Gwen Verdon: A Life on Stage and Screen (41 page)

The star was back for her third
Garry Moore Show
appearance on January 30, 1962. She sang and danced to the song “Forty-Nine Percent,” and with Carol Burnett sang the finale “Let’s Be Buddies.” A still exists of the women together for the number, wearing identical white topcoats with boutonnieres, white hats, striped pants and holding canes. Verdon’s hat has feathers in it which Burnett’s does not.

The
New York Times
reported on February 25, 1962, that Verdon was one of the people to receive the annual
Dance Magazine
award at a cocktail ceremony to be held in March. The award, an abstract statuette in silver, cited her for bringing a disarming warmth, a sure technique, and star quality to musical comedy dancing in ideal synthesis with acting and singing. The organization said that Verdon epitomized the best of all-round performer in today’s musical theater of Broadway, Hollywood and television. The
New York Times
of March 21 1962, confirmed that the ceremony was held on March 20 at the Carriage Club. Her award was presented by Paddy Chayefsky.

In Verdon’s fourth appearance on
The Garry Moore Show
(February 27, 1962), she sang and danced to the song “Pretty to Walk With” and joined the cast for a sketch called “Palace Intrigue” where Verdon was a charm school teacher. She also teamed with Carol Burnett in the show’s finale of “Be a Clown.” A still exists of Verdon with Burnett on the show, both of them wearing identical white high-collared smocks and black tights, presumably for the “Be a Clown” number. She returned to
The Garry Moore Show
for her fifth appearance on March 20, 1962. In it Verdon sang and danced in a production number based on the song “Shoo Fly Pie.”

On April 1, 1962, WCBS-TV Public Affairs Department broadcast an episode of
American Musical Theatre
which had guests Verdon and Fosse. The show, produced in association with the Board of Education of the City of New York, was “an informal workshop in a series of television biographies of people whose personal contribution to the musical theater had made it a native American art.” It was hosted by Earl Wrightson, had students from New York City high schools in the audience, and featured Jay Brockton and the CBS Orchestra. Brockton had been the musical director for
Redhead
. In the show both Verdon and Fosse are dressed in black, she in a sweater and pants with her hair in a ponytail. Sitting on stools close to the audience, they are asked by Wrightson about their pasts, and they also take questions from the audience. Verdon then sang “Whatever Lola Wants” from
Damn Yankees
two ways as a demonstration of staging a musical number. The opening five lines of the song is sung a capella with her sitting on her stool. Then Fosse leads Verdon to a stage where there is a bench so that she can sing the song in full, with movement and musical accompaniment, to him playing Joe Hardy sitting on a chair. Wrightson gives Verdon a towel for her neck after her performance.

She comments on the influence of the baggy-pants Picasso clowns on her work. Verdon then performs “The Pony Dance” from
New Girl in Town.
Fosse joins her in the dance, but unlike the first number, director Anthony Farrar violates the performance at one point by obscuring the dancers with a shot from the audience’s point of view. Fosse talks about Verdon, describing her as an extraordinary talent and says that the things that impress him most about her are her enthusiasm, her desire for perfection and endless energy. He also says that she has intuition of what he wants when he has an idea. Verdon next performs the pantomime dance “Merely Marvelous” from
Redhead
in a white-petticoated polka dot skirt over her clothes, putting on a white glove that has been left on a table. Verdon and Fosse do “Who’s Got the Pain” from
Damn Yankees
, and wear hats for the number. She confesses that when she is good she takes a singing and dancing lesson every day, and when she is bad she misses them and always regrets it. Verdon claims it requires a great deal of work and discipline which is compensated by having the fun she does on stage which makes you forget the pain of learning it.

Fosse then leads Verdon in a “then-I-choreographed” singing and dance medley which features brief excerpts from “Hernando’s Hideaway” from
The Pajama Game
, “Steam Heat” from
The Pajama Game
with hats, “Shoeless Joe” from
Damn Yankees
, “Mu Cha Cha” from
Bells Are Ringing
, “Sunshine Girl” from
New Girl in Town
with Verdon holding a hat, “Herbie Fitch’s Lament” from
Redhead
with Verdon wearing a hat and holding a cane; and “Brotherhood of Man” from
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

It is reported that Verdon attended the April 29, 1962 Tony Awards which were held at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. On May 21, 1962, Verdon and Fosse were part of the program for the third City Center of Music and Drama “Showcase of Stars” for the benefit of the Children’s Asthma Research Institute. They were assisted by a chorus performing in the “Don’t Kick It Around” dance from
Pal Joey
. The
New York Times
of May 9 reported that show’s producer was Jean Dalrymple and its director John Fearnley. But in its report on May 22, it says that Dalrymple was the director.

Verdon returned to
The Garry Moore Show
for her sixth appearance on June 5, 1962. Fosse was also a guest and together the couple sing and dance “I Wanna Be a Dancin’ Man,” a song originally performed by Fred Astaire in the MGM musical
The Belle of New York
(1952). In the number Verdon corrects Fosse’s singing “man” with “girl” to refer to the fact that she wants to be a dancing girl. The couple wear identical white blouses, black pants, white socks, black shoes and cane hats, with a set that has a giant cane hat on the curtain behind them. A photograph in the
New York Times
on June 3, 1962, shows that Carol Burnett, Fosse and Verdon also appeared in a dance number where they appear to wear white chef outfits.

The star had been counselled by her doctors not to get pregnant because of her age, although there was nothing specifically physically wrong with her. When she failed to conceive, the couple consulted pregnancy specialists, kept charts of Verdon’s temperature and monitored her menstrual cycle, and scheduled lovemaking sessions. However she still was not pregnant. Fosse’s sperm was then tested and it was determined to be “slow,” which meant that the couple would not be able to conceive in the natural way. They considered adoption as a better option, and then they proved their advisors wrong: Verdon became pregnant. (Fosse jokingly observed that the best way to get pregnant seemed to be to start adoption proceedings.) It might have seemed wise for Verdon not to keep working. But according to Neil Simon’s memoir
Rewrites
, she worked again with Fosse on his next musical.

He was asked by Cy Feuer and Ernie Martin to choreograph
Little Me
, a new show to star Sid Caesar. It was written by Simon and based on the Patrick Dennis novel
Little Me: The Intimate Memoirs of That Great Star of Stage, Screen and Television/Belle Poitrine
. Since Feuer wanted to direct and since Fosse now would only work as a choreographer-director, they agreed to be credited as co-directors. It was during the auditions that, one source claims, Verdon learned she was pregnant. Apparently she was at home because she had not been feeling well. When her doctor told her the news, she telephoned Fosse backstage. When he found out, Fosse apparently let out a yell, dropped the receiver, and ran out into the street. Verdon feared that her husband had fainted upon hearing the news, but he was actually just happy and had to shout it out to the world.

Rehearsals for the show took place at the Variety Arts studio. Cy Coleman recalled when he first met Verdon: She came waddling down the aisle with the also pregnant Joan Simon. The women were both laughing and comparing the size of their bellies. Neil Simon writes that, weeks before rehearsals began, Fosse had worked out the dances with Verdon and a pianist. She would help him flesh out the numbers with both of them playing everyone’s part. Verdon went with Fosse when the show moved to the Erlanger Theatre in Philadelphia in October 1962. Then after seven weeks it moved to Broadway and opened on November 17 at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. Despite a newspaper strike, the show was a success and ran till June 29, 1963.

Fosse took Verdon to Chicago for Christmas to show off her pregnancy to his family. The family put on a Christmas revue for her, drawing a curtain across the middle of the living room and doing numbers from
The Pajama Game
,
Damn Yankees
and
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.
They had costumes copied from the
Damn Yankees
movie and played the soundtrack recording for “Who’s Got the Pain.” Fosse’s seventeen-year-old niece Cindy was to do the number in a variety show at Amundsen High and he and Verdon coached her in every detail of the number. Verdon was back on
The Garry Moore Show
for her seventh appearance on January 1, 1963. She did a dance entitled “Ecstasy” and joined Carol Burnett and Roy Castle in the finale “My Mother Was a Lady.”

On March 4, 1963, Verdon gave birth to Nicole, a variation on the name Nicholas that Fosse had wanted if they had a boy. He had chosen it as a tribute to his uncle but later when he wanted to appear more literary he said he got Nicole from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s character Nicole Diver in his novel
Tender Is the Night
. Dorothy Fields, the lyricist of
Redhead
, is said to have come up with the middle name Providence, based on the fact that the Fosses had wanted a child for so long, had tried so hard and had almost given up all hope.

In a
New York Times
article (April 26, 1963) it was reported that Fosse was working on a new stage show of his own conception to star Verdon. The article did not state what the show would be about other than it was an offbeat idea, dominated by movement and dance, and something that he had been thinking about for five years. Fosse was to begin discussions with producers Robert Fryer and Lawrence Carr who had previously worked with the couple on
Redhead
. On May 6, 1963, Verdon attended a party celebrating the 40th anniversary of
Time
magazine, held at the Waldorf Astoria. In her eighth
Garry Moore Show
appearance (May 21, 1963) she sang and danced to a song called “Love” and joined the cast for the finale of “Haven’t Got a Nickel.” Verdon was again by Fosse’s side at rehearsals and backstage from May 29, 1963, when he performed in a revival of
Pal Joey
directed by Gustav Schirmer, Jr. The show was at the New York City Center for their Light Opera Company; it would only run for fifteen performances until June 9, 1963.

In the May 1963 edition of
Horizon
magazine, Verdon was photographed by Hans Namuth sitting on the sand in front of a modest beach house on Long Island that she and Fosse were said to occupy. She wore a pink short blouse with white long sleeves and pink pants and was barefoot as she sat in front of a tangle of brush and broken-down wooden fencing that was positioned between her and the two-storey brownstone house behind her. The fencing was meant to anchor the dune against the Atlantic storms though its dilapidated state suggested that it now had little protective benefit. Fosse was not in the photograph and the house looked small, with pink frames and silver shutters on the windows and doors. The raised back veranda had beach towels slung over a railing and a beach mattress on the porch, and sun hats hung on what appeared to be a clothes line. The accompanying prose was written by William K. Zinsser. He reported that the house was originally part of an Army quarantine camp built at Montauk Point during the Spanish-American war and later moved to its present location near Amagansett. The Fosses bought it four years ago and used it all year as a weekend retreat from their city schedules. Zinsser also mentioned that Verdon liked to make collages for her living room from driftwood, bits of broken glass, and other beachcombing discoveries. It is noteworthy that she did not include her baby in the photograph.

Despite her previously announced retirement from the stage and the birth of Nicole, Verdon was now keen for another comeback. Verdon felt that when her daughter was three, that would be the right time when she could safely leave her to free herself for one last triumph. This was planned as a show with Fosse that would top what they had done with
Redhead
, but this time, something that they had created for themselves. Verdon would spend the meantime searching for the right material, something that was new and challenging and personal to both her and Fosse, with dance potential for him and a leading role for her.

Season dates are for Gwen Verdon’s run and not the show’s entire run.

Show Boat
(May 4, 1940). Los Angeles Auditorium Theatre. Director: Zeke Colvan. Part: Broadbent Dancer.

Bonanza Bound!
(December 26, 1947, to January 3, 1948). Shubert Theatre, Philadelphia. Director: Charles Friedman. Part: Gypsy.

Magdalena
(July 26, 1948, August 16, 1948, September 20 to December 4, 1948). Los Angeles Civic Light Opera, San Francisco Curran Theatre (San Francisco Light Opera), Ziegfeld Theatre. Director: Jules Dassin. Verdon was the assistant choreographer.

Alive and Kicking
(January 17 to February 25, 1950). Winter Garden Theater. Director: Robert H. Gordon. Part: Abou’s Wife.

Can-Can
(May 7, 1953, to September 6, 1954). Shubert Theatre. Director: Abe Burrows. Parts: Claudine/Eve in "The Garden of Eden.”

Damn Yankees
(May 5, 1955, to November 24, 1956). 46th Street Theater. Director: George Abbott. Part: Lola.

New Girl in Town
(May 14, 1957, to March 22, 1958). 46th Street Theater. Director: George Abbott. Part: Anna.

Redhead
(February 5, 1959, to March 19, 1960). 46th Street Theater. Director: Bob Fosse. Part: Essie Whimple.