![]() And Anita Ellis was so sophisticated, especially to this dummy. He had such an incredible face it was pure joy when he smiled. ![]() “Gene Kelly, our director, was a sweetie. “Some people say Richard Rodgers was a tough man, but he was very nice to me,” she notes. In addition to winning a Theatre World Award, Suzuki came away with very fond memories of many of the show’s participants. “And Richard Rodgers said to me: ‘What’s wrong? That was terrific!'” When the curtain came down, I burst into tears,” she says. My folks were in the audience, and I was embarrassed. “I had to do a striptease for the first-act curtain. (Blyden was married to the show’s choreographer, Carol Haney).Īnd her opening night in Boston was traumatic. The show’s pre-Broadway run wasn’t an easy one among other things, Larry Blyden - whom she calls “a persnickety guy” - replaced Larry Storch as Sammy Fong during the Boston tryout. She was asked to audition for the role of sexy Linda Low “because Richard Rodgers saw me on The Jack Paar Show,” she recalls. But it’s really the medium I love.”Īnother high-profile musical, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Flower Drum Song, marked the Broadway bow of Pat Suzuki. ![]() ![]() Everything was rushed the last thing I gave any thought to was that it took place in 1813! It was a horrific experience, and I thought that was what Broadway was. “I learn more from bad reviews than good ones. The action took place in the early 19th Century, causing one critic to snipe that “Polly Bergen is about as period as Mickey Mantle.” She had the critique framed and hung above her desk. It was a vicious dog-eat-dog atmosphere.” “Farley Granger and Hermione Gingold were not singers, so I carried the vocal load of the show. “I replaced Gisele MacKenzie and had to learn the score very fast,” she told me. One of the season’s short-lived shows was First Impressions, a musical version of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice, in which Polly Bergen took over the lead role of Elizabeth Bennett three weeks before opening. “It was when Richard Kiley, just before an exit, took several puffs on a cigar, and I’d walk into that cloud of smoke.” On a much happier note, Redhead earned star Gwen Verdon her fourth (and final) Tony Award, for what she once confided was her “favorite and most physically demanding role.” The Albert Hague-Dorothy Fields musical also contained Verdon’s favorite onstage moment of all time. “It was a ghastly experience,” Stritch once told me. While Stritch had already appeared in eight Broadway shows, including Pal Joey and Bus Stop, the silent-screen musical spoof was her first Broadway starring role. Not to mention that there was also the one-and-only Elaine Stritch in Goldilocks. Among the many other marquee names were Christopher Plummer in J.B., Gertrude Berg in A Majority of One, Lynn Fontanne in The Visit, Claudette Colbert in The Marriage-Go-Round, Paul Newman in Sweet Bird of Youth, and Jason Robards in The Disenchanted. “It was such a wonderful time on Broadway! You could see actors like Geraldine Page, Maureen Stapleton, and Kim Stanley.”Īctually, those great ladies were just a few of the stars who graced the Great White Way that season. “We had wonderful understudy rehearsals on that show, with Jane Romano as Rose - she was marvelous - along with Anita Gillette as June and Julienne Marie as Louise,” he recalls. He went from being a replacement Gee-tar in West Side Story to dancing in Redhead to being a replacement Farm Boy (and understudy to Tulsa) in Gypsy, starring the inimitable Ethel Merman. The 1958-1959 theater season remains a particularly memorable one for Broadway veteran Harvey Evans (then Harvey Hohnecker).
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