Broadway Babylon (56 page)

“In an agent’s office, I overheard an actor say Margaret Sullavan was having an affair with the producer Jed Harris.… I’d lean against the fence and I’d stare up at our apartment with the lighted windows on the second floor. More nights than I care to remember I’d stand there and cry.… I couldn’t believe my wife and that son of a bitch were in bed together. But I knew they were. And that just destroyed me.”—H
ENRY
F
ONDA
on his first wife, who like the mother of Jane and Peter eventually took her own life

“I agree with my confederate Peter Cook. He was the first to say he preferred musicals, because when it came to plays about sex, sodomy, and substance abuse, you can get all that at home.”—D
UDLEY
M
OORE

“Shakespeare’s plays are bad enough, but yours are even worse.”—novelist L
EO
T
OLSTOY
(
War and Peace, Anna Karenina
) to fellow Russian Anton Chekhov, after viewing
Uncle Vanya

“I could play her better than that.”—American theater star J
ULIE
H
ARRIS
to a fellow actor while waiting in line at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., to be presented to Queen Elizabeth II

“I won’t name any names, but I do owe a personal raspberry to each person who said I was a fool to go to Broadway, do theatre, and play a gay character.… You know, Hollywood is worldwide; you can do a Hollywood film Down Under. But only Broadway can do a Broadway musical.”—Australian film star H
UGH
J
ACKMAN
, who won a 2004 Tony for
The Boy from Oz

“I don’t think doing a dastardly thing can be excused by any amount of talent. I don’t judge Elia Kazan. However, nor do I associate with him.”—lyricist C
AROLYN
L
EIGH
on the McCarthy-era director who named names

“The irony was, I was playing a man who was dying, and the star of (
Grand Hotel
), David Carroll, really was dying.… I saw the bottle [of AZT in Carroll’s hotel room] and just burst into tears. David made me vow not to tell a soul. And I didn’t.”—costar M
ICHAEL
J
ETER
, who later died of AIDS himself

“Thanks to a theatrical agent and good friend, Mr. and Mrs. Greenberg finally got tickets to see
The Producers
on Broadway. This was the most sold-out show of the year, especially after it won 12 Tony Awards. Scalpers were retiring on this one.

“They’d actually lucked into front-row seats. But they noticed that in the row behind them, there was an empty seat. When intermission came and no one had sat in that seat, Mrs. Greenberg turned to the woman sitting next to it and asked, ‘Pardon me, but this is such a sold-out show, and in such demand. We were wondering why that seat is empty.’

“The woman said, ‘That’s my late husband’s seat.’

“Mrs. Greenberg was horrified and apologized for being so insensitive. But a few minutes later she turned around again.

‘ “Without meaning to be rude or anything—surely you must have a friend or a relative who would have wanted to come and see this show?’

“The woman nodded, but explained, ‘They’re all at the funeral.’ ”—comedian-actor A
LAN
K
ING
, who played (Samuel)
Goldwyn
Off-Broadway

“Why do people take an instant dislike to me?”—A
NDREW
L
LOYD
W
EBBER
, to Broadway fixture Alan Jay Lerner, from whom he sought advice about
Phantom of the Opera
in 1986; Lerner’s reply: “It saves time.”

“I think [Thornton Wilder’s] real problem is he’s … never had a good lay.”—T
ENNESSEE
W
ILLIAMS
on the gay playwright behind Dolly Levi and
Our Town

“Yes, Charles Nelson Reilly was in the original cast of
Hello, Dolly!
In fact, he was the most original one.”—C
AROL
C
HANNING

“Broadway … you have to say the same lines night after night. How boring that is!”—B
ARBRA
S
TREISAND
, who forsook the theater for film in the late ’60s

“I don’t like that they’re [the audience] allowed to look wherever they want to look.”—actor-director J
ODIE
F
OSTER
on why she hasn’t done any stage work since attending Yale

“Yes. But he was only an emperor.”—stage legend S
ARAH
B
ERNHARDT
, replying to an American who observed that her US visit was receiving more publicity than the recent one of Dom Pedro of Brazil

“My last [Broadway] show folded on the road in 1995 [after] I broke my foot.… Broadway has changed—now it’s like answering to a board of directors. I don’t know how to do that and be in charge of a show.… It’s like telling a painter how to paint a picture.”—T
OMMY
T
UNE
in 2006, starring in and directing the musical
Dr. Dolittle
after spending most of the prior decade performing in concert and Las Vegas

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