Hello, Gorgeous: Becoming Barbra Streisa Part 24

For some time now, Merrick had been talking with Brice's son-in-law, the producer Ray Stark, about a musical version of the late comedienne's life. In December, just after Barbra had won the part in Wholesale, the columnist Sam Zolotow had announced plans for the Brice show in the New York Times. That winter, the show was on everybody's lips-as was Barbra's resemblance to the eccentric Jewish funny lady with the large honker. Mike Wallace had already made the comparison on the air on PM East.

But Merrick was having none of it. "She is not going to be f.a.n.n.y Brice," he told Schear when the stage manager made the suggestion. And that, apparently, was that.

The Softness Group wasn't dissuaded. Barbra might have more immediate things to concentrate on: Some future show that might or might not ever be produced was surely way down on her list of priorities in the winter of 1962. But her publicists were paid to think down the road. And while Merrick might seem, at the moment, absolutely intransigent on the idea of Barbra's casting, the Softness brothers knew there were still a few things they could do to change the Abominable Showman's mind.

9.

I Can Get It for You Wholesale opened on Thursday, March 22, at the Shubert Theatre on West Forty-fourth Street, and Barbra couldn't have been more pleased. Since then, the house had been packed every night, and the applause for her regularly reached the rafters. Not even two years after her first anxious performance at the Lion, Barbra was now walking in the footsteps of Peggy Wood, Clifton Webb, Katharine Hepburn, Alfred Lunt, and Lynn Fontanne, all of whom had trod the boards of the Shubert in decades past. On opening night, Barbra's mother, brother, and sister had been there to see her, and Diana had even offered some hearty congratulations-hearty for Diana, that is.

And so, on a night not long after the opening, everything seemed to be in perfect alignment for Barbra-except for one nagging detail. As she came off the stage from the final curtain call, the makeup still on her face, the large collar of Miss Marmelstein's dress still flapping around her neck, Barbra couldn't help but admit that Elliott simply wasn't as good in the show as he needed to be. Put another way, he wasn't as good as she was.

Most of the reviews had thought the same. At the first-night cast party at Sardi's, the entire company had waited breathlessly for the notices. First came the New York Times, where Howard Taubman had declared that while Elliott was "a likeable newcomer," Barbra was "the evening's find." Every review that followed, rushed into Sardi's by newspaper boys eager for tips, had been a variation on that theme. John Chapman at the New York Daily News griped he couldn't find one character to "give affection or admiration," then corrected himself to say there was one: Barbra, who played "the homely frump of secretary ... hilariously." John McClain at the New York Journal-American hated most everything about the show, calling it "How to Almost Succeed in Business Without Really Being Very Honest, or Very Amusing Either, for That Matter," but he couldn't deny that Barbra, resembling "an amiable ant-eater," had "her moment in the sun."

McClain's insult, even if it came wrapped in praise, rankled. "Why are people so mean?" she asked Bob. But Barbra could console herself that while the reviews for the show were very mixed-Walter Kerr at the Herald Tribune called it "a good, solid show" while Robert Coleman at the Daily Mirror thought it was a disappointment-the acclaim for her was unanimous. Taubman said Barbra's "oafish expressions... loud irascible voice and ... arpeggiated laugh" made her "a natural comedienne." Kerr called her "great."

That was the rub. In the days since the show's opening, most of the buzz had centered around Barbra, not the actual stars. The breakout player wasn't Elliott, as some had once expected; instead, it was his girlfriend, who was playing a much smaller role. To be sure, some reviews had been very kind to Elliott. The Wall Street Journal had called him "something of a find." But Barbra was the one the critic declared had the "first-rate gift."

The imbalance between Barbra and Elliott was something she felt quite keenly, friends observed. She felt "protective of him," said one, and "wanted him to get the same kind of accolades" she was getting. It wasn't really his fault, she believed. Elliott, after all, hadn't had the benefit of training at the Theatre Studio the way she had. So the criticism of her new beau "really bothered" Barbra, friends knew.

That night, Bob had come backstage after the show, marveling at the hustle and bustle and all the well-wishers who were flocking to Barbra's dressing room. Every corner of the s.p.a.ce was filled with flowers. Less than a year ago, as Bob well remembered, a single bouquet-from her friends in Detroit-had celebrated her appearance on the Paar show. And less than two years ago, the tiny peapod-sized dressing room at the Bon Soir could never have accommodated all the people who were crowding in now to see her, to congratulate her, to tell her she was going to be huge. Watching his friend receive her admirers, Bob felt as if he were witnessing a fairy tale come true.

But for Barbra, there remained the niggling little problem of Elliott's performance. Laurents might have been finally satisfied to leave things the way they were, but Barbra wasn't so tranquil. She rarely was, of course, when she saw a detail out of place.

After everyone left her dressing room except for Bob, Barbra took out a piece of paper and began writing furiously. Bob asked her what she was doing. She was putting together some notes on how Elliott might improve his performance, she replied.

Bob thought that this might not be such a good idea, but he said nothing. Maybe Elliott would welcome such criticism; after all, he certainly seemed enamored enough of Barbra. Everyone had noticed his tremendous, and obvious, attraction to her. The s.e.xual shenanigans between Barbra and Elliott made for t.i.tillating backstage gossip. In Boston, Barbra had been spied naked in the hotel corridor, locked out of Elliott's room as a joke. Now they were frequently closed off in one or the other's dressing room, only opening the door after persistent and forceful knocking.

For Barbra, it was a heady adventure. The short-lived affairs since Barre had never been this pa.s.sionate, nor had her beaus been infatuated with her in the way Elliott was. That may have been because, for the first time, Barbra was realizing her own s.e.xual power. Arthur Laurents marveled at how s.e.xy Barbra was-or rather, how s.e.xual. On the stage, she did something very special with Miss Marmelstein, he thought. The hara.s.sed secretary had been written as an old maid, but as Barbra played her, she became a young woman br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with s.e.xual drive and desire. The face might have read spinster, but the body and the mannerisms were all siren-as alluring as the Lorelei she had sung about in her nightclub act, who'd wanted to bite her initials into a sailor's neck. It had taken Elliott's devotion to bring Barbra's s.e.xuality out so fully.

So it was with a kind of audacious nonchalance that she handed Elliott her list of criticisms, expecting him to be grateful for her n.o.blesse oblige. But as Bob watched the exchange, it was not grat.i.tude he saw in Elliott's eyes when he read what Barbra had written.

It was fury.

Elliott was indeed smitten with Barbra. But his own ego had taken quite enough a.s.saults from the critics; he didn't need Barbra weighing in, too. It was bad enough that his girlfriend, in a minor part not integral to the plot, was the one everyone was talking about, but to have her now, suddenly empowered, presume to instruct him how he might do his job better ... well, that was just a little too close to what his mother had once done, telling him what to do and when and how to do it.

Elliott tossed the note aside and stormed off down the hallway.

Bob saw the distressed look that crossed Barbra's face, a look that only worsened as Elliott's voice echoed through the dressing rooms.

"Hey, Marilyn!" He called into Marilyn Cooper's dressing room. "You want to head out together?"

It was clear to Bob that Elliott was trying to make Barbra jealous, to get her back for her presumptuousness. He succeeded-though only Bob, having known Barbra longer than anyone else there, saw it. With carefully controlled actions and an utterly expressionless countenance, Barbra gathered her things and left the theater. Only much later did Elliott even realize that she had left.

And then he was devastated. His devotion to Barbra was greater than his wounded ego; he feared his impulsive rage had lost her. Hurrying off into the chilly March night, he barricaded himself in a telephone booth and used up a pocketful of change calling Barbra's flat. Each time she answered and he started to speak, she hung up. Finally, dejected, Elliott went back to his own place and fell into a restless sleep.

Four o'clock that morning, his bell rang.

Groggily, Elliott made his way to the intercom. It was Barbra, and he buzzed her in. When he opened his door, she stood there in the hallway looking "like a little orphan child, in her nightgown, tears streaming down her face." Putting his long arms around her, Elliott brought her inside. Their first fight was over. It had lasted six hours at the most. They could only hope that subsequent ones would end as quickly and as well.

CHAPTER NINE

Spring 1962

1.

Laden down with trinkets and tchotchkes, Barbra and Cis climbed the stairs to the little railroad flat above Oscar's Salt of the Sea restaurant at 1155 Third Avenue, just down from Sixty-seventh Street. The rank odor of greasy fried fish that filled up the narrow, windowless stairwell could turn back even strong men, but Barbra charged ahead with gusto, anxious to finish decorating the very first apartment she could call her own.

With Wholesale still enjoying good box office, Barbra's $150-a-week salary seemed stable. So Don Softness had finally said to her, "Barbra, you're the toast of Broadway. Isn't it time to move into a place of your own?" She agreed, and found the nineteenth-century tenement with four rooms, each about eight feet by five feet, one right after another in a line. Rent was sixty dollars a month. Given her salary, Barbra could have afforded more; she could have taken a larger-and less smelly-place. But she was being frugal; she'd been living hand-to-mouth not so long ago. Wholesale would eventually end, and who was to say she wouldn't find herself bereft again? Better to take a cheaper place where she could save a bit of what she made. Besides, the apartment was right around the block from the DuMont Tele-Centre and PM East, and more than luxury, Barbra liked convenience.

Her landlord, Oscar Karp, who ran the eponymous seafood restaurant beneath her, was a disagreeable man who dressed entirely in black and insulted his customers. His restaurant was popular, however, and there was often a long wait for tables. Lines regularly snaked out the door onto Third Avenue.

With Cis following behind, Barbra hurried into her apartment, anxious to arrange the latest adornments she'd purchased for the place. To be sure, it needed some help. An ancient claw-foot bathtub sat in the kitchen because there wasn't room in the bathroom. Barbra used the tub to both bathe and wash dishes, since there was no sink. A window looked out on a stark black brick wall, but at least it let in some air-though given the restaurant below, that wasn't always a good thing. At the far end of the flat was the tiny bedroom, where a broken dumbwaiter from the last century went absolutely nowhere.

Hardly the place one would imagine a Tony nominee calling home. That spring, all sorts of miraculous things were happening to her. When the Tony nominations were announced on April 3, there among them was the name Barbra Streisand-"the kid from nowhere who knew n.o.body," she called herself to a friend-nominated along with Elizabeth Allan for The Gay Life, Barbara Harris for From the Second City, and Phyllis Newman, for David Merrick's other show that season, Subways Are for Sleeping. The morning after the nominees were announced, a slightly dazed Barbra had risen well before dawn to appear on the Today Show, where she sang "Right as the Rain" and was quizzed by host John Chancellor about whether she was made of songs. No, she told him, wincing. "Flesh and bones."

It was certainly a busy period. With the rest of the Wholesale company, she'd trooped up to the Columbia Records studio on Seventh Avenue to record the cast alb.u.m. Spotting G.o.ddard Lieberson in the corridor, she'd called him by his first name. If some found her approach brazen, the record exec didn't seem disturbed by it. In fact, Lieberson had developed some affection for the nonconformist teenager since her last visit to the studio and was seen giving her some special coaching while she recorded "Miss Marmelstein." Not long after this, she ran into Lieberson again at the DuMont Tele-Centre, when they both appeared on PM East. Another guest that night was Sammy Cahn, composer of "Day by Day," one of the first songs Barbra ever sang in public-and the one she and Carl Esser had recorded in Barre's apartment seemingly a lifetime ago.

Barbra was soon back at Columbia cutting a second alb.u.m, this one a twenty-five-year-anniversary tribute to another of Harold Rome's scores, Pins and Needles. Despite Rome's animosity toward Barbra, the composer had insisted she be a part of the project, no doubt because he knew the buzz surrounding her performance in Wholesale would guarantee some extra record sales. Barbra sang four numbers; the best, some reviewers thought, was "Doing the Reactionary." But the most image-building in terms of the way the public saw her was "n.o.body Makes a Pa.s.s at Me," yet another homely-girl-looking-for-love lament that could have been the flipside of "Miss Marmelstein." For help in practicing it, Barbra had actually rung Barre, who'd changed the spelling of his name to the more prosaic "Barry" after one too many casting directors had expressed confusion over his gender while perusing his resume. The practice session had gone well, and Barbra had thanked her ex warmly. Barry hoped they could see each other more often, and Barbra was open to the idea. The relationship with Elliott seemed to have finally healed that old wound.

With all that rehearsing and recording, it was no small wonder that Barbra was exhausted. That didn't mean she sat around being lazy, however. Far from it. With Cis, Barbra had embarked upon several buying sprees, scouring the thrift shops and antique stores along Third Avenue to finish transforming her new place into a home she could call her own. Watching Barbra defy the flat's limitations had left Cis amazed. Barbra's mother had visited and recoiled from the place, telling her daughter she should move back to Brooklyn immediately. But Cis, as always, stepped in when Diana disappointed. When Barbra hung an empty gilt picture frame on the wall and arranged old beaded bags around it, Cis declared the composition "beautiful." When Barbra discovered an antique desk and lugged it upstairs as a centerpiece for the living room, Cis marveled at her friend's unerring eye. "Who knew what antiques meant [at such a young age]?" Cis asked. Barbra's decorating skills left her in awe.

Barbra had managed to make the cramped, awkward apartment eminently livable, at least according to her standards. She hung screens, arranged lacquered chests, and filled a rusted old dentist's cabinet with antique shoe buckles. Those four tiny rooms proved Barry's influence still hovered: Tiffany lamps stood on tables; and feather boas, old fedoras, and movie posters adorned the walls. There was even what looked like a World War II oxygen mask, likely picked up at an Army Navy store.

What made the experience so satisfying for Barbra was that she had paid for all of it herself. No friend, no manager, no publicist had helped her out financially. Shopping with Cis, Barbra had eagerly snapped up "things [she] could never afford before," even if she could have afforded quite a bit more-more, at least, than trinkets and empty picture frames. But she'd quickly learned "the more money you make, the more money you spend," so she'd reeled in her impulse to buy up the store. Her frugality hadn't disappeared just because her paychecks had gotten larger. All that mattered was that her place had style, and that every last sc.r.a.p, every single idea, had come from her. With deep contentment, Barbra flopped into a chair to survey her domain.

That was when Cis announced she was heading home. It had been a long day, and she was tired. It was time to unwind with Harvey and her family, maybe watch some television, or read a book, or have a gla.s.s of wine.

Barbra looked at her friend. The reality of how different their lives had become suddenly hit her. "What is this?" she thought. "There's something very strange here."

At the end of a long day, there was no rest for Barbra, no relaxed evening with family or friends, no gla.s.s of wine. Instead, she had to traipse across town to the theater, slather on all that makeup, wriggle into that outrageous costume, and play Miss Marmelstein for what was now going on the sixtieth time. Every night the same lines. Every night the same movements. And there was no end in sight. She often showed up at the theater at the very last possible moment, right before the curtain, infuriating the stage manager and her fellow players.

To those hordes of actors who would have severed a limb for a part in a successful Broadway show, Barbra's att.i.tude must have seemed the height of ingrat.i.tude. But she'd discovered that with a certain measure of success comes a corresponding loss of more simple pleasures, like the leisure to sit around her new apartment with friends. Barbra would claim that what really made her happy wasn't the show, but enjoying a good malted or getting flowers from Elliott. Indeed, part of her did love such simple things just as much as she loved success and affirmation. And when the success that she had achieved wasn't quite what she had imagined it would be, the conflict became even more apparent.

It was her old repugnance for doing the same thing twice. To combat mental fatigue, she tried playing her part a little differently each night, which, of course, threw her fellow cast members off when she wasn't in her a.s.signed position on stage or when she altered a line, even subtly. "What does it matter if I don't stand in exactly the same spot?" Barbra bellyached. Scolded for being undisciplined, she called such criticism nonsense. "It's just that I believe in being a person," she told one reporter, defending her oscillating style.

Consequently, some nights she was better than others, and she knew it-though her audiences never seemed to discern the difference. Every night, on cue, they erupted for Miss Marmelstein when she came rolling out on her casters. They'd been waiting for the moment; they'd been told by the critics that the kid playing the secretary was a big deal, and so no matter how Barbra performed, they screamed and applauded just the same. Walter Winch.e.l.l, the doyen of Broadway columnists, had raved about Barbra's "jolly-dollying," calling her the "brightest femmtertainer in years."