Loverly:The Life and Times of My Fair Lady (Broadway Legacies) (10 page)

Although the next day Levin informed Evans that he had made reservations to leave New York for London on August 6, on July 28 Levin wired him to postpone the trip.
⁹⁶
In the meantime, Levin had received word from Beaumont that he would be happy to have a meeting, but that his responsibility was to protect everyone associated with
Bell, Book and Candle
.
⁹⁷
Evans informed Levin that Harrison was leaving London on August 7 for a two-week vacation and suggested delaying the
Pygmalion
trip until August 21, but Levin was initially reluctant.
⁹⁸
However, on July 28 Levin sent Evans a telegram cancelling the trip and the hotel rooms.
⁹⁹

Curiously, another leading British actor, John Gielgud, sent a letter to his friend Hugh Wheeler that same day, in which he stated: “Oliver Smith rang from N.Y., would I like to do Higgins in the musical of
Pygmalion
as Rex is now problematical. I remain flattered but refuse to be rushed.”
¹⁰⁰
It is difficult to know how serious an offer this was, since the plans of Lerner, Loewe, and Levin still revolved around Harrison’s presence in London, and Smith was
only the designer (albeit a sometime co-producer of other Levin projects); it is possible, perhaps, that Levin was tentatively exploring names other than Harrison if the latter continued to be unavailable.

Harrison continued to dominate the producer’s activities in August. On the first day of the month, Levin cabled Evans to tell him that he was trying to work out a deal with MGM for a film project they were hiring Harrison to do. It was possible that MGM could give Levin a lever for removing Harrison from
Bell, Book and Candle
and setting a rehearsal date for
Pygmalion
. “However,” continued Levin, “we [are] concerned [about] his doing [a] film and immediately begin[ning] rehearsals [for a] big musical. Is he aware [of the] magnitude of [the] physical undertaking?”
¹⁰¹
Finally, some headway was achieved on August 12, as Evans informed Levin that Beaumont was asking for £10,000 in return for Harrison’s release on November 19—the hint of a concrete date at last.
¹⁰²

Five days later, Levin recorded a conversation he had had on the telephone with Charles Moskowitz of MGM, discussing the penalty provision in the anticipated deal for Harrison’s release.
¹⁰³
The next day, Evans called Levin to discuss the latter’s insistence on several conditions before he would allow MGM to make a deal with Beaumont to release Harrison to make the film. Levin was adamant that Harrison be delivered on January 2, 1956, or that MGM would have to pay a penalty for every day thereafter if he were late; he also wanted assurance that the actor would be able to leave
Bell, Book and Candle
in time for him to spend a week in New York with Lerner and Loewe for the preparation of the
Pygmalion
musical. Levin also felt that unless he could get a specific rehearsal date as part of MGM’s deal with Beaumont, he may as well negotiate directly with Beaumont himself.
¹⁰⁴

Ultimately, this is precisely what he decided to do. The way he broke the deadlock at this point was vital to the progress of the show. Evans sent Levin a telegram on August 26 to confirm his reservation at the Savoy and an appointment with Beaumont on the following Monday, indicating that Levin was to arrive in London on Sunday.
¹⁰⁵
The meeting took place. A memorandum of August 30 indicates two possible deals: either (a) Beaumont would release Harrison on October 29 in exchange for first right of refusal of the British Rights of
Pygmalion
and one-half of 1 percent of the gross of the New York production (though these terms would not apply if Harrison were able
to leave
Bell, Book and Candle
under the terms of his original contract); or (b) Beaumont would release the actor on December 3 under the same terms, except that the payment of the percentage of the gross would cease after Beaumont had been paid $25,000.
¹⁰⁶
The latter option was agreed upon on September 1. At last, Levin could plan to begin rehearsals in early January with the assurance that Harrison would be available.
¹⁰⁷

With this news, the producer could set to work finalizing Equity contracts with the production team and actors. Rex Harrison signed on September 2.
¹⁰⁸
Julie Andrews signed on September 8.
¹⁰⁹
and Stanley Holloway signed on September 13.
¹¹⁰
Levin also managed to find his Freddy Eynsford-Hill in John Michael King, whose contract is dated September 23.
¹¹¹
On September 27, Robert Coote agreed to play Colonel Pickering, a curiosity of the initial terms being that the management could require Coote to understudy Henry Higgins, although this never came to pass.
¹¹²
In June Levin had made a deal with the Trebuhs Realty Company to move into either the Imperial, St. James, Majestic, or Shubert Theatre for the Broadway run, and he maintained a hope even on September 2 that the Imperial might still be an option; on September 9 he signed a contract with Anthony Brady Farrrell of the Mark Hellinger Theatre.
¹¹³
The following week, a contract was drawn up with the Shubert Theatre in New Haven for the first of the out-of-town tryouts between 4 and 11 February.
¹¹⁴
Levin then proceeded to book the Shubert Theatre in Boston for the second, longer tryout, but on 2 November this contract was cancelled and he made a deal to hire the Erlanger Theatre in Philadelphia between February 13 and March 10 instead.
¹¹⁵
In an interview with the
Boston Daily Record
in November 1957, the producer would explain a “sentimental” reason for the change: “I happen to be a Philadelphia boy, that’s the only reason we played there instead of Boston.”
¹¹⁶

Levin worked mesmerizingly fast during September. On September 12, he drew up Franz Allers’s contract as conductor of the show, following an initial agreement of June 27.
¹¹⁷
A veteran of Broadway, Allers had been musical director of the original productions of previous Lerner and Loewe shows
The Day Before Spring, Brigadoon
, and
Paint Your Wagon
, and would go on to do the same job for
Camelot
, the 1980 and 1981 revivals of
Camelot
, and the 1981
My Fair Lady
revival, which would once again star Rex Harrison and Cathleen Nesbitt (as Mrs. Higgins). Also on the musical front, a letter of September 20 from Dr. Albert
Sirmay of Chappell and Co. Publishers confirmed that Robert Russell Bennett would take charge of the orchestrations for the show; Chappell had already signed up to produce and publish the sheet music on August 31.
¹¹⁸
Cecil Beaton and Oliver Smith’s final contracts were also drawn up during this period, as was Abe Feder’s for the lighting and Hanya Holm’s for the choreography.
¹¹⁹

True to form, Rex Harrison continued to make Levin anxious during this time. He started to drag his heels regarding the record contract with Columbia, who had entered into an agreement on September 7 to finance the entire production.
¹²⁰
On September 13, Levin wrote to Laurie Evans to hurry the signing of the record album rider for Harrison’s contract, and he received an answer two days later. “I am afraid Rex is quite adamant that he will not commit himself before he arrives in New York,” said Evans. Levin assured him that “the terms of compensation for him are the same as those paid Ethel Merman, Mary Martin, etc.”; it seems this issue was the reason for Harrison’s delay.
¹²¹
Levin also asked Evans “whether Rex is working on his voice. Did you contact Roy Lowe at the Drury Lane? Is he working with Rex now?” In reply Evans said that Harrison had not yet worked with the vocal coach because there was no actual material to study yet; and in any case, “he doesn’t ever want to become a light baritone and he doesn’t feel there is any value in simply doing scales, vocal exercises etc.”
¹²²

Mention was made at this time of a forthcoming trip to London by Lerner and Loewe, who had not visited England in August as planned. On September 27, Levin informed Evans that the pair would be leaving for England on October 15, later advising him to “keep Roy Lowe on call, available to meet with Lerner and Loewe as soon as they get to London.”
¹²³
Eventually, Levin persuaded Harrison to sign the record company contract, which was sent to him on October 12. Levin also informed Evans that Beaton intended to go to London on November 1, partly to order Harrison’s costumes; this is confirmed by Beaton’s diaries from the period.
¹²⁴

Developments continued in October. The veteran actress Cathleen Nesbitt (whose Broadway appearances in the early 1950s included the plays
Gigi, Sabrina Fair
, and
Anastasia
) agreed to play the role of Mrs. Higgins, signing her contract on October 4. Christopher Hewett was hired as a lead understudy on October 10 but resigned from the show around opening night.
¹²⁵
While Lerner and Loewe were in England, Hanya Holm planned
to go to London, Paris, and Berlin to do some research for the choreography and, as mentioned earlier, Beaton went to England to arrange for Harrison’s costumes to be made “authentically” in London.
¹²⁶
To Oliver Smith, Levin suggested exploiting the connection with CBS by borrowing “some ancient-looking phonographs and recording equipment for Higgins’s study” from them, one of a number of imaginative ideas made by the evidently excited producer during the show’s later gestation period.
¹²⁷

Levin was also good at taking care of the press. To Laurie Evans he wrote: “As soon as you know when Rex is arriving here, I will appreciate knowing that as well. I think we can arrange a pretty good publicity break.”
¹²⁸
Evans informed him that Harrison intended to have a vacation in North Africa, spend Christmas in Paris, and leave Europe by air on December 27, arriving in New York the next day; he also mentioned that Harrison’s vocal training with Roy Lowe was taking place daily.
¹²⁹
Similarly, Lillian Aza was asked when Stanley Holloway was to arrive. In her reply, she mentioned a meeting that had taken place with Lerner and Loewe, in which she found them “as charming as ever.”
¹³⁰
She informed Levin that Holloway would fly into New York on December 28, but with only three weeks to go before rehearsals, the actor suddenly decided to go by sea instead because “he finds he has a lot of baggage and also feels the rest will do him good.” He now intended to get to New York on December 27.
¹³¹

The arrival of Julie Andrews for rehearsals, however, was less straightforward. In her autobiography Andrews explains how she had only three months between the end of
The Boy Friend
and the beginning of
My Fair Lady
’s rehearsal period, and that this time was further reduced by a period back in America to film the Arthur Schwartz television musical
High Tor
in which she starred with Bing Crosby. Desperately needing to spend more time with her family (whom she had barely seen in over a year and would in all probability rarely see in the ensuing two-year run of
My Fair Lady
), she decided to spend both Christmas and the New Year in England, even though the two male leads intended to arrive on Broadway in late December.
¹³²
This caused some consternation for Levin, Lerner, and Moss Hart. On November 18, the producer wrote to Charles Tucker, Andrews’s agent, to urge her to consider coming on December 28 instead of January 2, the day before rehearsals were due to begin. “It would seem to me that this makes sense,” he wrote sternly, “not only from the standpoint of the show but from the standpoint of her relationship to the rehearsals, her part and the show itself. The few extra days may be enormously valuable.”
¹³³

But Levin’s importunacy was in vain. Tucker defended Andrews at length in a letter of November 23, assuring Levin that he would do anything he
could to help, but that the request was impossible. He reminded Levin of Andrews’s youth, and informed him that she had been very homesick during the Broadway run of
The Boy Friend
; she wanted to spend the New Year with her family because she did not know when she might see them again.
¹³⁴
Things came to a head on December 5 when another letter was dispatched from New York directly to Andrews in London. “I am sure you know in advance that our desire to have you here on that date is no capricious whim on our part,” wrote Lerner, before launching into a lengthy explanation of why Andrews should arrive in New York at the same time as Harrison and Holloway. “You are a star now, Julie,” he said somewhat portentously, and “it would be most impolitic to have them, who are two great and established artists, follow the usual pattern and you not do so.” He told her that “much can be accomplished in those few days,” such as “freshening” her Cockney and dealing with publicity, and later expressed concern about her being rested and about potential delays to flights around the New Year if bad weather occurred.
¹³⁵
The letter closed: “Will I see you December 27th? Please. Please.” But emotional blackmail and rough handling did not work on Andrews, who took the holiday, which she needed and to which she was entitled, and arrived as she originally planned on the second day of January.