Herman with Angela Lansbury and Carol Channing, NYC Public Library Archives
July 10, 1931– Jerry Herman has had a big influence on my life, although we never met and he has never been bigger than right now.
As a little 10-year-old musical theatre fanatic, I would practice kick stepping my way down a staircase at our house, as my imaginary chorus sang my character’s name (I think sometimes they were actually just singing Steve!). My parental units had just presented me with the Original Broadway Cast album of Hello, Dolly! and I was having a difficult time recovering from the excitement of those infectious tunes.
Herman’s hummable songs personify the term “show tune”. They are tuneful, optimistic, and deceptively simple. I didn’t know it in 1964, but Herman would be providing me with a musical number for descending a staircase for the next six decades.
Herman, who writes the music and lyrics, conjured up super successful and contagious tunes for Broadway musicals: Milk And Honey (1961), Hello, Dolly! (1964), Mame (1966), Dear World (1969), Mack & Mable (1974) and La Cage Aux Folles (1983).
There is a bit of a formula to a Herman show: In all these musicals a misunderstood leading lady introduces a song early in the first act that states her life philosophy: I Put My Hand In There, It’s Today, Each Tomorrow Morning, Look What Happened To Mabel, and A Little More Mascara.
Act One ends in her big soliloquy, where our heroine lifts her own spirits by singing: Before The Parade Passes By, If He Walked Into My Life Today, I Don’t Want To Know, or I Am What I Am.
Then, there comes that big “staircase” number, when the chorus celebrates how all our lives have been changed by the mere presence of this amazing woman with the title songs from Hello, Dolly! and Mame, plus When Mabel Comes In The Room, One Person, and The Best Of Times. The song One from A Chorus Line (1975) is both a parody and homage to these songs.
Despite the easy recipe, these musicals with their wonderful and skillful songs make for superior theatrical experiences. Some were super hits and others became cult favorites. Herman is the only composer-lyricist to have three musicals on Broadway at the same time.
Many of his compositions have become pop standards. Louis Armstrong’s version of Hello, Dolly! sold more records than any Beatles songs in 1964. The film versions of Hello, Dolly! and Mame are considered by most fervent fans of musical theatre to be duds, but as a very young man I was thrilled by the movie version of Hello, Dolly! I must have seen it 20 times. I still enjoy Barbra Streisand as Mae West doing Dolly Levi. She is funny and fresh, if decades too young in the role. I was really very touched that the title character in Wall-E discovered emotions from a dilapidated 20th century tape containing a loop of Put On Your Sunday Clothes.
Herman has been openly gay for decades now, but he once avoided the talk-shows because he wanted to keep his gayness a secret, even if he did write what might be the ultimate Gay Anthem with I Am What I Am.
“In the ’60s, I wasn’t openly gay because I wondered what people would think of me. I was in a business surrounded by gay people, and I was totally comfortable and accepted as an individual. It became very easy and natural for me to be in the closet. But now I think that time and age and good sense have made me more public. I think it is good sense.”
Herman was diagnosed with HIV in 1985. The news was devastating. The news was delivered during an era when an HIV diagnosis was a death sentence. He nearly gave up on his theatre career and stopped writing after his diagnosis was unceremoniously made public by New York Post columnist Cindy Adams in 1992. His fear of becoming seriously ill during a new production, along with the death of his longtime partner took him into seclusion. But, Herman is one of the fortunate ones who survived to see the experimental drug therapies take hold and he is still with us as he turns 86-years-old today, as one of his lyrics proclaims: “I’m alive and well and thriving”.
That partner was Marty Finkelstein. They had started their own business renovating Victorian houses in Key West. They won architecture restoration awards for the 11 houses that they rehabilitated. The two men were happy and productive as a couple. But, after seven years together, Finkelstein left this world. He was just 36-years-old when he was taken by the plague.
Herman:
“I didn’t have to play the big shot with him because he truly respected and cared for me. Being considerate of Marty taught me to talk to everybody like a person, not like an expert. I found that helped me in all my relationships, too. He taught me how to listen to other people’s opinions and how to respect them, even when I didn’t particularly agree with them. He was a wonderful person, and he was very, very good for me.”
“Inwardly, I was empty. I like to write happy, romantic songs, and I didn’t feel romantic or happy. I didn’t feel like a whole person. Then I was frightened by my own diagnosis, which came on the heels of Marty’s death.”
La Cage Aux Folles was huge, a critical and commercial smash, and also a political and social turning point. It was 1983 and Broadway audiences had never seen a pair of men holding hands, much less singing a love ballad to one another.
George Hearn’s star turn as Za Za, belting out what is probably the most dramatic Act One finale of all time, I Am What I Am, a plea for dignity and acceptance, was a surpassingly stalwart statement in those early days of HIV/AIDS. It is a powerful message from a songwriter who claims that all he ever wanted to do was entertain people.
“In the beginning, people were shocked when they heard about the gay romance and the homosexual themes. But once they became involved in these people’s lives, they realized that the human issues applied to everybody, not just homosexuals. We were not gung-ho about delivering a political message. We were not out to change the world and wipe out bigotry overnight. We were just doing a musical.”
Herman has stated that he will no longer be writing for the theatre:
“I think my style of musical has come (and was very, very good to me), but is gone now. I think it’s better to know when to leave than to end up with two or three shows that didn’t make it. I left at my height.”
I had the happy good fortunate to play Horace Vandergelder in Hello, Dolly! at Seattle Civic Light Opera in the late 1980s. During performances, I would close my eyes as the male chorus sang the title number. What I was hearing was “Hello, Horace!” or better yet “Hello, Stephen!”. I pictured myself kick-stepping down that large staircase.
Although facing stiff competition from Funny Girl, the original production of Hello, Dolly! swept the Tony Awards in 1964, winning 10, a record that remained unbroken for 37 years, until The Producers won 12 Tonys in 2001. The Original Broadway Cast album for Hello, Dolly! was inducted into the Grammy Hall Of Fame in 2002. The album reached number one on the Billboard Album Chart the first week of June 1964 only to be knocked off the spot the next week by Louis Armstrong’s album Hello, Dolly!
Hello, Dolly! has never been more relevant or exciting to musical theatre fans. The current Broadway revival stars ultimate Gay Icon Bette Midler. Previews began March 15, with an official opening on April 20, playing at the Shubert Theatre. Total sales on the first day the box-office opened were $9,082,497, a first-day record for Broadway.
The production is produced by gay producer Scott Rudin, directed by Jerry Zaks and choreographed by gay Warren Carlyle. Gay actor David Hyde Pierce plays Horace Vandergelder, Kate Baldwin is Irene Molloy, and gay hottie Gavin Creel is Cornelius Hackl.
This Hello, Dolly! was nominated for 10 Tony Awards, winning four, including for Midler and Creel, Santo Loquasto’s scrumptious costumes, plus Best Revival Of A Musical.
The production closing is scheduled for January 14, 2018, but who knows, with a tradition of a long line of talented women playing Dolly Levi, it could run for years. I am hoping for Sandra Bernhard to take over.
Herman has been nominated for the Tony Award five times, and won twice, for Hello, Dolly! and La Cage aux Folles. In 2009, Herman received a special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement. He is a recipient of the 2010 Kennedy Center Honors. He has published a candid, well-written book, Showtune: A Jerry Herman Memoir (1996).
Even though he is reticent, I hope he has another musical in the wings for us.