July 10, 1931– Jerry Herman has had a big influence on my life, although we never met.
As a little 10 year old musical theatre fanatic, I would practice kick stepping my way down a staircase at our house as my imaginary chorus sang my character’s name (I think sometimes they were actually just singing Steve!). My parental units had just been presented me with the Original Broadway Cast album of Hello, Dolly! & I was having a difficult time recovering from the excitement of those infectious tunes. Herman’s hummable songs personified the term “show tune”. They were tuneful, optimistic, & deceptively simple. I didn’t know it in 1964, but Herman would be providing me with a musical number for descending a staircase for the next 5 decades.
Herman, who writes the music & lyrics, produced super successful & contagious tunes for Broadway musicals: Milk & Honey (1961), Hello, Dolly! (1964), Mame (1966), Dear World (1969), Mack & Mable (1974) & La Cage Aux Folles (1983).
In all these musicals a misunderstood leading lady introduces a song early in the first act that states her life philosophy: I Put My Hand In There, It’s Today, Each Tomorrow Morning, Look What Happened To Mabel, & A Little More Mascara.
Act One ends in her big soliloquy, where the heroine lifts her own spirits by singing: Before The Parade Passes By, If He Walked Into My Life Today, I Don’t Want To Know, or I Am What I Am.
Then there is that big “staircase” number, when the chorus celebrates how all our lives have been changed by the mere presence of this amazing woman with the title songs from Hello, Dolly! & Mame, plus When Mabel Comes In The Room, One Person, & The Best Of Times. The song One from A Chorus Line is both a parody & homage to these songs.
Despite the easy formula, these musicals with their wonderful & skillful songs make for superior theatre experiences. Some were super hits & others became cult favorites. Herman is the only composer-lyricist to have 3 musicals on Broadway at the same time.
Many of his compositions have become pop standards. Louis Armstrong’s version of Hello, Dolly! sold more records than The Beatles in 1964. The movie versions of Hello, Dolly! & Mame are considered by most fervent fans of musical theatre to be duds, but as a very young man I was thrilled by the film version of Hello, Dolly! & saw it about 20 times. I still enjoy Barbra Streisand as Mae West as Dolly Levi. She is funny & fresh, if decades too young in the role. I was very touched that Wall-E discovered emotions from a dilapidated 20th century tape containing a loop of Put On Your Sunday Clothes.
Herman has been openly gay for decades now, but he once avoided the talk-shows because he wanted to keep his gayness a secret, even if he did write what might be the ultimate Gay Anthem with I Am What I Am.
“In the ’60s, I wasn’t openly gay because I wondered what people would think of me. I was in a business surrounded by gay people, & I was totally comfortable & accepted as an individual. It became very easy & natural for me to be in the closet. But now I think that time & age & good sense have made me more public. I think it is good sense.”
Herman was diagnosed with HIV in 1985. The news was devastating during an era when a diagnosis was a death sentence. He nearly gave up on his theatre career & stopped writing after his diagnosis was unceremoniously made public by New York Post columnist Cindy Adams in 1992. His fear of becoming seriously ill during a new production & the death of his longtime partner took him into seclusion. But, Herman is one of the fortunate ones who survived to see the experimental drug therapies take hold & is still, as he turns 84 years old today, as one of his lyrics proclaims: “alive & well & thriving.”
That partner was Marty Finkelstein. They started their own business renovating Victorian houses in Key West. They won architecture restoration awards for the 11 house the couple rehabilitated. The 2 men were happy & productive. But, after 7 years together, Finkelstein left this world. He was just 36 years old, taken by the plague.
“I didn’t have to play the big shot with him because he truly respected & cared for me. Being considerate of Marty taught me to talk to everybody like a person, not like an expert. I found that helped me in all my relationships, too. He taught me how to listen to other people’s opinions & how to respect them, even when I didn’t particularly agree with them. He was a wonderful person, & he was very, very good for me.”
“Inwardly, I was empty. I like to write happy, romantic songs, & I didn’t feel romantic or happy. I didn’t feel like a whole person. Then I was frightened by my own diagnosis, which came on the heels of Marty’s death.”
La Cage Aux Folles was huge, a critical & commercial smash, & also a political & social turning point. It was 1983 & Broadway audiences had never seen a pair men hold hands or sing a love ballad to one another.
George Hearn’s star turn as Za Za, belting out what is probably the most dramatic Act One finale of all time, I Am What I Am, a plea for dignity & acceptance, was surpassingly stalwart statement in those early days of HIV. A powerful message from a songwriter who claims that he wanted to do was entertain people.
“In the beginning, people were shocked when they heard about the gay romance & the homosexual themes. But once they became involved in these people’s lives, they realized that the human issues applied to everybody, not just homosexuals. We were not gung-ho about delivering a political message. We were not out to change the world & wipe out bigotry overnight. We were just doing a musical.”
Herman has stated that he will no longer be writing for the theatre:
“I think my style of musical has come (& was very, very good to me), but is gone now. I think it’s better to know when to leave than to end up with 2 or 3 shows that didn’t make it. I left at my height.”
I had the happy good fortunate to play Horace Vandergelder in Hello, Dolly! at Seattle Civic Light Opera in the late 1980s & during performances, I would close my eyes as the male chorus was singing the title number. What I was hearing was “Hello, Horace!” or better yet “Hello, Stephen!” & I pictured myself kick-stepping down that large staircase.
Sources: Showtune: A Memoir by Jerry Herman (1996) Fine Books, an imprint of Penguin Books
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