By Seth Rudetsky
20 Jul 2009

Wednesday afternoon was my onboard Chatterbox, and it was so much fun! Mary Bond Davis not only sang two songs, but told some great stories about Hairspray (when she was dressed as a cop for the final scene, she'd leave the theatre before her entrance and ask people on 52nd Street if they wanted to be frisked), and Cheyenne talked about his audition for the Phantom sequel. He was trying out for the title role and sang for a dour-looking Andrew Lloyd Webber. He had a fantasy that as soon as he sang a few measures, Andrew would smile and nod his head with a "There's our Phantom!" certainty. Instead, he got a "I just ate day-old blood pudding" expression for the whole song and at the end received a "You have a pleasant voice" nod. He did not get the role. He heard that they want the singer to have a throaty, on-the-verge-of-vocal-damage rock quality. Cheyenne said that he's tried, but he's never been able to do that. He auditioned for Rent nine times and used to scream before the audition to rasp up his voice, but it never worked. Hmm… I guess I feel bad that his voice is always clear as a bell and stunning.

Sharon Gless is a friend of Rosie's and has been on many cruises. I asked her to do the Chatterbox, and she said yes right away. She started out by saying that she listens to my radio show all day long, and I was waiting for the "I hate you because you're so hyper" but it never came. Phew. Turns out, her grandfather was a very famous lawyer for people like Howard Hughes, Cecil B. DeMille and Louis B. Mayer. He advised her not to go into acting, so she became a secretary. She still did some acting on the side, and when she was 27 she did a play for two nights. A producer came the first night and asked her to have a meeting with Universal Studios to see if they'd sign her! They asked her to be a contract player, and she was thrilled 'til she got the contract and saw that she was making around $200 a week…less than when she was a secretary. She asked her grandfather what to do, and he wanted to look at her contract. When she showed it to him, he started to laugh. She asked why and he told her, "I wrote this contract!" This was in the early seventies, and she stayed there for ten years becoming the last contract player in the history of Hollywood! She was asked to be Cagney in the "Cagney and Lacey" TV movie but turned it down. The role then went to Loretta Switt, but she couldn't do the series because she had to go back to "M*A*S*H." Sharon was then asked again to play the role, but turned it down because she had to do another show. That was when "House Calls" was about to go on the air, and Lynn Redgrave asked for the same salary as her co-star and to be allowed to breast feed on the set. In response, she was fired. Sharon, still under contract for Universal, was told to replace her and did the show for a year. At the end of it, she had a big party and called Lynn Redgrave. She explained who she was…and invited her to the party. I told her I thought that was so cool of her, and she said that Lynne was even cooler…she said yes! She then asked Sharon if she wanted to stage something. Sharon agreed and that night, a few hours into the party, Sharon saw a car pull into the driveway. She muttered out loud, "Who could that be?" and went outside. She and Lynne quietly introduced themselves and then started a loud, fake argument. I can't repeat much of what was said, but it ended with Sharon standing at her door yelling, "F*** me? F*** you!!!!!" The cast was standing there with their mouths hanging open as Sharon "apologized" to everyone…and then, of course, invited Lynn inside. Brava!!

"Cagney and Lacey" was put on the air with someone else playing Cagney and cancelled after a few episodes. The producer, Barney Rosenzweig, was told he had one last chance to make it work, and he asked Sharon once again to play the role. She said yes, and the show ran for years and won her the Emmy (and Tyne won, too!)

Judy Gold performed her show, Mommy Queerest and got tons of laughs and a standing O. The show is about how she became a stand-up comic, came out to her middle-class Jewish family and now has a family of her own. I loved the part where she talked about being in Provincetown, and one of her friends came to visit her and her kids. Afterwards in the car ride home, her son asked Judy if her friend was a lesbian, and she said yes. She then realized how far she's come in her life and told us if it were back when she was a kid driving with her mom and she had asked, "Mom, is Mrs. Friedman a lesbian?" her Mom would have crashed the car into the highway divider.

Oy, I still have to write about the new [title of show] show they did on the cruise and the final big show, but I'm late for NYCLU rehearsal. Also, this weekend (if you happen to be in Texas), come see me play for the brilliant Betty Buckley in Broadway By Request at the Modern Museum of Art in Fort Worth. Go to BettyBuckley.com for tix and, if you come, make sure you request "Some People." It's my new obsession. Okay, gotta go. I have to defend our civil liberties by playing for some belters. Peace out!

*

Seth Rudetsky is the host of "Seth's Big Fat Broadway" on SIRIUS Satellite Radio and the author of "The Q Guide to Broadway" and the novel "Broadway Nights." He has played piano in the orchestras of 15 Broadway musicals and hosts the BC/EFA benefit weekly interview show Seth's Broadway Chatterbox at Don't Tell Mama every Thursday at 6 PM. He can be contacted by visiting www.sethrudetsky.com.