Broadway Tails (7 page)

Bob did a great job for the first eight months of the tour. Christmas that year was spent in San Francisco, with a big party set up at the theater. One of the actors was going to make a surprise entrance dressed up as Santa Claus. Josephine, the wardrobe mistress, custom-fit a pair of old red pajamas for Bob—the kind with the “trapdoor” on the backside, for his tail to poke through. She made him a black patent-leather belt and a Santa’s hat. He already had white paws and a big white beard—a perfect Santa (for a dog). On the back of his little suit we put the words santa paws. Sue had Bob waiting at the bottom of the steps, and, on cue, Santa Claus and Santa Paws ran up the steps together to greet the waiting company. There was a huge roar of laughter and applause. Bob ran over to see Richard Burton, who just laughed. Bob loved parties and people. He would go out the stage door after every performance to be hugged and kissed by his fans, eager to accept the love and praise he deserved.

Soon after Christmas, Bob started to seem tired and lethargic. We thought it was from the touring schedule—until Sue noticed a lump on his
neck. We immediately got him to the vet, who did a biopsy. The news was not good: He had a tumor that encapsulated the lymph node. The only way to treat this type of cancer was to remove the lymph node and hope that it hasn’t spread. Fortunately, San Francisco had a very famous oncology vet there who worked with us and did the best he could.

We scheduled the surgery for Bob during the first week of January, which meant we’d have to put Daisy on. That sent chills through our spines. While we had worked with Daisy on a limited basis, we all knew that she was easily spooked and easily distracted. For her first performance, we asked an actor playing another knight to take her leash and hold her when she entered with King Pellinore because we knew she probably wouldn’t stay still. That first night she was very nervous, always looking around. The knight knelt down and tried to calm her, at which point Daisy decided he should rub her belly and immediately threw herself on her back, all four legs in the air running like crazy, completely upstaging the scene. Everybody in the audience was laughing, and everybody onstage was laughing—not exactly an ideal debut.

After Bob’s tumor was removed, there were small sutures on his neck. The doctor felt that he should take ten days off before wearing his collar again, so that’s how long Daisy performed for us. During that time Bob would be in the dressing room, and he’d hear his cue and get his leash, but we’d have to tell him it wasn’t his time to go to work, and he would get sad and lie down. Bob’s incision healed nicely and he started to regain his strength. The night we decided that Bob was going to go back on, Sue said to him, “Do you want to go onstage?—do you want to go onstage?” He jumped right up, tail wagging a mile a minute, and once again went over and grabbed his leash. He dragged Sue to the stage because he was so happy to go on, and everybody was petting him and cheering him on backstage: the stagehands, the actors, and the crew. His feeling of pure happiness quickly spread. Everyone congratulated him, so happy to have him back. He went out and did a perfect show.

About a week later he spiked a fever and was brought back to the vet. I was back home in New Jersey when the vet called me to say the prognosis
was not good. It looked like the tumor had spread to other parts of his body, and within a short while he would die a very painful death. This was the first time that I had been forced to deal with the euthanasia issue with any of my performing dogs, although I did have two dogs that died of natural causes. I knew my cousin Sue would be devastated. I knew this dog had done a great job for us and really deserved a long, happy life. But I also knew the kindest thing to do would be to put him to sleep before he got too sick. I had to make the decision.

I decided not to tell Sue what we were going to do. Instead, I told her that she needed to bring him in for some more tests. The vet assured me that he would explain everything to Sue when she got there and help her get through her grief. It’s the first time I ever lied to one of my trainers, but I knew it would be the best thing for Bob, and, ultimately, the best thing for Sue.

Sue remembers spending the last few days with him before he went back in. She had been sleeping on the floor with him because he was too big for the bed, hugging him and staying close. They went for a long, slow walk. She remembers bringing him to the vet’s office, where they told her what they were going to do. She remembers hugging him and crying and leaving. She didn’t want Bob to suffer, either. Bob had become her dog. She fell apart—and then had to go back and tell the cast, who were very sad. Bob was a member of the company as much as anyone else, and when anyone in a show is hurt, everyone shares a ripple of sadness.

After Bob’s death we had another month and a half in San Francisco. I started looking for another understudy dog back East in the New York area. Sue got a lot of rehearsal time in
the theater so Daisy could start getting used to working onstage, and she got much better. I got nightly reports, and I was amazed at how well she did. I felt, in my heart, that Daisy knew Sue was very sad, and one of the few times Sue would feel better was when Daisy performed well, so she rose to the occasion.

After San Francisco, the tour went to Los Angeles. While there, Richard Burton fell ill. During a performance he suddenly wasn’t able to sing or dance one of the numbers. They brought down the curtain, and after a delay, the show continued with the understudy. Burton didn’t perform the role again. They were able to persuade Richard Harris, who had played Arthur in the film version of
Camelot
, to take over the rest of the tour. In less than a month Bob had passed away and we had also lost our human star. Harris was a wonderful actor, but he never had the same relationship with the cast and crew that Burton did. Instead of it being a family, it just felt like a job.

I found another dog, named Boy, to understudy Daisy, and the tour continued. The show played St. Louis, Minneapolis, Boston, and Washington, and then in October the show went back to Broadway and opened at the Winter Garden Theater for a limited run. The show was filmed there for Home Box Office. Sue left after that. Even though the tour continued, her heart wasn’t in it after the loss of Bob. Another of my trainers, Jim Crosley, took over.

While the sheepdogs would have been welcome to stay with me after the tour, I felt that their energy and their personalities were better suited to be in homes where they were the only dogs. We placed Daisy with a police officer in northern New Jersey who had had sheepdogs before and was looking for a new one. Boy, the understudy, found a home in North Carolina, where he could run through the woods and get plenty of exercise, rather than being cooped up in city hotel rooms anymore.

Sue and I still talk about that tour, and we remember it with smiles and tears, because we’re really remembering Richard Burton and Bob the sheepdog.

In 1980, famed theatrical owner and producer Jimmy Nederlander was producing a new play based on Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein
. The concept: an updated version with special effects never before seen on Broadway—a “scary show” that would frighten and delight audiences. The scenic designer, Douglas Schmidt, was given carte blanche to build a set that would defy belief. They got famed puppeteer Bil Baird and his son, Peter, to build lifelike puppets of the creature and Dr. Frankenstein, all to thrill the audience. The playwright, Vic Gianella, added some elements to make the story even scarier. He expanded the role of Frankenstein’s younger brother—a part often omitted in movie versions of the book. The boy and his dog would eventually be killed by the creature. Because of the dark subject matter, they hired a young actor named Scotty Schwartz, who was actually eleven at the time, to play the six-year-old brother. (A medical condition limited his growth, so he really did look that young.)

When the Nederlander office called me to set up a meeting for the new show, I was flabbergasted. At this point, I thought I had been lucky once with Sandy—I was a kid from Connecticut with no dog-training back-ground who happened to train the most famous dog in Broadway history. I was sure I was a one-hit wonder—I didn’t really count
Camelot
, since the dogs didn’t have to do much onstage. But Jimmy Nederlander thought I was the guy to provide the dogs for this production.

I met the director and the writer and they were very nice. As they explained the concept of the show I got very excited because they had a clear-cut idea to wow an audience. The dog was just an extra bonus. The script was simple: They wanted a calm dog that would hang out with the boy like a family pet in the first act. In the second act, they wanted the dog and the boy to get lost in the woods and get killed by the creature. Who wouldn’t get upset over a creature killing an innocent boy and his dog? My question was, How do we depict the dead dog? The director thought I could train the dog to play dead. The answer was yes and no—I could train the dog to play dead, but not eight times a week in front of a live audience. “Can’t we use a dummy?” I asked. The director’s reaction was, “We have the best puppeteer in the world. He might be able to do it.”

When I asked what kind of dog they had in mind, the author said, “A Westie is very cute. Do you have any trained Westies?” At that moment, I didn’t know what a Westie was, but with my mind racing, I said I could easily find one. As I said earlier, I was in shock. Respected people in the Broadway community thought of me as an expert. There were lots of animal trainers in New York at the time they could have called, many with long lists of movie credits. But up until then, no one had been able to figure out how to get an animal onstage as a real character. I was beginning to understand that what Sandy and I did had been groundbreaking. I took great pride in that. Plus, I had rescued about six dogs to be in
Annie
and was involved in charity work for shelters around New York, helping to save the lives of countless animals. Now I had the opportunity to be in another hit show and also continue to forward the cause of helping animals. This was a dream come true.

I went to my dog book and looked up Westies. West Highland white terriers are little, long-haired dogs from Scotland that were used as ratters. Like most terriers, they have a very strong prey drive. They’re small enough
to get into the holes, smart enough to find and kill prey by themselves, and tenacious enough to not give up. Plus, they were hearty little dogs that could withstand the harsh elements of Scotland. How did this breed fit into a play taking place in Germany in the 1800s? I wondered, but never questioned the choice.

I put out the call to my friends at the regional shelters, asking them to look for a Westie. The response was either “What’s that?” or “We have never seen a Westie in a shelter.” These dogs are pretty rare, so the shelters don’t see a lot of them. Plus, the few they had seen were so aggressive, they had to be put to sleep. Remember, terriers were bred to be independent hunters and are not easily trained by inexperienced pet owners. The Sandy dogs were mixed breeds, so it was easy to find dogs with good temperaments. But no one had ever heard of a calm Westie. I was crushed that I wouldn’t be able to save a dog from a pound and make it into a star. Outside of Benji, the movie dog who was popular at the time, the public perception was that dogs in shelters were damaged goods. I proved with Sandy that they were just as good as any purebred and wanted to use this opportunity to do it again. But instead, I opted to call the American Kennel Club for breeder recommendations and get one from a responsible breeder. To my surprise, there were very few on the East Coast, but the ones I called were willing to sell me one of their “breeding stock.”

This was all new to me. I mean, I paid seven dollars for the original Sandy and adopted all of his understudies. All my childhood dogs were from farm litters or pet shops. How much could a “breeder” cost? To my surprise, I found they would cost hundreds of dollars. I was horrified! How could one full-grown dog cost so much? I soon found out why. Most reputable breeders put many hours and thousands of dollars into their dogs, hoping to win ribbons at major dog shows. If you have a prize-winning male or female, their puppies are the only things that you can sell to recoup those expenses. If they sold me a dog, they would need to make up for the revenue lost by not being able to sell that dog’s puppies—hence, the high price.

When I visited the breeders, I could see the care they put into the dogs. But I had a sinking sense of sadness walking through these kennels. I had firsthand experience seeing dogs in shelters, barking and looking unhappy with confinement. Then I went to the breeders and saw rows of dogs in cages whose whole lives were spent being bred for puppies. Even though these kennels were clean, free of disease, air-conditioned, and new, I felt sorry these dogs didn’t have a better life. And when I started to go to breeders who were less well known, so-called “backyard breeders,” the conditions the dogs were kept in were sometimes no better than what I saw at the animal shelters. This was a side of dog ownership I had never seen and never wanted to be a part of.

Through one of the breeders I got the name of a family who had a middle-aged male dog they were willing to sell cheap. It seems his stud days were over because he was no longer producing offspring. They had a few dogs in their backyard and didn’t want the extra expense of keeping him until he died if he wasn’t producing. Some gratitude, huh? I called and they seemed very nice, but they lived in North Carolina. And they were asking $600 for him. While that was one week’s salary for me from
Annie
, it was cheaper than any other breeder, and the people who knew this dog said he was calm and gentle. So on the day off from
Annie
, I drove down to meet Bubba.

As I went into the family’s small kennels, I saw a half-dozen white dogs jumping and barking ferociously. Bubba was sitting in his cage, looking alert. We picked him up and brought him to the porch of the house. He perked right up and was happy to be getting some attention. From all the things they had said, and from his nice quiet disposition, I knew I had found the dog for the show. I paid them the money and they let me stay overnight in their guest room. The next morning Bubba became “Fritz,” which was the name of the character in the show. We left early and drove back to do the evening show of
Annie
. Fritz was happy to be going and was no problem.

Fritz fit in perfectly with my other dogs. The creative team liked him, and agreed that he was ideal for the show. About that time I got a call from my friends at the Associated Humane Society in Newark. They said they had a little male Westie, slightly skittish and in poor physical condition, but with a nice temperament. Since I needed an understudy, I raced down to see him. What I saw shocked me. This dog was thin as a skeleton, had stringy hair, and was bald in spots. He was a young dog, about two years old, shy with strangers, but friendly with the shelter people he knew. He was cautious with me, but let me hold him. They called him Snowball. My heart went out to him. While he would probably never be a performing dog, I felt I could help him, so I adopted him. He immediately went to my vet for a complete checkup and remained there for about a week while they cured his intestinal worms.

As Snowy (his new name) began to feel better, his energy improved. He was the direct opposite of Fritz, who was calm and loving. Snowy was a true terrier. He would pick fights with the bigger dogs that challenged him, he barked at everything, and he never sat still except for sleeping. But it was a joy to see him come back to life and good health, and he got along with Fritz.

Rehearsal began as scheduled, and I was thrilled to be part of this new project. The cast was brilliant. The design team had cooked up an unbelievable set. The director and writer had a clear vision of what they wanted, and it seemed flawless. I spent my days with the dogs in rehearsal, getting used to the action and the cast and working individually with Scotty Schwartz.

One of the most interesting things I’ve ever done in my career is work with puppeteer Bil Baird, who was given the job of making the dead “Fritz.” When I first met him he looked exactly like you’d picture a puppeteer. He was white haired with a white beard and looked like Gepetto from
Pinocchio
. He was soft spoken and kind. He measured Fritz from every angle and went to work. When he came back with the finished puppet, it was incredible. He used white yak hair to simulate the white Westie fur. The puppet
had enough movable joints so that when you carried it, it moved exactly like a limp body. The detail was incredible in the face, even down to the tongue, which hung out and had glycerin drops on it to look like saliva. It was a masterpiece and even fooled the dogs when they first saw it!

We were slated to open the show in New York at the famed Palace Theater. The tech rehearsals in this show went on longer than any show I had worked on. We spent weeks in the theater going from scene to scene. The show opened with a blizzard onstage and Dr. Frankenstein and the creature scaling a mountain. The scene went black, and in seven seconds, we were in the drawing room of the Frankenstein estate with Scotty, the dog, and four other actors onstage. It was an incredible effect, accomplished by a large white silk drape covering the set with everyone preset underneath, and two life-sized Bil Baird puppets being controlled from behind the set. The lights would go down and the silk would be pulled into a hole at center stage. And that was only the beginning. The laboratory scene had electricity, bubbles, and, of course, the creature, who was lifted up into the air on a table and struck by lightning. The creature himself was scary to look at and required two hours of makeup. And in the end, the entire lab would blow up and collapse around the actors, only to be covered again by the white silk to reenact the opening scene in the blizzard. They even pulled out seats in the audience and put huge speakers in the floor so that when the thunder and lightning crashed, the entire orchestra area would vibrate. It was a feat unmatched in theater design.

During all the waiting around, we would sit and listen to the legendary actor John Carradine, who was playing a small part in the play. Because of his age, John only came to rehearsal for his one scene. He was very professional and quiet. During these long hours at the theater, he would hold court and tell stories of the old days. He’d tell us about John Barrymore and his drinking escapades, or about working with Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. He was a treasure to be around.

We began previews on December 9—it was such a thrill to say I had two shows running on Broadway at the same time. Fritz was doing great.
He was perfectly calm under the big white drape in the opening. He played with Scotty and went off, part of a perfect serene picture. In the second act, the family is having a picnic. Fritz wanders across the stage into the woods, to where we know the creature is hiding. We hear an offstage cry, and the creature carries in the puppet dog and puts it right on the edge of the stage, where the audience can get a good look at it. Scotty comes in, sees his dog hurt, and gets upset. As the creature tries to calm him, he kills the boy, too. It was very effective.