When Will heard theoriginal cast album of Hello, Dolly in Houston, Texas, he thought, “This is theshow! Gower is my guy!” He felt that this man knew something he also knew. There was some kind of kindred spirit or something. He just desired so much tobe in this show. He went to New York with his parents and tried to get ticketsto see the show. It was a difficult show to get tickets for at that time butthey got them. They went to the theater and Will went backstage at the St.James Theater and said to the stage manager, “I’d like to see Mr. Champion,please.” The stage manager laughed and said, “Mr. Champion is not here.” Will explained to him that they were from outof town and were having trouble acquiring tickets. The stage manager suggestedthat he stand in front of the theater, somebody might be selling tickets. This was early on inthe run of ’64 and Channing was still leading the cast. Sure enough someone wasselling one ticket and Will ended up seeing the show from the balcony. At theSt. James, when Channing would go out on the passarelle and do the monologues,he couldn’t see her because he was in the nosebleed section. He still thoughtit was an extraordinary show.
When he went to LAto go to college, Will read that the road company was going to LA. He didn’tknow how to get an audition. He didn’t know anything. Will ended up in themovie of Bye Bye Birdie. The girl whoplayed Ursala, Trudi Ames, her real name was Trudi Ziskin, and she had a reallyaggressive stage mother. Will knew her very well and told her that he wanted toget this audition and she arranged it for him. She got Gower’s home number! Will called the number and Marge answered. At that time, Will went by the name,Skip Martin. His real name is William Mead Martin. There was a Skip Martin inthe business who was an arranger/orchestrator. Later on when he was doingShakespeare and more classical fare, he didn’t think Skip Martin was befittinga name going in that direction. Child performers also have issues about growingup. You don’t know who you are as you’re growing up. As the lyric goes, “I ammy own creation.” He wanted to get rid of Skip. He couldn’t see himself growingup and being a man with that name. In the fifties, that was a name for a dog. Aftergoing through various name choices, William (his father is Bill) Mead stuck. 
Willappeared in a few movies including GuessWho’s Coming to Dinner with Hepburn and Tracy. He played the delivery boy.He had a scene with Isabel Sanford. He also did the TV version of Carousel with Robert Goulet. RobertGoulet was in his glory days. Emmy Award winner Paul Bogart directed it. BobMackie did the costumes. Edward Villella choreographed. They wouldn’t pay Agnesde Mille for the choreography. Fortunately for her, Agnes De Mille hadcopyrighted the story line of the ballet. They had to pay her for that.Everything else was re imagined. Once again, Will wasin Bye Bye Birdie as one of the kids;he got Gower’s phone number and called him. When Marge answered the phone, hesaid, “Hi! I’m Skip Martin. I’m from Houston, Texas, and I’d like to be in Hello, Dolly! I’d like an audition.” Shesaid, “Well, honey, there’s an audition coming up at The Playhouse Theaterdowntown Los Angeles. Show up at ten o’clock on this date.”
Will showed up. He had never been to aBroadway type audition before. He was on stage with approximately forty orfifty other guys. This was new to him. He usually showed up with his portablerecord player and did a routine. Assistant Dance Captain Lowell Purvis was on stage. He told everyonethat this a tour and to please NOT audition if you were not able to go out ontour. Will was just about to start college and he thought, “I’m not going outon tour.” So, he left. He went off with his mother and they had tea. He cameback by the theater and Gower was sitting in the theater. Will decided to go upto him and request an audition. Will explained that he couldn’t do the tour butthat he still wanted to dance for Gower. Gower thanked him for coming down butthat he had to focus on this tour and he just couldn’t. Will went up and gothis big bogan record player with its old fashioned speakers and with his motherand her fur in tow proceeded across the stage of the theater to proceed out ofthe theater. Gower shouted up at the stage, “What is that?” Will responded with“It’s my record player.” Gower said, “Oh, go ahead.” Will blew him away. Gowersaid, “Where did you come from?” He did his acting teacher’s acting teacher’sroutine which was an acrobatic soft shoe with ariel walk overs and illusionsand butterflies. He also did this routine on The Hollywood Talent Scouts hosted by Art Linkletter. Ann Miller introduced Will Mead on The Hollywood Talent Scouts two months prior to this audition.
He didtwo routines to an old Danny Hoctor record. One of the routines was to Irene. Every bit of this was right downGower’s alley. Gower said to Will, “I don’t know if I could ever use you in ashow. You would stop it cold. I couldn’t have that.” Will thought he wasextraordinary and incredible. Will told Gower that when he went to New York, hesaw a lot of shows but Hello, Dollywas the only one that didn’t disappoint him. He blanched and told Will thatwhen he first went to New York and started seeing Broadway shows, he had thesame enthusiasm. Gower ended up being very generous with his time. Will thankedhim for his time and left.Will went on to doMelodyLand, Carousel, and several other theater in the round productions. Inthe fabulous 60’s,the big musical theater fad in Los Angeles wastheater-in-the-round. In the LA area there were three venues – the MelodylandTheater in Anaheim (an empty gin bottle’s throw from Disneyland), the ValleyMusic Theater in Woodland Hills (later to become the home of the Jehovah’sWitnesses), and the Carousel Theater in West Covina (gateway to the InlandEmpire). The productions would circulate around between these, usually fortwo-week runs.Will did back toback West Side Story with Pat Booneand Can-Can with Chita Rivera. Chitadancing in her thirties was incredible playing the Gwen Verdon role. Gower cameout to see Chita and saw Will in the show. Hello,Dolly was about to open in Los Angeles. The guy playing Stanley came downwith appendicitis. They didn’t have a replacement for him. They flew John Mineoin to replace him. However, they needed Mineo back in New York.  |
| John Mineo |
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Lowell taught Will It Takes a Womanthe day of the night he was going on. He knew the cue of when to go on but hedidn’t really know what to do once he got out there. He made his entrance onthe upper level of Vandergelder’s Hay and Feed but was absolutely at a loss asto what he was supposed to be doing there. Also that night, at one point, as hewas going up the stairs to get to the stage for one scene, someone asked, “Whatare you doing in that costume?” “Stanley” is in all the musical numbers in theshow, albeit, different characters. He wasn’t in Sunday Clothes. All of those guys are mostlychorus singers. It Takes a Woman washis first number on stage in the show. He also appeared in the Dancing number as part of the “AvonComedy Four”. With a Gower Champion show, with these rhythms, the dancers wouldleave the show with more energy than they had when they arrived at thetheater. Horace McMahon’sdays were numbered. As stated, he and Carol did not get along. Will thinks hewas fired but no evidence to back that up right now. He would be replaced byMilo Boulton. The night before hewas to start rehearsing, they wanted him to come in and see the show. The showhadn’t officially yet. Will sat next to Gower and watched the final dressrehearsal with Carol Channing and Horace McMahon, who Carol Channing did notlike or get along with at all. What was unique to Will was that everyone onthat stage was an individual. First of all, Gower didn’t want what MichaelBennett used to refer to as faceless “merry villagers” where everyone was happyand they were all doing the same thing. Gower always wanted individualcharacters and he looked for someone who had an individual body and spirit tocarry this kind of joy and performance. Carol embodied that as well. When 42nd Street was recast withPeggy Cass after Carole Cook left the show, although they were both olderfemale comedians, Carole Cooke is this big blousy glorious, bigger than lifepersonality. Peggy Cass who is Miss Gooch is this whiny negative persona. Thechemistry is then wrong for the show. It is meant for someone with a heart tosing those songs.  |
| Steven Schwartz |
Will doesn’t knowwho could play Dolly today and sells tickets. He also saw Ginger Rogers playDolly but one Dolly that he did not see that he wishes he had was PhyllisDiller. Gower hated Ginger in the show. She would come down the stairs and hikeup her dress and do high kicks as she made her way down the stairs. It was notperiod and it certainly wasn’t what he choreographed and staged. Will did not enjoy Rogers in the role for the samereasons. He knew it was totally wrong what she was doing. It was glorious,nonetheless. Will always wanted to be in that sacred space with Gower and thathappened…and it WAS sacred. Will was with theshow five weeks all with Carol. By that time, the “original” Stanley hadreturned. He did not go on to the next town which was Chicago. When Gower cast thiscompany, it was the first time he had cast a new company since first doing theshow. They opened in San Diego prior to Los Angeles Gower was in San Diego forall four weeks of rehearsal.  |
| Gower Champion |
 |
| Michael Bennett |
Will has it ontape. When they were creating Annie Get Your Gun, it was just Gower and Will.One day, they were working on some choreography and he did not want to repeatANYTHING that he had done before. He said to Will, “You know, there are peoplewho have seen ALL of my work. I just don’t want to repeat myself. ” There aresome choreographers who do the same steps in every show. Gower’s idea was tocreate a world and a language for each show and each show IS different. TonyStevens was co-choreographer on that production. Gower gave Tony some things tostage and it was a mess. Gower got up on a chair and said, “You come in here,you come in here, and you come in here and this is what we do here…” as hestarted directing entrances on a number. The rehearsal room was electricbecause you knew something was happening. It was magic. It was perfect. It wasuncanny how extraordinarily perfect it was. It wasn’t hocus pocus but when youwalked into the theater with him, this calmness would happen. It was joy and hewas off-hand and easy. All of these other choreographers ruled fear. It wasalways these “mean queens” who if you stepped out of line, you were fired.Gower could fire anyone like that, too. But he actually ruled with this “Helpme make this wonderful” thing and people loved him for it. 
AND he loved themback. There was this extraordinary event that really happened. He used to hirepeople who could do that. He really had X-ray vision. A Chorus Line has a lot of Gower Champion in it. The onlychoreographer to audition in slacks and a sweater was Gower. When you see Zackin a slacks and sweater, that’s Gower. Bob Fosse was always in black with acigarette hanging out of his mouth. Jerome Robbins was always in tennis shoesand jeans and some sort of “schemata” tee shirt. Gower was a movie star. Willactually went out and bought clothes for him once from Matsons. Everything onhim looked great. He was like a model. You put it on him and it was beautiful.Charles Strouse said he believed Gower didn’t even wrinkle when he was havingsex! He was a movie star!! Will doubts thatGower ever went back to see any of the other Dollys. Will thinks that itprobably would have been too painful for him. 
Marge told Will that she andGower snuck in to see the film once. It was long after the film opened. Theydid not go to the premiere. Speaking of the film, it was between Danny Lockinand Will Mead to play Barnaby Tucker in the film. When the film wasauditioning, Will thought that he just had to be in the film. He had a privateaudition for Gene Kelly. Kathleen Freeman helped Will write some specialmaterial for his audition. He had a drummer! After that, he was invited to adance audition with Michael Kidd’s assistant. It was a dance audition. Theywere casting Barnabys and Minnie Fays. Will didn’t do an actual screen test. Atthe final call, it was just Lockin and Will. Danny had the perfect look for thefilm. He looks like a farm boy. He had the big ears, he was cute, he wasblonde. Will looked more Mediterraneanwith dark hair and an emerging dark beard. He had to wear make-up to hide theshadow. Also, Will had never had ballet training. In Houston, there were twodance teachers. Patsy Swayze, Patrick Swayze’s mother, (she was also Tommy Tuneand Debbie Allen’s dance teacher). Then there was the other teacher, the one Willworked with, Maxine Asbury. Maxine is the one who taught all the acrobaticstuff, the stuff that nobody had ever seen.  |
| Danny Lockin |
Gower was thechoreographer who had affairs with his leading ladies…like Zack. At the veryaudition that Gower was ever at, he had all the dancers line up in a line. Willdoesn’t know where the line thing came from, but they all lined up and he wouldwalk down, look at each and every dancer, and then he would walk to the nextone, Will is convinced Michael Bennett had auditioned for Gower. It’s reallylike that spotlight that goes down the line in A Chorus Line. It’s Michael, of course, who wants to know “Where doyou hurt? What button can I push?” Gower would never have gone into that zone. Hewas X-raying people to see their hearts, whether or not they had joy. He alwayscast young people who had enthusiasm and a kind of joy. Many people got theirEquity card with Gower Champion musicals. When he saw the girl’s audition, Willsaw a competition you could cut with a knife with those girls. When Gowerstarted picking out the younger prettier girls, there were quite a few girlswho would let out a breath, roll their eyes with an” Oh God” attitude. That’sexactly what Gower didn’t want, that kind of cynicism. He would not have thatin the theater. He grew up in a Christian Science household. His mother wasChristian Science. Marge was Christian Science. So was Carol Channing. Not thatGower ever practiced any kind of religion like that. Marge is still a ChristianScientist. Will doesn’t know if she goes to any kind of a church currently.It’s a world view that was a very big deal in Hollywood. When Mary Baker Eddyfirst came on the scene, it was very powerful. People were healed of ailments.Carol’s father, George Channing, a newspaper editor andrenowned Christian Science lecturer, worked with Mary Baker Eddy. Will worked with Joel Solomon Goldsmith, anAmerican spiritual author, teacher, spiritual healer, and mystic. He was apractitioner who left Christian Science to create his own religion called TheInfinite Way. 
Doris Day was part of this. Christian Science teaches that theremay be obstacles but this is not a hostile universe. You don’t have to fightand scratch and knife the person next to you so you can get what you desire foryourself. Ultimately, harmony must appear. That is what happens in Hello, Dolly! Fosse could not bringhimself to do a happy ending. That is why SweetCharity is so difficult. The end of Nightsof Cabiria, upon which Charity isbased; there is this incredible moment at the end that Fosse could not bringhimself to capture. He wanted something darker. Will just recently saw a production of New Girl in Town is a hard show.Champion’s Bye Bye Birdie, on theother hand, ends with a soft shoe. This harmony seems to appear and happens.It’s not West Side Story whereRobbins wanted people to clash. He enjoyed watching the fireworks betweenpeople. He would pit understudies against each other. He loved to see thefireworks, loved to see the drama, the backstabbing stuff. Gower wasn’t likethat at all. It came through in his work. Hello, Dolly is the perfect wind-upmusical. It works like a little mechanical device. It is absolutely perfect. Hecontinued to work on it after it opened. That rarely happens. He worked until hegot the polka number to replace the Butterfly number. That number went into theshow when Ginger joined the company on August 9th, 1965. From thatpoint on, it was part of the show as we know it today. It went into MaryMartin’s international company and Carol’s first national tour. It’s a perfectshow and yet there is always something taking your attention while somethingelse happens. It’s like something coming out of the heavens into the theaterand bubbles up unconsciously. Audiences may not even be aware of why they arefeeling so joyous. It’s not just about what is going on onstage, it is aboutsomething else going on. It happens in Shakespeare too, this incantation. Theactors start reading these lines, and this spirit comes down into the theater andit has its own trajectory. Every one of the Shakespearean plays has thismovement. Each one is a little different. Gower always talked about eachindividual number, how it takes off and how it lands. It is so important howyou get into a number and how to get it up into the stratosphere. 
You have toget it back down to Earth eventually and back into the show without a break.Otherwise, you get this feeling of “sugar blues.” Gower was very conscious ofthat. He was very conscious of the audience strapping in to Dolly and taking this ride. It wasseamless. He meant it to be seamless. He meant for the scenery to be seamless.He meant for the staging to be seamless. Of course, it was his background inmovies. Ironically, Gower never got to recreate his works on film. There isnone of Gower’s real work on film except Gower’s work as an actor/dancer, ofcourse. Thank God, that is there.  |
| Michael Kidd |
Will still directsand choreographs and produces in LA. He is doing what Gower taught him, how torefurbish an old show. Will did the Gershwin show, Tiptoes. This particular show is three hours long. There is such athing as an eleven o’clock number. These shows started at eight PM and byeleven PM, it was almost over. People didn’t think that they had their moniesworth unless it was a three hour show. The early Gershwin shows were actuallystructured more like Cirque du Soleil where something happens and then you havea big number with twenty dancing girls coming on, one might play the ukulele ordo something strange, then comedians come on and do about ten minutes ofmaterial, it’s not the way “we” feel musicals should go. Of course, the dancenumbers have nothing to do with the plot or the characters. The principalsdon’t dance. When Will produces these shows, he first goes with the premise,“First, do no harm.” He really dislikesall this stuff where they take a bare plot and take all the songs from thesongbook in. They don’t really belong there. They don’t belong with thecharacters. The characters are not really singing about anything. They are justkind of put in. Will found a way to have all of his principals dance. He findsa way to do the dance numbers so that something happens in a number andadvances the plot which is not in the original. When you watch it, however, youfeel that it was always there.Gower’s choreographyis so ingrained in people’s minds and hearts that it will be virtuallyimpossible to surpass or top that.
The same is true for West Side Story. Will did aproduction of WSS in London in whichJerome Robbins’ estate allowed them to do new choreography. You don’t do WSS without doing that choreography! Youdon’t do Gypsy or Fiddler on the Roof without Robbins’choreography. There are people who teach this choreography and that is whatgoes with the show. You’ll never be able to top this. You’ll never be able totop Cool. There are choreographerswho have done their own version of Dolly.Will welcomes them to it. Will, however, would not like to do his version ofthis musicals, but rather find the heart while recreating on stage what hasbeen so brilliantly created. Will has worked with Peter Brook. There is a greatsimilarity between Brook and Gower in that they both search for the heart oftheir productions. That takes someonespecial to find that. Gower continued totweak his productions after they were up and running. When they were working onAnnie Get Your Gun, the first act waspretty much perfect. The second act, if he had taken it to New York, he wouldhave done something about it. He and Will talked lot about what would be donewith it if they continued with it. Debbie Reynolds, the star, did not want togo to Broadway. She had done her nightclub in New York and got panned by thecritics for bringing a nightclub act to a Broadway theater. She felt at thispoint that she didn’t need Broadway. 
If Gower had gone back into rehearsal andfixed what needed to be fixed, this would have worked on Broadway. Tony Stevenshad created this square dance number in the second act. Gower saw it and saidthat is right out of Turkey Lurkey!That’s Michael Bennett’s choreography! He asked Tony if he was aware that allof those steps had been lifted. Gower just rolled his eyes. Gower focused onthe structure and the most essential elements of the show, making the numberswork. Gower thought his Nobody like ShowBusiness ballet was his goodbye to show business. 
He thought he would neverdo another show after this. He called Will once and said “Let’s go out tolunch.” They went to Malibu. Gower loved the ocean. They had lunch and Gowertold him he had this disease and that he would never choreograph again. It wassapping his energy and that he would never have the energy to do another show.He didn’t seem ill to Will. He found a blood treatment that actually launderedhis blood and gave him the energy to do 42ndStreet. That year, he was planningon doing three shows. As soon as 42nd Street opened, he was going todo Sayonara. After that, he hadanother show lined up. After you do your big opus, Hello, Dolly, what do you do? It is very difficult for choreographers to toptheir work because everyone is always comparing it to what has already been previouslydone. After you’ve written The Glass Menagerie,everybody wants another Glass Menagerie.Gower struggled to find something else to top Dolly.  |
| Courtesy: Dan Pagel("Memories ofMelody Top") |
Will worked with Oona White on Bye, Bye Birdie. The big joke was that Gower, Fosse, Robbins allgrew beards. It was the one thing that Oona couldn’t imitate. She shamelesslystole the duck walk and put it in Mame.She took a signature dance step and did it in another show. At the end of herlife, she got the Academy Award. She would take her Oscar with her everywhereshe went. She would sit it out on the table. That was Oona. She did steal andshe did it shamelessly. What you didn’t do to Gower Champion was steal hissteps. People try to do a Champion-esque thing and most don’t understand whereit is coming from. They think there is a technique to it or they think it’sabout “cute” or it’s a certain kind of staging. It isn’t about that. That isimportant. But it’s about the spirit of it and you need someone who understandsthat. Someone who understands the emotion, not an emotion like “I love you, Ihate you.” 
The one thing thatWill learned from Gower that he has carried with him stems from a question andPeter Brook gave him the answer. When you create this perfect show on stage,there are some eggs that must be broken. You have to say, “no, don’t do that.”When Will was in rehearsal, Gower came into rehearsal. The Ernestina was veryfunny. She was hysterical! She had this wild cackling laugh that was justinfectious. The audience would roar. He cut everyone of her bits and she was intears. She went to Gower questioning his decisions. He had to say to her it wastoo much too soon. If it’s so funny at the top of the scene, everything afterthat is not as funny. Everything had to be set up leading to the eating scenebetween Dolly and Horace. Will has found in his own directing andchoreographing that he has tried to emulate Gower’s formula. Everything wasperfect. Everything was just right. Sometimes, people are hurt by these decisions.Actors sometimes have their favorite thing that they do on stage. Will hasdiscovered that the show must go on and the show is more important than “you”are. Will asked Peter about this once. He said there is this thing when peoplesometimes have to fit into a mold. Sometimes, that may be difficult. Somethingmight be good but it may not be right at a particular moment in a show becauseit might ruin the bigger picture.  |
| Peter Brook |
Thebiggest change that Will has seen since embarking on his career starts backwith Dolly. In Dolly, EVERYONE was an individual and you could really see them. WhatMichael Bennett did was change this mindset. Somehow, if you are in the chorus,you are a machine. If you are in the chorus, you mustn’t stand out. Hemanufactured that thinking with A ChorusLine. When Will saw the 1994 revival and tour of Dolly, Carol was as she has always been. What was different was thatthe chorus kids had a sort of an “I’m just doing this show, I’m a machine andno one sees me on stage” whole other thing that was different from the firsttime around. You can stand out by doing outrageous things, kick higher than everybodyelse, sing louder; whatever it is …what’s missing is this human quality of whatsong and dance are all about. Dancers and singers on Broadway are now turnedinto machines. There is something uninvolving about the ego and theheartlessness of performance these days. Watch So You Think You Can Dance. These kids are doing things that werepreviously not asked of dancers. It is a shame that they don’t understand howto be in that place. There is a piece of film of Gemze de Lappe, an American dancer who worked very closely with Agnes de Mille, doingthe ballet from Oklahoma! Where thereis the perfect balance between this kind of emotion Will is talking about,filling the body when the performer goes into that state. It is catching to theaudience. That is why Dolly was so extraordinary. This magic would happen onthe stage. .jpg) |
| Jay Garner, Carol, Florence Lacy |
At the end of Will’s five weeks, it was not sad. It did notfeel that it was the end. He felt that it was the beginning of a friendship anda working relationship with Gower. He felt there was such a personal similarityand Gower felt the same about Will. Lowell Purvis ANDLucia Victor, at Gower’s memorial, both told Will that a film exists of Hello, Dolly with the original cast shotfrom the booth where the follow spot was. It was done to one day surprise Gowerwith. What wouldn’t all of us give to see this? That special quality that Willhas talked about here should be seen. Hello, Dolly toWill Mead is the ultimate theater experience. It was everything he ever hopedtheater would be. Like Brigadoon, it comes and it goes. It is not gone forever.
The opinions expressed here are those of Will Mead.Thank you Will Mead for the gifts you have given to the world and continue to give!
With grateful XOXOXs ,
Check out my site celebrating my forthcoming book on Hello, Dolly!
I want this to be a definitive account of Hello, Dolly! If any of you reading this have appeared in any production of Dolly, I'm interested in speaking with you!
Do you have any pics?
If you have anything to add or share, please contact me at Richard@RichardSkipper.com.
NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED. FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY!
Please do what YOU can to be more aware that words and actions DO HURT...but they can also heal and help!
My next blog will be...Jim Brochu: Character Man
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The Autumn Season isUpon Us! THIS is the show to Catch!
I'm celebratingPamela Luss on Saturday,October 20th, 2012 at 7:00 pm
Pamela with Houston Person at TheMetropolitan Room in NYCJust The Two Of Us and FriendsHope you can makeit. It’s going to be a party! Reserve today ifthat date is available! Call me if any questions!Richard Skipper845-365-0720Check out the clip below of Pamela performing on The Jerry LewisTelethon:
http://youtu.be/JmUgcuT_WM8And a review from her last timearound: http://nitelifeexchange.com/review/cabaret-reviews-mainmenu-27/2007-luss-is-luscious-at-metropolitan-room.html
TILL TOMORROW...HERE'S TO AN ARTS FILLED DAYRichard Skipper, Richard@RichardSkipper.com
This Blog is dedicated to ALL THE DOLLYS and ANYONE who has EVER had a connection with ANY of them on ANY Level!
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