Funny Celebrity Story: Jerry Orbach

Here’s a somewhat

funny celebrity story

from chapter 7 of my entertainment book  “Three Stages” about my poker pal, Jerry Orbach.

“My agent Lenny-Debin sent me to audition for Howard DaSilva who was directing an Off-Broadway revival of Marc Blitzstein’s The Cradle Will Rock. This is a show with a fascinating history about which I knew nothing at the time but would soon learn. All I knew was that I was up for dual roles of a Cop and a Doctor. They were already in rehearsal and this was the last open slot in the cast.

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“When I walked into the lobby of Theatre Four (where I’d seen Boys from Syracuse about a year earlier) eight or ten other actors, all appearing to be in their forties, were waiting. I gave my headshot and resume to the guy in charge and sat down. A minute or two later an actor followed by Mr. DaSilva came into the room. They shook hands and the actor left. Mr. DaSilva took the next resume from the guy and looked around the room espying my youthful face. ‘What are you doing here?’ he barked in his inimitable growl. ‘To read for the Cop and Doctor.’ I replied, standing up. ‘You’re too young.’ he said as he turned to reenter the house.

 

“Here’s where it gets strange. I’d never done anything like this before but I had nothing to lose and besides, he’d pissed me off. I followed him into the hallway and aggressively told him I was twenty-nine and would by now be a resident if I were a doctor and a detective if I were a cop, or words to that effect. He stopped, turned and stared at me for a few seconds and said. ‘Okay, okay, you got the job. Be here at nine in the morning for rehearsal.’

“I was flabbergasted, as were the other actors who’d witnessed this brazen display of chutzpah. I had the job. Amazing.

“And speaking of amazing here’s the history. The show was part of the Federal Theatre Project, directed by Orson Welles and produced by John Houseman. (I would be fortunate enough to work with Mr. Houseman several years later. Stay tuned.) A Brechtian allegory of corruption and corporate greed, it’s set in ‘Steeltown, USA’. It follows the efforts of Larry Foreman to unionize the town’s workers and otherwise combat the wicked, greedy businessman Mr. Mister, who controls the town’s factory, press, church and social organization. It was set to open in New York in June 1937 with elaborate sets and a full orchestra. However the production was shut down due to political pressure within the Federal Theatre Project. The show was thought to be communist. The theatre was padlocked and surrounded by security.

“The show was forbidden to be performed onstage, with the government threatening arrest to any actor appearing in it.

“Welles, Houseman and Blitzstein rented another theatre and a piano for a performance on June 17. They planned for Blitzstein to sing/play/read the entire musical to the sold-out house which grew larger when the producers invited people off the street to attend for free. Just after beginning the first number, Blitzstein was joined by Olive Stanton, the actor playing “Moll”, from the audience. During the rest of the performance various actors joined in with Blitzstein and performed the entire musical singing their lines from the box seats near the stage and across the theatre to one another. A follow spot operator lit the actors and the performance was a huge success.

“Our production somewhat mimicked this style in that we used neither sets nor costumes. We sat in chairs on risers on a bare stage wearing street clothes. Gershon Kingsly, the musical director, was also on stage playing an upright piano and filling in some of the smaller parts. We opened on 9 November 1964 and ran for 82 performances, closing at the end of January.

Jerry Cradle

“Jerry Orbach was the star of our show,playing Larry Foreman the role originated by Howard DaSilva.

“Jerry and I became friends across a poker table. I hadn’t played poker since leaving Vegas and less than a week after Cradle opened we had a backstage game going. The floor above the dressing rooms had a round table in it which was just waiting for a deck of cards. There were five or six players in the cast including Joe Bova, Clifford David and an unemployed actor friend of theirs who used to occasionally join the game, Jon Voight. We began arriving at the theatre earlier and earlier as the show’s run continued. Sometimes the stage manager had to nearly drag us out of the poker room when show time came.

“Jerry was the best player I ever saw. His acting skills were a big help but it was his personality that really made him great at the game. Jerry was the personification of “cool”. We remained friends until his untimely death in 2004. The Reverend Elizabeth Hepburn, my once and future wife, presided at his funeral.

“One of the highlights of the production for us all was when Leonard Bernstein decided to do the cast album with us. As it turned out we did it with Gershon but we had several rehearsals with Lenny and I got to show off my high C for him. He, too, was cool.

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 “One particularly odd event occurred one evening when Gordon Clarke (Mr. Mister) was doing his scene with me as Dr. Doctor. Mr. Mister becomes extremely agitated and shouts that he’s ‘in the middle of an earthquake!’ On the word “earthquake” his upper plate was ejected from his mouth and became airborne. Without missing a beat he snatched it in mid-flight, slammed it back into his mouth and continued as though nothing untoward had happened. The rest of the cast didn’t see it that way. We all, with the single exception of Jerry, who maintained his professional equanimity, began to laugh uncontrollably. Gordon gave me a look that could have frozen beer and continued his rant.

“Later I remarked to Jerry that I was very impressed with his stoicism in the face of such hilarity. He said that the only time he’d had trouble with breaking up had been in the weeks before The Fantasticks opened when he sang the lyric, ‘The gothic rape. I play Valkyrie on a bass bassoon.’ But he got over it by opening night.

“Due to sickness of cast members and other reasons, before the show closed I got to play a total of five different roles. In one performance I played four and they gave me a solo curtain call.”

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