When I was a teenager one of my first jobs was as an apprentice at a summer theater in Groton-Mystic, Connecticut. A new show played every week, usually starring some half-forgotten movie or TV star.
Mickey Rooney, who died this week at age 93, had toured for decades in the same play, which had originally been called Alimony. It was a farce inspired by Mickey’s many divorces and over the years, rather than switching to a new play, Mickey would simply change the old play’s title – that summer it was called Three Goats and a Blanket.
At one point in the second act two policemen came on stage and dragged Mickey off to jail for not paying alimony. The cops had no lines, so they were played by whoever could fit into the uniforms at each theater on the tour. I was one of the cops and all I remember was that while Mickey was perfectly nice, when he was offstage he seemed disoriented and that he smelled as if he’d been pickled in bourbon. There was a rumor that Mickey owed millions to the mafia in gambling debts, and he was shadowed everywhere by a set of ominous bodyguards.
That same summer, Ann Miller appeared in a tour of Anything Goes. While she was well into her sixties, she was still a tireless dancer. She’d tap up a storm in the show’s title number, and then tap offstage briefly, where an oxygen mask would be clamped over her face, and then she’d tap back out. Almost all of her costumes had skirts which, thanks to Velcro, she could tear off on stage, revealing her still shapely legs, as the audience went wild. One of her secrets was that she wore three layered pairs of pantyhose.
Ann travelled with at least thirty pieces of personal luggage, and a few of her suitcases contained only stuffed animals. Ann also had night blindness, which meant that whenever the stage went dark, her hired companion would creep onstage with a flashlight, put her arm around Ann’s waist and guide her into the wings. Ann was also famous for her helmet-like, jet black bouffant hairdos. After each number, she’d grab a different wig, with a new hat attached to match each of her many sequinned outfits.
Another week brought a touring production of South Pacific, for which I spent hours painting backdrops of palm trees. The production featured a TV star rumored to be a lesbian. As this actress sang “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair” she would shampoo her hair onstage while cavorting with her fellow army nurses, and she did spend a lot of time rubbing her sudsy scalp against the chorus girls’ bare midriffs. Her character’s name, Nelly Forbush, seems to sum up the history of gay rights.
That summer was the first time I’d ever met real theater people and I loved it. It was also the first time I’d ever been around so many gay people, which was also a gift. I was sometimes called into service as a dresser for the various shows’ leading men, so this was also the first time I’d ever seen a guy who contoured his pubic hair.
