Posted
9:07 AM
by Gene
When he left Beech Grove, Ind., in 1981 and became another of the army of hopefuls who once arrived daily in New York on trains, planes and Greyhound buses seeking glamour, excitement and a career in show business, he was dismayed to discover how much of the theater world he knew from the movies had been lost. Working as a singer, producer, writer and editor in the years that followed, he was like so many of us who came to New York with the same dreams—he hated watching musical legends like Gwen Verdon, Bob Fosse, Mary Martin, Ethel Merman, John Raitt and Alfred Drake be replaced by cat costumes with souped-up body mikes screeching atonal horrors that would have given Rodgers and Hammerstein cardiac arrest. He lamented the absence of Helen Hayes, Kim Stanley, Marlon Brando, Tallulah Bankhead—names that once made marquees glitter. Was he too late?
This was the beginning of the Reagan years, when life turned into nirvana -- just like during the Clinton years.