Roz Russell created the definitive Rose on screen, despite five decades of whining by Broadway typesToday, a few idle thoughts on "Gypsy" - trivia, gossip and opinions...
1. First, a confession. For years, I've pontificated that "Gypsy" is my all-time favorite Broadway show, a solid vehicle that defies destruction or distortion. Not true. The fact is that all my affection for the show is derived from the on-going pleasure that I get from the 1962 film version. The material, although wonderful, isn't surefire. It is at the mercy of who plays the leading role and who's directing it. Neither Angela Lansbury nor Tyne Daly (both directed by Arthur Laurents) made much of a lasting impression, despite scrupulously craftsmanlike performances. Bernadette Peters (directed by Sam Mendes) was a flat-out disaster in the role.
2. The show itself has evolved, albeit ever-so-slightly, over the years. Author Laurents apparently has enjoyed tinkering with his script, tweaking it here and there. The major change he made between the 1959 original production and the first revival in 1974 was rewriting Gypsy's final strip to include spoken French. A pretentious alteration, but it may be authentic: Perhaps the real Gypsy Rose Lee spoke French on stage during her act. Also, Herbie - who should have been a non-singing character - had more to do, song-wise, by '74.
3. Musicals in tryout traditionally gain and lose songs. "Gypsy" was no exception, but its greatest loss was a delightful number titled "Mama's Talking Soft," sung in the first act by Baby June and Baby Louise. (The number was in the show in Philadelphia, where for some reason, Baby June was called Baby Claire.) The song was important to the symmetry of the show - the characters of June and Louise have songs about Mama both as little children and as young women (the great "If Mama Was Married"). Also "Mama's Talking Soft" figures into Rose's triumphant penultimate number, "Rose's Turn," which incorporates bits and pieces of other songs from the show. When Rose sings, "Mama's talking loud...," it's a direct response to "Mama's Talking Soft." Why was the song cut? Well, the legend goes that it was sung by the two little girls in the rafters and that one of the kids couldn't handle the height. Huh? So why not restage it on the ground level? And, more to the point, why has it never been reinstated in any of the revivals? It's too good to be lost.
4. Warner Bros. purchased the film rights to both "The Music Man" and "Gypsy" the same week, putting both into production for release in 1962. Jack Warner's dictum: Don't fix what isn't broken. Both shows came to the screen with atypical fidelity to their respective source material.
5. Warner's first and only choice for Rose was Rosalind Russell, who made a smash film comeback for the studio in Morton DaCosta's "Auntie Mame" (1958). Mervyn LeRoy who had just directed her in the studio's "A Majority of One" (1961) supported his choice. Judy Garland wanted the role, but there was a catch: They had to take her then-pubescent daughter, Liza Minnelli, too - for the role of Gypsy/Louise. (Can't imagine that.) Doris Day, who was a long-time Warner contract player, also pursued the role, but her last musical for the studio, Stanley Donen-George Abbott's "The Pajama Game" (1957), tanked at the box-office, with Warner questioning her drawing power. There have been rumors that Ann-Margret was up for the role of Gypsy/Louise, but Natalie Wood and Jane Fonda were the only actresses seriously considered for the role. BTW, Garland got to do her own version of "Gypsy" (of sorts) a year later with a 1963 Ronald Neame film called "I Could Go on Singing."
6. The disturbing columnist Dorothy Kilgallen got her nose out of joint when her good friend Ethel Merman, the original Rose, wasn't considered for the film. Jack Warner wasn't stupid - like everyone else, he had seen "Call Me Madam" and "There's No Business Like Show Business" and knew that Merman was no screen personality. Instead, he went for a world-class actress who would bring psychological depth to the character.
7. Independently, Russell also wanted to play Rose but, as I was told by Harper McKay, who was the vocal coach on the film, she was more interested in doing a straight movie based on Gypsy Rose Lee's memoirs (also the inspiration for Laurents's stage script). This information leaked out and Kilgallen ran with it: "Warners to drop all the songs from 'Gypsy,'" the gossip columns harrumphed self-righteously. It wasn't true, but it was too late. The gloves were off: Broadway types, proud of their contempt for film, were in the attack mode. It didn't matter that the show's composer Jule Styne was hired as consultant (and also to conduct the "Gypsy" overture on screen) or that several supporting players (Paul Wallace, Faith Dane) from the show were hired for the film. Roz stole Ethel's role and she ... was ... going ... to ... ruin ... it! ... Dammit!
8. It also didn't help that playwright Leonard Spigelgass was hired to adapt Laurents's script - not Laurents himself - and it didn't matter to the film's detractors that Spigelgass contoured "Gypsy" beautifully for the screen, honoring Laurents work and words while also making sure the piece wouldn't be completely stagebound. Spigelgass's "Gypsy" is a nice commingling of reality, theatricality and cinematics. It's a movie.
9. While it was in production, Kilgallen had "Gypsy" under a microscope for her on-going demonization. LeRoy's nifty decision to hire Jack Benny for a cameo elicited the following Kilgallen criticism: "Jack Benny has been hired to play a role in the film of 'Gypsy.' It must be in trouble." You can't buy bad publicity like that. A couple years later, there was an inside joke about this in Stanley Kramer's "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" (1963), in which Merman appeared. Once again, Benny makes a cameo appearance in which he offers to aid Merman and her stranded family. Merman's line: "We don't need any help from you!," delivered angrily.
10. Warners had two producer sneaks of "Gypsy" in September of 1962 - one in Pasadena and one in (gulp!) New York. Bad idea. It was Monday, September 14th, 1962 and the RKO 58th Street Theatre was showing Vincente Minnelli's "Two Weeks in Another Town." At the bottom of that day's ad, a line read, "Tonight at 8:30. Special Invitational Preview. Not open to public." The first Gotham showing of "Gypsy" - to theatre insiders.
11. The preview print of "Gypsy" ran 149 minutes and the program for the preview listed all of Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim songs from the play. The audience reaction to Karl Malden singing wasn't good - they laughed - and to protect his star, LeRoy cut the part of "You'll Never Get Away from Me" in which Malden performed and all of "Together, Wherever We Go," a major cut given that it was a major song from the show. Of course, there's absolutely nothing wrong with Malden's singing. He's much better than Jack Klugman who played the role on stage. No, it wasn't Malden's singing that was the problem. It was the idea of Malden singing that was the problem. Audiences are resistant to non-singers even if there's nothing wrong with their voices. LeRoy made a few other minor cuts (the most noticeable involving "Dainty June and Her Farmboys").
12. At 143 minutes, the release print of "Gypsy" was now six minutes shorter, with LeRoy claiming it was cut to meet the running-time demands of Radio City Music Hall. Not true. In those days, Radio City would not play anything longer than 150 minutes. The original "Gypsy" ran 149; "The Music Man," which also played there, ran 151.
13. Feeling compelled to "undo the harm of the Roz Russell film," the makers of "Gypsy" pushed for a remake, the result being the unwatchable 1983 Bette Midler TV version, poorly directed by Emile Ardolino ("Dirty Dancing"). On paper, the ever-game Midler sounds like an ideal Rose; in performance, she's something else - utterly and surprisingly unmemorable and with a small voice that made her sound more like Baby June than Rose. Luckily, this "Gypsy" is just about forgotten. About the production, a source very close to the material once said to me, "It gets worse every time I see it." Ardolino filmed Laurents's stage script intact and what seemed great on stage comes across as arch on the small screen. This word-for-word conceit only magnifies the show's flaws.
So, when I say that I love "Gypsy," I'm talking about "the Roz Russell film." And I've a hunch that whatever affection the public has for "Gypsy" is directly related to this long popular film, not the show itself.
Feel free to disagree.
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