The Name's LaGuardia -- Part 1

11/9/2016

Let's consider this the Second Elisberg Industries International Film Festival. This is where I put together on a nightly basis a string of videos from some stage production to hopefully give a sense of the show. Our first was the TBS special, The Wizard of Oz in Concert: Where Dreams Come True, which you can find Par One here.

I've had the second festival planned for quite a while, but just didn't know when to start posting it. A bit of kismet worked out. That's because after recent politic events I didn't know quite what to post tonight or upcoming. I don't want to rant all the time (though some of the time is just fine...). So -- what to do? And that's when I realized.

Fiorello!

As readers of these pages know, I'm a massive lover of the show, which I called "The Greatest Musical You've Never Heard Of" in this article here. I feel confident with that description since most people have indeed never even heard of it (let alone seen it), yet it won the Tony Award for Best Musical, tying with The Sound of Music, over such shows as West Side Story. And it also became, at the time, only the third musical ever to win the Pulitzer Prize. Yet there's never been a film or TV production of it, and it's rarely done in community theater. (The reason for the latter is understandable but foolish -- since the show is about a little-known New York City mayor, Fiorello LaGuardia -- yes, that "LaGuardia," if you've flown into the named-airport), it's thought to be of interest only to New Yorkers. In fact, it's a universal tale about a little man fighting political corruption, whatever the city, and winning, and has two deeply-romantic love stories.)

Fiorello! is written by Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock, the team who a few years later would write Fiddler on the Roof and She Loves Me. The book is by Jerome Weidman and George Abbott. Also of note is that starring in the show was a fairly unknown actor, Tom Bosley, who won the Tony Award as Best Featured Actor in a Musical...and later came to fame as Howard Cunningham, the father on Happy Days. It opened in 1959 and ran for 795 performances, almost two years.

I've seen a couple of productions of the show, and think it's wonderful. But alas, there is no filmed record of the show. However, when the Encores! series began in New York in 1994, doing concert productions of little-seen show, the first production they did was Fiorello! And when they had their 20th anniversary in 2013, they decided to do their first-ever repeat, and brought the show back.

Yet still, there is no record of Fiorello! on film. But a while back, I came across a series of videos from what looks to be a very good production done at New York University in 2012. And it's those videos that I'll string together over about 11 nights to present a very sketchy version of Fiorello! Given that it's a show about a noble lawyer (so much so that in the opening song, he's described as being "On the Side of the Angels," helping immigrants, the poor and needy) who battles the odds of the corrupt Tammany Hall, fights to get elected to Congress, losses in his run for mayor, goes to World War 1 and distinguishes himself, returning to New York to prepare a second run for mayor and defeat Tammany Hall and Mayor "Gentleman Jimmy" Walker as the curtain falls -- I figured it was about as wonderful an antidote to cynical political news of the day. And mixed in between with romance, loss of a loved one, and an unexpected new-found love.

The show itself will begin tomorrow. But like every good show, there should be an overture, so consider this that. It's 3-1/2 minute montage from the 20th anniversary Encores! production. In order of appearance, we have Danny Rutigliano (as Fiorello LaGuardia), Kate Baldwin (his first wife, Thea), Emily Skinner (at a fundraiser for Mayer Walker), Erin Dilly (LaGuardia's long-suffering and secretly in-love secretary) and Shuler Hensley (as the local political boss, Ben Marino).

I tried to embed the video here, and it probably won't play, but if you click on the link, it will take you to the Vimeo page.

Curtain up.

And a refreshing breath of fresh air with the wonderful Fiorello!

Fiorello! - Encores 20th Anniversary Season from Jonathan Frank on Vimeo.

3 Comments

Lisa Kadonaga

9/29/2019 10:16:16 pm

I was glad to find some first-hand stories about Fiorello! in books by Hal Prince and Patricia Wilson (the original “Marie”) – it was fascinating to read descriptions behind the scenes as the show as being shaped and fine-tuned.

Wilson said that novelist Jerome Weidman, who wrote most of the book for the show, would watch the rehearsals and scribble rewrites on a notepad as the actors said their lines. George Abbott, who had already had a stellar Broadway career (he was past 70 by then) has a co-author credit, as well as being the director. He would outline a scene, Weidman would go home and write it, then Abbott would edit it and cut or move things around if he thought he could make it work better. Hal Prince also did some edits – he cut Weidman’s scene with the GOP political operatives down substantially. Bock and Harnick really rose to the occasion when they converted the original dialogue into “Politics and Poker”.

Prince noted that by then, Abbott was acclaimed as a “show doctor” – he was often called in to fix problems with scripts. I was interested to find out that the original vision for Fiorello!, as proposed by Arthur Penn who had first pitched the idea of a show about LaGuardia, had leaned more towards drama than comedy. Penn was supposed to co-write and direct -- there likely would have been a lot more psychological conflict, since he’d had success directing The Miracle Worker previously. Also, Thea and Marie would have been portrayed by the same actress. (Penn ended up parting ways with the production team.)

Abbott changed things a lot -- he had the idea of making the love triangle much more obvious. As Pat Wilson put it, her character would be “the glue holding the show together” as the years passed onstage. This meant fictionalizing what happened in real life – Marie started working for Fiorello later than the show suggests. Also, Fiorello had been widowed in 1921, several months after he and Thea had lost their young daughter (who isn’t included in the musical’s storyline) – that was years before he ran for mayor.

Fiorello only having a couple of songs in the original production may have been by design. The show was originally written with Eli Wallach in mind, but it turned out that he hadn’t trained as a singer and just didn’t have the vocal range needed – and by the time they realized this, there wasn’t enough time for him to practice. Bosley said that he saw Wallach many years later (possibly 2002?) and Wallach recognized him right away and said, “You know damn well, if I could sing I would have had that part” – and they both knew right away what he was talking about. Wallach was pretty established by 1959, and Bosley was still a relative unknown. If they’d decided to go with Wallach anyway and just written patter songs for him, I wonder how different things would have been?

Both Prince and Wilson have some background on how Tom Bosley got the part –
Abbott’s daughter Judy was working as casting director on the show, and she’d seen him in an off-Broadway production. Also, co-producer Bobby Griffith had been looking through the actors’ directory when Bosley’s agent called to see if they’d be interested in him as an understudy, and by sheer coincidence, Griffith just happened to have put his finger on Bosley’s photo to mark his place.

It wasn’t a sure thing for Bosley – Hal Prince noted that they called him in to read for the part, then asked him to come back again, and again … and again. Prince said that this can be difficult for actors, because they can start questioning their instincts … and then they risk changing what got them noticed in the first place. He said he was glad that they stopped re-auditioning Bosley before they ruined his performance.

I didn’t realize until I read Pat Wilson’s book that the role was quite an acting stretch for Tom Bosley, at that time. His calm gentle personality was rather different from Fiorello’s character. Also, his natural voice was much deeper than LaGuardia’s -- the mayor had a tendency to become squeaky, especially when he was excited. When rehearsals started, it was evident within minutes that he didn’t sound like the real Fiorello (and most of the audience would probably realize this)

Abbott was a pretty demanding director, and was quite blunt with his actors. (From his NY Times obituary, in response to the classic actor question "What is my motivation?," Mr. Abbott replied: "Your job.") Abbott was unmerciful to Bosley, telling him that “any idiot in Hollywood” could replicate LaGuardia’s voice and mannerisms.

Bosley began to hesitate and second-guess himself -- Wilson noticed how stressed he was, and became concerned. On only the fourth day of rehearsals, Abbott took Wils

9/29/2019 10:20:41 pm

(ctd.)
Wilson aside and told her to come to a different theatre after lunch – and not tell anyone what she was doing. It turned out that they were having her read with other actors, to find a possible replacement for Bosley. This put Wilson in a real dilemma because unbeknownst to Abbott, they were friends. She had to do as she was told, even though Bosley was the only person on the production who knew that Wilson had been seriously ill just before rehearsals started, and might have trouble doing the job. But he was loyal and didn’t rat her out. It was the first Broadway show that either of them had been contracted to do, and they both knew that it could be their big break.

Wilson heard that a well-known star had been approached and was ready to take over Bosley’s role. (I’m wondering if this was Mickey Rooney – Hal Prince mentioned him as a serious possibility.)

Tom Bosley was lucky enough to be noticed, and he happened to bear a physical resemblance to the real Fiorello H. LaGuardia. But he still had to work incredibly hard to get that role, and hang onto it. By the time the show made it to New Haven, George Abbott felt that his performance had improved enough that they wouldn’t need to call in the replacement. Wilson and Bosley breathed a sigh of relief, and that was that.

Tom Bosley did all 795 performances on Broadway, without having to use a standby. His understudies were Harvey Lembeck, then Sorrell Booke (both of whom had been in the group that had secretly auditioned with Pat Wilson) -- I don’t know if there were any more, during the show’s run. Booke later played Fiorello when the show was revived in 1962.

https://www.amazon.com/Yesterdays-Mashed-Potatoes-Fabulous-Has-Been/dp/1608441253
https://www.amazon.com/Sense-Occasion-Harold-Prince/dp/1495013022

Robert Elisberg

9/30/2019 10:49:33 am

Lisa, again thanks. You've certainly done your research. Bosley also toured with the show -- a friend saw him do it on the road.

A favorite story about Abbott, Harnick and Bock. Their next show was "Tenderloin," which Abbott also directed. As you note, he was legendary even then, and only become more so over the next 35 years. Harnick tells the story that at one point in rehearsals Abbott brought the creative team together and said (something like), "Gentlemen, when I had the idea for this show I had in mind what it would be, but I have discovered that that is not going to work and I am out of ideas, so if anyone has anything better to suggest I am open to hearing it." That's the moment, Harnick says, that they all knew they were sunk. "Tenderloin" had a modest run and a reasonably nice score, but the show was unsuccessful.

The Name's LaGuardia -- Part 1

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