My character is Harold in The Boys in the Band film.
He's a complicated fellow.
I know that he's based on someone in Mart's life,
a guy named Howard Jeffrey.
It's always interesting to hear stories
about people who've influenced characters.
And so that was cool.
Howard Jeffrey was my best friend.
I would say that, you know,
Michael, the lead in the play, is based on me,
and Harold,
who is his nemesis in the play,
was based on Howard.
And how are you this evening?
This is Howard Jeffrey.
That picture was taken by Jerome Robbins.
And, as you see, Howard was a very attractive guy.
He was a dancer.
The top echelon
of choreographers all wanted him.
He was born in Los Angeles, worked all over the country.
Many of the big movies of their era, he was a part of.
Natalie Wood,
Howard taught her all the routines
in West Side Story, the film.
That's where I met him.
And then, the three of us became lifelong friends.
Big film stars worshiped him,
particularly if they weren't dancers themselves.
Barbra Streisand, when she did Funny Girl,
which was her first film,
was so reliant on Howard that she demanded that
whenever she had to dance with a partner,
it would be with Howard.
And so he's featured
in the Ziegfeld Follies sequence
of the pregnant bride.
She demanded that he be one of the waiters
in the great "Waiters' Gallop."
And here's Howard again.
This is in Italy.
This is one of the last photographs
taken of him because he was very ill here.
In the end, Howard Jeffrey did die in the AIDS plague.
And he was my age. He was 52.
And you can hear, in Mart's description of him,
a sense that he talked to him yesterday.
He is very present in Mart's imagination,
and he's very present on the page.
The play is dedicated to him.
He didn't know about it when I was writing it.
I was terrified to even let him know
because I didn't know what the hell he'd…
how he would react.
What's so fucking funny?
What I've learned about Howard and his complexity
and who he was
informs Harold to a certain extent.
Life is a goddamned laugh riot.
You remember life?
You really get a very clear sense of who this man is
just by reading Mart's dialogue.
I'm having seconds and thirds and maybe even fifths.
I'm absolutely desperate to keep the weight up.
There are other influences in my own life
and my own experience of people
who I've sort of drawn on to help me
shade in the colors of who my version of Harold is.
I know Zach to be a really hilarious person
with a great sense of humor.
I kept forgetting
and accidentally turning my hateful mother on
with a salad,
but I think she likes it.
No matter what meal she comes over for,
even if it's breakfast,
she says, "Let's have a salad!"
I thought it would be interesting
to really push him in that direction,
to expose that side of him,
which I don't think he gets called on to do
all that often.
Now, it is my turn.