Richard Leppig (Cornelius Hackl, Dorothy Lamour Bus and Truck Company)

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Richard Leppig

Prior to Dolly, Richard Leppig was scratching for anythinghe could get in this business. He was working in the Greenwich Village for Bill Dale, a Canadian athlete who competed in the 1938 British Empire Games. Hehad a theater in which he produced psycho dramas. He did shows on health foodsand the effect they would have on you. Richard didn’t know anything about Hello, Dolly! except that it was a bigmusical and beyond his horizon. In order for him to follow in Charles NelsonReilly’s footsteps, he would have to take chances and give it a shot.   Dolly began for Richard when he saw a listing in Back Stage,the theatrical trade paper announcing auditions for the Martha Raye tour of Hello, Dolly to Vietnam in 1967. Theywere casting for the role of Cornelius Hackl. 

Martha Raye in Vietnam

The auditions were being held sixto twelve months prior to the tour beginning. He did well in the audition andit got down to between Richard and another fellow. When casting Cornelius,depending upon other casting choices, tends to go one of two ways. One is sortof the Charles Nelson Reilly portrayal. 

Charles Nelson Reilly

The other way is more of a rusticcountry type way, like Will Mackenzie, who replaced Charles Nelson Reilly. Atthe time of these auditions, Will was appearing as Cornelius on Broadway withBetty Grable. Richard considered himself more of the Charles Nelson Reillytype. Anyway, the casting went in the other direction, and that was the end ofthat.
About a year later, there was another casting notice for Dolly.This time it was for the Dorothy Lamour national tour. Once again, Richard wentin. They remembered him and selected him. Lucia Victor told him to go upstairsand get a contract. It was “rainbow time!”
Richard already knew it was a big glorious show. He feltthat he was stepping out of his league with this. It represented everything hethought Broadway was as far as a big splashy musical show. Making it to thislevel was a dream come true.
His feelings about Dolly today are probably stronger thanthey were forty-five years ago. He appeared with an actress who was not a nameand she blew his socks off. Her name was Alison England. Richard was in hisseventies and played the role of the judge. Alison was brought up in a Hollywoodshow business family. She knew how to take stage. She has a great voice and isalso a great vocal teacher. Richard does believe there is a future for Dolly, butsometimes he gets a little depressed. It is a different type of music now. Themusic of Jerry Herman and others of his ilk are mostly thought of now in ahistorical context. When you allow yourself to witness this show, it will pickyou up and pull you along. It will convert people if they give it a chance. When the Dorothy Lamour company was touring, they werecompeting with the film company in Garrison, New York. They were losing a lotof their dancers because they were being hired for the tour. Their road paycould not compete with a few days of shooting the film for several weeks. Manydancers thought that that would be a better gig. Some of them had been attachedwith Dolly for a long time. Richard believes that Dolly was absolutely one of the topfive shows he was part of. Not only does it have great music, every song kindof picks you up, it also has great comedy. It has a core to it based on The Matchmaker, and going all the wayback to the original German source material.People identify with it. It builds up your spirit, it has a great messagefor people. It’s honest. Ray thinks it’s wonderful. Changing Gower’s choreography is an iffy proposition. Theproblem with choreography is that it’s like writing on water. The nextgeneration may recreate it, but it doesn’t have the crispness of just being created. It has that core of vitality that people get to.Richard considers Charles Nelson Reilly to be one of the

Alison England

great comic actors of all time. Richard brought his own personal timing to theproduction. There are moments in the show where you can take advantage of yourtiming. Richard wore the same shoes for the entire run. They began to wear outtowards the end. On the bottom, the leather had come apart. There was one pointin one of the fast moving scenes where Richard’s shoe just slid on the stage.His feet came out from underneath him and he did a complete fall on his back. Hecould hear his Barnaby Tucker, Jess Richards, asking him if he was alright. Hegot up. It was funny. Later, he thought he should have said, “I think I brokemy purse.”Richard doesn’t even have a program of his days in Dollybecause “chintzy Jack Schlissel” who managed the road company from Merrick’soffice forced those in the company to buy a program. They were charging eightbucks for this. Richard was part of the Dorothy Lamour company from the beginningin October 1967 through July 1968. They ended with a six week run at the TintonHill music tent in Lambertville, New Jersey. Alas, this company never made itto Broadway.  "Thisis the closest I've ever come to an Academy Award. -Dorothy Lamour used to say duringher curtain speech for Dolly!

The blonde Dorothy Lamour

Richard continued to tweak his performance onoccasion but he says you have to be careful to do exactly what you weredirected to do. Lucia Victor did run a tight ship. He remembers the guy playingRudolph, Charles Scott, as they were flying out for their opening in Bloomfield,Indiana saying to him, “Richard, as far as confidence goes you can do whateveryou want as Cornelius. You can pretty much get away with anything.” Richard wasworried about his dancing. He wasn’t a dancer. He thinks things have gottenworse over the past forty-five years! Richard’s favorite memory of the show is whenDorothy as Dolly is teaching him to dance. Richard’s career came to a standstill after Dolly. Afterclosing in Lambertville, Richard came back to New York and was auditioning. Nothing was happening until he got a commercial within a couple of months ofcompleting Dolly. It was a TWA commercial that ran that filmed for three days. Richardwas a principal in the commercial. He didn’t realize it at the time but thecommercial was a series of commercials. The director had written up story linesfor the characters. Richard was one of the story lines, but the thing is no oneever told him that and during the course of after

Dorothy Lamour Company

the first commercial wasairing all over the television, including TheTonight Show, Richard had a falling out with his roommates. Around thatsame time, Richard’s brother came back from Vietnam and suggested that both heand Richard go back to college together. Richard moved back home with his parentsand he and his brother were going to go back to college together. In theinterim, the production house for the commercial called Richard’s old apartmentwith the need for him to come in for the next rehearsal. The guy who wasRichard’s roommate never passed the information on to him. He never got thecall and he was effectively out of show business at that point. Twenty yearslater, almost to the day, Richard went out to Los Angeles to see what he cando on the West Coast.  He admits that he is a very shy person and he didn’t have what it takes togo knocking on agent’s doors. However, he ran across the agent who had workedwith the producers on the commercial for that production house. He had answeredan ad for representation and they talked about what had transpired. It was justan amazing ironic meeting. The one thing that Richard learned from his experience withDolly is confidence on stage. Unfortunately, that credit did not advance hiscareer. When he got the part, he was part of a circle of young strugglingactors that included Morgan Freeman.   Hewould go on to play Rudolph in Pearl Bailey’s original company! He's donerather well for himself. Also, part of that group was Ellen Shade, a young aspiringopera singer at the time. She was also having an affair with Richard’s roommateat the time. She was so excited about Richard being cast in Dolly that she invitedhim to dinner to meet her parents. She also went over Richard’s lines with himone by one.   

Ellen Shade

Shade had aninternational career, but did not make many recordings. She was a diva at theSanta Fe Opera House for a while. When Richard was living in Los Angeles, shehad become famous. He went to see a production of  DieFledermaus with Ellen as the star. They went backstage and she didn’tremember him! It ended up being sour grapes all around. Dolly was the keystone of Richard’s career. It gave him nofear as far as understanding what he had to do on stage and the ability to takecenter stage when he knew that was what he was there for.  Sometimes when he sees that point, he triesto point that out without it looking like he’s pushing anything. That’s what it’sall about. When you get out there, you give the audience what they came for.There was a point before Richard made his first entrancefrom underneath the trap door in Horace’s Hay and Feed Store. During the lastsix weeks, in Lambertville, Richard used to think that he just couldn’t do thisanymore. Once he got out there on stage, everything was alright. One night hewas singing the opening part of Put OnYour Sunday Clothes, and a line of the song did not come to him. Because hewasn’t singing, everyone was looking at him to see what was happening. When Richard was in rehearsal, Jack Schlissel invited thecompany to see the Betty Grable company on Broadway. He thought she was ok. Hethought Dorothy Lamour was ok. He thought she came across on stage morenegative than she needed to be. Carol Channing lifted the show up even at theend, when she is berating Vandergelder. With Dorothy, it was fatalistic. Itdidn’t have the kind of strength and power and optimism that it should have, soit was kind of flat. People went to see a star and they got it. 
Alison England madeit work. Even at the end, it was all fantastic. Audiences went nuts for her atthe curtain calls. Audiences weren’t there to see a star. They didn’t know her.Richard thinks Jerry Herman is great and terrific. Richardremembers seeing Mame with AngelaLansbury. As far as Broadway music that is just fantastic, no one can touchhim. He actually sent Angela a fan letter at the time and she wrote back. Lucia Victor directed Richard’s tour. Don Lawrence was thedance assistant. They only had nine days of rehearsal before heading toBloomington, Indiana. Richard had the freedom to bring as much as he could tothe table and Lucia was happy with what he was doing. He wishes that he had hadmore coaching as far as his solos were concerned. Everything worked out and henever got any negative feedback. There was some kind of business in the flower shopthat Lucia was looking for that Richard couldn’t get a handle on. It didn’tcome to him after one or two tries. Due to time constraints, she cancelled thebusiness and moved on. He thought with more time, he would have been able tograsp it. Nine days was a lot of pressure. Lucia knew what she wanted and shegot it. Richard never had any interaction out of the show itself on a one toone basis. Why does Richard think the title song always stops the show?“Because all the guns point towards it.” Everything happens to focus on thatstairway. Once the Lamour company was performing at an army base in Missouri. Itwas an afternoon performance. The only thing they cared about as far as the setpiece was concerned to make the show work was putting up the staircase. It ledup to a blank wall. There was no entry point at the top of the stairs exceptgoing up the stairs. That was the way it had to be because when that curtainopens, Dolly comes down the stairs. That IS Hello,Dolly, probably one of the most iconic moments in musical theater history. Their Horace Vandergelder was Eric Brotherson. He had alsoappeared with Ethel Merman in Call MeMadam and with Noel Harrison in Half-A-Sixpence.He was a tall and elegant balding gray haired very suave dependable experiencedand wonderful. He didn’t have the necessary gruffness that David Burns had.Richard had only seen David Burns in a couple of television appearances and healways came across as gruff whether he was Vandergelder or not.    Once, when they were in Mississippi, they were held for ransomfor eight hours. On the bus and truck tour, there were three busses, two forthe cast and one for the orchestra, and a van for the set pieces. They weretraveling through Mississippi and they were stopped by the state troopers. Theyrequired a permit from the company. There was no permit and Richard doesn’teven know if it was legally necessary to have one. They wouldn’t let anyonemove from the time they were stopped for about six to eight hours. Calls weregoing back and forth to New York to either Schlissel or whoever was in theoffice. Eventually they were bailed out. Richard doesn’t understand what thesatisfaction of that encounter was. Andrea Bell, who was Minnie Fay in thatproduction, said that homophobia was rampant in the South and there were usual harassmentsfrom state troopers because of some of the cast members.  Nowadays, it seems as if the shows that get produced onBroadway are those shows that can convince others to back them. 
Whether the backershave a background in theater or not, “producers” are reaching out to thesepeople. We also now don’t have a uniformed audience to see the shows that AREgetting produced. People are going to cable channels or stand-up comedy clubs  or various other sources of entertainment. Itis so diffused that there really isn’t a “Broadway” audience anymore.   As of this writing, Richard is in rehearsal for The Laramie Project. As most of myreaders know, that is a very heavy show. Richard, who now resides in SalemOregon where this will be presented, can’t really think of anyone in his owncircle of friends that he would expect to come out and see that kind of aproject except for the people who are in the cast. People don’t go to the theaternow to be uplifted. If it’s a bad time for them or if there’s a lull in theirlives or if it is dramatically relevant, but not much else, then they don’twant to go and spend the time with it.  Rentin Salem Oregon was a hard pull to get people in. Their closing night once again was in Lambertville, NewJersey. Everyone was looking forward to that night. It had been a long tour. Atthe time, Richard, since his parents were living in New Jersey, he stayed withthem and commuted back and forth. It was about a sixty to sixty-five commuteeach way. In Lambertville, it was in the round with no real set. The scene inwhich Cornelius and Barnaby are about to be discovered in the hat shop, he hadto dive into a large coffin-like wicker basket. He says his knees are not thatgreat now, but at that time, he was very agile. He would dive eight to ten feetaway from it and hit it every time. There was one night where it rained atremendous downpour.  That was beating soheavily that the cast were screaming their lines and still were not able to beheard. At the time of this tour, Dorothy was going through a periodof her life in which this tour was a huge strain on her. 

William Ross Howard III and Dorothy Lamour

She was traveling withher husband, William Ross Howard III, a successful frozen foodbusinessman, was ill at the time.  Hedied in 1978. He died of emphysema. For them to drive the entire run, whichthey did in their Cadillac, she did not have the ability to enjoy the show asmuch as she probably would have liked. That’s too bad because it was a wonderful experience in so many ways.Richard felt like she wasn’t there completely because of that. Hello, Dolly! brings us to a New York thatbrings us a lot of joy and that joy is there for everybody to be a part of. Youdon’t see THAT New York any more. The history of New York and Yonkers and theHarmonia Gardens and places like that and the life that was lived at that timeis an era that has passed. This show captures the essence of that and it isfun. People can be transported if they just let themselves be part of it.   

Thank you Richard Leppig for the gifts you have given to the world and will 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!

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If you have anything to add or share, please contact me at Richard@RichardSkipper.com.


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