Growing Up Laughing_ My Story and the Story of Funny - Marlo Thomas [61]
So I backed away, and the part was given to Lily Tomlin. Soon after, Lily had a conflict and had to pull out, and Valerie Harper was cast, with Michael Bennett directing.
The play wasn’t received well in its Boston tryout, and the producers canceled the New York opening. Herbie was heartbroken—three years of work, and it was over. Just like that. Welcome to show business.
A few nights after the opening, some good friends of Herbie’s flew in to be with him in Boston. I had been on the road promoting Free to Be . . . You and Me and had flown in with Chuck Grodin. We were all at a restaurant after the show—producers Norman Lear and David Picker; Frank Yablans, the head of Paramount who was backing the play; Chuck and me. After a while, Frank came up with the idea that if I stepped into the lead role, and Chuck redirected the play, Paramount would put in some more cash, and maybe we’d all just pull it off. Herbie, Norman and David enthusiastically agreed. Chuck and I were stunned. We had just come to see the show. It felt like a set-up, but what could we do? We both loved Herbie and didn’t want to see his work die in Boston. Only problem was, we’d have just four days in which to do it. The perfect scenario for a pack of obsessives.
I’ll never forget that opening night. Herbie and Chuck came to my dressing room before the show to give me a pep talk and burst out laughing when they saw the expression on my face. I looked like a trapped rabbit. I wasn’t entirely sure of my lines, and I had no idea where to make my entrances in the complicated, multilevel set. It was the classic actor’s nightmare of being totally unprepared. Only it was really happening.
When the curtain went up, I was lying in a bed and I could feel my heart pounding. It felt like it was banging through the mattress.
Oh my God, I thought. I’m going to have a heart attack on stage.
Al Hirschfeld’s wonderful drawing of the Thieves cast. Richard Mulligan and I share the bed, and behind us are: Irwin Corey (IN GLASSES), Haywood Nelson (WITH LAMP), Sudie Bond (IN HAT), Bill Hickey, with arm draped around David Spielberg, Sammy Smith (DOORMAN), and Pierre Epstein and Ann Wedgeworth (IN THE BALCONIES).
Herbie and Chuck happily burn the Boston closing notice.
But I didn’t die—and neither did the play. We were re-reviewed and went on to New York to play for a year.
One of the sweetest memories I have of that run is of Herbie’s pal, writer Paddy Chayefsky, sneaking into the Broadhurst Theatre on many nights to see the poignant final scene between me and my cabdriver father, Irwin Corey. I could always tell when Paddy was there because I’d see a little slice of light coming from the theatre’s side door. He loved that scene, and it touched me so that he would often drop by just to watch it.
Then one night, Herbie pulled off another romantic surprise. We were seven months into the Broadway run and it was my birthday. Herbie slipped a flyer into the program that read, “When Ms. Thomas takes her bow and lowers her head, everyone please sing ‘Happy Birthday.’ ”
And they did. Twelve hundred people burst into the birthday song when I took my bow. I lurched back in shock. The sound was so loud I thought I had been shot. Then I saw Herbie and his two best friends, Bobby Fosse and Paddy, coming down the aisles carrying birthday cakes. And the audience was invited on stage to have cake with us.
Bobby later said that Herbie had ruined it for all theatre guys ever after. No guy could ever top that gesture for a girlfriend in a show.
Herbie and Barry Diller: Opening night of Thieves in New York.
DID YA HEAR THE ONE ABOUT . . .
The Broadway musical My Fair Lady was being packed up to go out on tour, and the producer went to the theatre to do one last check. He was surprised to see the huge crystal chandelier still hanging in the center of the stage.
“Why isn’t this packed up?” he asked the stage manager.
“We thought it would be too much trouble