Kay Thompson (54 page)

“Kay rehearsed with him every day,” orchestrator Buddy Bregman recalled. “Nick Castle did the staging of the dancers but Kay did all of Van’s movements. Kay would say, ‘Go ’round the stage, honey!’ Kay and Roger Edens wrote a great opening number called ‘It’s Good to Be Home Again.’ I just got chills. That is a
great
opening number and Kay had a lot to do with it. Fucking brilliant.”

Van’s fashion trademark was wearing red socks with his tuxedo, which inspired the
Hollywood Reporter
pun “Van Johnson in Sock Café Debut.” Embracing the gimmick, Kay got all the waiters at the Sands to sport red socks and then “his bobby-soxer fans in Las Vegas promptly snapped up the idea” and made “a fad of it.”

After his success in Vegas, Johnson took the show on the road and, on May 2, 1955, appeared on an episode of
I Love Lucy
during which Lucy bamboozled her way into his act.

Another benefactor of the Thompson touch was Marlene Dietrich, who, for several weeks in 1953, audited rehearsals of Kay Thompson and the Williams Brothers as well as Kay’s coaching of Van Johnson.

“Marlene was always dressed in Army fatigues,” said Buddy Bregman. “She looked like a Marine. She just wanted to be there, like a fly on the wall, just soaking it all up. She would occasionally say, ‘Oh, I like that,’ but mainly just watched. During breaks, Kay and Marlene would huddle for a while. They were best friends. They might have had something going.”

Perhaps. But it seems more likely that Dietrich got chummy with Thompson because the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas had offered Marlene a record-breaking $30,000 per week starting December 15, 1953.

The first order of business was to hire a music director, so Kay recommended Peter Matz, the whiz kid she’d broken into the business earlier that year. Marlene wanted to mix naughty barroom numbers like “Makin’ Whoopee” with wistful standards like “Falling in Love Again.” But with a foggy baritone voice forever in search of a pitch, she needed to offer something more.

Jean Louis, who designed sumptuous dresses for Columbia Pictures, was retained to come up with a showstopper and he did not disappoint.
Time
magazine exhaled, “The sensation of her act, eclipsing her off-key warbling, was her getup: a $3,000 black net gown which, from the waist up, was transparent, except for an occasional sequin or rhinestone. The blasé gambling crowd gasped. Asked what she had on underneath the opaque part, Marlene purred: ‘A garter belt.’ ”

Though the act was devoid of Kay’s trademark choreography, Marlene did adopt at least one Thompson signature. “[Dietrich] announced ‘Falling in
Love Again’ as ‘the last one and the inevitable one,’ ” wrote biographer Steven Bach, “and when it was over, it was over. She chided the audience when they clamored for encores, ‘I told you that was the last one.’ They were left wanting more.” Sound familiar?

Kay helped Noël Coward reinvent himself as a nightclub performer, too—first following her footsteps at the Café de Paris in 1951, but then, most lucratively, in June 1955 at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas, where Coward earned $35,000 per week, breaking Dietrich’s record.

When Noël’s own accompanist, Norman Hackford, was turned down for a U.S. work permit, Kay naturally recommended Peter Matz. From that day on, Coward requested Matz’s services on everything he did.

Kay’s vocal arrangement for the time-honored Scottish folk song “Loch Lomond” was an absolute killer. After the conventional opening verse, the song ripped into a jazzified Thompsonian frenzy that simply stopped the show. And if that were not enough to turn heads, the defiantly gay lyrics certainly did: “For there with my honey, my bonny hi’land laddie . . . he’s my new love, my true love, my little sugar daddy.” This was Coward at his most wicked—spurred on by his mischievous accomplice.

The following month, Thompson was flown to a vacation home in Bermuda by Metropolitan Opera star Patrice Munsel, who was scheming her own assault on Vegas.

“The audience is going to expect you to be ‘longhaired’ and dignified,” Kay told Patrice. “So you’ve got to take ’em by surprise.”

Kay wanted Patrice to open the show in a beautiful Cinderella ball gown and sing Mimi’s aria from Puccini’s
La Bohème.
Then, Munsel would curtsy and step behind a dressing screen. Seconds later, she would emerge in a pair of “pink satin, jeweled toreador pants and a low-cut halter top,” and rip into Thompson’s brassy arrangement of “It’s All Right with Me” from
Can-Can.

“Kay and I had a
ball,
” Patrice recalled in 2006.

Thompson had too many projects on her plate to hang out in Bermuda all summer, so, after the broad strokes had been decided, she got Peter Matz on board as arranger-conductor and brought in twenty-eight-year-old choreographer Herbert Ross to fine-tune the show (decades before he directed such hit movies as
Footloose
and
Steel Magnolias
). The result came to fruition at the New Frontier in Las Vegas in October 1955, paving the way for her own television series,
The Patrice Munsel Show
(ABC-TV, 1956–58), for which Thompson appeared as a guest star on January 24, 1958.

“Kay was just incredible,” Patrice reminisced. “There was nobody on stage like her. She gave me such inspiration.”

Things didn’t always go so swimmingly. In early November 1957, Ginger Rogers was offered $28,000 per week to christen the Copa Room at the brand-new Havana Riviera Hotel and Casino in Cuba, opening December 10.

Having seen the Kay Thompson and the Williams Brothers act on many occasions, Ginger envisioned herself surrounded by four male dancers—a no-brainer for Thompson to stage in a hurry. With trusty Peter Matz as accompanist-orchestrator, Kay helped Ginger narrow down a list of standards, including “Embraceable You,” the Gershwin song Rogers had introduced on Broadway in
Girl Crazy.

The Havana Riviera was controlled by Meyer Lansky, the mobster—and Frank Sinatra crony—who had employed Thompson at many of his gambling outposts over the years. Figuring they’d earn points with Lansky, Thompson arranged a medley of Sinatra hits.

But Kay also wanted to include some original songs. With her extraordinary nose for talent in the making, she was drawn to a young songwriter who had just gotten his first big break writing the lyrics for Leonard Bernstein’s
West Side Story.
His name was Stephen Sondheim.

In 2007, Sondheim explained how he became involved: “I had seen Kay Thompson performing at The Plaza with the Williams Brothers. And then I met Kay a couple of times at parties thrown by D. D. and Johnny Ryan. One day D. D. said, ‘Kay would love it if you would write something for Ginger Rogers’ nightclub act.’ And I said, ‘Sure.’ So Kay came to see me up at my father’s apartment at 1010 Fifth Avenue. I just remember her sitting there on a couch and talking about it. And then I remember I wrote ‘Night Is the Best Part of the Day’ and I gave it to her. I may have gone to a rehearsal to play it for Peter Matz but I never met Ginger. I just handed the manuscript in to Kay and that’s the last I heard.”

During rehearsals, Meyer Lansky turned to Kay and snapped, “Ginger can wiggle her ass but she can’t sing a goddamn note!”

Nobody really wanted to hear Ginger sing anyway; they expected to see her dance—which was exactly what Kay figured would be the “meat and potatoes” of the show. To everyone’s dismay, however, Ginger was hopeless at learning the steps, leaving Kay no choice but to simplify her routines and let the chorus boys do the heavy lifting.

Columnist Shirley Eder raged, “How dare Ginger not dance a step?” And
Variety
complained: “Kay Thompson apparently had the most to do with the act. Her trademark is strongly registered upon Miss Rogers’ offerings . . . [but] the audience came to see Ginger Rogers and not Kay Thompson.”

Though Rocky Marciano, Johnny Weissmuller, and Ernest Hemingway
were among the opening-night glitterati, near-hurricane conditions prevented Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell, and many other expected guests from attending. Earl Wilson noted that those who did brave “the stormiest weather in years” took their lives in their own hands as “ocean waves crashed over nearby highway walls.” Hemingway added “with a restrained shiver” that he had not seen weather this bad in Havana since the 1930s, when he was bunkered in writing
To Have and Have Not.

Then, as
Variety
reported, “A pipe feeding water to the air-conditioning plant burst over the registration desk.” When Ginger tried to get from the elevator to her dressing room, she discovered that the lobby was submerged in four and a half inches of water. “My audience practically had to swim to see me,” Rogers shrugged while the local weatherman joked, “They might have been better off booking Esther Williams.”

According to publicist John Springer, while squishing through the sodden lobby, Nicky Hilton queried, “Where is all the water coming from?”

Kay, who happened to be sailing by at that very instant, quipped in the high-pitched voice of Eloise, “Here’s the thing of it. I might have left the water running in the
bawth.
”

The ad-lib not only got a laugh, it sparked the idea for a potential sequel book,
Eloise Takes a Bawth.

N
ightclub acts were not
Kay’s only specialty; her expertise was also highly valuable to television. At a time when female directors were nonexistent, she helmed
The Standard Oil 75th Anniversary Show,
NBC’s most expensive variety special to date. Set to be broadcast live from the network’s studio in Brooklyn on Sunday, October 13, 1957, the ninety-minute program was a test of Thompson’s skills—and patience.

For her services as a performer and creative director, Kay earned $50,000, her biggest single payday ever. Her first hire was Richard Avedon, who would visually style the opening production number for $10,000.

To highlight Standard Oil’s diamond anniversary, Kay and Richard proposed the idea of opening the show with Marilyn Monroe performing her signature song, “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” from
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
A formal offer was made to Monroe in July 1957, reinforced by a telegram from Avedon, who had recently photographed her:
OUR PLANS ARE BEING HELD BREATHLESSLY FOR YOUR DECISION. THERE MIGHT NEVER BE A MOMENT SO PERFECT, SO LISTEN, BABY, CALL ME . . . FONDLY, DICK AVEDON
.

On August 2, Kay attended a soirée at Clifton Webb’s Beverly Hills home, where she cornered Marilyn for a little arm-twisting. However, the timing could not have been worse. Marilyn’s 1956 marriage to playwright Arthur Miller had sparked a fixation on intellectual pursuits—studying at the Actors Studio, reading books on philosophy—which put a serious damper on her “material girl” image. What’s more, Monroe had just terminated a dangerous ectopic pregnancy and was profoundly depressed. She not only declined the TV appearance, she didn’t make another movie for a full year.

Second choice was Carol Channing, who had originated “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” on Broadway, but she was already signed for
Chrysler Shower of Stars
the very same month on CBS—which NBC considered a conflict of interest.

To host the special, Thompson suggested Dick Powell. The sponsor agreed, adding that it would be even better if Powell brought along his wife, June Allyson, to do several segments—including the opener.

June “Peter Pan Collar” Allyson singing “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend”? Thompson was fit to be tied. But she bit her tongue as an offer of $100,000 was made for the pair. Powell turned it down because of a scheduling conflict but, to Kay’s horror, Allyson signed on for her half of the payday before anyone could balk. Thompson made little effort to hide her displeasure, turning a deaf ear on every suggestion June made. Three weeks later, Allyson took a hike, saying she “didn’t like the material submitted to her.”

Having gotten rid of June, Kay persuaded her old friend Tyrone Power to host the special, and with the help of her address book, she secured “a jungle of high-priced talent” including Jimmy Durante, Bert Lahr, Jane Powell, Donald O’Connor, Marge and Gower Champion, and Duke Ellington.

Dancers Wisa D’Orso and Hugh Lambert (Frank Sinatra’s future son-in-law) would perform a spaced-out ballet to a fusion of jazz by Alec Wilder and electronica by Louis and Bebe Barron of
Forbidden Planet
fame.

There would also be an animated short by British cartoonist Ronald Searle, disingenuously promoted by the network as an Eloise-like romp. In reality, it was nothing more than a “through-the-ages” history lesson on energy.

Newsweek
noted that “as the morale booster and liaison girl between performers and their various superiors,” Kay was accustomed to having “her flexibility tested.”

“We don’t have problems to contend with so much as hurdles,” Thompson stated tactfully. “Maybe I’ll say, ‘Hey, I’ve got a great idea—a bit at a tea party.’ ‘Superb’ someone will answer. ‘Don’t waste time. Get started . . . ’ Then suddenly there’s word that the sponsor or the agency doesn’t get it. They want it
explained. So I think about it and then I say ‘I didn’t mean a tea party at all, I meant a country club.’ And off I go again.”

Although Tyrone Power was the primary master of ceremonies, he would be briefly relieved by columnist Art Buchwald. It was Kay’s caprice to ship her old pal Art all the way from France for a half minute of face-time introducing a medley of Parisian songs. For weeks following the special, humorists bandied about the estimated cost per second for Buchwald’s participation. Art made light of it, too, recalling, “When I arrived on the set, the only direction Kay gave me was this: ‘When you get back to Paris, go to the shop next to George V and ask them what happened to the sweaters I ordered six months ago.’ Upon my return, I went there and saw the manager of the store, who said they weren’t ready yet. He was surprised. ‘I didn’t know it was a rush order.’ ”

With time running out, Thompson decided to perform the kickoff herself. Concerned that “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” was too identified with Monroe and Channing, however, she substituted her own signature opener, “Jubilee Time,” which was still in keeping with the celebratory theme of the show. Thompson was decked out in a scrumptious black satin, ankle-length evening gown by Christian Dior, a fur stole by Fredrica, stilettos by Delman, and a million dollars’ worth of jewelry from Van Cleef & Arpels.