Cy Feuer - I Got the Show Right Here: The Amazing, True Story of How an Obscure Brooklyn Horn Player Became the Last Great Broadway Showman

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Copyright 2003 by Cy Feuer and Ken Gross

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ISBN 0-7432-3611-4
ISBN: 978-0-7432-3611-9
eISBN: 978-0-7432-3683-6

Credits

The author gratefully acknowledges permission to reprint the following: Adelaides Lament from Guys & Dolls by Frank Loesser 1950 (Renewed) Frank Loesser Music Corp. All rights reserved. Fugue for Tinhorns from Guys & Dolls by Frank Loesser. 1950 (Renewed) Frank Music Corp. All rights reserved. Sue Me from Guys & Dolls by Frank Loesser. 1950 (Renewed) Frank Music Corp. All rights reserved. Take Back Your Mink from Guys & Dolls by Frank Loesser. 1950 (Renewed) Frank Music Corp. All rights reserved. Happy to Keep His Dinner Warm from How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying by Frank Loesser. 1961, 1962 (Renewed) Frank Music Corp. All rights reserved. I Believe in You from How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying by Frank Loesser. 1961 (Renewed) Frank Music Corp. All rights reserved. A Secretary Is Not a Toy from How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying by Frank Loesser. 1961, 1962 (Renewed) Frank Music Copra. All rights reserved. Baby, Its Cold Outside from the Motion Picture Neptunes Daughter by Frank Loesser. 1948 (Renewed) Frank Music Corp. All rights reserved. The New Ashmolean Marching Society and Students Conservatory Band from Wheres Charley? by Frank Loesser 1948, 1950 (Renewed) Frank Music Corp. All rights reserved. I Dont Want to Walk Without You Baby from the Paramount Picture Sweater Girl. Words by Frank Loesser. Music by Jule Styne. Copyright 1941 (Renewed 1968) by Paramount Music Corporation. International Copyright Secured. All rights reserved. Can Can by Cole Porter 1953 Cole Porter Renewed, Assigned to Robert H. Montgomery, Trustee of The Cole Porter Musical & Literary Property Trusts. Publication and Allied Rights assigned to Chappell & Co. All rights reserved. WARNER BROS. PUBLICATIONS U.S. INC., Miami FL 33014 Cest Manifique by Cole Porter 1953 Cole Porter. Renewed, Assigned to Robert H. Montgomery, Trustee of The Cole Porter Musical & Literary Property Trusts. Publication and Allied Rights assigned to Chappell & Col. All rights reserved. WARNER BROS. PUBLICATIONS U.S. INC, Miami, FL 33014 I Love Paris by Cole Porter 1953 Cole Porter. Renewed, Assigned to Robert H. Montgomery, Trustee of The Cole Porter Musical & Literary Property Trusts. Publication and Allied Rights assigned to Chappell & Co. All rights reserved. WARNER BROS. PUBLICATIONS U.S. INC, Miami, FL 33014 Siberia by Cole Porter 1954 Cole Porter. Renewed, Assigned to Robert H. Montgomery, Trustee of The Cole Porter Musical & Literary Property Trusts. Publication and Allied Rights assigned to Chappell & Co. All rights reserved. WARNER BROS. PUBLICATIONS U.S., INC. Miami, FL 33014

To Posy, a woman who, when we stayed at The Imperial Hotel in Vienna, referred to it as The Heil Hilton. I salute you. And to my sons, Boh and Jed, especially Jed, who patiently served as my eyes and pen during the editing process, spending an unbearable number of hours as I picked at everything.

June 11, 2002

I Got the Show Right Here

Im five feet five. Not what you would describe as a giant. I used to be taller. But thats what happens when you hit ninety You lose some bone mass. You also lose some memory And you lose all your friends. All the people who knew you when you were putting together what have become classic Broadway shows Guys & Dolls, Wheres Charley?, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Can-Can, Silk Stockings Theyre all dead, the people who remember me as five feet seven. A really big man.

Im not complaining. Yeah, well, maybe I am. My wife, Posy, and I think of ourselves as being alone on an island. Where the hell did everyone go? Frank Loessers gone, and Abe Burrows and George Abbott and Billy Rose and Cole Porter and Bob Fosse and Ray Bolger and Ernie Martin. Especially Ernie. He was my partner. He knew the story And its a pretty good story, how I got to be a big-shot Broadway producer. Theres nobody left who knows the whole story, not even me.

Its not like you have a whole, fully wound memory that unspools when you try to let it play. Its more like a broken reel. Scenes pop up on the screen, incidents float loose in changeable decadesI dont know when the hell some things happened. I remember playing sandlot polo in Hollywood, but was that before the war? When was I in Paris with Fosse trying to sign up Max Schell, was that during Kennedy? When did Sam Goldwyn stand by the barbecue pit, posing with that mitt on his hand, making believe he was cooking, when the butler really handled the food? Was that after he bought Guys & Dolls?

Its work, getting it all straight.

Theres one moment during the day when I almost get it right. Every night I get drunk. At my age, it only takes one drink. I really look forward to that drink. I used to favor wine, flattering myself that I could appreciate bouquet and all the rest; now I find that I like the taste of whiskey. I sip it, sit back, and feel the blood rush through my head, blowing away the dust, clearing it up

I can, with a pretty high degree of accuracy reconstruct the essential flavor of my life. I can remember the conspicuous events, the exotic places, the remarkable characters, the moods, the texturesthe actual taste of my days. I know pretty much how things turned out the way they did. And why. In fact, when I think about it, I can recall almost everything, albeit with a kind of dim and jumbled clarity Its all thereIm just a little weak on specifics.

I believe that this fuzzy retrospective is natures way of filtering the water. Who wants to relive every boring incident? But there are momentsjolts of remembrance that come back to life, even now, half a century later. For instance (and this may not even qualify as a solid fact in the encyclopedic sense), I can remember with precision the actual shock of opening night of Guys & Dolls in the autumn of 1950. I was sitting out front with Posy when the orchestra began the overture. Suddenly, the audience exploded with applause. All they heard were a few notes; all they saw was a dropped curtain, but they went wild. Somehow, they knew something big was about to take place. I turned to my wife and said, They were waiting for us.

Well, it appears that I am going to write a book, after all. I will try to lay it out with some lucidity, and I will try not to repeat myself; but at my age I cant promise. This material has been floating around in my head for a long time. So give or take a few facts, and with some unavoidable digressions, this will be the highly colored and close-to-authentic version of my career as a big-shot Broadway producer.