Sundays with Sullivan: The October Edstravaganza
Here is the third compilation of Broadway musical performances on The Ed Sullivan Show. As I noted, the Sunday night staple for 23 years is arguably the most valuable archivist in pop culture was keeping a record of Broadway musicals, with performances by the original casts in full costume, often re-recreating full scenes, that would otherwise be lost to history. As I’ve noted, these videos were collected and edited together by a fellow named Jim Berg.
I'm going to try to post these on the first Sunday of every month. If you miss any, just do a search for the word "Edstravaganza".
Since these videos cut off at random points, we start today with the conclusion – and bulk -- of the most famous song from Do Re Mi -- “Make Someone Happy,” performed by a young Nancy Dussault, who later went on to star as the mother on the TV series Too Close for Comfort. She’s accompanied by the musical’s composer Jule Styne at the piano. (You may recall that this is the song played at the very end of Sleepless in Seattle, in Jimmy Durante’s recording.)
It's followed by Lucille Ball singing the opening number – and breakout hit – from the musical Wildcat! (Fun background story that Stanley Green wrote in his book, The World of Musical Comedy: when songwriters Carolyn Leigh and Cy Coleman were trying to figure out what to do for the opening number, they were stuck. Because this was Lucille Ball’s big Broadway debut. And so, what do you give her for her very first song?? Completely stumped, Leigh finally asked, “Cy, If you didn’t care at all, if it wasn’t the opening number, and it wasn’t for Lucille Ball making her stage debut, and it was just as simple song for the scene and character, what would you write?” Coleman, thought and then said he’d write something corny and simple, and then riffed a few random bars of music. Two days later, Leigh – who wrote most of the lyrics for the musical Peter Pan -- called him up, reminded him of that light-hearted music and said, “As long as we’re making jokes, how’s this for a lyric?” And read him the first four lines of “Hey, Look Me Over.”)
We then have Richard Burton and Julie Andrews in full costume performing the scene and title song from Camelot. Another fun background story: when Camelot opened, the reviews were mixed and the box-office mediocre. It was at this point that, as Alan Jay Lerner writes in his memoirs, the miracle occurred. Ed Sullivan offered a full-hour to Lerner & Loewe for a tribute show on the occasion of My Fair Lady’s fifth anniversary. That allowed them to, of course, use Julie Andrews for both shows – but they also made the decision to focus less time on the anniversary show and more on the struggling new musical than they would have otherwise, and took almost 20 minutes to perform highlights from Camelot. The next morning, there were lines around its theater’s box-office. And the show ran for 873 performances, over two years.
Next are two, little-known, unsuccessful musicals – still one of the great values of the Sullivan show because they, especially, would otherwise be completely lost. The first is the tale of 1904 Vienna, “The Gay Life,” which ran for 113 performances. The segment includes a lovely ballad sung here by Barbara Cook (best known as the original ‘Marian the Librarian.’), along with an elaborate and pretty funny production number and scene.
Which brings us to A Family Affair – a flop (only 65 performances), but with a fascinating story behind it, on several levels. It was written by three friends who met at summer camp, and then shared an apartment in New York City. But the story gets more fun from there. Most notably because the three summer camp friends at the start of their renowned careers were John Kander (who, of course, later wrote Cabaret and Chicago), William Goldman (who won Oscars for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President’s Men), and his older brother James Goldman (who won an Oscar for adapting his Broadway play The Lion in Winter, and was nominated for a Tony Award for the book of Stephen Sondheim's Follies.) But it's also especially fascinating – at least to me… -- because as a point of personal privilege: the summer camp they met at was mine! The oft-mentioned here Camp Nebagamon. As for the performance on the Sullivan show, we have a number sung by Shelly Berman. (Like all these compilations, it cuts off randomly at the very end, but at least we get four minutes of the number. It finishes on the next compilation.)
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