Half a lifetime ago ...
This little thing brought an episode fluttering back ...
In my time, I cast or part-cast or re-cast a schlepp of (mostly) musicals, from On the Twentieth Century through Barnum, Singin' in the Rain, Chess, 42nd Street, the splendid Charlie Girl revival, Robert and Elizabeth, Fat Pig, Carmen Negra (Vienna), The Biograph Girl, and .. I forget (some, purposely). Most of the assignments were thoroughly enjoyable - I except the Peg experience, with a producer who could be persuaded into ghastly extravagances by .. well, enough. THAT's another story!
The producer of 42nd Street -- dear Helen Montagu -- was a little like that, too. Ring up dahhhling Helen and avoid that punctilious casting director -- even Harold F got briefly caught that way until he realised that I could find him better (and cheaper) than Miss X's clients!
I adored Helen. And after my long stint on 42nd Street, I became her reference in casting matters. Chuckle, I was better and cheaper than most around! So much so, that when she produced this delicious play, I was given -- my first non-musical job -- the casting. Halloo Hallay! Certain agents became much more respectful towards this man who 'only does musicals'.
The joy was slightly muted by the fact that 'we have to have Wendy Hiller, dahling'. Fair enough. Name value. I didn't fight Michael Crawford in Barnum or Tommy Steele in Singin' in the Rain .. who would? They were both superb, a joy to work with on repeated re-castings ... happy days!
I found an excellent understudy for Michael ... yes, that's an important part of the job, as important as three days of chorus replacements .. it's not all above-the-title casting!
So. We would need a cover for Wendy, an elderly black man (not easy, in the UK!), and a middleaged actor with (imho) a special quality. He has to be quite nice, but 'managing'. WRONG! I was sorting out potential Wendy covers, when Helen bombed: 'Oh she won't be off, dahling, and if she is, we'll just cancel'. Theoretically, my job had just been made easier. But it hadn't.
I lined up every ageing gent of colour in the UK. Most of them, I had to dig out with a microscope. We needed TWO of these rarae aves. Player and cover. Oyyyyyyy! And, of course, that useless blob named Equity wouldn't let us import. Day One of auditions. Disaster. The lovely Alfred Uhry blanked them all. They have West Indian accents! Oyyy! We can't cast Bertice Reading ...
We saw some very, very capable actors for the part of the son. Any one of ten of them would have been capable of playing the part. But there was one who SHONE ... his name was David. Something. He'd just been in something in the West End. And he was PERFECT. Did the get the part? No. I pushed and shoved. Alfred didn't seem to care .. and, then, Mr Barry Foster swanned on to the stage. 'Hello, Helen. Of course, you won't want ME to read, will you?' A cold shiver went down my back. I'm going to be debited with casting this man. And, yes ... dammit, Helen fell for it. He played the role exactly as any of the ten others could have done ... David, I'm sorry, it should have been your part. Huh! The Foster family tried this on me again with daughter Joanna ... I won that time.
As for the hugely important role of the chauffeur ... well, we got there. I knew Clarke Peters as a youngish song-and-dance lad. But he was negro and American so, I made a call and .... Clarke, made up old(ish), was a triumph. I am glad he was never off, for one of aged West Indians was, perforce, his understudy.
Wendy was OK, Clarke stole the show, Foster was forgettable ....
Helen died. And noone ever entrusted me with a play again.
PS Merde, I see Mr Foster even negotiated himself second billing above Peters ... yeccccch!
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