I Hated to Do It: Stories of a Life (10 page)

Geraldo, with my help, formed an entity entitled One for One to help the plight of these unfortunate persons. The publicity also enhanced the reputation of Geraldo Rivera, and he enlisted the help of a wonderful woman, Geraldine Fitzgerald, who worked with me and Geraldo on this project. Geraldine had starred in the film
Wuthering Heights
with Laurence Olivier, and she was not a prima donna. She was a down-to-earth, practical, humble, thoughtful person. During this time Geraldo arranged for a concert to be held at Madison Square Garden to raise money for One to One, and it was necessary to meet with John Lennon to work out the details. Yes, that John Lennon, of the Beatles.

This is all very important for me because one evening Annie and my daughter Patty, now Pat, were picking me up at ABC where Geraldo had his office, and it was about ten o’clock at night when we stepped out into the street where they were waiting to take me home. John Lennon, great guy that he was, turned to me and said, “Good night, Don, it was great meeting you.” That was all I needed to increase my esteem with my teenage daughter, an acknowledgment that John Lennon knew my name.

Kurt and I had many discussions about Geraldo because he was married to Kurt’s daughter Edie. Geraldo, who started out very liberal politically, became very conservative politically, and Kurt always questioned his motivation. Kurt was also not overly sympathetic with Geraldo Rivera because Kurt knew that Geraldo did not treat his daughter Edie very well during their marriage. But Geraldo was not an easy read, since he also did some really nice things. Some of the things he did could be subject to question, but we will only go for the good things.

During the marriage, when we were very friendly with them, Edie became quite ill and was stuck in their part of the house Geraldo had bought, located on Avenue C and Ninth Street. I can assure you that at that time this location was a treacherous place inhabited by unsavory, dangerous people. But Edie was sick and Geraldo called us, not Kurt, to get her some food since she had nothing to eat.

We got some prepared food from our local shop and left the Upper East Side for the trek to the equivalent of the jungle. The part of the story that is amazing is that when the cab driver, a friendly man in his fifties, drove into Avenue C, he looked at us—a nice, quiet couple in our late fifties—and he said, “I can’t leave you here, you will never get a cab to get out of here, and you will be in grave danger if you wander out into the street,” which looked deserted. He said he was coming back for us at ten fifteen to make sure we survived, and were we ever relieved when we left Edie and found the cab in the front of the house waiting for us at ten fifteen that night.

Godspell
and Maddox

Wow, did I goof. Of course, this goes back a ways; in fact it goes back to 1969, 1970, and 1971. I found myself heading downtown to La MaMa, which was started and promoted by Ellen Stewart, an enterprising, dynamic black woman. She was busy doing the avant-garde works of that era, and avant it was, like producing
Futz
, the play by Rochelle Owens. So we were going downtown to East Fourth Street, the Lower East Side, which, I now admit reluctantly, I was very anxious about. At that time there were some parts of the city that were populated by unsavory sorts, and it was not easy at that time to tell which were just screwed-up hippie kids and which ones were ready to bop you and walk off with your wallet. Remember, I’m the kid from Nebraska, where the sun always shines bright and where the World War II I fought and survived didn’t change my innate cautiousness, which others might want to label fear, but I would not go that far.

As fate would have it, we were at La MaMa one night watching a play we had planned on seeing, and we learned that the next play that was being done at that same stage that night was a musical play entitled
Red, White and Maddox
, a takeoff on Lester Maddox, the governor of Georgia. That was on the ground floor at La MaMa, and at the same time there was being presented on the second floor an unknown play entitled
Godspell
. We could see another play that night but not both, since they were at the same time. So Annie and I conferenced, and we decided that we were political beings, and who needs that religious stuff? We suffered through
Maddox
and missed seeing and maybe getting involved with
Godspell
.

No need to call attention to the fact that no one living today would have any memory of
Maddox
, except maybe Jay Broad, who was part of it; and, of course,
Godspell
is still here with us and still being performed. I should mention in the name of accuracy that the La MaMa presentation did not have music and it wasn’t till after that production that Stephen Schwartz added the music to the play, which surely helped to make it the smash hit it became.

The House of Leather
and Barry Bostwick

I guess I got to know Ellen Stewart after our trip to St. Paul, Minnesota, to see a play. So many unbelievable things happened with that play we went to see. In fact, something happened to me with the financing of that play that had never happened before or since and will probably never happen again. We had heard about the play from friends in the business and caught a plane for Minneapolis after warning the producers of our arrival. I had sufficient Off-Broadway credits at this time,
The Fantasticks
was flourishing, and they were anxious to greet us in Minneapolis. The two producers of the play took us to a garage in St. Paul with approximately ninety seats, and we were intrigued by the audience response to this musical play,
The House of Leather
. The place was sold out and there were fifty sold-out performances before it closed for the big trip to New York City.

The play was described as a psychedelic evening in a house of ill repute, which takes place during Civil War in this brothel cum ammunitions factory, in its basement; this way, the facility could diversify its patriotic efforts. The play was such a tremendous hit in the little garage in St. Paul that when the two producers engaged me to help them bring the play to New York City, what happened after that was the beginning of the unbelievable stuff. Before I could even complete the offering documents to obtain financing for the play, a record company on the West Coast heard about the play and insisted on financing it by itself. That was a first for me, and incidentally, also a last.

So the play was financed and arrangements were made to present the play at La MaMa starring Barry Bostwick, who was just beginning to become well-known in the business. We opened the play and Barry was great, as were the rest of the cast. As I saw it, or rather heard it, the music was so blasted loud, one could not hear or understand the lyrics, which told the story of the play. It opened and closed immediately, and no one has heard of it since.

The other amazing thing is this play was at the beginning of Barry Bostwick’s career. Barry is a really talented person and a really nice guy. Although the play went clunk, Barry’s career took off, and he performed in hundreds (yes, I said hundreds) of television films and specials and more movies than I can easily count. Barry was on the hit show
Spin City
as the mayor, on the hit show
Scandal
, lots of
Law & Order
episodes, and much more. Barry starred in film, TV, and the stage, and he deserved it even if no one remembers his performance in
The House Of Leather
. That is, no one but Annie and me. We remember it well.

Kurt and Don’s Usual Banter

Walter Miller was a good friend of Kurt’s. Walter was a writer and exchanged many communications with Kurt during their lifetime. Actually, Walter wanted to interview Kurt, and they were both so busy that the interview took place in a taxicab ride.

I went with Kurt to Harper Collins for another interview, and Ana Maria Allessi of Harper rode up in the elevator with me and Kurt, and Kurt and I were carrying on our usual banter of joshing each other. Ana Maria was so impressed that instead of Kurt being interviewed by a Harper Collins person, she said she wanted me and Kurt to just talk and do our thing; that is, that I should interview Kurt. It must have been good, because Ana Maria loved it, and I guess Harper Collins did too, because all of a sudden I was on a CD with Kurt. They released Kurt’s Walter Miller interviews on CD too.

Happy Birthday, Wanda June

There were plenty of striking things and people to remember about the Kurt Vonnegut play
Happy Birthday, Wanda June
: the cast, like Bill Hickey, who taught Barbra Streisand at HB Studio; the understudy Dianne Wiest, who later became famous, as did Marsha Mason, who married Neil “Doc” Simon; Kevin McCarthy, star of
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
; Keith Charles, who followed Jerry Orbach as El Gallo in
The Fantasticks
; the Lilac Chocolate Shop across from the theatre; and, of course, Duff’s, where we all hung out.

But the most striking memory is of the room-temperature salsa verde always waiting on the table at Duff’s. Wow! Duff’s was an informal Italian restaurant, a hangout sort of place a few doors east of the Theatre de Lys on Christopher Street in the Village. Alfredo (the guy in the kitchen who later became well-known as Alfredo of Bank Street) prepared this green salsa, for which he adamantly refused to disclose the recipe.

Before the play opened at the Theatre de Lys on October 7, 1970, Kurt, Annie, and I were either in Duff’s or upstairs at the theatre in the office that we had taken away from the general manager, Paul Berkowsky. Most nights Paul didn’t mind because he was home, and many nights, wherever we were, Lester Goldsmith, the producer, joined us.

That was when the Village was “The Village.” That was when you could see a play of Strindberg’s, a Chekhov, the
Threepenny
,
The Balcony
with Sylvia Myles,
The Fantasticks
, or loll around in any number of dark, dingy espresso hangouts settling all the worries of the world or completely ignoring the world.

It started in our Madison Avenue apartment one night at dinner when Lester asked Kurt whatever happened to the play
Penelope
that Kurt had written. Lester, when he worked at Paramount Pictures, had read and remembered
Penelope
, and that question ended up with Lester producing the play, which later acquired the title of
Happy Birthday, Wanda June
.

Lester, a resident of Los Angeles, optioned the rights to produce the play, found a place to live in New York City, and went to work. He used my office facilities. Kurt was happy as a clown. Writing books was real work and writing a play was a dream for Mr. Vonnegut, who welcomed the change of pace. Before Kurt had finished rewriting the play, Lester had brought in Michael Kane (a Telly Savalas look-alike) from California to direct the play, licensed the Theatre de Lys on Christopher Street in the Village, and was hiring the cast and crew.

Lester, our producer of the play, was friendly with one of the young ladies who later became a very well-known movie star. The rumor was that the young lady in question lived in the Bowery next to an apartment where another young starlet was murdered. That she would become friendly with a person who could take her out of that environment was a natural. It was also viewed by the cast as “showbiz.”

During rehearsals Annie and I met Kurt every night. We would start at Duff’s and end up in the office of the theatre. Duff’s was the meeting place for cast and crew, and we would have a scotch or two before we scrambled up to the theatre office, where we drank more scotch and frolicked, laughing and carrying on in an attempt to tweak the play in a way that suited Kurt. Kurt welcomed the suggestions from Lester, Annie, and me but had his own unique way of putting the words into the mouths of the cast.

Kurt was never satisfied with the ending of the play. Should Ryan (Kevin) shoot someone, should Ryan shoot himself, should Ryan go offstage to shoot himself and miss, should someone else shoot Ryan, or should Ryan shoot someone else and miss?

Kurt would write, read what he wrote, and break out into his loud, distinctive laugh, enjoying every word he had just written. We all laughed too, and we all drank our scotch, including Kurt, while we carried on fixing the play. Intermission found us at Duff’s, where we drank more scotch, consumed a lot of salsa verde, and had dinner. If a member of the cast was not in what was being rehearsed, they ate with us.

Come opening night, we all celebrated at a party at Sardi’s. Of course, Lester would want the party at Sardi’s restaurant, the Broadway theatre showplace and the private dining room of the stars.

After the opening we settled into the same routine. Meeting at Duff’s before the performance for our scotch and dipping the veggies in the salsa verde, picking up enough chocolate at the Lilac directly across the from the theatre to gorge on in the office during the performance, and then going back to the job of trying to get an ending to the play that we were all happy with. Kurt’s loud, deep-voiced laughter could be heard while he was writing away in the office. We were at this time leaving the office intermittently, sneaking into the theatre loge to watch the performance for a spell, and then hurrying back to enjoy the mirth in the office.

During the rehearsal and presentation at the theatre, Kurt was enjoying an extended family that he often wrote about, in this case a newfound theatre bunch. It was great fun for him to be involved in writing the play and the rehearsals, casting, rewriting, Duff’s fun, the office fun, and making new friends. It was a lot more exciting than sitting alone and writing a book.

When you get Kevin McCarthy, Marsha Mason, Dianne Wiest, Keith Charles, and some of the others in the cast around a table with Kurt at Duff’s, the theatre stories are going to result in almost constant laughter. It was a new and memorable experience for Kurt. And incidentally, it wasn’t only the salsa verde at Duff’s that was outstanding; the food was pretty good too.