Hello, Gorgeous: Becoming Barbra Streisa Part 43

That was the worry they all had. Leaving behind the intimate niteries, as Variety called nightclubs, Barbra was embarking on a whole new phase of her career. She'd pa.s.sed the test with flying colors a few nights earlier in Chicago, where she'd performed for two nights at the five-thousand-seat Arie Crown Theater. Billboard called it her first "one-girl concert." The second show had been added when the first sold out. "It would be laboring a cliche to say that Barbra Streisand's first Chicago concert ... was a smash success," Billboard reviewed, "but in all honesty, what else is there to say?"

From there, it was on to Indianapolis for a concert at Clowes Memorial Hall, which seated 2,200, and then here, to San Jose, where advance ticket sales hadn't quite kept up with the other venues. An unusually chilly night added to the jitters in the box office. That was why Barbra had ventured out of her dressing room to check with Marty. That was also why Marty was taking the time to speak with Ralph Gleason. Next up after this was a concert at the Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco, and Marty was taking no chances. He hoped that a good write-up from Gleason would ensure a rush on tickets.

There hadn't been a lot of publicity for this tour, none of the usual television spots that had helped so much in the past. There simply hadn't been time. All they had to rely on to get her name out there were her alb.u.ms: "There is only one Barbra Streisand," the ads in newspapers read, almost daily, "but now there are two Barbra Streisand Columbia alb.u.ms!" It was a symbiotic thing, since the tour was designed to sell the alb.u.ms as well. And yet, The Second Barbra Streisand Alb.u.m had remained stuck at number 2 all month, unable to dislodge, of all rivals, The Singing Nun-Jeanine Deckers, or Sister Smile-who now claimed Barbra's crown as top female recording star in the country. Some observers thought Deckers's soft, spiritual sound would never have climbed so high on the charts if it hadn't been for John Kennedy's a.s.sa.s.sination. There was still time to hit number 1, Marty a.s.sured Barbra, and everyone hoped this tour would help the alb.u.m do just that.

"She does it herself," Marty continued telling Gleason, as final preparations were made to open the doors and let in the crowd. "She listens to people. Peter Daniels, her accompanist, will make a suggestion. Harold Arlen. She adores Harold Arlen. But it's her." Gleason took it all down. That was the bottom-line message of all the publicity about Barbra: It was her.

Finally the stagehands and the lighting crew were ready. The doors were opened. As it turned out, the house wasn't full. The audience was small but "highly enthusiastic," braving "the cold night air to hear her." If she was disappointed by the turnout, Barbra didn't show it. She gave them an hour of her songs and patter-"a lot for your money," Gleason wrote, "from a girl whose stage confidence belies her twenty-one years."

8.

With Lainie Kazan on one side of her and Allyn Ann McLerie on the other, Barbra had at last begun rehearsing the role of f.a.n.n.y Brice. Garson Kanin was putting them through their paces as they worked out the details of a scene. On the unusually wide stage of the Winter Garden Theatre, under its lower-than-average proscenium arch, Barbra was treading where Mistinguett had once sung, where Josephine Baker, Gypsy Rose Lee, Gaby Deslys, and Marilyn Miller had all performed. But among these ghosts none was quite as welcome as that of f.a.n.n.y Brice herself, whose last performance in the Ziegfeld Follies had taken place on that very same stage in 1936.

Although Barbra, Kazan, and McLerie might have been dressed in street clothes and flat shoes this day, they were pretending to be outfitted in elaborate Ziegfeldian costumes-hats, boas, bustles, the works. They were imagining themselves in a backstage corridor of a Baltimore theater, where, as f.a.n.n.y listened, her two beautiful showgirl companions-Kazan as Vera, McLerie as Nora-lamented that someday their looks would be gone.

"Not me," Barbra as f.a.n.n.y interjected. "For my public, I can stop being gorgeous whenever I want." A beat. "I could even start being gorgeous if I weren't always standing next to one of you."

Suddenly she threw down the script. "I don't like this scene," Barbra declared. "We need to work on this."

Lainie Kazan watched in wonder. Ever since rehearsals had started on December 10, Barbra had been running the show, and producer Stark and director Kanin, to everyone's amazement, had been letting her. Kazan, who'd played small parts in The Happiest Girl in the World, with Cyril Ritchard and Janice Rule, and Bravo Giovanni, with Michele Lee, had never seen anything like this before. Barbra looked out into the audience where Ray Stark was sitting, his leg in a cast propped up in the aisle. He'd fractured it skiing, but that didn't stop him from hobbling on his crutches and following Barbra to her dressing room when she stalked off the stage, Isobel Lennart close behind. Garson Kanin, however, remained seated where he was, fifth row center in the empty auditorium, whispering urgently with his wife, Ruth Gordon, who was present at every rehearsal.

Lainie Kazan presumed this was "the modus operandi of all musical stars," until she realized that Janice Rule and Michele Lee had never behaved this way. Kazan could only a.s.sume that once a star got to Barbra's rank, they "had that kind of power to stop rehearsals and throw off schedules, that they could be difficult and that was okay." But then it hit her that Funny Girl was Barbra's first starring role. Kazan was left awestruck by Barbra's "moxie"-for want of a better word.

When she'd first heard that a show was being staged about f.a.n.n.y Brice, Kazan had wanted the lead herself. She'd been making a name for herself as a l.u.s.ty, busty torch singer at such clubs as the Living Room and the Colonial Tavern, and she'd studied dancing with Carol Haney. Like her fellow Erasmus Hall graduate, Kazan "wanted to make it big, be really successful." But that was where her similarities with Barbra ended. Kazan had been voted most popular girl in her cla.s.s. She'd also been a star of the glee club, incredibly outgoing and social, and, in the biggest difference from Barbra, pretty. All the boys liked Lainie. "A totally different ball of wax," Kazan said, comparing her high school experience with Barbra's.

Was that why Barbra refused to warm to her? Kazan had tried joking with her, the way she'd done with the leading ladies on other shows, but Barbra would have none of it. She was "too intent on what she was doing," Kazan observed, and uninterested in becoming "part of the team." Kazan suspected that the different routes each had taken to get to this point colored their approaches to the show. Barbra had come from nightclubs, where the spotlight had centered solely on her. Kazan had been in the chorus of several shows, and in the chorus "everyone learned to work together, to be good to each other, to help each other." That kind of camaraderie Barbra had never known in any part of her life.

Her distance from the company reflected her own anxieties about not fitting in, which, of course, ran very deep. Barbra was also painfully aware that success or failure largely rested on her own slim shoulders, and as she'd done on her second alb.u.m, she was willing to take control if she deemed it necessary-and she'd quickly decided it was. As rehearsals had gotten underway, Barbra found a company lacking the kind of military precision she remembered under Arthur Laurents. Everyone seemed to like Garson Kanin, but not one person was afraid of him-which was no way to run a show.

Meanwhile, adding yet more confusion in another of those upheavals that had so far characterized Funny Girl, David Merrick quit, leaving Stark as sole producer. No wonder Barbra cracked to Earl Wilson soon after the first rehearsal, "This is worse than opening night." She'd had more fun, she said, when she was "sharing the bill and could take the play away from the star." Not exactly the most politic admission, since that same star was now her husband, but at least it was honest.

Merrick's departure had left everyone uneasy. The clash between the mercurial Merrick and the manipulative Stark had been inevitable, especially as their business entanglements multiplied. Merrick was currently in partners.h.i.+p with Seven Arts on the production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and was also in talks to coproduce a dramatization of Rumer G.o.dden's novel A Candle for St. Jude. Stark had been frustrated by Merrick's greater attention to his other shows, primarily h.e.l.lo, Dolly!, while Merrick had become increasingly leery of Stark's gerrymandering of movie-rights deals, since all of their productions were destined for big-screen development. Saying "life is too short to deal with Ray Stark," Merrick withdrew as producer of Funny Girl, selling his shares to his former partner for a sum reported to be in excess of $100,000.

While Stark had produced The World of Suzie Wong, he'd done so in conjunction with Seven Arts. Now, for the first time, he was the sole pilot steering a major Broadway show. Everyone knew that Stark was an expert at making movies. But could he bring those same skills to the theater?

Making matters more complicated, Barbra's contract had been with Merrick; at the time of signing, Stark hadn't possessed an Actors' Equity agreement. That was why having Merrick as a partner had been so advantageous. But now that Barbra's contract was suddenly moot, Funny Girl, in effect, no longer had a star. From Barbra's point of view, she was starting rehearsals without a contract.

A new agreement was needed with Stark, and Barbra drew up a list of demands. It was only right, her agents argued. Since signing with Merrick last summer, Barbra had become the most successful woman in the recording industry, regularly selling out huge arena-sized venues. No longer was she just Liberace's warm-up act, as she'd been when she'd signed with Merrick. So Barbra told Begelman and Fields that she wanted a raise from $3,500 to $7,500 a week. She could make that much in club dates, as the columnists were pointing out. In addition to asking for a raise, Barbra wanted a private hairstylist, free meals every day, and a chauffeured limousine to take her between her apartment and the theater. Finally, she was hoping, her long-ago dream of being driven around the city might come true.

Watching as Barbra huffed off to her dressing room, the rest of the company was aware that their leading lady was demanding a great deal. Kazan wondered if Stark, shouting after her on his crutches, would give in. He hadn't yet acceded to all of Barbra's demands for a new contract, but everyone-Barbra included-understood that she was in the driver's seat. There was no show without her. That was why Stark had hobbled after her so solicitously. Kazan thought that Barbra had him right where she wanted him. And if there was anyone in the cast with insights into Ray Stark, it was Lainie Kazan.

After Barbra had won the part of f.a.n.n.y, Kazan had put the show out of her mind until the night Carol Haney had brought Stark to the Living Room to hear her sing. After the show, a very enthusiastic Stark had come up to Kazan and asked her to audition for the part of Vera. Kazan didn't think she wanted it-she could make more money, $350 a week, singing in clubs -but Stark wouldn't take no for an answer. He pestered her for days until she finally agreed to a meeting with him. He told her he'd send a car right over to pick her up. No one was surprised that Stark would pursue Kazan so aggressively. At twenty-three, she was absolutely gorgeous-she'd turned down a stint at the Playboy Club-and everyone knew Stark's eye for the ladies.

At the scheduled time, Kazan looked out the window of her room at the Whitby, a theatrical boarding house on Forty-fifth Street between Eighth and Ninth avenues, and saw a Bentley waiting. A uniformed chauffeur was there to open the door for her. She wasn't being taken to the theater, Kazan discovered, but to Stark's private suite at the Hotel Navarro. Ushered into his room, she found the producer lying in bed, his left leg suspended in traction. He'd fractured it, Stark explained, in a skiing accident in Sun Valley, Idaho. Underneath his specially tailored trousers was a white plaster cast, autographed by famous people.

Stark encouraged Kazan to sit on the side of the bed as they spoke. "You are fabulous, terrific," he told her. He wanted to sign her not just for the show, he told her, but also to a seven-year movie contract. Kazan was smart enough to know that he was "coming on" to her. She was also smart enough to take advantage of it. Stark arranged for a contract promising "vocal and dramatic coaching and instruction for the purpose of enhancing [her] talent as a singer and actress in the various fields of entertainment." In addition to her Funny Girl salary, Kazan would also collect a weekly paycheck of $300 as a Seven Arts employee, with a promise of increases up to $2,000 a week if she remained in exclusive contract with the production company. The one part of the deal she wasn't sure about was the offer to be Barbra's understudy. But when Stark promised to pay her $50 more a week to do so, the struggling young actress agreed.

How much Barbra knew about this private meeting with Stark, Kazan wasn't sure. But secrets were hard to keep backstage. Was that one more reason Barbra cold-shouldered her? On a show where she was finally the star-where, at long last, Barbra was supposed to be the center of attention-one of the pretty, popular girls-and from Erasmus Hall yet!-had waltzed in and stolen the producer's eye away from her.

No wonder she was demanding her own package of favors from Stark. Whether Barbra knew the exact details of Kazan's contract or not, she probably knew that her understudy was getting a pretty sweet deal from Stark. Which, of course, only made her more determined to secure a deal that was even sweeter.

In her dressing room, complaining about the script to Stark and Lennart, Barbra was demanding a great deal. This wasn't ego: This was survival. Garson Kanin, she complained, was far too easygoing in his direction. He "said very little, and his directions were always very laid back," said another member of the company. Kanin pretty much stayed in his fifth row center seat, listening to the cast read through their parts and "nodding a lot." Most of his time was spent conferring privately with his wife. For Barbra, the fact that Kanin was "reportedly getting the biggest percentage ever given to a director" was no doubt galling, given how ineffectual he was proving to be. Without a strong director, Barbra had decided to fill the power vacuum herself.

In her dressing room, she went over the script, circling scenes that needed to be worked on and crossing out scenes she felt should be cut. If people called her controlling, then so be it. It was the only way she could work. It wasn't about having control, she told one interviewer, explaining her tendency to seize authority on a project. It was about a.s.suming "artistic responsibility." She was the star of the show, after all; she was the one people were coming to see. So she'd rather have her "taste on the line," Barbra argued, than anyone else's.

To Marv Schwartz, she had admitted she was "affected by things." If she didn't like "the color of the rug," for example, she'd become "affected," and so the color had to be changed. She couldn't help that; she was "a sensory kind of person." And she truly believed that what affected her also affected her ability to work, and that, in turn, affected the show. If she seemed demanding, it was only in the interest of the project at hand. "I'm the easiest person to work with and the hardest to work with," she said. She never demanded retakes when appearing on television, for example. Since she believed there was "no such thing as making a mistake," she accepted it when she sang a little differently than she intended. It wasn't wrong; it was just different. She insisted that she would never walk off in the middle of a performance, as she'd seen some pretty big names do. Instead, she'd stick around and figure out what the problem was and then correct it. "So if the musicians are lousy," she said, "I've got to ... work harder."

That was what she was doing with Funny Girl. The director, in her opinion, was lousy. The script wasn't all that terrific either. So Barbra was working harder. Sometimes it was hard to explain her reasons, but she knew, in her gut, that she was right. That made things difficult sometimes. "It's hard to argue with me," she conceded.

Heading back out onto the stage with Stark and Lennart and a revised script, Barbra was very pleased with the authority she'd been given. If she was honest with herself, which she could sometimes be, she'd admit that occasionally simply winning an argument was as important as achieving the desired change in the script, or the costume, or the music. Just a few months ago, Marv Schwartz had asked her if she demanded certain things because she really believed in them or because she just wanted to have her own way. It hadn't taken long for Barbra to answer. "Both," she had said.

9.

The one person who didn't think Barbra knew better than everyone else was Bob Merrill. Sitting with her at the piano, he was ready to tell her, quite frankly, to go to h.e.l.l, but he let the more diplomatic Jule Styne take the lead, as he usually did in these matters.

What had them up in arms was a note they'd received from Marty Erlichman telling them that, upon consideration, Barbra "didn't think she wanted to sing" either "People" or "Don't Rain on My Parade."

Styne had immediately gotten her on the phone. "Barbra," he told her, "you don't sing 'People,' you don't sing my score."

For Styne to have been so firm with her was unusual and emphasized the pa.s.sion he felt about the issue. Right from the start, those two songs had defined the score. Merrill's notebooks doc.u.mented how much time he had spent composing the lyrics, especially on "Don't Rain on My Parade." He'd experimented with various couplets-"Don't tell me not to fly, I've started soarin', The stars are flyin' by, The wind is roarin'"-before crossing them out and settling on the final lyrics. He and Styne had spent two years on these songs, and now Barbra didn't want to sing them.

Styne was devastated; Merrill was furious. Why she suddenly, inexplicably, wanted the two songs excised-or "given to someone else," as Merrill understood-they didn't know. Perhaps Barbra, like others, thought "People," as lovely as it was, made little sense in the show, or at least where it was placed in the show. f.a.n.n.y, at that early stage, isn't thinking about needing other people: She just wants to be famous. Or perhaps Barbra didn't like how difficult the songs were to sing, each in their own way, as Merrill's wife, Suzanne, wondered. Whatever Barbra's reasons, the composers weren't backing down. With great patience, Styne had explained to their leading lady that those two songs were "going to be the ones everyone remembered." Maybe that would make a difference to her, he told Merrill.

And it seemed it had. Standing beside the piano, Barbra blithely told the composers that she'd come around and now shared their viewpoint. Both Styne and Merrill breathed long sighs of relief. A serious crisis had been averted. Yet Barbra's easy capitulation raised the question of how serious she had been. Merrill wondered if she had been playing them.

He still hadn't entirely warmed to her. He still felt Barbra was "a know-it-all." And it seemed as soon as one issue was resolved, another one arose. Now it was Barbra's first song in the show, "If a Girl Isn't Pretty." She was to sing a reprise of it after it was introduced by Mrs. Brice and her friend, Mrs. Strakosh. Barbra hated it. Talk about autobiography. The song was all about people telling an ugly duckling she can never be a swan. "Is a nose with deviation such a crime against the nation?" went one line. Maybe, instead of ditching the other two, she could ditch this one?

That was a question for Kanin, the composers told her. They'd written these songs with certain characters in mind, but shuffling numbers among the cast was par for the course in musicals. The problem that really hung Merrill up was the liberties Barbra took in interpreting the words he'd written. He believed it was "very important to a lyricist to have the singer p.r.o.nounce the words the way he intended them." Inflections, accents, emphasis could all change meanings, throw off rhymes. As Barbra sang the sad ballad "Who Are You Now?"-one of the last numbers in the show-Merrill jumped up and complained that she held the word "someone" too long in the line "Are you someone better?" It changed his intent, he argued. "This is my song," he said, "and I want you to do it this way." Barbra was equally adamant she knew how to sing a lyric.

Merrill didn't view it as an artistic interpretation. He saw it as "fiddling" with his composition. In some ways, he was an awful lot like Barbra. Merrill felt he knew the best way to sing something, and he didn't want anyone telling him otherwise. His wife thought "Don't Rain on My Parade" could have been Merrill's theme song: "Don't bug me, get out of my way" was exactly the message he sent to those around him.

As always, it was Styne who played the good cop to his partner's bad cop. "Everyone loved Jule," Merrill's wife observed. "Not everyone loved Bob." It would be Styne who approached Barbra to ask her tactfully if she might try to sing a song differently; failing that, he might try adjusting the music to appease them both. The "teeny tiny" Styne would get up out of his seat and bustle from person to person, Lainie Kazan observed, always followed by two a.s.sistants who matched him in diminutive size. Kazan couldn't help but smile when she saw "these three little people moving across the room in unison," putting out fires, carrying ideas, trying new arrangements, and trying to keep the peace. Styne was always talking, Kazan noted-always chirping away giddily, anxiously, expressively. Merrill sat there silently.

Perhaps some of Styne's energy came from his belief, as he put it, that he was "in a desperate race with the calendar." Despite all his great movie compositions, he felt his career hadn't really gotten moving until 1952, when he'd coproduced a revival of Pal Joey with Richard Rodgers. It was Broadway where Styne's heart resided, and at the age of fifty-seven, even with Gypsy and other shows under his belt, there was still "so much [he wanted] to say musically." He longed to be a singular artist, to have his work easily identifiable as being his. "Don't be a minor Cole Porter," Rodgers had told him. "Be yourself and the critics will gradually have respect for you." This was Styne's greatest hope.

And so it was a good thing that Barbra was singing "People" and "Don't Rain on My Parade." Funny Girl, Styne sensed, might be a very important part of his legacy.