Playbill has posted some news about the upcoming 100th birthday of my favorite performer and yours, Dick Van Dyke. They also have up some photos of Dick in the 1980 stage revival of The Music Man at the New York City Center and later in a national tour. The production was directed and choreographed by Michael Kidd and it had Meg Bussert as Marian the Librarian and child actor Christian Slater — yes, that Christian Slater — as Winthrop (the Ron Howard part). Carol Arthur played Mrs. Paroo (Marian's mom) and Iggie Wolfington played Mayor Shinn. Mr. Wolfington played Marcellus Washburn and sang "Shipoopi" in the original production.
I have what I hope you'll think is an interesting story about that show. I didn't see it in New York but — always the fan of Mr. Van Dyke and this musical — I saw it at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood during the few weeks it was camped there on a tour of the U.S. In fact, I saw it twice. At the time, I was working on the infamous TV series, Pink Lady and Jeff, and when my date for that night had to cancel on me due to illness, one of the show's guest stars happened to wander into my office just as I was trying to think who to take in her stead.
I told him I had tickets in a couple of hours to see Dick Van Dyke in The Music Man and asked if he was interested in going with me. He said, as I already knew, "You know I played Harold Hill in the original production right after Robert Preston left the show." I said I knew that. He said he'd be delighted to go with me as long as I let him take me to dinner first at the Musso-Frank Grill a few blocks down Hollywood Boulevard from the Pantages. I agreed…
…and that's how I wound up dining with and then going to see The Music Man with Bert Parks. He loved the production and wished they'd asked him to do it. In fact, I believe he later contacted the producers and offered to return to the role if they wanted to continue the tour after Van Dyke left it. Which they didn't. But that night, he told me some wonderful stories about doing the show on Broadway and we got backstage after the performance, though Dick had already left. I've been fortunate to get to know him in recent years.
How did I like the show, you may ask? Well, even if you didn't ask, I'll tell you: I loved Dick Van Dyke (of course). In a way, he was a little too nice a guy to play someone trying to swindle a bunch of Iowans outta their hard-earned savings but I bought into it. What I really didn't like was the Pantages that night. They've upgraded it considerably since the eighties and now, if you can score good seats, it's a decent place to see a show. Back in the eighties though, the acoustics were awful and we didn't have the greatest seats.
All the actors in the show wore microphones, of course, but the sound was still not great. What made it worse was that Dick Van Dyke's mike was apparently on a separate circuit or something. His voice came out of one set of speakers that seemed to be way up in The Heavens. Everyone else's voices came out of speakers on either side of the stage. It was somewhat distracting, especially when he sang a duet with anyone. He was singing live but it gave him kind of a "dubbed" feeling. Again, not the fault of the actor who, in my book, could do no wrong except for English accents.
My date who phoned in sick was this lady, Kristine. She was apologetic and a few days later she was better, she asked if I could get more tickets and take her to see the show +before it, as Professor Harold Hill was wont to do, skipped town. I had a connection then who could get me great tickets to shows…and all I had to do was pay a lot for them. He got me two great tickets — well, I thought he'd gotten me two great tickets — and we made plans. On the evening in question, Kristine would take a cab to the KTLA studios which is where we were doing Pink Lady. She'd be there at 5:30 PM, by which time I hoped to be done for the day, then I'd drive us to dine at Musso-Frank, then go see the show at the Pantages at 8 PM, then go back to my place for the night and…well, it didn't all work out that way.
Working on variety shows, as I did back then, could be an all-consuming, all-demanding job. I mean, you can get six hours sleep some nights if you're lucky, then spend every other moment at the studio, sometimes trying to write jokes at 3 AM (when nothing is funny) or at 4 AM (when everything is funny…until the next morning.) Pink Lady was an extremely difficult show on which everything that could possibly go wrong did, along with several things that couldn't possibly go wrong…except they did. I did not finish work at 5:30 that afternoon when Kristine arrived.
I do not remember the specific multiple crises that day. There were so many on that show. I do remember Kristine arriving and looking so sweet and eager to be part of a fun evening…and I remember being so exhausted that I broke into tears. The folks I was working with were telling me, "You can't leave, Mark. Not until we fix this problem and this problem and this problem…" For one of the only two times on that show, I hit my limit of overwork. I announced that no matter what, I was taking Kristine that night to see Dick Van Dyke in The Music Man. They could fire me if they wanted to but I was going. The producers I was working for saw that I was serious…or maybe that I was going to explode if I didn't have that evening of R-and-R.
We did some quick re-planning. Dinner at Musso's was out. One of the assistants on the show ran across the street to Denny's and got some burgers for Kristine and me. She sat quietly in an empty office and ate hers. I ate mine while helping solve the most serious of the immediate problems. No matter what, we were heading for the Pantages at 7:30 for the 8 PM performance.
In the midst of this, I happened to check the envelope for our tickets and found not a pair of them but two pair. Four side-by-side seats. I called My Friend, The Scalper and he had some explanation I don't remember as to how I'd paid for two and received four. Okay, fine. I got on the phone and called a good friend of mine, Will Meugniot — a terrific artist with whom I did a number of comics — and he accepted the last minute invite. He and his wonderful wife Jo would meet us outside the Pantages at 7:45.
At 7:30 with some (not all) of the critical mass problems solved, I grabbed Kristine and we sped off to the theater. Will and Jo were waiting for us and we went in and sat in much better seats than Bert and I had…and I can't tell you how good I felt to be sitting in them. I enjoyed the show ten times as much as before. One of the things theater can do so well is take us away from our problems, at least for a while.
After the show, Kristine and went back to the studio. I put her in a cab and sent her home. Then I worked until two…maybe three in the morning, solving the remaining problems which, as I recall, involved collaborating with some of the other writers to create an entirely new main sketch for the show. I drove myself home feeling surprisingly refreshed and I got something resembling a good night's sleep. That was before I had to return to the studio the next day to tackle twice as many problems.
After we finished the six episodes of Pink Lady and Jeff — which was all there probably ever would have been — I moved on to other programs and occasionally, there were those work-all-day-into-the-wee-small-hours situations. Sometimes, someone who was laboring right along with me at 3 AM asked how I was able to get through the all-nighters without drugs or drink and I would tell them, "I just imagine I'm going to go see Dick Van Dyke in The Music Man." Dick was no longer doing the show by then but you'd be amazed how well that fantasy worked. When I'm slaving at this keyboard and it's approaching dawn, I still sometimes use it. Works like a charm.
