LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth

CAMP Show Queen

I've been saving this one! Tremble, but have fun! I'm including the nine Broadway shows and TV's Cinderella, which gets performed in theatres, too.

1. Who created the following roles in Rodgers and Hammerstein (R&H) shows. Name the actor and the show.

A. Joseph Taylor, Jr. B. Ali Hakim C. Ngana D. Fauna E. Anna Leonowens F. Madame Luang G. Cinderella's wicked stepsisters H. Max

2. Name the lovely Broadway personality who had her first success as a leading lady in this starry revival of the R&H classic The King and I.

3. Who was Harold Keel and what is his significance to R&H lore?

4. Did you know that two of Lassie's three TV "Mommies" were R&H girls on Broadway. Which ones, and which shows were involved.

5. The director of an R&H "biggie" decided on the road to New Haven "that the leading man was a disaster" and wanted to buy out his contract upon arrival in Connecticut. The director's famously influential clear-thinking spouse felt exactly the opposite. As so often, this lady won out and the leading man was sensational. Name the show, the star who almost was sent back to 39th street, the director, and his sainted wife.

6. Who is Baayork Lee and what is her significance to R&H.

7. Name the first R&H show in which no one dies, not even a cockroach!

8. A dramatic actress who developed odd celebrity for two underwater death scenes in films replaced Celeste Holm as Ado Annie in Oklahoma!. Who was the lady and what are the soggy films?

9. OK, the biggie. Identify each of the following R&H songs by musical. Who introduced them?

A. In My Own Little Corner.

B. Lonely Room

C. Love, Look Away

D. Blow High. Blow Low (Get your minds out of the gutter, guys!)

E. Many a New Day

F. It's Me!

G. Everybody's Got a Home but Me

H. Come Home!

I. An Ordinary Couple

10. Surprise! Instead of a question, an anecdote, which like so many stories, is apocryphal but delicious anyway.

When Mary Martin was in The Sound of Music she was visited by a good many nuns. One night a bunch of these ladies appeared at the stage door at curtain time, not realizing that the star would receive them after the show. The harried young stage manager had just called "places" and watched his chorus line of bonne soeurs saunter on to the stageor so he thought. The poor guy turned around and saw a troupe of nuns in full regalia (and identical habits to those used in the show standing right behind him. Furiously he turned to them and began screaming in ways that would make a sailor blush. "Didn't I just tell you bitches 'places?' Now get on the goddam stage." Only then did it hit him that these were not his chorus nuns. It's lucky the guy didn't die on the spot. How he apologized for his outburst we can only guess.

ANSWERS

1.

B. Joseph Buloff, a distinguished actor who began his career in the Yiddish theatre, created Ali, the "Iranian" peddler. Buloff gave the role so much shtick that a legend has grown up that Ali is really Jewish "in disguise."

C. Ngana is one of Emile's children (her brother is Jerome) who sing "Dites-moi" at the commencement of South Pacific. She was created by Barbara Luna, who had a very brief career as an ingnue in 60s TV.

D. Fauna in Pipe Dream, created by opera diva Helen Traubel, as the extravagantly emotional "Madame" who keeps the lovers on track. Oddly, Miss Traubel had a song that might have been written for Desi Arnaz, as it began "Babalooooooo!"

E. Anna is my gift to you. She is the "I" in the King and I, the Welsh schoolmarm who travels to Bangkok (a city that always sounds like a painful accident to me) to teach the King's children the three Rs (Rodgers, Rodgers, and Rodgers). She was created by Gertrude Lawrence, who was dying of cancer but magnificent, they say, anyway.

F. Madame Luong is the cheerful. "Americanized" aunt in Flower Drum Song. She was created by Juanita Hall. She has a really wonderful patter song called "Chop Suey," now politically incorrect but adorable.

G. The step-sisters were played by the jolly Alice Pearce and the divine Kay Ballard. Miss Ballard's not so subtle gay behavior enlivens the old kinescope when Julie Andrews is off-screen.

H. Max is the cynical agent friend of Herr Captain von Trapp in The Sound Of Music. He was created by Kurt Kasnar (whom I used to see naked at the swim club. He saw me that way too. I forget which one of us laughed louder.)

2. Barbara Cook (it was my 9th birthday and I woke up with the chicken pox. Naturally, we couldn't go, and I blame all my subsequent neuroses on this! The show was The King and I and that cute Farley Granger played the King. Wahhhhhhhh! I can hardly walk by the City Center to this day.

3. Harold Keel was a strapping young baritone who played Curley in Oklahoma! for a while. Seeking to further his career, Keel went to Hollywood, where he was convinced to change his name to "Howard."

4. Jan Clayton, Lassie's first TV Mom (her bratty little boy was named Jeff) was featured as heroine Julie Jordan in the original production of Carousel. Cloris Leachman, who played young Timmy's Mom for one season, (before it was correctly decided that Miss L. was miscast as a farm wife), was Mary Martin's understudy in South Pacific and actually did a handful of performances when Mary's hair got too wet.

5. South Pacific, Ezio Pinza, Joshua Logan, Nedda Logan.

6. Baayork Lee was a Chinese-American youngster who was chosen to play the King's favorite daughter in King and I. Several years later she played one of the Wang children in Flower Drum Song. When she grew up, Baayork recounted her story to Michael Bennett, who made her a character in A Chorus Line. Still active, Miss Lee has made a specialty of directing regional productions of Chorus Line. Baayork once appeared as a guest on my long-vanished TV show and was a delight.

7. Me And Juliet, although the evil stage manager tries to kill the romantic lead.

8. Shelly Winters. The films were The Poseidon Adventure and A Place in the Sun. Metaphorically, Miss Winters died on Broadway in Minnie's Boys but that's another story.

9. A. Cinderella, Julie Andrews B. Oklahoma!, Howard de Silva C. Flower Drum Song, Arabella Hong D. Carousel, Mervyn Vye E. Oklahoma!, Joan Roberts F. Me and Juliet, Joan McCracken, another great artist claimed too young) G. Pipe Dream, Judy Tyler. Poor Judy...if only she hadn't gone to L.A. to make Jailhouse Rock with Elvis. H. Allegrochorus of mostly dead characters.

I. The Sound of Music. Rumored to be the last lyrics Hammerstein wrote. The night he died, star Mary Martin was said to be so distraught that she needed sedation before she could sing this charming ballad with co-star Theo Bikel. It was cut from the film, replaced by a Rodgers and Rodgers song, "Something Good" (which isn't).

Kenn Harris is a NYC theatre and musiccritic and author of the biography of opera diva Renata Tebaldi, and The Ultimate Opera Quiz Book. Kenn is both an opera devotee and big time collector of original cast albums from Broadway and around the world. And he loves to dish. Contact him at kharris106@nyc.rr.com

LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 18, No. 14 October 10, 2008