Very trivial musical trivia
(1) Shirley Jones was named after Shirley Temple.
(2) Gordon McCrae took over the role of barker Billy Bigelow from Frank Sinatra in the movie version of “Carousel” .
(3) Meredith Willson, who wrote “The Music Man,” was a graduate (piccolo and flute) of the school that later became Julliard. Before writing “The Music Man,” he’d been a member of the New York Philharmonic under Toscanini, and of John Philip Sousa’s band. The Meredith Wilson songbook is now owned by Sir Paul McCartney.
As far as #2 goes, here’s the real reason Sinatra quit the film (to which, I believe, he would have been highly unsuited anyway):
Here’s Gordon McCrae’s performance of “Soliliquy” from the movie “Carousel.” You can see why he was so eager to lose those ten pounds Shirley Jones mentions in the earlier clip, given the costume he had to wear (this segment and much of the movie was filmed in midcoast Maine, by the way):
Here’s “Soliliquy” by McCrae’s stage successor and the originator of the role, John Raitt:
And here’s Sinatra’s version (although I assume he would have changed his style for the movie; this is very cabaret):
The Carousel Overture is one of the most stirring pieces of music and gives me goose bumps.
Even more trivia, the movie Liliom (1934) was directed by Fritz Lang, which is as incongruous to me as Frank Sinatra as Billy Bigelow.
My kids went to a middle class high school. One of the things about such a place is that kids who have talent have parents with the resources to nurture it. That means the musicals, usually the old chestnuts like West Side Story or Camelot, or Sound of Music, frequently feature some astounding performances, considering the kids don’t have the accumulated time just shoving air through the larynx that it takes for seasoning, among other supposed shortcomings.
McCrae and Raitt did okay with the soliliquoy, but the high school kid did it better and more believably. The two guys were clearly actors trying to be tough guys and not having a clue. The kid who did Bigelow years ago combined size and strength and confusion at his place in life, taking him by surprise.
We had a local choral group which did Les Miz, songs only with a reader for continuity. The little kid was sung by a girl who had to be induced to cut soccer practice–about ten years old–and did a better job than the kid I saw in the professional touring company in Detroit at the Fox Theater. The latter looked like a chubby, cheery Annie. Our kid had the bone structure to look, with a couple of makeup smears, like a genuine urchin. Better voice, too.
Actors have talent, or maybe not a lot, but what they have is drive to become actors. I recall Ava Gardner speaking about the top names of her era. We weren’t actors, she said, we were a bunch of kids who looked good on camera.
Lots of talent out there.
“Carousel” had wonderful songs, but about the worst plot of any of the old musicals that I can think of. Maybe “Brigadoon” comes close.
Toy
John Raitt of course is Bonnie’s father. My earliest musical memories are of my parents’ original Broadway cast albums of great musicals like Carousel, South Pacific and My Fair Lady. Along with my older sister’s Elvis 45s.
Richard Aubrey, I agree about high school musicals. It’s the very unevenness and brand-new-ness of the performers — believing every word they’re singing right down to their bones, even if they don’t always hit each note with the round certainty of a John Raitt — that can send chills sweeping over a jaded audience and tears rolling down faces.
I am a HUGE fan of Rogers & Hammerstein. Guess I’m showing my age (although a recent production of “South Pacific” on Broadway got great reviews).
First experience I had with a Broadway musical was seeing “South Pacific” at the Texas State Fair Musicals in Dallas. It was soon after WWII and my dad had served in the army in WWI which made it all the more memorable.
I remember how shocked we Dallasites were at some of the lyrics in “There Is Nothing Like a Dame”.
Times have changed…
oops….my dad served in WWII…not WWI.
Edit!
I managed to wear out several albums of Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals in my youth, too, and wish the genre had not fallen on hard times. The last of the old school musicals is, in my estimation, The Fantasticks, but maybe that speaks more to my age than reality.
Frank Sinatra as Billy Bigelow would have been a disaster.
Mrs Whatsit. Agree.
As to South Pacific, I think there are some folks around high schools who would object to “There is Nothing Like A Dame”, and who think “You’ve got to be carefully taught” is not a caution applying to Sarah Palin.
I wish musicals would make a comeback. Real, good musicals that had some substance to them. Someone gave me “The Producers” on DVD because he thought I’d like it. I watched it and then got rid of it. Brigadoon may be far-fetched and Guys and Dolls dated, but at least they aren’t cynical.
First time I saw Brigadoon, I felt kind of lost. I can’t get there, either.
You have to have Asperger’s Syndrome to object that it’s impossible. It’s a STORY, see?
But, MrsWhatsit, you mentioned missing a note. Our kids generally don’t. We had one musical, whose name I have forgotten for the moment, with two female leads. One had a pretty good bel canto and the other’s voice was a shade lighter, but could get down and saloon-dirty for effect.
The first time the HS did Sound of Music, the male lead was the oldest of a family of ten kids, which made it easier to organize the littler von Trapps. At the end, when he picked up a sibling and perched her on his shoulders, walking off toward the mountains, the house would have erupted except for the sniffling. Had a pretty good baritone, too.
I recall the time in Camelot when Lance did a miraculous cure with Gwen watching in shadow. When the cure “worked”, the spot hit Gwen and the issue was no longer in doubt.
Damn’ fine work.
I can’t comment too much on missing notes because it was often my kids up there singing, so of course I thought they sounded perfect. But even in our little rural school, many fine voices and actors have passed through to whom I wasn’t related; at least one of the best of them has now gone on to a professional vocal career, though not in musical theater. It’s almost sad how much talent is out there; too much for the few opportunities for success available in adulthood, so that those first fine appearances on high school stages are often also among the last.
Like you, I have some powerful memories of moments in those shows more gripping than any I’ve seen on Broadway. I remember a performance of the fine musical “Working” — a decidedly non-cynical show that ought to be better known than it is — when barely-grown boys pantomimed fathers umping and cheering at a Little League game as one of them sang “Fathers and Sons” so evocatively — these boys hardly done with Little League themselves — that they had not just the audience in tears but also the girls in the cast, watching from the wings. Ahh, kids and music — they’re enough to break your heart.
As an incurably proud Texan, allow me to point out these trivia facts about Broadway (and off Broadway) musicals:
1. The longest running musical, “The Fantasticks” was created by two guys who attended the University of Texas at Austin.
2. The main character of “The Fantasticks” was played by many, of course, including F. Murray Abraham (think “Amadeus”) who was from El Paso.
3. Mary Martin is from Weatherford, Texas (and was Larry Hagman’s mom).
4. Tommy Tune (who also attended The University of Texas at Austin) is from Houston, Texas.
Mrs. Whatsit.
I don’t know about “success”. I was at a wedding once and heard a terrific solo. Couldn’t see the soloist so I thought it might have been recorded. After the kid–about nine–moved and sang an even better one, I figured she wasn’t doing Milli-Vanilli.
Talked to her mom about it, referring obliquely to Rachel Church who was supposed to have hurt her voice by pushing it (see her do Men of Harlech on Youtube) and what the kid was going to do with it. Vocal music, said the mom, is a terrific hobby and a terrible career.
You recall the song from the Sixties, “Sunny”? Best version I ever heard was when I was helping my wife, then my girlfriend, move out of her house at the end of a colleg school year. One of her friends happened to walk through the lobby singing “Sunny”. Never been topped.
For grins, see Melissa Venema on Youtube, and Jackie Evancho. I hope they realize their dreams and that their dreams don’t include stardom.
Heard Justin Bieber sing recently. ?!?!?!?!?! All that hysteria for a dumb haircut? Sheesh.
Nuts. “Charlotte Church” Men of Harlech