I'm afraid don't have much in the way of Jack Klugman anecdotes. I saw him on stage twice, both times doing a Neil Simon play opposite Tony Randall. One time was The Odd Couple. The other time was The Sunshine Boys. But I also used to go watch the two of them rehearse the Odd Couple sitcom. A friend of mine had an "in" there and I think we went three or four times to observe from the bleachers. I was impressed with the professionalism and the thought behind what they did. They'd do a scene, then stop and discuss why each of them said this or did that. It was the first time I ever eavesdropped on real actor talk and as I came to learn, I couldn't have audited a better example.
Mr. Klugman had an amazing career. He was always in something and it was usually a pretty good something. Even after he lost most of his voice to throat cancer, people kept wanting to hire him. You've gotta be a terrific actor for that to happen…and he was.
A few days ago Fred Hembeck noted on his Facebook page that NBC would be showing Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. Rather than sit through any commercials, I did what I do every year: I pulled out my Laserdisc copy and gave it a play. Soon people were posting that the network had butchered it (Gotta fit in those 27 Old Navy spots!). If you look on IMDB there is a lot of comments from people who swear there was at least one more scene, right down to quoting "dialog!" Now, I know that what I personally saw way back in '62 is what's on my Laserdisc and others on the comment page confirm this. However, there is one tale, probably apocryphal, concerning the music. Here I copy directly from the "Did You Know" section of IMBD's MMCC page:
"The composers Bob Merrill and Jule Styne offered a song titled 'People' for the score but the animation had already been completed and it was too late to include it. Instead, they added it to the score of a Broadway musical they were writing called Funny Girl where it became the first of many hits for the star, Barbra Streisand."
Any idea if this is true? If it is I can imagine Ms. Streisand's career would have been more than a little bit different without "People" as a signature tune!
I sure doubt it. The authorized biography of Jule Styne doesn't say that. In Jule: The Story of Composer Jule Styne by Theodore Taylor, it says of the writing of Funny Girl, the song was inspired by some lines of dialogue in the book (script) by Isobel Lennart about "a very special person." Then it says, "Jule turned to his collaborator Bob Merrill, 'You told me the other night to work on [the lyric] "a very special person." I think I've got a helluva melody for it.'…'Great,' Merrill yelled. 'But now it's not gonna be just a "special person." Listen.' Then he ad-libbed, while Jule played the melody again: 'People, people who need people'…The song 'wrote' in thirty minutes…" I don't know why that story exists if the song was written two years earlier for something else.
Also, the story of it being done for Magoo doesn't make a lot of sense. All of the songs had to be finished and recorded long before "the animation had already been completed." Jule Styne at least was at the recording session and he had to have known that anything that wasn't done at that stage had no chance of getting in. Now, if the claim was that Merrill and Styne had written it for Magoo before that session and there was a decision made not to use it in the first place…well, that at least could make some sense. On the other hand, if that had been the case, I think it would have been a very famous anecdote. Writers and composers love it when something gets rejected in one venue and is a huge hit in another.
I haven't consulted my copy of Darrell Van Citters' magnificent book on Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol because I'm not sure where my copy is. But I don't recall it being mentioned in there…and if Darrell didn't uncover proof of that, it didn't happen.
NBC ran Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol in prime-time the other night — a fiftieth (!) anniversary airing. A number of folks have written to me in outrage over the editing done to it which included lopping off the opening number and much of the closing one.
Or so I'm told. I didn't watch. I have the show on DVD and couldn't think of any reason to tune it in on NBC and watch with commercial interruption. Yes, the show was pretty much constructed to play with commercial interruptions with clearly-indicated act breaks…but it wasn't intended to have that many commercials in it.
When it first aired on December 18, 1962, it was in an hour slot and the actual program elements (animation, titles, credits) ran 52 minutes. Oddly enough, I occasionally hear from someone who swears it was at one point ninety minutes long and sometimes they even remember specific scenes and songs that were cut. They're misremembering.
A few years ago, a correspondent hectored me for some time with his insistence that it was an hour and a half. I finally pointed him to eBay where a TV Guide was up for auction for that week in 1962. I wrote to him, "Buy it and send me a scan of the page which shows it was in a ninety-minute slot and I'll admit you're right and tell the world!" He bought it and wrote to me to say, uh, well maybe it was an hour when it was first run but they must have added more material to it for later broadcasts. Nope.
These days, the program content of a network prime-time hour can dip as low as 44 minutes and that's with the end-credits compressed down to a few nano-seconds. So the minute it was decided that Magoo would have an hour, a lot had to come out. Simple fact of life…and maybe a good reason not to air it in network prime-time if you're only going to give it an hour.
What they might have done was to put it into a ninety-minute slot, let it run in full and then pad out the end of the slot with something else. Some folks are suggesting today they should have done that and filled with a little "making of" documentary as has been done when A Charlie Brown Christmas and How the Grinch Stole Christmas had the same problem. The catch here is that I don't think NBC ran Magoo because they thought this was a timeless Christmas classic that the world loves and is dying to see again. I suspect they ran it because it was a cheap way to fill up an hour and no one was interested in spending any money on it.
Fortunately, the full version is not hard to come by. Maybe this new airing will spark some folks who were previously unfamiliar with this great special to seek it out. Or maybe it'll leave them wondering, "What was so great about that?" and cause them not to. Oh, well. At least they didn't just lop off the ending and leave it so Scrooge didn't change.
I thought my pal of way-too-many years Joe Brancatelli knew everything there was to know about airlines…but this year, he learned seven things he didn't know before.
I often read your Blog and really enjoy its content. I can give you feedback on the Melbourne 'FORUM' with Geoffrey Rush. It is totally hilarious and as funny an evening as I've ever spent in the theatre. Everyone laughed themselves hoarse.
The whole cast is fantastic but Geoffrey is phenomenal. His performance is the funniest thing I have ever seen in the theatre. From the first moment he enters balancing a comedy 'urn' in one hand and a tragedy urn in the other then squirts tragedy with a fire extinguisher we know we are in for a really crazy night.
I have not seen Zero Mostel (except on YouTube) or Nathan Lane but I'm sure Mr Rush would be in their stratosphere. His rapport with the audience was great. Geoffrey is first and foremost a theatre performer. The play was chosen as they thought they could get Geoffrey interested. There are interviews with Geoffrey and other cast members on YouTube with a few snippets of the show visible.
Makes me even sorrier I'll never experience it. I've never seen Geoffrey Rush not be marvelous in anything he's been in. And by the way, here's an example of how every production comes up with some big laugh that I've never encountered before. I've never seen anyone do that with the urns and the fire extinguisher.
Like you, I never had the certain pleasure of watching Zero Mostel do it on stage. I saw the movie, of course, but once you're familiar with the full stage version, it's awfully hard to enjoy the movie. I did see, as I've mentioned here many times, a stage revival with Phil Silvers in the lead, as opposed to the supporting role he played in the film. He was beyond amazing.
I saw Nathan Lane twice. Both times, I imposed on Larry Gelbart to get me house seats. As co-author of the play, Mr. Gelbart got damn good house seats but the first time I had his, I made a fatal error. I didn't pick up the tickets well before the performance so they gave them away (or sold them, perhaps via a scalper for megabucks) to someone else. When my date and I arrived at the theater that night, they instead stuck us in the back row of the St. James which was literally too narrow for someone 6'3" to sit in without having his knees up under his chin. I ended up sitting on the seat with the seat up, if you can figure out what I mean by that. I could not sit in the seat with the seat down. From there, Nathan Lane was about the size of a Jujubee.
This was a late preview and Gelbart, who would not see this production until weeks later, asked me to e-mail him immediately after the performance and give him my opinion. Out on the sidewalk afterwards, I used my cell phone to send him a three word review: NEEDS MORE JEWS. When Larry finally saw it, he called to tell me he agreed but said, "They'll grow into it."
He was, as he usually was in matters of comedy, correct. About eight months later, I was back in New York. Once again, I arranged for Mr. Gelbart's house seats but this time I was wiser. I scheduled Forum for my last night in Manhattan and picked the tickets up on my first day there. This time, my date and I (different date) were in the second row on the aisle. World of difference. Nathan Lane and the company had had many months to explore the play and learn how to get laughs with the material and they were much, much better even though insofar as I could tell, no Jews had been added.
I've seen dozens of productions. Mr. Silvers was out and away my favorite Pseudolus. Second place would probably be a tie between Nathan Lane and a fellow named Bob Amaral, who understudied Lane on Broadway and who has played the role many times in other stagings. But you know who I'd love to see do it? You've seen me mention my friend Jim Brochu here many times. Jim and I bonded over our mutual love of Forum and I envy that he saw Zero do it and met him and also became close with Davey Burns, who originated the role of Senex. Jim, if you're reading this — and I know you are — see what you can do to star in a production some day soon. I know you want to do it for yourself but forget that. Do it for me. Just don't do it in Australia.
Here's another peek at the production down in Melbourne…
Here's something I find annoying. This is on the L.A. Times website this morning…
Wet Christmas Eve in the forecast for Southern California
Christmas Eve will see a 70% chance of rain as a series of new winter storms moves through the area.
Sunday will experience possible showers in the morning but will clear by the afternoon, according to the National Weather Service.
Another storm will move in Monday, but officials said the rain could move out by Monday night.
Cloudy skies are on tap for Christmas Day, and another storm is expected later in the week.
The weather service said snow levels will be around 5,500 feet.
The storms will be stronger along the Central Coast and lose some of their power when they get to Southern California, officials said.
The headline and lede are wrong or at least misleading. Christmas Eve might wind up being wet in Southern California but that's not what the National Weather Service is predicting. Here is a quote from the actual forecast that was issued this morning at 4:36 AM and which has not changed. (The Times piece was posted at 8:14 AM.)
Steady rain with the next system will arrive on the central coast this afternoon… and will reach the Los Angeles basin around midnight. This will be another fairly fast moving system… and rain will end in most areas Monday morning. Dry conditions are forecast for Christmas eve night and Christmas day.
See? The forecast is for the rain to be over Monday morning in most areas and for Christmas Eve night to be dry. But if you read the Times paraphrase, you'd think the N.W.S. was predicting rain for most of Monday with a chance of it ending by Monday night. The difference could matter a lot if you're planning a party for tomorrow evening…as many are.
The L.A. Times is a pretty good paper but like most, it has this idea that reporters have to report, not quote. Instead of just copying the National Weather Service report — which is written in plain, perfectly-understandable English — they have some Times staffer read the exact same bulletin that any of us could find on the web, then rephrase it for no good purpose. This person probably thought of the term "Christmas Eve" as denoting the entire day, which I suppose is technically correct. There is a forecast for rain on Monday, December 24 but most folks will look at the phrase "Wet Christmas Eve" and not understand that the N.W.S. isn't, at this time, predicting rain in the evening.
Sorry to hear of the passing of Larry L. King, one of my favorite authors. Judging from his many autobiographical writings, I don't think I'd have liked the man a lot in person but it sure was fun and enlightening to read him, especially when he wrote about writing. About a third of his works were on that topic and it was always interesting to observe how his mind worked…and how at times, it didn't. He did a book called None But a Blockhead that won't teach you how to write except in the sense that reading anything well-written teaches you a little about writing. But I found it helpful in coming to some realizations about what I did for a living and what it meant, socially and personally. He did a book called The Whorehouse Papers which was a diary of the making of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, a musical he co-authored. He also wrote some very fine books and articles about politics and about folks in that arena he knew well like Nelson Rockefeller and Bobby Baker.
Few of his books seem to be in print at the moment. This may be the only one and it's not his best work. But he's not hard to find via the used book market, especially if you remember that there have been at least four different Larry Kings (and one Larry L. King) who have written books but are not him. If you come across one cheap, grab it and see if you like him as much as I do.
Here's the New York Times obit on him and in case you've used up your quota of stories you're allowed to read there for December, here's a link to the L.A. Times obit.
As I seem to not have mentioned here in a week or more, my favorite musical comedy is A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and I go see almost every production of it I can. This means I've seen some ghastly productions of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum but I've also seen some wonderful ones. The wonderful ones more than made up for the bad ones…and I will say this: Even a bad one always manages to get at least one huge laugh that I've never heard in any other production. The show is very malleable within certain limits and it leaves a lot of room for its actors to invent new stuff.
I am not going to see the new production which stars Geoffrey Rush but that's only because it's in Melbourne, Australia. I'm sure Melbourne is a lovely place with much to offer but I can't think of a single thing I'd enjoy so much that it would be worth fifteen hours on an airplane. I recently turned down being Guest of Honor at a big comic convention in India and its promoter wrote me and asked, "What can we do to make you reconsider?" I wrote him back, "Move it to Santa Monica." I don't think he's going to do this.
About six hours on a plane is my limit…my loss. Because I'll bet this is a wonderful staging of a great show. Here's a snippet…
Fred Kaplan on the nomination of John Kerry as Secretary of State. I must admit that while I assume Kerry will do a good job, I'm so sick of elections that I don't like the creation of a new one — the campaign to select his replacement in the Senate — that we will all have to care about. Wasn't there anyone else?
The most-read thing I've ever put on the Internet was my Christmasy Mel Tormé anecdote. The recent Larry Hagman tale may eventually top it but the Tormé piece is much-linked…and also stolen. I've seen at least a dozen websites just copy the whole thing and post it with no credit or link to me. A couple of sites — including a blog run by someone who claims to be an intellectual property lawyer — did that with the Hagman essay, too.
Anyway, here is a link to the Mel Tormé story. It's also brought me a lot of mail including separate messages from two of his five children, one of whom remembered him telling them about the incident. I liked those messages a lot.
Oh — in case you haven't figured it out, the above photo is a recent one I took at the scene where the story took place — Farmers Market. The table in the foreground is roughly in the position where I recall the one at which Mr. Tormé was seated.
The JibJab folks have a pretty good "year end" video…and if you remember, I used to complain about what they passed off as rhymes in their songs, pretending certain words rhymed when they didn't. Well, this one was written with a lot more thought and care. They try to rhyme "child" with "style" and then "mom" with "along" and "wrong." But most of it's quite fine…
