LAUREN BACALL IN "GYPSY" ?- Page 2
LAUREN BACALL IN "GYPSY" ?
Cuneas
Swing Joined: 11/22/07
#25LAUREN BACALL IN
Posted: 9/24/14 at 5:10am
I was implying more that Applause and Woman of the Year were bad _shows_ (the former because of its terrible score, the latter because of its horribly dated gender politics), that, apart from Bacall being Bacall in the book scenes (and a good supporting performance here and there), didn't really have much of anything going for them. Even Woman of the Year really only had one song of any consequence. And when you combine the poor quality of the vehicles she was given, and the fact that she clearly had no business attempting any kind of singing career, you kind of get the feeling that a Musical Theater with no Bacall might have been a better, happier Musical Theater all around. Let her stay in the spoken drama that was her natural home, and let her shine at what she was she was genuinely good at, but leave the musical vehicles to the people who were actually qualified for them.
And yes, I think she was a great actress. A great actress with a narrow range, perhaps, but there's no shame in that. She was certainly amazingly good in the kind of characterization she specialized in, and gave a number of legendary-class performances in her career. I'd argue that justifies the superlative 'great actress', even if her thespian versatility gets called into question. It's the equivalent of calling George Abbott a 'Great Director'...on the one hand, he was relatively unadventurous and never achieved the innovations of a Hal Prince or a Bob Fosse, but on the other hand, is anyone actually going to argue with the title?
#26LAUREN BACALL IN
Posted: 9/24/14 at 9:43am
A director's job is quite different from an actor's. I don't know how you can call someone "a great actress with a narrow range". Unless you mean a great personality (i.e., a star), which is what Bacall was, as I already said.
The musical theater is full of such performances, and not always for ill. Let's remember that Robert Preston, Barbara Harris and Angela Lansbury were consider nothing more than actors-who-sing-a-little, but musical theater history would be poorer without them.
henrikegerman
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/29/05
#27LAUREN BACALL IN
Posted: 9/24/14 at 11:26am
I don't think being a great actor necessarily means that one has impressive range. To me the gravamen of great acting is neither prodigious range nor vivid personality (though I admire both in actors). Rather, it's truth and the ability to share it.
Example: when I first saw Edward Norton, in Primal Fear, I had no idea what this actor's range was (how could I? the marked range he brought to the role itself wasn't exhibited until much later in the film.... long after I had formed a very strong impression of Norton's talent), nor did I identify a particular personality other than the character's (which certainly wasn't Norton's, notwithstanding that Norton like all great actors knows him/herself well and uses the self).
But trust me, I knew from the very first that here was a great actor.
Updated On: 9/24/14 at 11:26 AM
Cuneas
Swing Joined: 11/22/07
#28LAUREN BACALL IN
Posted: 9/24/14 at 4:06pmYes, but Preston, Harris and Lansbury were all _listenable_ singers, which Bacall really wasn't. There's a difference between being more of an actor than a singer and being an actor who genuinely _can't sing_. Bette Davis and Vincent Price were fine actors, too, but that doesn't mean they belonged in a musical.
#29LAUREN BACALL IN
Posted: 9/24/14 at 6:00pmI'll never understand people calling Barbara Harris a non-singer
Keeping BroadwayWorld Illustrated
#30LAUREN BACALL IN
Posted: 9/24/14 at 6:33pm^ Agreed! Her voice is magnificent on CLEAR DAY and APPLE TREE. Yet I do agree with the poster who said her acting chops are so superb they even exceed her [lovely] voice. (That's I what I hope he meant anyway.)
#31LAUREN BACALL IN
Posted: 9/24/14 at 10:17pm
Yes, but Preston, Harris and Lansbury were all _listenable_ singers, which Bacall really wasn't.
Point taken. And that's what I get for jumping to the most famous examples.
Instead I should have referred to Katharine Hepburn, Richard Burton and Tammy Grimes. None of them sang in a particularly pleasant way, but each of them ran a show for a year or two on sheer star power.
It's part of the "razzle dazzle" (Gwen Verdon couldn't sing either, but, damn, could she dance!) of our musical theater.
Updated On: 9/26/14 at 10:17 PM
#32LAUREN BACALL IN
Posted: 9/24/14 at 10:21pm
^ Agreed! Her voice is magnificent on CLEAR DAY and APPLE TREE. Yet I do agree with the poster who said her acting chops are so superb they even exceed her [lovely] voice. (That's I what I hope he meant anyway.)
That's exactly what I meant. I like her voice, too, but she is no Barbara Cook, which is the point. And the segment where she takes over the stage of the Nashville Parthenon to sing "It Don't Worry Me" in the film, NASHVILLE, brings me to tears every time.
But i mention her because she was the first star i saw called a "non-singer" in an (otherwise positive) review. Apparently that is how she was perceived in the early 1960s.
#33LAUREN BACALL IN
Posted: 9/24/14 at 10:35pmWait, did you get to see Barbara Harris onstage? In CLEAR DAY? Please tell.
#34LAUREN BACALL IN
Posted: 9/24/14 at 11:46pmI love Tammy Grimes's voice as well. On HIGH SPIRITS especially.
Keeping BroadwayWorld Illustrated
Auggie27
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/13/03
#35LAUREN BACALL IN
Posted: 9/25/14 at 9:09amI'm willing to consider "great actress with narrow range," but not readily with Bacall. I'd resist the term, until I land on Audrey Hepburn. She fits the description in a way Bacall does not. And her body of work makes the case, as Bacall's generally fails to do.
"I'm a comedian, but in my spare time, things bother me." Garry Shandling
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theeatah
Leading Actor Joined: 1/31/10
#37LAUREN BACALL IN
Posted: 9/25/14 at 1:19pm
^^^^^^
She was actually dubbed in a movie or two she did in the '40s. The Harvey Girls I think was one of them.
Keeping BroadwayWorld Illustrated
#38LAUREN BACALL IN
Posted: 9/25/14 at 4:34pm
^^^^^ I believe she was dubbed in everything musical she did on film. She "learned" to sing for WHISTLE. Judgments change over time and in FINISHING THE HAT (IIRC), Sondheim refers to Angela as "the one singer in the show". So compared to Harry Guardino and Lee Remick....
No, alas, I didn't see Barbara Harris in CLEAR DAY. I'm merely remembering what was written about her at the time. I, too, was surprised to see her called a "non-singer".
(But during a layover at the KC airport when I was 16, I took a taxi to the Kansas City Starlight theater to see John Cullum in CLEAR DAY. In those days before kids carried credit cards, I didn't have enough cash to taxi back to the airport, so I had to take three buses through rough parts of town in the middle of the night.
Ah, the reckless courage of youth!
It was worth it. But I don't even remember who played Daisy Gamble. It wasn't Harris; I would have remembered that.)
P.S. I did a production of MUSICAL JUBILEE with Tammy Grimes in the mid-70s. Her "I've Told Every Little Star" is still a vivid memory. She basically talked her way through it--but to devastating effect.
Wilmingtom
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/18/11
#39LAUREN BACALL IN
Posted: 9/25/14 at 5:12pmIt may have been Nancy Dussault you saw in Clear Day. She toured in it and did several stock productions. And Bacall would have been swell in Gypsy if not for the score. Her voice worked for the couple of musicals she did but would not have worked for Gypsy.
#40LAUREN BACALL IN
Posted: 9/25/14 at 5:28pmLinda Lavin toured with CLEAR DAY as well. I would have loved to see that!
Keeping BroadwayWorld Illustrated
Wilmingtom
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/18/11
#42LAUREN BACALL IN
Posted: 9/26/14 at 9:20am
Dame Angela Lansbury got to sing in her own voice in The Picture of Dorian Gray, Till the Clouds Roll By, and in A Lawless Street. And of course years later in Bedknobs and Broomsticks and The Pirates of Penzance.
Dame Angela singing "How'd You Like to Spoon With Me?" from Till The Clouds Roll By (1947):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIsmINWdkVQ
#43LAUREN BACALL IN
Posted: 9/26/14 at 10:34am
^^^^Well, if we're going to define the word "singing" THAT loosely, we're all Anna Moffo!
Angela herself is quoted in SONDHEIM & CO. on having to rebuild her voice for ANYONE CAN WHISTLE. I've forgotten the name of the voice teacher, but all of the leads were sent to him. (Elsewhere, Sondheim says Guardino refused to be trained and lost his voice out of town.)
As for "How'd Ya Like to Spoon With Me?", set in the right key, Lauren Bacall COULD have sung that!
****
Wilimington, it is was the summer of 1970. I wouldn't have known Nancy Dussault back then, so it could have been she. I'd have been happy to see Linda Lavin as well, but I knew her from the TV production of DAMN YANKEES three years earlier and would have noted her presence.
Frankly, there was no much commotion in an outdoor theater (the sets themselves rose higher than the proscenium and were visibly moving between and during scenes; peanuts and hot dogs were sold in the aisles as at a baseball game, etc.)) it took Cullum's booming baritone to hold the stage.
Updated On: 9/27/14 at 10:34 AM
Wilmingtom
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/18/11
#44LAUREN BACALL IN
Posted: 9/26/14 at 1:54pmI've worked at Skylight and it's ridiculous, although not as ridiculous as the MUNI. Their set for The Music Man was bigger than the town I grew up in.
#45LAUREN BACALL IN
Posted: 9/26/14 at 2:25pmSpeaking of Linda Lavin, I'd kill to watch her perform Ladies Who Lunch.
"What can you expect from a bunch of seitan worshippers?" - Reginald Tresilian
#46LAUREN BACALL IN
Posted: 9/27/14 at 9:09am
Indeed, Mister Matt!
Wilmington, we used to share shows with both Starlight and Muni when I worked in Miami Beach. But we were an in-door house and usually built our own sets, thank God! (But I'll never forgot the GONE WITH THE WIND we got from Starlight! It fit inside, but trees burned in Atlanta, fell to the ground and then popped back up again. Now THAT's what I call a WAR!)
#47LAUREN BACALL IN
Posted: 9/27/14 at 11:29amPersonally I think Lauren Bacall would've made a brilliant Desiree in A Little Night Music.
ggersten
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/11/06
#48LAUREN BACALL IN
Posted: 9/27/14 at 11:37am
Here is an extended clip of Grass is Always Greener with the book part. So, people can judge for themselves (although the audio isn't the best)
Grass is Always Greener
#49LAUREN BACALL IN
Posted: 9/27/14 at 10:27pm
^^^^Thanks ggersten.
Just as I said above: except for the first mention of "I've had your husband", the audience is laughing at Coopie's delivery, not the lyrics themselves. Even in the encore, you can't hear the punchlines because the audience is laughing so hard at Coopie's deadpan "What's so wonderful?"
Marilyn Cooper was one of the funniest women on stage (and one of the kindest off) I've ever worked with. Her Tessie Tura (Lansbury production) had people rolling in the aisles!
Updated On: 9/27/14 at 10:27 PM
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