Threaded Order Chronological Order
| re: 'She Loves Me' and 'to my amazement ...' | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 06:07 pm EDT 08/31/20 | |
| In reply to: re: 'She Loves Me' and 'to my amazement ...' - BroadwayTonyJ 05:39 pm EDT 08/31/20 | |
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| Thanks for all those examples. I'm pretty sure that I haven't come across anything discussing how these things were determined in the early years. But it was a small group of voters in those earliest years, around 50 people who basically (I think) got together and did it all in perhaps just one meeting. So, yeah, it seems there was no reason they couldn't have put Stapleton and Wallach in lead. I suppose a case could be made for Alvaro being supporting or featured, but not for Serafina. She is the lead. |
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| re: 'She Loves Me' and 'to my amazement ...' | |
| Posted by: BroadwayTonyJ 06:30 pm EDT 08/31/20 | |
| In reply to: re: 'She Loves Me' and 'to my amazement ...' - AlanScott 06:07 pm EDT 08/31/20 | |
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| You're right. I totally forgot about Stapleton in Tattoo. That was pretty egregious. Since we're on the subject, why do you think they put George Rose in the leading category for My Fair Lady? I would have thought by '76 (when there was much more national scrutiny) they wouldn't have made such a nonsensical decision. |
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| re: 'She Loves Me' and 'to my amazement ...' | |
| Last Edit: AlanScott 06:13 am EDT 09/01/20 | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 06:11 am EDT 09/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: 'She Loves Me' and 'to my amazement ...' - BroadwayTonyJ 06:30 pm EDT 08/31/20 | |
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| I wrote about this a while ago online (but not here) after I found out some things I hadn't known about that perhaps helped to explain it. At the end of that post elsewhere, I quoted the Mako-Orbach story that Mako told Wayman (and that Wayman quoted here). Anyway, I've adapted what I wrote previously to make it more directly applicable to what we're discussing here. In 1975, Rose protested being nominated for best supporting actor (it was called "supporting" that year) in a play for My Fat Friend, which was a year after Douglas Turner Ward had protested being nominated in featured or supporting (as it was called that year) for The River Niger. 1975 was the same year as Rita Moreno's famous protest on the Tonys show itself. All of this, of course, was several years after the William Daniels kerfuffle. Unlike the Daniels situation, the protests by Ward and Rose were received by the Tonys committee after the ballots with their names had gone out so the Tonys refused to eliminate them from the list of nominees. Ward was not billed above the title but both Rose and Moreno were. And then in 1976, Mako was billed below the title. Given that Mako got nominated in leading, if they simply wanted a fourth nominee to fill out the category, there was no reason they could not have nominated Charles Repole in leading for Very Good Eddie since he was unquestionably playing the leading role and he’d gotten generally very nice reviews. And Rivera and Verdon were said to have been pissed that Donna McKechnie was nominated with them in leading actress. Anyway, my surmise is that they put Rose in lead to avoid him protesting again, never thinking there was any way he would win. My perception is that Ian Richardson was widely expected to win. And then Rose won. He was fantastic in the role, but it really did make any sense for him to be in leading. Another possibility, perhaps less likely, is that the committee really wanted Sammy Williams to win, and they thought Rose might give him tough competition. Having said that, Williams would surely have won even if Rose had been in competition in that category. The thing that was odd about Rose even being nominated for MFL was that he’d played the role at City Center in 1968. We’ve talked many times here (although not recently) about whether City Center was generally considered Broadway, and it’s too complicated for me to get into it again. But a number of people had been nominated for City Center productions, and I would think that Rose would have been deemed eligible in 1969 (the production opened in June 1968) had the nominating committee wanted to nominate him. Truth is that his reviews were much better in 1976 (although they were nice enough in 1968). The experience of 1968 must have helped. Plus, City Center productions rehearsed only two weeks and then opened after one preview. In 1976, he not only had played the role before, he had a full rehearsal period and a tryout run before he opened on Broadway. I wonder if the Tony rule against nominating people who had earlier been eligible for the same role was not yet in place in 1976 because the question had so rarely come up. And I wonder if Rose’s win may have prompted the rule. Re the Mako-Orbach story: Orbach could have added, "We not only lost to a fucking revival, we lost to a goddamn supporting actor in that revival!" (I must admit that I think of Billy Flynn as a supporting role.) Btw, the 1970s was a period of great contentiousness in the Tonys. Some of the rules and practicies we still have today were put in place in the 1970s in response to controversies and protests over nominations. And some of those controversies received prominent press coverage. |
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| The backstage drama behind the Tonys | |
| Last Edit: WaymanWong 03:21 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| Posted by: WaymanWong 03:19 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: 'She Loves Me' and 'to my amazement ...' - AlanScott 06:11 am EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| ''Btw, the 1970s was a period of great contentiousness in the Tonys.'' Boy, you aren't kidding. I just Googled and found this 1977 N.Y. Times article about various Tony disputes from that era. It covers Rita Moreno, ''Side by Side by Sondheim,'' Donna McKechnie, plus notable Tony omissions and oversights. It was really fascinating to read about the jockeying and jostling over Lenny Baker (''I Love My Wife''). |
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| Link | N.Y. Times: The Drama Behind the Tony Awards (1977) |
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| re: The backstage drama behind the Tonys | |
| Last Edit: AlanScott 05:34 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 05:33 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| In reply to: The backstage drama behind the Tonys - WaymanWong 03:19 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| That's the article I particularly think of. That was the year when several things came together to produce a particularly contentious group of controversies. It's funny that Cohen seemed to think that Raul Julia would have been the tough competition for Lenny Baker if Baker had been in lead, but Barry Bostwick actually won. And they were playing rather similar characters. And Kevin Kline, the first to play Bostwick's role in a full production of the show, had been Julia's standby as Mack the Knife for a while, emphasizing the similarity. Perhaps the complete contrast of Baker's role to Jamie Lockhart and Mack might have helped him win in leading, but we'll never know. (Tangentially, I first typed Macheath, but then I looked it up and, not for the first time, was surprised to see that the character was listed as Mack the Knife in the playbill.) When I came across that article a few years ago — I'm sure I'd read it back in 1977 but I'd forgotten it — I was glad to see this from Gene Saks: “Alex gave me a long song and dance as to how it would be better for Lenny to be in the featured category because he'd be assured of winning." Because it lent additional credence to what I'd already been saying for several years: the committee put Daniels in featured or supporting (or whatever it was that year) because they wanted him to win (although there was also the issue of four other strong nominees, and leaving out any of them might have caused other controversies). I must remember to quote that the next time this comes up. And it will come up again. Maybe even in a few weeks. :) |
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| re: The backstage drama behind the Tonys | |
| Last Edit: WaymanWong 10:23 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| Posted by: WaymanWong 10:22 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: The backstage drama behind the Tonys - AlanScott 05:33 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| I was surprised at just how candid and matter-of-fact Cohen seemed to be in explaining why Lenny Baker was placed in Featured. I guess I'm naive, but I don't think the committee should've been gaming or manipulating the system to insure certain winners. Cohen's reasoning also didn't include Barry Bostwick; I wonder if he was shocked when Bostwick won over Raul Julia. P.S.: I looked up the Drama Desk's nominees for Leading Actor in a Musical for 1976: Ian Richardson (''My Fair Lady'') won over Raul Julia (''The Threepenny Opera''), Jerry Orbach (''Chicago'') and Nicol Williamson (''Rex''). And in 1977, Lenny Baker won for Leading Actor in a Musical over Barry Bostwick (''The Robber Bridegroom''), Yul Brynner (''The King and I''), Robert Guillaume (''Guys and Dolls'') and Reid Shelton (''Annie''). |
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| Orbach -- Featured Actor as Sky in GUYS AND DOLLS | |
| Posted by: BroadwayTonyJ 02:51 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: 'She Loves Me' and 'to my amazement ...' - AlanScott 06:11 am EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| Another crazy nomination decision was in '65. Jerry Orbach, billed above the title for playing Sky in Guys and Dolls, was put in the featured category. I remember it happening but don't recall any explanation being given. Maybe another reason why Daniels was put in featured for 1776 -- to make it up to Orbach for the earlier slight. |
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| re: 'She Loves Me' and 'to my amazement ...' | |
| Posted by: BroadwayTonyJ 02:37 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: 'She Loves Me' and 'to my amazement ...' - AlanScott 06:11 am EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| Interesting. I remember the story about Rose complaining about his Tony nomination for The Fat Friend. Regarding a performer's eligibility for a role earlier performed, I remember a NY critic campaigning for Ethel Merman to get a nomination for the '66 revival of Annie Get Your Gun. I think it nay have been Henry Hewes. The revival itself did get 2 nominations, but not for Merman. |
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| re: 'She Loves Me' and 'to my amazement ...' | |
| Posted by: larry13 04:26 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: 'She Loves Me' and 'to my amazement ...' - BroadwayTonyJ 02:37 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| And of course, the first Tonys were given out in 1947, a year after AGYR opened, so that neither the show nor Merman were recognized. | |
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| re: 'She Loves Me' and 'to my amazement ...' | |
| Last Edit: AlanScott 05:10 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 05:09 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
| In reply to: re: 'She Loves Me' and 'to my amazement ...' - larry13 04:26 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| Yes, so it's easy to understand why Hewes felt she should be nominated. Still, a special Tony would have made more sense. | |
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| re: 'She Loves Me' and 'to my amazement ...' | |
| Last Edit: JereNYC 01:28 pm EDT 09/02/20 | |
| Posted by: JereNYC (JereNYC@aol.com) 01:25 pm EDT 09/02/20 | |
| In reply to: re: 'She Loves Me' and 'to my amazement ...' - AlanScott 05:09 pm EDT 09/01/20 | |
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| I wonder if, in the early days of the Tonys, there were rules that specifically pertained to revivals of work that predated the awards? Perhaps no one even envisioned that revivals would ever become enough of a thing to even consider such things. In any case, stars returning in new productions of shows they originated continues to be a rare phenomenon...Channing in HELLO, DOLLY!, Lansbury in MAME, Close in SUNSET BOULEVARD...any others? Under today's rules, Merman would have been eligible in 1966 for ANNIE GET YOUR GUN, right? Because she would not have been eligible in 1946, because the award didn't exist. Or would a special exception have been made to exempt her? |
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| re: 'She Loves Me' and 'to my amazement ...' | |
| Posted by: larry13 03:26 pm EDT 09/02/20 | |
| In reply to: re: 'She Loves Me' and 'to my amazement ...' - JereNYC 01:25 pm EDT 09/02/20 | |
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| Just off the top of my head: Mostel in FIDDLER; Kiley in LA MANCHA; Burton in CAMELOT. I'm sure there are many others. Robert Preston refusing to do MUSIC MAN again, after the film, is the exception. |
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| re: 'She Loves Me' and 'to my amazement ...' | |
| Posted by: EvFoDr 02:07 pm EDT 09/02/20 | |
| In reply to: re: 'She Loves Me' and 'to my amazement ...' - JereNYC 01:25 pm EDT 09/02/20 | |
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| Both Joel Grey and Alan Cumming starred in return production of Cabaret that they had done previously. What are the odds?? Same show, same role. | |
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