Broadway Babylon Read Online Free PDF

you might in a movie. I mean, makeup galore and lipstick on my nipples—I do that on Broadway (as the Emcee in
Cabaret
), but would I do it on the screen?”— A LAN C UMMING , Tony winner for
Cabaret
    “When you’re starting out, you do anything, because it’s Broadway. Broadway used to get national attention, automatically.… When you look back, it’s sort of amusing how intense one was about it, and it’s not even something that’s permanent, like a motion picture.”—B ARBRA S TREISAND (
Funny Girl
)
    “I have to give up my art for my art. When I starred in
Fiddler on the Roof
, I couldn’t possibly give to my painting the same loving attention that Picasso does to his. Which is only because he doesn’t have to act too.”—Z ERO M OSTEL
    “When I’m on stage, I am, of course, ageless. But I pay for it afterwards. It drains you … afterwards, I feel every year of my age. Until I’m back on stage.”—B EATRICE A RTHUR (
Mame
and her own one-woman show in 2001-2002)
    “I’d have given five years of my life if
[The New York Times
critic] Clive Barnes had been struck by lightning the day after he wrote that smug, bigoted review that insulted many of my theatergoers and much of the population, besides.”—J OHN H ERBERT , Canadian playwright. Barnes opined that if one liked Sal Mineo’s production of Herbert’s
Fortune and Men’s Eyes
, one needed a psychiatrist. The openly gay John Herbert lived to 75.
    “Broadway critics are notorious. When you’re being judged by them, you’d gladly relinquish a major portion of a stellar salary for a good notice.”—D IANA R IGG . John Simon famously wrote of Rigg’s nude scene in
Abelard and Heloise
in 1970, “Diana Rigg is built like a brick mausoleum with insufficient flying buttresses.”
    “I practically go celibate when I’m performing on Broadway. It takes that much out of you.”—R ICHARD B URTON (
Hamlet
and
Camelot
)
    “If you’re not behind the scenes and not in the chorus, working on Broadway comes down to a big choice. That is, if you’re gay. The choice is: your career or your integrity. It’s smoother sailing if you lie and play it straight, but it’s soul killing and it creates paranoia.… If you have a love relationship, the denials and pretense hurt you and your partner, besides.… At least it’s not as bad as the movies, where the top Hollywood requirement, even more than looks nowadays, is lying low if you’re gay or bi.”—R OBERT L A T OURNEAUX , best known as Cowboy in 1968’s
The Boys in the Band
    “Yes, I’m gay—when I’m on that stage. If the role required me to suck off Horst, I’d do it. But I didn’t consider it a bold move.”—
Rolling Stone
interview with pre-Hollywood R ICHARD G ERE , while he was in the Broadway production of
Bent
, about Nazi persecution of gays

2

Q&A
    Q :
What is “Broadway”?
    A : Some say it’s as much an invention as a geographic entity. Broadway and 42nd Street is the center of a five-block circle comprising much of the “legitimate” theater district. Writer Damon Runyon described Broadway as “a crooked and somewhat narrow street trailing from the lowest tip of Manhattan Island to the city limits of Yonkers and beyond.”
    “Broadway” stands for first-class theater, not that it has a monopoly on quality, and Off-Broadway—and more occasionally Off-Off-Broadway—are included in this book. Broadway was a farm with a manure dump in the early 1700s, at which time New York City already had two theaters. One represented the British Crown, the other Dutch settlers and those favoring home rule.
    Q : What’s the most unusual coincidence involving a famous actor?
    A : Possibly the eeriest or most ironic coincidence involved acclaimed tragedian Edwin Booth, an elder brother of President Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth. Edwin was at a railway depot in Jersey City, en route to Philadelphia near the end of the Civil War. The conflict caused habitual crowds at train