you first got to New York, and why you almost immediately immersed yourself in cabaret?
KSH: Well, I found the whole auditioning thing to be very lonely. You wait around for hours to sing sixteen bars of a song, and there’s all this fake camaraderie in the hallways. But in cabaret, I could do what I wanted to do, and I was allowed to try and fail and try and fail and sometimes succeed! It’s also very personal and intimate, and that’s more my groove.
AM: Why do you choose the songs you do? You seem to have always had a pop/rock-based sensibility as an artist, but what is that based on?
KSH: Yes, growing up in small New England towns, I did not listen to theater recordings. I had to really catch up on that when I got to New York. My father played standards and I knew some, but I had no idea where they came from. I grew up on radio and, you know, back in the ’70s what was great about radio was that you could have a pop song, a country song, and an R&B song playing on the same station. You don’t find that anymore and, to me, that’s not progress. I still listen to what the kids are listening to, though. There are a few great songs being written and we as cabaret artists can bring them out.
AM: What drew you to start working with Clare Cooper as a musical director?
KSH: Well, when I started working in piano bars–Rose’s Turn, specifically–in 1995, I got stuck with the deadly Saturday happy hour, and there was Clare! She also had a pop-rock sensibility, so we came up with the Rock and Soul Happy Hour. We had a small but very loyal following, and we kept that going for nine years. When you work so closely with someone for that long, it becomes almost like a marriage (I think, I’ve never been married!). We still miss Rose’s Turn. There was no place like it and I’m afraid there never will be again.
AM: Getting stabbed in the chest would clearly be a traumatic experience for anyone. What (excuse the pun) sticks out most in your mind about the experience? And was it simply natural to work that into your cabaret act(s)?
KSH: That was clearly a watershed moment in my life. I was actually on my way home from a piano bar (Eighty Eight’s) when that happened. The psychic wounds of that lasted far longer than the physical ones. I was very angry that here I was, striving to create music from the heart and then I give someone my trust for a moment on the street and he stabs me in the heart. The metaphor of that shook my faith to the core. I was a very angry man for a few years. Anyway, that kind of experience takes you to extreme emotions and I think it lends itself to the act. Don’t try to run and hide from those experiences. Embrace them. Let others learn from them.
AM: How did you make the transition from cabaret artist to teacher? Conversely, how did you make the transition to lecturer on a college level?
KSH: I did a show in the mid-90s and hired a well-known director, and I didn’t feel this person really was able to pull the soul from me. And I was being charged a lot of money. Basically, I thought, I can do this better. And it was a natural fit. I think because I have been through traumatic experiences, I am able to get to the heart of the matter and cut through the BS. I think I have a gentle persistence that can bring honesty out in people. At forty, I decided I’d had enough of the music career. I’d worked at it so long and it was going nowhere. So I went back to school to get my MFA in creative writing (yet another practical choice!). As part of the process, we were given an opportunity to intern as instructors. I was so scared. I’m all about diversity, which is what CUNY is, but I thought, “What are these mostly Black and Hispanic and Asian and Arabic students going to think of this middle-aged White guy?” Well, I discovered that I had changed a lot since being a bullied teenager. I am very real with the kids, and I really use my sense of humor with them. I’m not afraid, I’ll tackle any topic with them. I surely learn more from them than they learn from me.
AM: Where did the inspiration for Off The Charts! come from?
KSH: Off the Charts! is a satiric novel, about the music business, funny but very dark. It was my way of coming to terms with how awful that business can be. But I put it in the dance music world rather than my cabaret world. The business is all about marketing and image and, for my character Sally Testata, trying to keep her sexy even though she’s in her forties. I get angry about what I see in the music business, with some music videos and such. It was hard for me, but it’s very hard on women.
AM: What do you like most about the recording process? What do you like least? Do you think you might do another recording anytime soon?
KSH: I LOVE recording. It’s much more in my comfort zone than live performing, which is all-consuming and still makes me very nervous. Going into a recording booth is very private and intimate and you get to try things several times (although my most successful recorded songs, they tell me, happened to have been done in one or two takes). I have a hundred ideas for recordings and if I could just record without performing live, I would!
AM: Complete this sentence: “In ten years I, Kevin Scott Hall, will be…”
KSH: In ten years I, Kevin Scott Hall, will be teaching a few classes, living on a lake and writing during the summer, and have perhaps a couple more books and recordings under my belt.
It’s safe to say that we all want to take a swim in that lake. The cabaret community wishes Kevin Scott Hall a very happy second half-century, and offers a plea for him to continue delighting all of us as an artist in any and all media.
Anyone who has ever availed themselves of the Off-Off-Broadway experience in New York City, whether as a performer, a crew member or simply “one of those little people out there in the dark,” will truly sink their literary teeth into Caravan to Oz, a splendid history of one family’s journey into a most exciting period in the American theater in the Big Apple. Anyone who hasn’t ever availed themselves of the Off-Off-Broadway experience in New York City, whether as a performer, a crew member or simply “one of those little people out there in the dark,” will truly sink their literary teeth into the book all the same. And in any case, this two-hundred-and-seventy page tome laden with stunning photography, emerges as a wondrous history lesson even to those not necessarily theater-oriented. To be succinct, it’s nearly impossible to put down once begun reading. The book bears vague similarities to Edie, the smash recounting of Warhol superstar Edie Sedgwick, except that in this case the story is actually told by the subjects in question, along with additional input by such legends of the Off-Off-Broadway scene and the cultural world at large as Tim Robbins, Bob Heide, Robert Patrick, Crystal Field, Mike Figgis, Mark Lancaster, Ritsaert ten Cate, and the late Ellen Stewart.
AM: What do you like most about the recording process? What do you like least? Do you think you might do another recording anytime soon?
The Andrew Martin Report 