alright, so here we go
Who wants to do the first one?
Billy does
I'll do the first one
I was always afraid of her, and she's one of those people that if she smelled fear, you were dead
she loved people that didn't smell the fear and faced her head on
and I was never that person
She spoke at Fritz Holtz's assistant's memorial service
Amos Abrams
They were good friends, and as he handled Arthur, he spent a lot of time handling Elaine
She stood up there and said
I've been a mess all my life, he's the only guy who hung on to me and kept me straight through so much
I owed so much to him
Listen, I'm still f*cked up now, but I'll bet I'm stronger than most of you
and if you're friends with him and you're here, then you're friends with me
Call me
My number's gonna be at the door, find me, I can help you the way Amos helped me
wow, fantastic
And it was like 300 people in that little theatre
The first time I met her, Manny took me to lunch with her at Sardi's
and at one point, Merman's name came up, and Channing said
Merman, she left handed me at my own opening
and I said, what's that?
she said
She came over to me, held out her left hand and said
Come on the press is here, they want a picture
and if she's holding her left hand, she's first in the caption on that photo
because she's on the left
Don't left hand Channing!
She knows what that means
She cared about her name coming first?
At a Carol Channing opening night
If it had been a Merman opening night
It was like she had been stealing focus at Carol's opening
So, the Dolly tour, the last Dolly tour with Carol Channing
was directed by Lee Roy Reams
and Lee Roy Reams had been in it and knew the staging
and so he was saying
So, Carol, you come in and you do this and blah blah blah
and she went, I don't want to do that anymore, I want to come in over here
Well, Carol, Gower said
Lee Roy, Gower's dead
And so she got her way
Nothing is too good
She's Angela Lansbury
and she is everything that you want her to be.
She's Angela Lansbury and I will not hear a word against her.
We had pizza brought in and Peter Shaw, her husband, said
Angela has to have a salad
He was like, she can't have pizza, that's not within her diet
She's Angela Lansbury, how dare you have just pizza
Fine, fine
So we ordered a salad and Peter had to go off to a meeting of some sort
And Angela Lansbury came over and went like this to me
I went, yeah?
She went
Could you bring me two slices of that pizza?
and I said sure.
And can you find me a place to eat it where no one can see me?
I said yes I have a room for you, I can do that.
I smuggled pizza to Angela Lansbury
So Ethel Merman
Ethel Merman's best friend was visiting Ethel backstage
Ethel was getting ready and she had a turban on
and her friend said
A turban Ethel?
and Ethel said, it softens me the f*ck up
She's just great!
Attention must be paid, and happily attention has been paid to her
She is acknowledged as who she is, and she's musical theatre history
and we saw her a few years ago here on a Sunday evening at the Shaw theatre, which is like a conference room
but most of the people in the theatre were gypsies from other West End shows
it was like they were there to pay homage, they did
I was kind of worried because I went, are they going to get it?
and she came out and they totally got it
it was like oh, she transcends countries, she transcends time
She's Chita Rivera, she's great
I love Vivien Leigh!
The only Vivien Leigh story I know is one I read in Playbill
and it was by Paula Lawrence
and it was when she was appearing on Broadway in Ivanov, with John Gielgud
and the lights bumped up two points when she made her entrance
and she insisted on that
in the article, Paula Lawrence said
and as well she should
she didn't say do it as a complaint, she's a great star
bump up the lights so the audience goes like this
He did something horrible to her
She blacks out at a matinee on a Saturday
It's called transient global amnesia
she was onstage towards the end of the first act, or in the middle of the first act
and looking at Jamie Ross, who is her leading man
and she went, who are you?
and he said, I'm Sam Craig, I'm the cartoonist
she went, what?
where am I?
She had a micro-stroke, she had no idea where she was
and they brought in the curtain, and they called the understudy, the standby
Bacall never missed
So this is a standby that's had a job for two and a half years, at a really decent salary
and she didn't know the show
everybody was always there
so she barely kept the curtain up for the second act
Debbie went to the hospital, Debbie missed the performance for that night
but when Gary was calling in the payroll, he docked her for a half a performance
and the evening performance and took it out of her salary
I said, why would you do that?
he said, she didn't do the show
you don't pay someone for not doing the show
but I went, it's Debbie Reynolds, she's lovely!
and he went, no, she doesn't get paid for shows that she doesn't do
and she didn't complain
I complained!
He completely made me feel horrible because of the humane aspect, but also, it's a business
our investors were always threatening to sue us because we barely recouped by the end of those two and a half years
because we were pampering Bacall, Peter Stone, and all these people to keep things alive
so I had to watch the pennies
but I do acknowledge I should feel bad and I do feel bad