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by Liz Smith Friday Frittata: Broadway Cross-Dressing ... Barbara Walters' Tributes (Continue) ... Bobby Short ... Dixie Carter ... Marilyn, Ava and "Mommy's Little Mixture." “HARVEY Fierstein and William Shakespeare have a lotto answer for about the actors contendingfor this year’s Tony. In a field of 20, a half dozen are wearing dresses,” writes theater reporter Harry Haun in the New York Observer. |
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“Casa Valentina” is a play about a male cross-dressing club in the Catskills in the early 1960s. Harry Haun observes: “This year, there’s more gender-blurring going in the Best Actor in a Musical category, (for the Tonys) ... The loudest and most conspicuous is Neil Patrick Harris, a mass of Barbie blondness that comes out of the rafters of the Belasco Theatre and goes into a rock star rant and strut the instant his gold stilettos hit the stage in ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch’.” |
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| ALL THIS“gender-blurring” reminds me of last season’s “The Nance” for which the great Nathan Lane was nominated both for the Drama Desk and Tony Awards in 2013. This serious heart-breaking play by Douglas Carter Beane dealt with a comic gay man “pretending” to be a gay man in vaudeville and how Mayor Fiorello La Guardia drove vaudeville out of New York to New Jersey, where it turned into burlesque. (It’s not the best part of New York’s history. And “The Nance” exemplifies the entire country’s struggle over the acceptance of gays. That acceptance has always found its best defenders in theater.) |
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| WE haven’t heard the end of Barbara Walter’s tributes and how she’ll use her lifelong fame to bring honor and glory and, yes, benefit money to organizations in the future. She’ll be the focus of the June 10th luncheon and get-together at the Metropolitan Club for the prestigious 2014 Fred Friendly Lifetime Achievements Award. (Fred Friendly is the man who made newsgathering respectable and honored back in the days of Edward R. Murrow when CBS was inventing a new facet of TV information along ethical lines.) This is one of the most coveted awards in the radio-TV news lexicon. |
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| ONE OF the happier aspects of having 500 TV channels is the Classic Arts Showcase. This is not new programming, but I’ve never seen it before. CAS is essentially an endless loop of ballet, opera, cabaret, variety show performances ranging from the 1950s to our days. Sometimes the channel even runs scenes from famous movies. (The other night I happened upon Judith Anderson terrorizing Joan Fontaine in “Rebecca.”) Much more poignantly, I saw a clip of the great Bobby Short, singing Stephen Sondheim’s “Losing My Mind.” This was during one of Bobby’s many, many cabaret seasons at the Café Carlyle. I miss him a lot. This city lost so much in class and sophistication when he died. |
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Speaking of the Carlyle and wonderful performers and people I miss, actor Hal Holbrook recently sent me a CD recorded by his wife, the late Dixie Carter. (Dixie, with delicious Southern gentility always referred to her hubby of many years as “Mr. Hal Holbrook.” This became a running gag between us whenever we spoke.)
“The Heart of Dixie” was originally recorded in 1985 but had a re-issue last year. Among the tunes “Beans Taste Fine” ... Honeysuckle Rose” ... ”Let’s Do It” ... Just Like a Woman.” Dixie had a rowdy, ribald act at Café Caryle for a number of years. She showed off her pipes and her fabulous legs. Plenty of sentiment, and sex-appeal, too. Nobody wore a “little black dress” like Dixie Carter! I miss Dixie, too. She was a very funny and lovely person, and beneath her sharp-tongued “Designing Women” persona, quite spiritual and uplifting. She didn’t hit you over the head with it, but her faith was strong. |
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A small error? Wellllll ... if you make a mistake like that, what can reasonably be expected from the rest of the book? Depends on what you’re expecting. “Of All The Gin Joints” written by Mark Bailey, is an anecdote-filled account of boozing and misbehavior in show biz. The tales — some true, some tall, some made up of whole cloth — are interspersed with 40 fairly lethal cocktail recipes. The best is one called “Mommy’s Little Mixture” credited to the fabulous Ava Gardner. It’s a simple recipe — just get all the booze in the house (operating under the assumption one’s home is well-stocked) throw it all in the blender, mix, drink and pass out. To be honest, I have read that Ava tried this — once. Even the phenomenally hearty Ava couldn’t make a habit out of such excess! So, if you’re in the mood for a book to be taken with more than a grain of salt (around the rim of your margarita) this one might be good for a ... lost weekend. |
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Contact Liz Smith here. | Click here for NYSD contents. |