some Verdon quotes
Posted by: Amiens 11:36 am EST 11/24/24
In reply to: re: Was watching "Can-Can" movie for first time in many years/Gwen Verdon comparison (long) - AlanScott 01:05 am EST 11/24/24

This discussion reminded me of an interview Gwen Verdon did with Rex Reed after the opening of Sweet Charity, part of a collection of celebrity interviews Reed later published as Do You Sleep in the Nude? I had to search for my copy, but the pertinent part is quoted below:

Her next show in 1953 was Can-Can. More problems. Lilo had Gwen's numbers cut from seven to four, arranged to have her offstage at the end of three of them, so there would be no applause, and managed the curtain calls so that she was upstage behind a bench. "I was so unhappy I wanted out. By the time we opened all I remembered saying was Oh, Boris!" eight times and "What's on the menu?" I don't really blame Lilo. She was the star, and I was stealing the show. In the theater, that's like another woman in a marriage triangle." But on opening night, the audience stopped the show cold, screaming for Verdon. Michael Kidd ran around the side of the building and through the stage door to get to Verdon's dressing room, pulled her onstage in a towel, and as one Can-Can dancer recalls, "The only sound louder than the audience stomping its feet was Lilo gnashing her teeth in the wings."

It's a long and intense interview about Verdon's entire career so presumably, the incidents recounted here were with her participation and approval but of course, who knows the truth? But it all makes for legendary gossip.
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