Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Robert Goulet, R.I.P.

I met Robert Goulet a grand total of once. It was backstage after an appearance he made in Las Vegas and he was charming and friendly and able to tread an amazing line of ego, being simultaneously self-deprecating but very proud of the performance he had just finished.

Three things I remember. One is that even though he was getting on in years, you could see that at one point, this man was handsome enough to make you hate him. Secondly, that face lit up when I asked him about Alan Jay Lerner, his old friend and one of the creators of the Broadway play, Camelot, which brought stardom to Goulet and vice-versa. He said that in a perfect world, Lerner would still be alive and writing shows as good as that one (or My Fair Lady) and he [Goulet] would be happy to do nothing in life but star in them. Forget the movies and the TV appearances and the records and the concerts. He just wanted to be in shows as good as the one he did with Lerner and Loewe.

Well, at least that's what he said. I'm not sure I believe him, though I'm sure that at that moment, he believed it.

And the third thing I remember was that he told me a joke I can't repeat here, not because it was dirty but because the punch line was insulting to another performer — one who, if the rumors are true, will be the subject of an obit here before long. The funny thing is that a few years later, I worked with that other performer and he told me the same joke...but the punchline was about Robert Goulet. I'll tell it here after the other guy's gone.

I saw Goulet perform that night in Vegas and I saw him again a few years ago at Carnegie Hall in New York. It was part of a salute to Alan Jay Lerner, and he and Kristin Chenoweth did justice to the man's songs. He was very good that evening. But then he was always good, which is why he had such a long and magnificent career.

• Posted at 10:36 PM · LINK

WGA Stuff

A source close to the negotiations — not someone on the WGA Board or Negotiating Team but close enough for me to pass it on — tells me a strike may not be inevitable...and that if it does happen, it won't be because the Writers Guild didn't do everything possible to prevent it. (I assume this person means "everything possible short of taking a rotten contract full of rollbacks.")

There is a new WGA proposal — a new package of demands, compromises and even a few concessions — and it will be presented to the Producers tomorrow. My source says it could have been presented tonight — "they could be in there right now, hashing it out or at least studying it" — but the Producers closed down the bargaining session rather than work into the evening. The thinking is that this is their way of saying, "We haven't seen your proposals but we're already inclined to reject them just because they aren't our proposals."

A Federal Mediator was in today, mostly talking to the two sides in separate sessions. The Mediator, I am told, wants to keep the talks going and one possibility is that there will a kind of "cooling-off period." The Producers will agree to keep talking for at least X days and the WGA will agree to not go on strike for at least X days. My source says that whether that has a chance of happening will probably hinge on the Producers' response tomorrow to the new WGA proposal.

Personally, I'm feeling good about this; not that a strike can be averted but that the WGA is playing it smart and doing everything it can to make a mature, sensible deal. I've lived through many of these. I've seen us self-destruct and be divided in purpose and strategy...and while I may be surprised at the General Membership Meeting on Thursday night, I don't get that this is the case this time. I've also seen us painted as the Bad Guys who "shut down the town" and caused all those stagehands to be outta work. (It's always been our fault, not the fault of the Studio Heads making 50 million a year apiece who said we were greedy for wanting a fraction of that.) I don't sense that's happening this time, either. Again, I could be wrong and if there's a long strike, things will change in all corners...

...but if I'm picketing this Friday, it won't be because my side didn't try to make things work.

One other thing. In all the news stories about the strike, you'll see mention of a man named Nicholas Counter. I wrote a little about Mr. Counter back in July in this post. The article to which it links is no longer accessible but it basically said that he has a very hard job and he's good at it. There's a tendency to think of him as The Enemy and to act like mean ol' Nick Counter is too stingy (or maybe too pound-foolish) to just give the Writers what they want and get the business back to business. But really, Mr. Counter is just the spokesguy and behind-the-scenes coordinator for those with the real power to say no. He's only the Bad Guy if he forgets to remind them that they can also say yes, and that "yes" is sometimes less destructive all around.

• Posted at 10:17 PM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Here's another video you won't watch in full, at least not now. It's an entire episode — fifty-three whole minutes — of Jackie Gleason's American Scene Magazine, which was the variety show Mr. Gleason did for CBS beginning in 1962 and continuing for much of the sixties. They eventually dropped the "magazine" format and in any case, it was usually referred to as The Jackie Gleason Show, anyway.

This episode features Art Carney in a long Honeymooners sketch with Sue Ane Langdon as Alice. There's also Frank Fontaine and The June Taylor Dancers...and he doesn't get billing up front but there's a musical performance in there by an excruciatingly-young Wayne Newton. Also, there's a musical sketch with songs by James Shelton, Mary Rodgers and Martin Charnin, and your announcer is Johnny Olson. It is said that Mr. Gleason would not do a show without the high-energy warm-ups (written about here) of Johnny Olson. This show was done in New York, probably in the studio where Dave Letterman now tapes. But later, when Gleason moved his whole operation to Miami, he'd have Johnny fly down on tape days to do the warm-up and announcing chores.

And awaaaaay we go—!

• Posted at 12:06 AM · LINK