Threaded Order Chronological Order
| The 'Wildcat' Debacle | |
| Posted by: Clancy 01:06 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
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| Darin Strauss has a new book on Lucille Ball and the Times has an excerpt about the disaster known as Wildcat. ----------------------- Ball wanted to shoulder a Broadway musical, starring in nearly every scene, dancing and belting a slew of difficult numbers. There were only two issues with that: she was not a good dancer and she was not a good singer. “Not even in the bathtub,” she recalled in that autobiography, “Love, Lucy.” And yet the show she chose, “Wildcat,” required that she both croon and “just about climb walls.” |
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| Link | NYT: The ‘Wildcat’ Episode, or, Did Broadway Love Lucy? |
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| Speaking of books about debacles/flops/bombs: "Flop Musicals of the Twenty-First Century" | |
| Posted by: FasterTheater 08:32 pm EDT 08/01/20 | |
| In reply to: The 'Wildcat' Debacle - Clancy 01:06 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
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| Anybody else read this book? There are only ten selected, and they're not the author's top ten (or bottom ten) but a "hearty cross section." (Is there a difference between a debacle and a flop and a bomb?) |
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| Link | Book Review: Flop Musicals of the Twenty-First Century |
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| re: Speaking of books about debacles/flops/bombs: "Flop Musicals of the Twenty-First Century" | |
| Posted by: keikekaze 04:58 pm EDT 08/02/20 | |
| In reply to: Speaking of books about debacles/flops/bombs: "Flop Musicals of the Twenty-First Century" - FasterTheater 08:32 pm EDT 08/01/20 | |
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| (Is there a difference between a debacle and a flop and a bomb?) Actually, there is a difference between a flop and the others. A debacle or a bomb, I think, are both generally understood to indicate a show that is truly terrible and closes immediately. A flop may also be that, but it means more generally any show that loses money, whether it runs 8 performances or 800, and regardless of the quality of the show. |
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| re: Speaking of books about debacles/flops/bombs: "Flop Musicals of the Twenty-First Century" | |
| Last Edit: Chromolume 09:56 pm EDT 08/01/20 | |
| Posted by: Chromolume 09:55 pm EDT 08/01/20 | |
| In reply to: Speaking of books about debacles/flops/bombs: "Flop Musicals of the Twenty-First Century" - FasterTheater 08:32 pm EDT 08/01/20 | |
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| This book was discussed out here a few weeks ago when it had just come out. The general consensus was that the book was a debacle, a flop, and a bomb. On the other hand, the absolute must-have book about Broadway musical flops, of course, is Ken Mandelbaum's "Not Since Carrie." | |
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| Lucy was terrific and the show was fun | |
| Last Edit: seeseveryshow 09:03 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
| Posted by: seeseveryshow 09:01 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
| In reply to: The 'Wildcat' Debacle - Clancy 01:06 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
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| The thrill of seeing Lucy live on Broadway remains with me today. The show was colorful, tuneful fun. There are quite a few memorable songs. TV in 1960 was still black and white only, so seeing this enormous star close up, her red hair, her big eyes was a rare treat. I will check my stubs (still have them), but I think I was taken to the Alvin just after the show opened. I think some described her voice as a foghorn, but I thought she was terrific. I don’t recall if audiences did standing ovations back then. |
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| Valerie Harper was a dancer in Wildcat; here she sings "Hey Look Me Over" with Lucy and Dinah | |
| Last Edit: Delvino 10:28 am EDT 08/01/20 | |
| Posted by: Delvino 10:22 am EDT 08/01/20 | |
| In reply to: Lucy was terrific and the show was fun - seeseveryshow 09:01 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
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| Harper went onto create another iconic TV character that bridged two series. UPDATE: She sang "Hey, Look Me Over" on Dinah Shore's chat show with Lucy. Kinda wonderful. Here it is. Lucy sounds just fine. |
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| Link | Hey Look Me Over Lucy Dinah Shore Valerie Harper |
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| re: Valerie Harper was a dancer in Wildcat; here she sings "Hey Look Me Over" with Lucy and Dinah | |
| Posted by: Lapsedfan 04:42 pm EDT 08/01/20 | |
| In reply to: Valerie Harper was a dancer in Wildcat; here she sings "Hey Look Me Over" with Lucy and Dinah - Delvino 10:22 am EDT 08/01/20 | |
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| Vivian Vance made a guest appearance in a single episode of "Rhoda," Valerie Harper's hit spin-off from "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." Her character was a new tenant in Rhoda's apartment building. When I saw it at the time, I thought it was a brilliant idea and a gracious wink and nod to "I Love Lucy." | |
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| No debacle. You have to be careful about books that "mix fact and fiction." | |
| Posted by: keikekaze 05:30 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
| In reply to: The 'Wildcat' Debacle - Clancy 01:06 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
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| In the real world, postwar Broadway musicals that were really debacles closed in a week or less. (Unlike the 21st century, when they might run for years.) Wildcat played 171 Broadway performances and might have run a lot longer if Lucy had remained in good health and remained enthusiastic about doing it. Yes, the show lost some money, but apparently Lucy herself was the principal investor, so it's not like a lot of people lost their shirts on it financially. The show is, in fact, a perfectly valid second- or third-level Broadway musical of its era--an era when even third-level musicals were not terrible. Not My Fair Lady by any means, but equally far from Portofino or Happy Town, some of the real debacles of that time. The creatives (among them Michael Kidd, Cy Coleman, Carolyn Leigh, and N. Richard Nash) were professionals who knew what they were doing, and they turned out a show that was endearingly silly but reasonably enjoyable--that is, more or less what they were aiming for. As for Lucy's singing, after nine years of "I Love Lucy" on TV, Lucy's fans knew she wasn't going to sound like Barbara Cook, and they didn't expect her to, or even want her to. Everyone got what they expected--Lucy being "Lucy"--and it's unlikely that anyone was very disappointed. |
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| re: No debacle. You have to be careful about books that "mix fact and fiction." | |
| Posted by: Chromolume 07:43 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
| In reply to: No debacle. You have to be careful about books that "mix fact and fiction." - keikekaze 05:30 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
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| As for Lucy's singing, after nine years of "I Love Lucy" on TV, Lucy's fans knew she wasn't going to sound like Barbara Cook, and they didn't expect her to, or even want her to. Everyone got what they expected--Lucy being "Lucy"--and it's unlikely that anyone was very disappointed. This is not TOO much in defense of Lucille Ball's singing - but I always feel that she deliberately sang worse (on purpose) on the sitcom because that was the joke. No, she was never a great singer, but don't think that Lucille Ball was nearly as bad as Lucille McGillicuddy Ricardo was. ;-) |
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| re: No debacle. You have to be careful about books that "mix fact and fiction." | |
| Posted by: keikekaze 10:37 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
| In reply to: re: No debacle. You have to be careful about books that "mix fact and fiction." - Chromolume 07:43 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
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| I agree that Lucy exaggerated the "badness" of her voice when she was playing Lucy Ricardo. She's quite listenable on the Wildcat cast album--if still far from dulcet! : ) | |
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| re: No debacle. You have to be careful about books that "mix fact and fiction." | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 11:44 am EDT 08/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: No debacle. You have to be careful about books that "mix fact and fiction." - keikekaze 10:37 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
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| "I agree that Lucy exaggerated the 'badness' of her voice when she was playing Lucy Ricardo. She's quite listenable on the Wildcat cast album--if still far from dulcet! : )" I think maybe she would have sounded better at the time of WILDCAT if her voice hadn't already been affected by decades of smoking. Also, since she wasn't a trained Broadway-type singer, I'm assuming she never learned to properly use what voice she had, and by the time of the recording sessions of WILDCAT, her voice might have been adversely affected by all the singing she had done in rehearsals and in even the probably few performances that took place before the sessions. (I don't know if that show played out of town pre-Broadway.) When you have an untrained singer go from rarely singing at all, only occasionally on television, to a Broadway schedule, I think chances are very high that problems will arise. |
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| re: No debacle. You have to be careful about books that "mix fact and fiction." | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 12:49 pm EDT 08/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: No debacle. You have to be careful about books that "mix fact and fiction." - Michael_Portantiere 11:44 am EDT 08/01/20 | |
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| Wildcat played six weeks at the Erlanger in Philadelphia prior to Broadway. | |
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| re: No debacle. You have to be careful about books that "mix fact and fiction." | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 03:53 pm EDT 08/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: No debacle. You have to be careful about books that "mix fact and fiction." - AlanScott 12:49 pm EDT 08/01/20 | |
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| Thanks, Alan. I can certainly see how six weeks of eight shows a week (or seven, or six) could have been detrimental to the voice of an untrained singer with a very limited vocal instrument. | |
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| re: No debacle. You have to be careful about books that "mix fact and fiction." | |
| Posted by: Delvino 10:04 am EDT 08/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: No debacle. You have to be careful about books that "mix fact and fiction." - keikekaze 10:37 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
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| And the Wildcat vocals -- which I grew up hearing -- don't create that Mame sound. She sang with what can only be described as more confidence. To my ear, she sounds better than two famous Bacall notes "aliiiiiiive" and "womaaaaan," though admittedly the two actors had different personas/temperaments while singing. I always thought Bacall got a pass rather easily, and sounds good on only one number, "I Wrote the Book" in Woman of the Year. Coleman seemed more adept at writing for the Ball range than Strouse or Kander/Ebb did for Bacall, who would've been better off without that top of the voice screech. Just my two pennies. | |
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| re: No debacle. You have to be careful about books that "mix fact and fiction." | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 11:50 am EDT 08/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: No debacle. You have to be careful about books that "mix fact and fiction." - Delvino 10:04 am EDT 08/01/20 | |
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| "And the Wildcat vocals -- which I grew up hearing -- don't create that Mame sound. She sang with what can only be described as more confidence." Well, yes. Largely because, by the time of MAME, her voice had deteriorated much, much further from its best shape than it had by the time of WILDCAT. If Lucy had somehow been able to use a time machine and play either of those roles in her late twenties or early thirties, I'm pretty sure she would have sounded far better. |
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| re: No debacle. You have to be careful about books that "mix fact and fiction." | |
| Last Edit: PlayWiz 11:34 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
| Posted by: PlayWiz 11:33 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
| In reply to: re: No debacle. You have to be careful about books that "mix fact and fiction." - keikekaze 10:37 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
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| There were a couple of times on "The Lucy Show", her next series after "I Love Lucy", where she sometimes sang; I remember there was one, I think the one where Wayne Newton sings to a cow(!), where they do a number called "Main Street U.S.A". She sings pretty straight, not Lucy Ricardo-ish, and it was reasonably acceptable, still sounding like Lucy. She didn't have Ricky (Desi) on that show trying to keep her out of show biz, so she didn't always have to exaggerate how bad her singing was on her 2nd series. | |
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| In addition to those mentioned below | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 01:09 pm EDT 08/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: No debacle. You have to be careful about books that "mix fact and fiction." - PlayWiz 11:33 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
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| On I Love Lucy, she also sang in the Scottish-set dragon musical nightmare she dreamed after having seen Brigadoon or something like it in London with Ricky, and as "Sally Sweet" with Ricky as "Cuban Pete" at the Tropicana. She sang intentionally badly as gypsy lady in the operetta that she and Ethel wrote for the women's club. She also sang "Under the Bamboo Tree" with Ricky. And there's the "Sweet Adeline" episode (linking part of it) where she sang particularly badly. And "Auf Wiedersehen" (sort of). And probably some others not coming to mind. And doesn't she sing in the Merman episode of The Lucy Show? Doesn't she demonstrate to Merman how to sing like Merman? I don't remember how much she actually sings there. |
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| Link | Sweet Adeline around the piano |
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| re: In addition to those mentioned below | |
| Posted by: Chromolume 02:44 pm EDT 08/01/20 | |
| In reply to: In addition to those mentioned below - AlanScott 01:09 pm EDT 08/01/20 | |
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| If I recall correctly, in the Merman episode, she demonstrates with the recording of Merman, and then the live Merman starts singing along. But I don't remember Lucy singing in that bit. | |
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| re: No debacle. You have to be careful about books that "mix fact and fiction." | |
| Posted by: BroadwayTonyJ 10:40 am EDT 08/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: No debacle. You have to be careful about books that "mix fact and fiction." - PlayWiz 11:33 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
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| There were at least 2 other episodes on I Love Lucy and The Lucy-Desi Comedy Specials when Lucy sang acceptably, once with Bob Hope when they sang "Nobody Loves the Ump" and also with Red Skelton when they sang "A Couple of Swells". | |
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| re: No debacle. You have to be careful about books that "mix fact and fiction." | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 11:55 am EDT 08/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: No debacle. You have to be careful about books that "mix fact and fiction." - BroadwayTonyJ 10:40 am EDT 08/01/20 | |
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| ***There were at least 2 other episodes on I Love Lucy and The Lucy-Desi Comedy Specials when Lucy sang acceptably, once with Bob Hope when they sang "Nobody Loves the Ump" and also with Red Skelton when they sang "A Couple of Swells".*** I too remember a few times when Lucy sang well enough on her TV show, but I do also remember pretty clearly that she was sometimes obviously dubbed. Wish I had better recall on that, but one example of her being obviously dubbed that I seem to remember was a duet with someone, maybe Carol Burnett? |
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| re: The 'Wildcat' Debacle | |
| Posted by: FleetStreetBarber 04:35 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
| In reply to: The 'Wildcat' Debacle - Clancy 01:06 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
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| I started reading the New York Times piece with great interest, but eventually a healthy skepticism settled in when I got to the statement that "in 1960 attendance on Broadway was starting to wobble." Where, please, is the evidence? Shows that were running concurrently with “Wildcat” included the record-breaking “My Fair Lady,” “The Sound of Music,” “Camelot,” “The Music Man,” “Gypsy” and “Bye, Bye Birdie,” to name a few. Broadway was thriving, tickets were still within reach of the middle class New Yorkers and suburbanites who back then were the mainstay of the Broadway audience, and Broadway was popular enough to be featured almost every Sunday evening on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” By the time I got to the author quoting Lucille Ball as having said her character of Wildcat Jackson was “the cat with more bounce to the ounce, as she put it in her autobiography," I got the distinct impression that Strauss had never listened to the OBCR. I don’t doubt that Lucy said that, but she was clearly referencing Carolyn Leigh’s lyrics for the title song. Strauss suggests that the fact that Lucy wasn’t much of singer or dancer was what sank the show, but Ball’s fans already knew what to expect. Lucy Ricardo’s awful voice was the butt of countless self-deprecating jokes on “I Love Lucy,” although Lucy did seem to know how to put over a dance routine in the show’s many musical numbers over the years. Because of Lucille Ball’s enormous popularity, the show sold out at almost every performance in Philadelphia and on Broadway and the OBCR was high on the weekly Billboard chart for several months as reported by Variety. And while “Wildcat” was not the gusher that some had hoped for, it did have an afterlife in summer stock, notably with Martha Raye. So when I read words such as “debacle” and “disaster” in connection with “Wildcat,” I have to assume they’re being used to Trumpian excess to sell books rather than to shed a clear light on a fading moment in Broadway’s past. | |
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| re: The 'Wildcat' Debacle | |
| Posted by: champagnesalesman 04:06 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
| In reply to: The 'Wildcat' Debacle - Clancy 01:06 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
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| I was excited about a new biography of Lucille Ball, until I read the "mix of fact and fiction" part....is there any point in reading it? I can just watch HOLLYWOOD again..... WILDCAT is not "largely forgotten" by Lucy fans or by Cy Coleman fans. It yielded a popular song "Hey, Look Me Over"..and had numerous summer stock productions starring such diverse talents as Martha Raye and Margaret Whiting....NY has only seen an ill advised production w Luba Mason and a miscast segment at ENCORES... It was also NOT Lucy's first foray into theatre...she toured in DREAM GIRL in the 40's and also appeared in a pre-Broadway tryout of HEY DIDDLE DIDDLE in the 30's(!) I think someone like Charles Busch could make a go of it today |
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| The temporary popularity of Wildcat in stock | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 01:46 pm EDT 08/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: The 'Wildcat' Debacle - champagnesalesman 04:06 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
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| It's true that for two years Wildcat was, for some reason, popular in stock. In addition to the two you mention, there were productions with Peggy Cass, Gale Storm, Carmel Quinn and Norma Doggett, and perhaps some others. Was it the popularity of "Hey, Look Me Over"? Was it just that it was a big leading role for a woman who did not necessarily have to be especially young or sing especially well (even though a few of those women certainly did sing well)? | |
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| re: The 'Wildcat' Debacle | |
| Last Edit: Delvino 10:13 am EDT 08/01/20 | |
| Posted by: Delvino 10:10 am EDT 08/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: The 'Wildcat' Debacle - champagnesalesman 04:06 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
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| There are a fair number of C&W stars who might be charming in it, if we still had the stock we once had. (Remember when everybody had a go at Miss Mona? Even Barbi Benton. Google her, younguns.) I can imagine, say, a 2nd string Reba doing a Wildcat tour even 15 years ago, to re-try stage legs in a win-win venue. But I'm riffing. Shows in that mid-range of hits used to routinely return to life with stars. I grew up attending the east coast circuit (Wesburty - Shady Grove in DC area). We saw all kinds of packages -- Jan Pierce in The Rothschilds, Eva Gabor in Applause -- and that was part of the fun, knowing it was, well, just for fun. | |
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| re: The 'Wildcat' Debacle | |
| Posted by: larry13 01:16 pm EDT 08/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: The 'Wildcat' Debacle - Delvino 10:10 am EDT 08/01/20 | |
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| Why only a "2nd string Reba doing a Wildcat tour even 15 years ago?" What about Reba herself? | |
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| re: The 'Wildcat' Debacle | |
| Posted by: JohnDunlop 07:56 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
| In reply to: re: The 'Wildcat' Debacle - champagnesalesman 04:06 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
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| Lucille Ball sang "Hey Look Me Over" on The Ed Sullivan Show. I remember watching that night. | |
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| Ed Sullivan re: The 'Wildcat' Debacle | |
| Last Edit: Marlo*Manners 08:20 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
| Posted by: Marlo*Manners 08:06 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
| In reply to: re: The 'Wildcat' Debacle - JohnDunlop 07:56 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
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| Yes she was on Ed Sullivan. Her voice is what it is but Lucy has star energy and a big theatrical personality. She could have done the show as long as she wanted to and it would have eventually paid back its investment. I think Lucy got tired of doing it night after night. Also, the weird thing is that Lucy started as a chorus girl in early movie musicals - a "Goldwyn Girl" so maybe more of a showgirl. She should have had some dance experience. Also, she did lots of musicals - the film versions of "Best Foot Forward","Too Many Girls", "Fancy Pants" and "Dubarry was a Lady" - but she was dubbed by Trudy Erwin, Martha Mears and Annette Warren et al. And after the supposed "Wildcat" 'debacle', Lucy went on to purchase the film rights to "Mame" and insisted on doing her own singing despite rumors that Lisa Kirk was going to dub her. Also, 171 performances is not that bad a run in 1960. Musicals didn't have to run for years to make back their money in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. |
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| Link | Lucy and Paula Stewart on the Ed Sullivan Show |
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| How long was she signed for? Today, 6 months might be a full contract. | |
| Posted by: Delvino 10:18 am EDT 08/01/20 | |
| In reply to: Ed Sullivan re: The 'Wildcat' Debacle - Marlo*Manners 08:06 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
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| Road try-out plus six months on B'way wouldn't be odd today, though with the assumption of a successful recast (Well, Josh Groban was to be replaced by a star, or maybe wasn't, but we'll leave that for another ethread). Was Ball signed for a year? Would she have left in August without health problems? | |
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| re: How long was she signed for? Today, 6 months might be a full contract. | |
| Posted by: FleetStreetBarber 10:56 am EDT 08/01/20 | |
| In reply to: How long was she signed for? Today, 6 months might be a full contract. - Delvino 10:18 am EDT 08/01/20 | |
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| I think I recall reading that she planned to do the show for 18 months and had signed a 5-year lease on her UES apartment. | |
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| re: How long was she signed for? Today, 6 months might be a full contract. | |
| Posted by: BroadwayTonyJ 10:48 am EDT 08/01/20 | |
| In reply to: How long was she signed for? Today, 6 months might be a full contract. - Delvino 10:18 am EDT 08/01/20 | |
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| Wildcat sold out performances when Ball was in the show. However, she wasn't able to consistently do 8 shows a week. According to every source I know of, Ball was the sole producer and she alone decided to close the show after 171 performances before the show was able to recoup. | |
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| re: How long was she signed for? Today, 6 months might be a full contract. | |
| Posted by: JereNYC (JereNYC@aol.com) 04:09 pm EDT 08/03/20 | |
| In reply to: re: How long was she signed for? Today, 6 months might be a full contract. - BroadwayTonyJ 10:48 am EDT 08/01/20 | |
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| It's kind of a shame that HELLO, DOLLY! didn't come along a few years earlier. I'm sure that David Merrick would have taken Ball as a replacement Dolly for however long she wanted to do it or could commit to do it between seasons of television sitcoms. And that show surely wouldn't have taxed Ball as a singer or dancer as much as WILDCAT might have done. Going in as a replacement for 3-6 months would have been ample time for Ball to discover that she would get bored (if that's the case) or figure out that an 8 performance week was not something she was either capable of or interested in doing. If FOLLIES had run longer, she might have been an interesting replacement Carlotta had that been something she was interested in at the time. |
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| re: Ed Sullivan re: The 'Wildcat' Debacle | |
| Posted by: FleetStreetBarber 10:04 am EDT 08/01/20 | |
| In reply to: Ed Sullivan re: The 'Wildcat' Debacle - Marlo*Manners 08:06 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
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| I think it was more than mere boredom. Lucy was a shrewd businesswoman, and as co-owner of Desilu, which reportedly was the sole investor in the show, I doubt that she would have run out on the production if it weren't for the fact that she didn't have the health and stamina required for eight shows a week. Her performance on The Ed Sullivan Show came on the night before she was due to return to the show after a two-week vacation. She had collapsed on stage in the middle of Act II at a Saturday evening performance in February of 1961 and Sheilah Hackett, Michael Kidd's assistant and later his wife, stepped in and finished the show as Wildcat Jackson. (On the original unedited Ed Sullivan Show clip, you could hear Lucy cough during the chit-chat with Sullivan after "Hey, Look Me Over.") Then, a few months later, another hiatus was announced, this one to last nine weeks to give the star more time to recover, but alas a few days later the decision was made to close the show for good. | |
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| re: Ed Sullivan re: The 'Wildcat' Debacle | |
| Posted by: larry13 01:11 pm EDT 08/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Ed Sullivan re: The 'Wildcat' Debacle - FleetStreetBarber 10:04 am EDT 08/01/20 | |
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| Shelah Hackett, assistant choreographer for WILDCAT, did marry Kidd(1969 to his death in 2007)but first married Keith Andes, Lucy's leading man, a couple months into the run. As far as I know, she is still alive. | |
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| re: The 'Wildcat' Debacle | |
| Posted by: Chromolume 07:40 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
| In reply to: re: The 'Wildcat' Debacle - champagnesalesman 04:06 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
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| It yielded a popular song "Hey, Look Me Over" It did. And unfortunately it's one of a very very few Coleman songs I honestly can't stand. I don't really know why, except that maybe it comes from hearing too many people audition with it (badly) when I was just starting out playing auditions lol. But, so it goes...;-) It's a shame though, because generally I revere Coleman. |
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| re: The 'Wildcat' Debacle | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 08:05 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
| In reply to: re: The 'Wildcat' Debacle - Chromolume 07:40 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
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| And then a few years later, he and Carolyn Leigh seemed to try to come up with a similar song when they wrote "Pass Me By." Not sure if they specifically wrote it for Father Goose or it just ended up there, but it did achieve some popularity. | |
| Link | Father Goose opening credits with Pass Me By |
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| re: The 'Wildcat' Debacle | |
| Posted by: JohnDunlop 05:00 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
| In reply to: re: The 'Wildcat' Debacle - champagnesalesman 04:06 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
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| I remember Lucy talking to Jack Paar about "Wildcat' around Christmas of 1960. She seemed a bit enthusiastic then. Was it her first television interview? |
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| re: The 'Wildcat' Debacle | |
| Posted by: FleetStreetBarber 06:24 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
| In reply to: re: The 'Wildcat' Debacle - JohnDunlop 05:00 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
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| I remember Lucy being interviewed by Paar around that time. She was also promoting "The Facts of Life," which premiered about a month before "Wildcat." Eventually the conversation turned to the upcoming show and Paar asked Lucy whether she'd be singing. She replied, somewhat apologetically, "Yeah, I have to." | |
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| re: The 'Wildcat' Debacle | |
| Posted by: champagnesalesman 10:24 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
| In reply to: re: The 'Wildcat' Debacle - FleetStreetBarber 06:24 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
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| Lucy does her own singing in a terrific 1940 film called DANCE, GIRL DANCE..and she sounds pretty good she sang one of the songs in DUBARRY WAS A LADY...and sings a bit..not Lucy Ricardo-esqe.... in THE LONG LONG TRAILER. Her voice had changed by WILDCAT but she's not bad. MAME was filmed only a dozen years later(but probably 10,000 cigarettes later)but I think she still has some nice musical moments in it like My Best Girl |
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| re: The 'Wildcat' Debacle | |
| Last Edit: Chromolume 12:08 am EDT 08/01/20 | |
| Posted by: Chromolume 12:07 am EDT 08/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: The 'Wildcat' Debacle - champagnesalesman 10:24 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
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| I've always felt that the problem with the film of Mame wasn't so much her singing - just that the film falls flat in general. | |
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| Thanks, and links | |
| Last Edit: Ann 03:34 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
| Posted by: Ann 03:32 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
| In reply to: The 'Wildcat' Debacle - Clancy 01:06 pm EDT 07/31/20 | |
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| Link | And a generic TB link to Amazon, always available for grocery shopping, or any shopping |
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The Queen of Tuesday: A Lucille Ball StoryTime to render: 0.136390 seconds.