Documenting The Life Of Broadway Composer Jerry Herman, Dead At 88
Very sad news: Broadway composer Jerry Herman is dead at 88. The composer of “Hello,. Dolly!”, “Mane” , “L:a Cage Aux Faux,” “Dear World,” “Mack and Mabel,” “Milk and Honey,” “The Grand Tour,” and other shows died of pulmonary complications in his Miami home where he had been living with his partner, real estate broker Terry Marler.
He had a special relationship with Goodspeed Musicals where”Dolly,” “Mame,” “Mack and Mabel” and “La Cage Aux Folles” were revived and “with a re-imaged “Dear World” was presented at its Norma TTerris Theatre in Chester.
I interviewed the composer several times over the years. Here are a few of those stories from 2007 in The Hartford Courant.
By Frank Rizzo
It's an entrance that Dolly Levi would love.
Jerry Herman, the composer of such Broadway classics as "Mame," "Hello, Dolly!" and "La Cage Aux Folles," is shamelessly grinning and looking slightly verklempt as he makes his way down the aisle of the darkened auditorium, surrounded by the shouts and applause of those who know of him and those who knew him when.
Though the somber surroundings of the Yale Club are far from the warm glam and glow of Harmonia Gardens, where Dolly Levi made her celebrated entrance, the affectionate feeling is the same. It's the welcome return of a beloved favorite -- the old Broadway regular who makes us remember our happy past and a glorious era, a musical elder back for one more embrace before the parade passes by.
The man who is synonymous with audience-pleasing shows is now starring in his own feel-good show -- and not of his own making.
Herman -- who turns 76 in July -- is the subject of a new documentary, "Words and Music by Jerry Herman," which will be broadcast next season on PBS. It was created and produced by Amber Edwards of Newtown. Before the televised showing, screenings of the 90-minute biography are being shown at film festivals, at special events such as New York's Yale Club and the 92nd Street Y and in September at the Kennedy Center in Washington.
Curiously enough, Herman has yet to receive a Kennedy Center Award -- but he's been honored by a steady stream of salutes, the latest being the Goodspeed Award, which he will receive June 16 at the East Haddam's theater annual gala. In an interview before a recent screening in Manhattan, Herman spoke from his suite at the Waldorf Astoria, along with Edwards, a documentarian, (PBS's "The Dancing Man -- Peg Leg Bates," "Vladimir Feltsman in Moscow"), an Emmy-winning television producer and a professional singer with regular club engagements in New York and Connecticut.
"I was just charmed by this lady and I believed in her instantly," says Herman, gesturing to a beaming Edwards. "Well, wouldn't you?"
Edwards started shooting the documentary in 2002, first with her series of talks with Herman and then with others associated with the composer including: Angela Lansbury, the late Charles Nelson Reilly, George Hearn, Carol Channing, Arthur Laurents, the late Fred Ebb, composer Charles Strouse, Michael Feinstein, Marge Champion and Phyllis Newman.
For theater buffs, the treasure lies in the documentary's archival finds, including home movies taken from the wings, orchestra pit and rehearsal studio, much of it supplied by Herman's longtime music director Donald Pippin. There is also footage from TV specials, news and variety shows: Mary Martin entertaining the troops in Vietnam with "Dolly," and Carol Channing performing that show's title song at the White House; Pearl Bailey looking incandescent singing "Before the Parade Passes By" with an all-black cast on "The Ed Sullivan Show."
Perhaps the greatest goose-bump moment comes in seeing footage taken from the back of the theater showing the Act One closing number from "Mame," with a radiant 40-year-old Angela Lansbury. In a they-don't-make-'em-like-that- anymore moment, a plantation full of chorus men and women perform Onna White's high-kicking choreography and, accompanied by a 28-piece orchestra, sing the grand choral harmony of the show's infectious title song. Edwards synched the original Broadway cast recording to the soundless clip and for an instant you feel as if you're at the back of the Winter Garden Theater in 1966 witnessing a hallmark moment in musical history.