Hello, Gorgeous: Becoming Barbra Streisa Part 27

8.

Backstage, Barbra was very aware of who was in the audience that night. Jule Styne, who'd showed up in her dressing room after a performance of Wholesale not long before and basically declared himself her servant for life, had informed her that he'd brought Ray Stark, f.a.n.n.y Brice's son-in-law and David Merrick's coproducer. And in no uncertain terms, Styne advised her that for tonight she should dispense with the usual eccentric banter and concentrate on singing. Barbra agreed to take his advice.

The last time she'd played here, Barbra had been the warm-up act; now she was the headliner. The contract her new agent, Joe Sully, had banged out guaranteed her "100 percent sole star billing," and he'd also arranged for the club to pay Peter Daniels as Barbra's accompanist. Plus there was a car to whisk her from the theater to the Village every night. Quite the difference from the days when Barbra had first stumbled through the darkness, having no say in how things were done. Everything was different this time around. The club had a new owner, Nat Sackin, a handsome, somewhat mysterious character, and the flamboyant Jimmie Daniels had been replaced as emcee by Barbra's old friend and booster, Burke McHugh. At least one reviewer missed Daniels's "terse, mocking intros," especially given how "sincere, sentimental and very long" McHugh's monologues tended to be.

But the biggest difference between now and the last time Barbra had appeared at the Bon Soir was how much more they were paying her. A year ago, she'd collected $175 a week. Now, a Broadway show, a Tony nomination, and a Drama Critics' Circle Award later, she pulled in seven times that-$1,250. Once upon a time, it had been Barbra who hoped her a.s.sociation with the Bon Soir would raise her profile. Now it was the club that wanted her name to help sell itself as hip, timely, and relevant.

With Barbra backstage, as usual, was Elliott. Since the start of her run at the Bon Soir, he could usually be spotted "hanging around" the club somewhere, as noticed by d.i.c.k Gautier, the opening act. Elliott's ubiquitous presence meant that others were prevented from spending too much one-on-one time with Barbra. One regular Bon Soir patron thought that Elliott acted as a kind of s.h.i.+eld for her. According to this patron, Barbra seemed to have grown "a little wary of mingling too much with her fan base," since she no longer came out and sat at the tables between shows. But it wasn't just she who had changed; her fan base had, too. Once a friendly group of Villagers, many of whom knew Barry or Bob or Terry, now it had grown into an authentic phenomenon, a pack of mostly gay men whom Barbra had never met and who showed up every night to see her.

Gautier had no illusions that the standing-room-only crowds every night had much to do with him. On opening night, when he looked out into the room and saw Helen Hayes and other Broadway bigwigs, he knew they hadn't come for his jokes, but to hear the girl who "stopped the show" every night over at the Shubert Theatre. But to Barbra's credit, she never engaged in any one-upmans.h.i.+p, even though she enjoyed, as per her contract, "100 percent sole star billing." She shared with Gautier, the original Conrad Birdie in the Broadway smash Bye Bye Birdie, a "mutual respect" that befitted two Tony-nominated Broadway performers.

Certainly Barbra was grateful that Gautier always handed over an upbeat audience to her. This night was no exception. The crowd was applauding in antic.i.p.ation even before Burke McHugh had finished his introduction. Given his history with Barbra, and the very real credit McHugh could take for launching her career, his intro may have been one of the long and sentimental ones he was known for. But no matter what words he used or how long it took him to say them, the audience erupted into applause when the spotlight picked Barbra out, standing by Peter Daniels's piano on the dark stage.

"Twenty-year-old Barbra Streisand returns to Gotham's intime [intimate] nitery circuit with the a.s.surance of a performer who knows that the road ahead is strictly upward," Variety had observed after opening night. "She knows what she's about and makes the tablers aware that there's something special happening on stage."

Reviews rarely came much better than that. Barbra's triumphant return to the Bon Soir meant that she was no fluke, no pa.s.sing trend, and that she was so much more than Miss Marmelstein. One night, Alan and Marilyn Bergman, a songwriting couple who'd written the t.i.tle track to Dean Martin's Sleep Warm alb.u.m, came backstage and asked her, "Do you know how wonderful you are?" Barbra didn't answer, but the Bergmans thought she did know. "You can't be that wonderful and not know," they mused.

It was clear that Barbra did know she was pretty wonderful, though as Variety observed, she didn't come across "arrogant or smart-alecky." She was simply suffused with confidence. When she sang Leonard Bernstein's "My Name Is Barbara," from his I Hate Music: A Cycle of Five Kids' Songs for Soprano and Piano, she made it utterly her own, no matter its operatic style and that pesky extra "a." "Value," from Harry Stoones, once again proved a crowd-pleaser, as was Harold Arlen's "I Had Myself a True Love." But it was Barbra's daring cover of "Lover Man," so indelibly a.s.sociated with Billie Holiday, that really impressed the crowd. Barbra might have been blissfully in love with a man who loved her back, but she was still able to put over the heartache of a lonely woman. As her voice trailed off on the last line-"Lover man, oh where can you be?"-the audience was jumping to its feet and banging the tables in appreciation.

This night, she obeyed Styne's decree to tone down the banter, but her personality no doubt still came through, if only in the way she smiled or shrugged. So ingrained into her act was Barbra's shtick by now that it had become impossible to completely eliminate. Variety had recognized that her "infectious juve [juvenile] giggle," her "grimace," her "wispy mood," and her "straightforward belt" were all "calculated for maximum impact." But such calculation didn't make her act any less "winning," the trade paper declared. "It works and that's what counts."

What remained to be seen was whether Ray Stark agreed with that a.s.sessment. When he came backstage to meet Barbra after the show, he said very little to her, although he did ask her to come in to his office the next week and give a reading from Lennart's script. That was promising, but what he actually thought of Barbra as a performer he did not reveal. Ray Stark was known to be a secretive man. In Hollywood, where everyone had "a ma.s.seur, an a.n.a.lyst and a wife" who could potentially blab details before a deal was inked, Stark had developed a real fetish for secrecy. He'd insist on absolute oaths of privacy when making a deal, ending his negotiations with "Swearsies?" The hard-driving dealmaker retained that childlike enjoyment of the high-stakes game he was so good at playing.

So when Stark left the club that night, Barbra-and Marty and Elliott and anyone else who had been watching his reactions carefully-would have had little clue as to what the producer was actually thinking. But Jule Styne surely knew. After the show, Stark told his collaborator what he had realized as he watched the kid perform. Barbra was f.a.n.n.y Brice. And from that point on, Ray Stark could never think "of anyone else in the part."

CHAPTER TEN

Summer 1962

1.

Barbra strode into the room wearing a b.u.t.tons-and-epaulets outfit that Jule Styne thought looked like a Russian Cossack uniform. He might have been her biggest fan, but he thought the outfit was horrible. Fortunately, it wasn't her clothes that were auditioning that day in early June. Instead, Barbra stood bravely in front of Styne, Ray Stark, Jerry Robbins, Bob Merrill, and David Merrick ready to show them that she could act. They knew she could sing; they'd all been to the Bon Soir by this point. Handing her Isobel Lennart's script for The Funny Girl-the name now attached to the project-they were willing to overlook the b.u.t.tons and epaulets if she could convince them that she was f.a.n.n.y Brice.

As usual, Marty Erlichman was at Barbra's side. Marty, they all understood, made things happen for her. Barbra had come that day at Stark's bidding, but it had been Marty who had made that invitation inevitable. Under Marty's direction, the Softness brothers had kept up their wooing of newspaper columnists, and as a result, Earl Wilson was currently suggesting in papers all across the country that Barbra should play f.a.n.n.y Brice (with Jan Murray as Nick Arnstein). Stark and his collaborators couldn't have missed it. Meanwhile, Marty had also w.a.n.gled Barbra fancy new representation with the William Morris Agency, a major step up from the more provincial a.s.sociated Booking, although the latter continued to handle her nightclub appearances. If Barbra was going to play in the major leagues-and it didn't get much more major than the quintet sitting in front of her-she'd need major-league representation.

So the young woman who walked into the room that day was hardly some kid off the street, as the power brokers who sat watching her with keen, discerning eyes liked to call her in the press. "An unknown," Ray Stark described her. That was nonsense. Barbra might not have been an Anne Bancroft, or even a Carol Burnett, but an "unknown" wouldn't have generated the kind of buzz she was getting that summer. The two alb.u.ms she'd partic.i.p.ated in-the cast recording of Wholesale and the Pins and Needles tribute-had just been released, and Barbra dominated virtually every review. John S. Wilson in the New York Times put it plainly: Wholesale wouldn't be remembered for Harold Rome's score, but rather as Barbra Streisand's Broadway debut. "Miss Streisand has such a vivid and pungent style of delivery," Wilson declared, "that she rises out of the laboring ordinariness of her surroundings on this disk like a dazzling beacon." Reviews for Pins and Needles nearly always trumpeted Barbra as well.

The irony was that both disks had been released by Columbia Records. But even those two successful alb.u.ms hadn't convinced G.o.ddard Lieberson to offer Barbra a contract. Both Capitol and Atlantic had stepped forward with offers, but Marty insisted they hold out for Columbia. Barbra's tireless manager spent many evenings at the Ho-Ho, a Chinese restaurant-bar where the record execs gathered after work, buying rounds of drinks for everybody and regaling them all with updates on the auditions for The Funny Girl. Lieberson, after all, had been f.a.n.n.y Brice's pal-though word was that he didn't feel Barbra was right for the part.

Thankfully, those in the room that day thought otherwise. Even David Merrick, so opposed to Barbra in the past, seemed to be coming around, or at least that's what they were hearing. Not long before, Bob had accompanied a friend to a sw.a.n.ky society party in Morristown, New Jersey, where, much to his surprise, he was introduced to the mercurial producer. Explaining that he was Barbra's friend, Bob bravely asked Merrick if it was true that he didn't want her for the f.a.n.n.y Brice show. On the contrary, Merrick replied, he'd "love to work with her." In fact, Barbra "could even be a producing partner" if she so chose-though that much, at least, was probably the champagne talking.

Still, Merrick's change of heart appeared genuine. It had apparently come about after he'd seen her at the Bon Soir-which seemed to do the trick for any doubter. After the show, impressed with a new maturity in Barbra's performance, Merrick told Marty, "Tell Barbra I think she's aged." Not long afterward, upon the expiration of Barbra's current Wholesale contract, Merrick gave her an increase in salary, bringing her more in line with what Elliott and Lillian Roth were making.

So Barbra was a bona fide Broadway professional when she came in that day to read from Lennart's script. She might have been just twenty years old, a supporting player in a so-so play, but she was also a star in the world of nightclubs and a darling of the critics. She was also a television celebrity, a critical point in her favor everyone would have appreciated. Although PM East had recently been cancelled, it had made Barbra's name and face familiar to a wide swath of the public who had never been to a New York nightclub or a Broadway show.

Accepting the script for her read-through, Barbra looked into the faces of the five men who had the power to give her either the boost she craved or stop her cold in her tracks. But one face was missing from The Funny Girl team that day: the very author of the material Barbra held in her hand. Isobel Lennart might have tempered some of the testosterone-fueled pressure in the room, but she was three thousand miles away at her home in Malibu, frantically revising the first act. Even as Barbra read through her scenes, everyone knew the book remained deeply flawed. In her gla.s.s-enclosed "teahouse" overlooking the ocean, Lennart was trying to figure out how to balance the comedy of the first act with the tragedy of the second. "G.o.d knows she has it in her," Robbins, ever Lennart's champion, had written to Stark, "but she and I are well aware of the problem of translating this into a different medium"-screenplay to libretto.

Stark, however, wasn't as optimistic. He'd asked John Patrick, who'd written the screenplay for The World of Suzie Wong, if he could improve Lennart's book, but Patrick was doubtful that much could be done without starting over from scratch-which none of them wanted to do. There simply wasn't time. Merrick was talking about an opening date in October, which was just five months away, and Stark had sent around a memo stating it was his "desire and intention to proceed on this basis." That would mean, if Barbra was cast, that she'd have to bow out of Wholesale. Since Merrick held her contract, that wouldn't be a problem. But they had lost the luxury of time.

There was another important reason they needed to start right away. Jerry Robbins had indicated that if they didn't move forward soon, he was out of the project. Producer Cheryl Crawford was eager for him to direct a version of Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children. Robbins didn't want to lose this opportunity if The Funny Girl was delayed further.

So it was decision time. With Lennart trying to fix the book, casting was the next order of business. Not long before, Stark had circulated another list of possibilities for f.a.n.n.y to his collaborators: Burnett, Streisand, Gwen Verdon, Mitzi Gaynor, Janis Paige, Betty Comden, Elaine May, Elaine Stritch, and (probably just to placate his wife) Mary Martin. They were "listed haphazardly," he insisted, "and not in order of preference." One name, however, was conspicuous by its absence. "For the record," Stark wrote, "I would like to say that I have a negative feeling regarding Anne Bancroft, predicated on the fact that she may have a completely different concept of the kind of play we all desire." If others wanted to keep Bancroft in the running, Stark wanted to be rea.s.sured that she was "capable of singing from a stage." Bottom line, Stark said, he felt "a lack of humor and warmth" from her, "which most certainly is the basis of our characterization."

Robbins begged to differ. "If she can sing," he wrote of Bancroft, "then I still feel she would be the best for it." He'd recently spoken with her, and Bancroft remained "interested," though she was waiting to see what Lennart came up with for the new first act. Yet while Robbins's support for Bancroft remained strong, there were growing doubts about the viability of her casting. She was insisting on an eighteen-month clause, which would allow her to escape from the show after just a year and a half. Stark argued that this would make a successful run "very difficult." But the bigger worry was her voice, which even Robbins seemed to acknowledge, given his caveat "if she can sing."

The composers had their own doubts as well. Months earlier, Styne and Merrill had run through the score for Bancroft. There was some history there: Merrill and Bancroft had dated, and the relations.h.i.+p had ended badly. Merrill suspected some of the hostility Bancroft displayed that day at the Beverly Hills Hotel, as she listened to them sing the score, grew out of old personal resentments. Despite the fact that Merrill had actually written "People" with Bancroft in mind, she'd been unimpressed when she'd heard it, stalking out of the hotel in a huff, claiming it was "unsingable."

Maybe, Stark had come to believe, nothing was singable for Bancroft, who, after all, was known more for her dramatic prowess than her singing voice. Robbins may have begun to agree with him on that point, since in the past few weeks he'd been advocating strongly for Carol Burnett as his second choice. Burnett wanted to do it, Robbins informed his collaborators just days before Barbra came in to do her reading. But he also acknowledged that he would need "to work with her a bit on the dramatic scenes to see whether she [was] capable of them." The concerns they had with Burnett were the exact opposite of the concerns they had with Bancroft.

What they were looking for on the day Barbra strolled in looking like a Cossack was someone who could both sing and act. Ray Stark and Jule Styne thought they'd found that someone, and Merrick seemed at least amenable to the idea. But there were two holdouts. Robbins had seen Barbra at the Bon Soir and agreed that she was terrific, but nonetheless she remained third on his list. Bob Merrill's doubts were bigger, which made for some awkwardness between him and Styne, his partner. But then again, their contrasts seemed to define them as a team. Styne was short and stout and loquacious; Merrill was tall and thin and taciturn. Styne was always upbeat, Merrill often dour. But together they had produced a score that everyone involved believed was destined to become a cla.s.sic.

Merrill's objections to Barbra were fundamental. He, too, had seen her at the Bon Soir, but for once the magic hadn't happened. As a songwriter, Merrill didn't like how Barbra played fast and loose with words and tempos. He believed songs were written a certain way by their composers and such authorial choices should be respected. Barbra, Merrill felt, a.s.sumed far too much owners.h.i.+p of other people's work.

But there was more to his visceral dislike of her-or at least his wife, Suzanne, came to suspect as much. Merrill was a ladies' man. If he wrote a song for a woman, he wanted to be attracted to her; the dynamic inspired him creatively, even if no romance ever bloomed between them. And Barbra, to Merrill, was not "girlfriend material," his wife understood.

It wasn't as frivolous an objection as it might sound, and Merrill probably had some sympathy from Merrick at least, if not from the smitten Styne. Beauty was obviously in the eye of the beholder, but their f.a.n.n.y Brice had to be attractive enough not to look completely incongruous playing opposite the actor cast as Nick-who, judging from the list then being circulated by Stark, was going to be a looker. Christopher Plummer, Tony Franciosa, Robert Goulet, Keith Mich.e.l.l, and Farley Granger were the top choices, though Merrick wanted to approach Rock Hudson as well. "People insist he wants to be in a Broadway musical," Merrick's office had told Robbins. "Sounds unlikely, doesn't it?" Unlikely or not, the idea to cast the top box-office star in the country was intriguing-and surely had them all considering how Barbra Streisand would look opposite the extravagantly handsome Hudson.

Barbra's audition changed no minds that day. Those who wanted her continued to want her; those who had doubts remained doubtful. Robbins would admit that Barbra had given "a marvelously sensitive reading," but he cautioned they needed "to face the problem of her youth." Could a twenty-year-old convincingly play the middle-aged f.a.n.n.y of the second act? Robbins was skeptical and was soon back to sending notes of encouragement to Anne Bancroft. Merrick, meanwhile, perhaps heeding Merrill's reservations, was suddenly "really anxious" to have Eydie Gorme come in and audition.

In a letter he wrote to Robbins not long after Barbra's reading, Stark said he appreciated everyone's varying opinions. With tremendous diplomacy, he recognized that all of the candidates had their advantages and that he was thankful to Robbins for considering them all. "You, of course, know my preference," he wrote at the end.

His preference remained Barbra. Yet what Stark failed to mention was his wife's preference or if he'd even broached Barbra's name with her at this point. And it would be Fran Stark, everyone knew, who would have the last word.

2.

Sitting in the audience that night at the Shubert Theatre was Lillian Gish, the exquisite and ethereal star of the silent screen, who, with pioneering director D. W. Griffith, had made some of the most important early American films: The Birth of a Nation, Way Down East, Broken Blossoms. Backstage, Gish's presence caused some excitement among the company's cineastes, but Barbra seemed clueless. She was in a foul mood that night. She was tired of the show, tired of Miss Marmelstein. She hoped fervently that come this fall she'd be playing f.a.n.n.y Brice in The Funny Girl, not just for the artistic challenges the role offered but simply for the chance to get out of Wholesale. If this was the reality of Broadway-doing the same d.a.m.n thing every night-Barbra told friends that maybe she really should start thinking about movies. Not that she knew much about them-as evidenced by her lack of recognition of Miss Gish.

Her boredom with the show was trying the patience of her fellow castmates and the stage manager, who attempted, without much effect, to get firm with her. Barbra was still showing up late, repeating a pattern that had developed during rehearsals. Even an official reprimand from Actors' Equity hadn't changed her behavior. Arthur Laurents's a.s.sistant, Ashley Feinstein, thought Barbra's unprofessionalism stood out all the more starkly because everyone else in the show was so professional. Even Elliott, who was never late, didn't seem to be able to get through to Barbra.

And everyone could tell when she was just "phoning it in," said a frequent member of the audience, one of the growing number of Streisand devotees who showed up several times a week to see the show. Yet still the applause came, which, as always, infuriated Barbra. She knew when she was good and when she wasn't, and she resented undeserved applause. But what she really resented was performing the part at all. She needed a change-and fast. She hoped that Stark and Robbins and the rest would make their decision soon.

That night, "she wasn't great," said the frequent audience member, "but she wasn't terrible either." Lillian Gish, however, thought Barbra was absolutely marvelous. Making her way backstage, Gish removed the earrings she'd been wearing and handed them over to Barbra as a token of her admiration. It was a tremendous gesture from a legendary figure, and Barbra accepted the earrings graciously-although only later did she fully discover who Gish was and why she mattered. Barry could have told her, or Bob or Terry. But they, of course, weren't around anymore.