Gwen Verdon: A Life on Stage and Screen (6 page)

The film was released on June 12, 1953, in New York and July 24, 1953 in Los Angeles. The taglines were “The Musical That’s Bustin’ Out All Over!,” “The Full of Fun Musical Joy!,” and “The Happiest Wedding of Song and Dance in Many a Honeymoon!” It was lambasted by
Variety
and Tony Thomas and Aubrey Solomon in
The Films of 20th Century Fox
, and received a mixed reaction from Bosley Crowther in the
New York Times
. The film was not a box office hit.

During the making of this film, Verdon went solo again for Universal-International’s romantic adventure
The Mississippi Gambler
(1953), directed by Rudolph Mate. Shot on location at the Corrigan Ranch in Simi Valley, California, and the Park Lake on the Universal Studios backlot, it was in production from June 10 to July 1952. The original screenplay by Seton I. Miller centers on Mark Fallon (Tyrone Power), a riverboat gambler in Mississippi of the 1850s who yearns for New Orleans plantation heiress Angelique Dureau (Piper Laurie). Uncredited again as a performer (Verdon played a voodoo dancer), she did receive her first screen credit for choreography for the film. However it is not known whether she also choreographed the waltz at the Governor’s Ball, since Hal Belfer was an uncredited dance director.

Verdon appeared in only one scene where she performs a Creole dance to the “Haitian Devil Song.” She wears tropical makeup on her face and arms and her hair is black. She dances with four male black dancers who are bare-chested. Her makeup may now be politically incorrect. Her costume is a white layered dress topped with a yellow apron and she has ribbons in her pony-tailed hair. She initially uses a hand fan which she discards and then a dead chicken. They are presumably part of the voodoo of the dance that her character uses to aid the romance of Mark and Angelique, since she throws the bird at him. Maté employs cutaways to the observers to demonstrate the effect of the dance, with the couple being separated increasing the dance’s supposed hypnotic power. The cutaways also suggest that the effect of the dance is more important than us seeing the dance itself, which is apparent since at one point Maté obscures the view of Verdon by framing her between the back of Mark and another man. Additionally, the number does not have a natural conclusion since its music continues under dialogue.

Verdon in tropical makeup as a voodoo dancer in
The Mississippi Gambler
(1953).

The film had its world premiere in St. Louis, Missouri, on January 13, 1953, and then opened in New York on January 29, 1953, and in Los Angeles on February 6, 1953. The tagline was “Meet the Fabulous Mark Fallon…. His Game Is Fancy Women…. And His Fate Is Lady Luck!” It received a mixed reaction by
Variety
, A.H. Weiler in the
New York Times
, and Clive Hirschhorn in
The Universal Story
. The film was a box office hit and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Sound Recording.

In her memoir,
Learning to Live Out Loud
, Piper Laurie writes about Verdon’s appearance as the lead native dancer in the scene, which was designed to show the awakening of the hidden passion in Angelique as she watches the dancing. She says that she thought that Verdon’s dancing and the music were so terrific that it was easy to get into what Angelique was feeling. Her cheeks became so flushed that, when the rushes were seen, the front office and makeup department accused her of secretly adding to her rouge and ruining the footage.

From November 17, 1952, to January 1953, Verdon assisted Jack Cole on the musical numbers of
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
. Cole created the dances for Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe first with Verdon. He worked out movements that he knew the two actresses could manager as Verdon watched and memorized what he did. Then she would do them and Cole would watch her to plan the camera angles. Then Monroe and Russell would be brought in and Verdon would teach them the moves. Since Monroe didn’t have dancing ability, Cole had to be very patient with her as she rehearsed the numbers endlessly. Verdon had fond memories of coaching her and said that she worked very hard. “She was so conscientious—and not stupid, by any means.” Verdon felt that Monroe could do anything you asked her to do if you could show it you her, and she taught the actress how to simultaneously look sexy and to
satirize
looking sexy. Monroe would say of Verdon, “If Gwen can’t teach you a routine you’re rhythm bankrupt with incompatible feet.” In her book
Marilyn Monroe: Private and Undisclosed
, Michelle Morgan quoted Verdon’s son Jim, who said that he visited the set. He said Monroe had trouble remembering steps and moves from one day to the next but she always behaved in a professional manner. Jim would also claim that his mother became very fond of her and would always defend Monroe from attacks on her lack of will. Verdon said that the actress had a good sense of humor, something which she felt nobody ever talked about. Also she thought that if Monroe had as many friends as people who
claimed
they were, then she would still be alive—although Verdon thought she would have hated becoming older. It was said that Verdon also coached Russell and Monroe in their walks so that Monroe had less sex and Russell more. It is also rumored that at one point in the film, Verdon dubs both actresses’ swaying bottoms. However Verdon wouldn’t take credit for Monroe’s famous wiggle-walk. She thought that the actress was a sort of genius in that department who would have found out how to do it regardless.

Studio publicity announced that Verdon would appear in the “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” production number “performing a ‘wash-woman dance,’ scrubbing ‘Lorelei’s’ diamonds and hanging them out on a line to dry.” This dance does not appear in the number, and Verdon is not in the film. A January 1953
Hollywood Reporter
news item stated that Verdon was working with Monroe and Jane Russell on a “cancan number with a ‘Three Musketeers’ dueling motif,” but that number also does not appear. The film had its world premiere on July 1, 1953, in Atlantic City, New Jersey, opened July 15 in New York and July 31 in Los Angeles. It was praised by William Brogdon in
Variety
and Gordon Gow in his book
Hollywood in the Fifties
, but received a mixed reaction from Bosley Crowther in the
New York Times
. The film was a box office hit.

It was during the dance rehearsals, for the film’s “Two Little Girls from Little Rock” that Verdon was invited to audition for the show
Can-Can
in New York. Some sources say that she was approached by choreographer Michael Kidd who was working on a Fox soundstage simultaneously and was to be the choreographer for the show. This source is questionable since Kidd was apparently working at MGM on the dances for
The Band Wagon
(1953) at this time. Others say it was co-producer Cy Feuer who approached her. When she told Cole about the opportunity, he supposedly encouraged her with the comment, “Sometimes in your life, you’ve got to be on trial. It’s good for you.”

Verdon was happy to leave Hollywood because she had found the work there a grind and there was little acknowledgment of her contribution. She was particularly peeved when she had reportedly substituted for one star in long shots performing difficult dance moves while the star took the close-ups and got the acclaim. This idea was given further detail in Verdon’s February 6, 1966,
New York Times
interview with Rex Reed. He wrote that she had doubled for Monroe’s torso, Rita Hayworth’s feet, and Betty Grable’s rear view. In her 1977 Dick Cavett television interview she denied that she ever appeared on film as parts of other people. Verdon told Cavett that she did dub the sound of the dancing feet of Grable, Dan Dailey, June Haver, Danny Kaye and Sammy Davis, Jr., which was part of her job as a dance assistant. The Dailey and Haver job would appear to be for the Fox musical
The Girl Next Door
(1953), with the credited choreographer as Richard Barstow although it is rumored that Michael Kidd also worked on the film. It was in production from October to December 1951 with additional filming in 1952. Verdon was at Fox on other films at these times and therefore could have performed the post-production dubbing.

She is said to have left for New York with her Siamese cat and her dog to take advantage of the paid weekend she had been given to audition. Although Verdon was confident in performing the cancan dance, she believed she still had little chance of getting the part because she was a relative unknown on Broadway. The audition was held at the Warwick Hotel. Verdon was apparently so afraid of singing in front of the show’s composer, Cole Porter, that she asked to dance first because she was more confident in that ability. When she had to sing, Verdon said, “I was so scared that my legs wouldn’t hold me,” so she asked if she could sit as she sang. Some sources say that she sang “Pennies from Heaven,” others the Porter song from the score, “If You Loved Me Truly.” Verdon supposedly saw Porter wincing, and she assumed that he hated her. She didn’t know that he was actually wincing from the pain of his legs that had been crippled in a horse-riding accident. Verdon didn’t know about his legs but learned that something was amiss when Porter made his way to the stage with the aid of two canes, and she noticed that he was wearing spats. When he told her that he liked her breathless voice, she responded, “I’m not breathless—I’m scared.” Verdon danced the cancan, and then read for the part of Claudine. She says she read the scene with the stage manager and she found it silly. Verdon was told that she was meant to be an ingénue; someone her mother had told her was always the young, unknowing girl in a play or musical. However she asked, “Isn’t an ingénue something that was back at the turn of the century?” Verdon was told that that was when the play took place.

Her audition lasted an unusually long time, just under an hour. When she was finished, Abe Burrows, director and writer of the musical’s book, addressed her as Claudine. She had the part.

Verdon offered to dye her red hair black for it. Some sources say that Michael Kidd had asked her to do so when he first approached her but Burrows didn’t think that necessary and hired her just as she was. When she returned to the hotel she ordered room service for herself, because she had always wondered what it would be like to do so. When Verdon returned to
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
and told Cole that she got the part, Cole is said to have punched her. Apparently the punch came from his anger at the idea of losing her as his assistant although he was also glad for her. He would go to the show’s opening night and gave Verdon a pair of earrings that she would wear in every single show after. But this would not be the last time she would work with Cole.

Before leaving for Broadway, Verdon met Bob Fosse at a party hosted by Kidd. They knew each other from when she had worked on
The Merry Widow
and he was under contract but had yet to make a film. Another source claims that they met later when Verdon was working on
The Farmer Takes a Wife
. Although they were at different studios, it is said that dancers who worked regularly were familiar with their competition even at rival companies. Verdon would say that the dancers all came together to cook and eat. At the party, Verdon supposedly talked about how she felt that movies weren’t showing her off at her best. She cited how some of her screen dances had been cut, apparently at the behest of Hollywood’s Production Code. It amused her that she was considered too sexy to be on-screen because she didn’t believe it to be true. Verdon never thought of herself as sexy, since when she had to be, she just kidded it. She believed that she could get away with more on stage where there were no censors and that’s what appealed to her about the upcoming show. This was despite the fact that doing the cancan was old hat to her, since she had already performed it in
On the Riviera
and
The
Merry Widow
.

In
Can-Can
, showgirls in Paris at the Montmartre dance halls of 1893 introduce the scandalous dance of the title, and are charged with (and acquitted of) obscenity for performing it. Of the musical numbers, Claudine had a duet with the sculptor Boris, “If You Loved Me Truly,” and danced in “Quadrille,” “The Garden of Eden Ballet” and “The Apaches.” Verdon thought of the character as Colette’s Claudine with LaGoulue’s hair, but approached it from the dance rather than acting standpoint. She admitted that she gave Michael Kidd a hard time because she felt he wasn’t giving her enough good things to do. She also objected to his athletic dancing style which she found more jumping around rather than emotionally based, an indication of the different dance backgrounds the dancers had come from. Verdon felt that she had to act to do Jack Cole’s dances because in order to be a good dancer, you had to know how to act. She felt that dancing was the expression of a life and emotions. Verdon also suggested to Kidd that she do something like Ruth St. Denis for “The Garden of Eden Ballet,” beginning when Eve was supposed to be innocent. This idea was based on a dance her mother had done with St. Denis, a “hell-bent-for-beauty”–type dance that was very Isadora Duncan-ish. However, Eve’s costume, which gave the impression that Verdon was nude with a few strategically placed fig leaves, presented her as more sexy than innocent. Her cold relationship with Kidd was observed by Cy Feuer who thought that she didn’t like him because he was a lesser talent than her present Svengali, Jack Cole. She did what Kidd told her to do but without showing any sign of respect or real appreciation. Verdon would later change her opinion of him when she worked with Fosse who set her straight. Fosse, claimed that Kidd had transformed her life with his choreography and he even forced her to apologize for the way she had treated him.