I'm enjoying a book called — this is the full title — I Got The Show Right Here: The Amazing, True Story of How an Obscure Brooklyn Horn Player Became the Last Great Broadway Showman. The showman in question is Cy Feuer who, with his partner Ernie Martin, produced — among others — Guys and Dolls, Silk Stockings, Where's Charley?, Can-Can, How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying (all for Broadway) and the movie versions of Cabaret and A Chorus Line. But he wasn't always that smart: He and Martin had a little show called The Music Man but they got too busy with other projects, so Meredith Willson took it elsewhere.
His autobiography abounds in tales involving folks like George S. Kaufman, Cole Porter, Abe Burrows, Ray Bolger, Bob Fosse and the cheapest man in show business, Rudy Vallee. (Has anyone yet mentioned Vallee in a book without telling anecdotes about him that make Ted Baxter look like a philanthropist?)
Most of the Feuer-Martin shows have been written about before — some in great detail. So it's interesting that Feuer still has things to tell us that I'd never heard before. For instance, it's long been known that although the book for Guys and Dolls was credited to Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows, it was actually written by Burrows alone after Swerling's draft was deemed unseaworthy. There have been some partisans of the long-deceased Mr. Swerling who have argued with this conventional wisdom, feeling he deserves credit in truth, not just in name. But here we now have the co-producer of the show, Cy Feuer, stating that not one word of Swerling's made it onto the stage. Moreover, he says, Nathan Detroit and Miss Adelaide were not even in the show when Swerling was disengaged. They were added, he says, when George S. Kaufman came aboard as director and suggested the play needed a sub-plot.
Not much more to add right now. If you're interested in these shows, you'll want this book. And if you want this book, click here to order it from Amazon and give us a little cut. Even Rudy Vallee would think it's a bargain.