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STAGE TO SCREENS: The First "Cinderella" Returns and Other Holiday Treats
By Michael Buckley
21 Nov 2004
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Julie Andrews in Cinderella
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| photo by CBS Photo Archives | This month we look at some upcoming holiday treats, with the main emphasis
on the original live-TV version of "Rodgers & Hammerstein's 'Cinderella,'"
with the loverly Julie Andrews in the title role.
Also chiming in are "A Christmas Carol" (NBC, Nov. 28, 9 PM ET), the Alan Menken-Lynn Ahrens musical, starring Kelsey Grammer as Ebenezer Scrooge; and the RCA Victor DVD release of Rick McKay's "Broadway: The Golden Age, By the Legends Who Were There."
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Hosted by Andrews — and not seen since March 31, 1957 — "Cinderella" is a
presentation of Thirteen/WNET New York's "Great Performances." It airs as a PBS Pledge offering Dec. 5 (9 PM ET) in the New York-Metropolitan area and Dec. 13 nationally (check local listings). Its original Sunday
evening showing was on CBS (8-9:30 PM ET), pre-empting "The Ed Sullivan
Show" and "G.E. Theatre," hosted by Ronald Reagan. Originally seen in color
(by those with color-TV sets), it was shown live in the Eastern, Central
and Mountain time zones. In the Pacific time zone, a black-and-white
kinescope was aired. "Great Performances" will show a black-and-white
kinescope, with color current-day reminiscences interspersed where the
commercial breaks had occurred. These will precede the Pledge breaks.
Image Entertainment releases "Cinderella" on VHS and DVD Dec. 7. The
DVD bonus material includes an appearance by Richard Rodgers and Oscar
Hammerstein II on "The Ed Sullivan Show" (March 24, 1957, in which Rodgers
conducts the orchestra while Hammerstein recites the lyric to "Do I Love You
Because You're Beautiful?"), plus interviews (excerpted on "Great
Performances") with Andrews and cast members Edie Adams (Fairy Godmother), Kaye Ballard (Stepsister Portia), and Jon Cypher (the Prince).
"Rodgers and Hammerstein's 'Cinderella'," the only musical that the classic
team wrote for television, remains a delight. Starring with Andrews are
Howard Lindsay (King), Dorothy Stickney (Queen), Edie (then Edith) Adams,
Kaye Ballard, Alice Ghostley (Stepsister Joy), Ilka Chase (Stepmother) and
Jon Cypher. Ralph Nelson directed. Others in the cast are Robert Penn (Town
Crier), Alec Clarke (Captain of the Guard), Iggie Wolfington (Chef), George
Hall (Steward) and David F. Perkins (Court Tailor).
The ensemble includes six Townspeople, five children, seven singers and 20
dancers, including Joe (then Joseph) Layton, who would later do musical
staging for The Sound of Music, direct and choreograph No
Strings (words and music by Richard Rodgers) and conceive and direct Two by Two (music by Rodgers). Layton's association with Rodgers began when he was a dancer in Oklahoma!, and he would direct the 1967 Rodgers TV-musical, "Androcles and the Lion."
There's a brief moment at the palace ball when Howard Lindsay dances with
Julie Andrews. Lindsay would later write (with partner Russel Crouse) the
book for The Sound of Music, the movie version of which would star . . . Guess Who? To play Cinderella, Andrews took a brief vacation from My Fair Lady, in which she had been starring on Broadway for a little more than a year. (As many are aware, Rodgers and Hammerstein had attempted to turn Pygmalion into a musical, but it was Lerner and Loewe who succeeded; Mary Martin, who had turned down the role of Eliza Doolittle in MFL, would play Maria in the Broadway version of Sound of Music.)
Mary Martin had starred as "Peter Pan" on NBC-TV in March 1955 (and again in January 1956), and its popularity had prompted NBC executives to seek
another musical property. They approached Rodgers, who had composed an
Emmy-winning score for the network's World War II documentary, "Victory at
Sea." He and Hammerstein agreed upon "Cinderella." They consulted their
friend, Richard Lewine, about working in the medium, and it was he (then
working for CBS) who pointed out that his network had Julie Andrews under
contract. In March 1956, a week prior to the premiere of My Fair
Lady, Andrews had co-starred with Bing Crosby in the CBS production of
"High Tor," a musical by Maxwell Anderson (book and lyrics) and Arthur
Schwartz (music). Thus, "Cinderella" switched to CBS, with Lewine as
producer.
"Cinderella" took seven months to write. Robert Russell Bennett wrote the
orchestrations. It cost $370,000 (then a record), and was viewed by
120-million people in North America (another record). Rehearsed like a stage
musical, two dress rehearsals were filmed. Called "New Haven" and "Boston"
(for the cities that frequently booked Broadway tryouts), they helped the
creators to make changes. A third, back-up film was made in case anything
went awry during the live telecast, which came from CBS Color Studio 72,
located on Broadway and 81st Street (formerly an RKO movie theatre, now the site of a Staples and a Starbucks). "It must have been mayhem in the
studio," says Ted Chapin, president of the Rodgers & Hammerstein
Organization.
"In addition to cast and crew, there was a 28-piece orchestra," explains
Chapin. "The television cameras were the size of elephants. Technicians had
elaborate ideas of how to do the magical transformations, but none of them
worked. They ended up putting a sparkler in front of the camera."
On March 19, 1957, Columbia recorded an album (that was released the day
after the telecast). "Ilka Chase wasn't around for the recording," states
Chapin. "Someone else does her few lines. It wasn't anybody of note. The CD
sounds like it could have been recorded yesterday, but the TV production now looks as if it were made in the Stone Age."
Highlights in the score are "In My Own Little Corner" (sung by Andrews),
"Impossible" (Andrews, Adams), "Ten Minutes Ago" (Cypher, Andrews),
"Stepsisters' Lament" (Ballard, Ghostley), "Do I Love You Because You're
Beautiful?" (Cypher, Andrews) and "A Lovely Night" (Andrews, with Ballard,
Ghostley, Chase). The last number, which describes the palace ball, is a
sort of musical cousin to "I Could Have Danced All Night," sung by Eliza
Doolittle (a sort of cousin to Cinderella). After hearing the last line of
"Impossible," it drove me crazy to figure out where I'd heard it before.
Then, I realized that it's almost word-for-word and note-for-note the same
as the last line of "A Hundred Million Miracles," which R&H wrote two years
later for Flower Drum Song.
Following the telecast, it was announced that Rodgers and Hammerstein would adapt "Cinderella" for Broadway, but it never happened. Notes Chapin, "They licensed it for London, with Tommy Steele. There's a recording that's very British." It opened as a Pantomime on Dec. 18, 1958, at the Coliseum. Steele played Buttons, a servant to the Baron (Cinderella's Stepfather, replacing the Stepmother). Three songs from Me and Juliet ("A Very Special Day," "Marriage Type Love" and "No Other Love") were added, along with a number ("You and Me") by Steele. In December 1960, "Cinderella" played another engagement at the Adelphi.
Chapin continues, "Don Driver put together a version [of "Cinderella"] in
1961, after Oscar Hammerstein died, that was done at St. Louis MUNY and
Kansas City Starlight. That version got into our catalogue. One of my first
tasks when I got to the [R&H] office in 1981 was to undo that version and
get a satisfying version from the original. That's the one that's been done
since then."
Richard Rodgers was executive producer for a taped remake, shown by CBS
(Feb. 22, 1965, and several times thereafter). "Loneliness of Evening,"
which had been cut from South Pacific, was added for the Prince to
sing. "And Rodgers used 'Boys and Girls Like You and Me' [cut from
Oklahoma!] as dance music," states Chapin.
Lesley Ann Warren had the title role. Co-starring were Ginger Rogers and
Walter Pidgeon (Queen and King), Celeste Holm (Fairy Godmother), Jo Van
Fleet (Stepmother), Stuart Damon (Prince), Pat Carroll and Barbara Ruick (as the Stepsisters, renamed Prunella and Esmerelda). In 1997, ABC presented "Cinderella," starring Brandy, with Whitney Houston (Fairy Godmother), Bernadette Peters (Stepmother), Whoopi Goldberg and Victor Garber (Queen and King), Paolo Montalban (Prince), Veanne Cox and Natalie Desselle (Stepsisters, now named Calliope and Minerva).
Ted Chapin (whose marvelous book, "Everything Was Possible: The Birth of the Musical 'Follies,'" comes out in paperback next April) is seen in the
documentary that's part of the new DVD bonus material. "You see more of me than you need," says the self-effacing Chapin. Among the comments, Julie Andrews recalls that the floor manager for the telecast was Joseph Papp, and how once during rehearsals she was singing "The Last Time I Saw Paris," unaware that its lyric was by Hammerstein, who reminisced about writing it.
Jon Cypher remembers how, during the reprise of "Do I Love You Because
You're Beautiful?" he kept singing when a line was supposed to be sung by
Dorothy Stickney (on whom the camera does a close-up). Later, Cypher was so upset that he cried in his dressing room, and Stickney consoled him. He
speaks of being at a restaurant, years after the telecast, and seeing Julie
Andrews leave. Cypher's wife followed her and said, "Your Prince Charming is
inside." Andrews immediately returned and warmly greeted the actor.
*** Continued...
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