Nicole Barth on Hello, Dolly!
Nicole Barth first started taking dance class for health
reasons, although her mother said she always “jiggled around.” Her family moved
to New York from France during the war. She was a very nervous child, threw up
a lot, etc. The doctor said to give her some exercises to get her hunger up and
that’s when she started dancing. She didn’t like her first teacher because she
was always telling her she wasn’t doing it right. Luckily enough, she had a
cousin who was almost like a father to her, working in Woolworth’s. Rita
Moreno’s mother was also working there. That’s how Nicole found her first dance
teacher in New York. The bug bit immediately. She had found the right teachers.
Jack Stanley and Jack Pottinger were there names. Nicole started in tap. Jack
Stanley told her that if she desired a career in dance, she also needed
classical ballet training, so she started ballet classes. She did four classes
a day on Saturday and two or three classes a day during the week.
Then she went to the High School of Performing Arts. She did
summer stock when she was fifteen after graduating and then went on to college.
Her first summer stock job she calls “The Stupid Prince” (The Student Prince).
It was a gorgeous production in Hyannis in theater in the round. The first
night that she had to perform, they dimmed the lights, she couldn’t see and
never got on stage in the first act! She kept going up and down the aisles. In
the second act, they got her on stage. It was a great summer. There were a lot
of people from City Opera performing there. They also did The Wizard of Oz that summer. Julius Rudel from City Center was the
conductor that summer. She got her Equity card that first summer. Things were a
little different then. Nowadays, there are different requirements to get an
Equity card.
She went back to New York and started auditioning and
eventually got her first Broadway show, Take
Me Along in 1959, based on the Eugene O'Neill play Ah, Wilderness, with music and lyrics by Bob Merrill and book by
Joseph Stein and Robert Russell. This was produced by David Merrick. It starred
Walter Pidgeon and Jackie Gleason. Also in this cast was Valerie Harper. She
and Nicole have remained friends to this day.
That was also Valerie’s Broadway
debut, as well. Valerie then went into L’il
Abner as a replacement.
After Take Me Along,
Nicole went into Carnival, again with
David Merrick and Bob Merrill. Right after that she did a show called Nowhere to Go but Up. Joel Craig was
also in that cast. She thinks it would work today.
Choreographer Ron Field |
Ron Field was the
choreographer. Michael Bennett was the assistant choreographer. The cast also
included Martin Balsam and Dorothy Loudon and Tom Bosley. It was a fun show
with a lot of fun people. That happened just before Dolly. Also before Dolly, Nicole was doing a summer replacement
television show. She went into Dolly almost on a fluke.
Nicole was already established as a Broadway gypsy when Hello, Dolly came along. Nicole was
called to come in for the final call. In those days, when the choreographers
knew the artists, they would personally call them in. These artists rarely went
to the initial calls. They would come in for the final calls. That’s how she
heard about it and she was cast immediately as part of the ensemble.
The cast, as we now know it, was in place except Barnaby.
There were two other actors in place before they got to Jerry Dodge.
Nicole had met Carol prior to Dolly. She was one of the
guests on the summer television series Nicole was on, The Keith Purcell Show. Streisand also appeared
on that show.
They had a lot of fun people.
It
was sponsored by Jackie Gleason.
Nicole grew to respect Carol more and more as they continued
to work together. Nicole remembers observing how she stood. It was like a
little girl. She also dressed like a little girl, with short skirts etc. She
was interesting.
Nicole remembers thinking that Carol was a very unique person.
Nicole had also seen her in Gentlemen
Prefer Blondes.
Once rehearsals started, Gower spent so much time working on
The Waiter’s Gallop and the title
number, that there was a lot of sitting around for the rest of the company just
twiddling their thumbs. There was a lot of shushing going on from Gower.
She
knew from Carnival that NOBODY stood
behind him when he was working. He didn’t care who it was. He just didn’t allow
it.
Nicole loved it when they were standing around the piano
with Jerry Herman. It was very exciting.
They rehearsed for six weeks at the Mark Hellinger Theater
before heading to The Fisher Theater in Detroit. That was the standard
rehearsal period.
Original program for Hello, Dolly (Fisher Theater) |
Contrary to various reports, Nicole never thought the show
was ever in trouble.
She also feels that the rest of the company felt the same
way. She knew there was tension going on between Merrick and Gower, but she
never felt the show was in danger there.
It was a short rehearsal period in Detroit, not like today.
They rehearsed for one week. She knew nothing about Charles Strouse and Lee
Adams being brought in until Gower lost his temper.
The first public
performance of Hello, Dolly, two new
songs were going in that were “not Jerry’s”. That was the “rumor”
circulating. The rumor was that Bob
Merrill had written those two songs, Elegance
and The Motherhood March.
Their first performance in Detroit was November 18th,
a Monday night. On Friday afternoon, November 22nd, President
Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.
Nicole very clearly remembers that day. They were in the
basement of the theater. Bonnie Schon (ensemble) broke the news to the cast. Everything
shut down.
Nicole remembers watching the news coverage with Lowell Purvis and
Ed Kressley. There was no show for several days. They did have a rehearsal the
evening of the 22nd.
President and Mrs. Kennedy at National Theatre, 25 September 1962 (Photo ...
|
The Kennedy’s were supposed to come see the show at The
National Theater in Washington, DC in December of '63.
Because of the mood of the nation, the Hello, Dolly Company
did not know how they were going to be received in Washington. It almost felt
doomed in a way.
On New Year’s Eve, just before midnight, Gower told the
Company he had a surprise for them and played Louis Armstrong’s recording of Hello, Dolly which had just been
recorded earlier that month.
Two weeks later, they were at the St. James Theater in New
York City. They teched in the theater on Tuesday, January 14th. They
did a matinee and evening performance on January 15th, and
officially opened on Broadway on January 16th. That was pretty much
the norm. The first time that Nicole had a long preview period was when she did
Sugar.
It was a very exciting old Broadway type of opening. The
reviews were mostly raves. In the Dancing
number, Nicole had a bit that was a favorite of hers.
There was a trio step
that was also one of Gower’s favorites. She remembers one of the reviewers said
in that number that the dancers looked as if they just skimmed across the
floor, that they barely touched the ground. Nicole was thrilled that the
reviewer got it.
When the show opened, there was a number after the Dolly
number called Come and Be My Butterfly. Gower was never happy with that number.
In what is unprecedented, he kept trying to make that number work. When Gower
started getting the Mary Martin Company ready, he replaced that number with the
Polka Contest. That is still in the show till this day. The Polka Contest also
went into Carol’s first National tour.
Nicole Barth and David Burns: Come and Be My Butterfly |
Nicole was one of the Butterfly girls and loved that number. It was such a
mixture of the beautiful wings going back and forth and all the colors. Then
there was the comedy in which David Burns, as Horace, got caught up in their
wings. David would mutter under his breath, “Get out of here you dirty moths”
in a stage whisper bringing down the house. It was a fun, playful number. They
rehearsed it so many times. Nicole remembers saying as they were going to
rehearse once more, “Not again!?!?!” Unbeknownst to her, Gower was standing
right behind her. He was playful about it all.
Also on opening night, Nicole got pregnant! There were
severe snow storms in New York and Nicole lived out in Cederhurst at the time.
She was a little bit afraid of being stuck out there so she came in and stayed
at The Hilton. Because of this, Nicole only stayed with the show five months
initially. She hid it as long as she could. One night, she heard that someone
had gotten fired from the Bye, Bye Birdie
Company due to pregnancy. She was having such a great time in Dolly. It was
like going to a party every night. She just loved it and everybody in it that
she didn’t want to tell anyone of her situation because she didn’t want to
leave so soon. She kept it very quite; in fact, she started out wearing a
corset with padding in the back to give a certain look especially in the Dancing number. As she started showing
below the belt, she would stand a certain way to make up for the fact that she
stopped adding the padding. When she was dancing, no one could tell but she
would get pretty breathless. One night, in Before
the Parade Passes By, her dress split right on stage. She had to let them
know. Her dresser was Bob Fitch’s wife. She knew before Nicole told her. She
even told Nicole that she owed her a thumb having almost lost it trying to zip her up! Nicole was terrified to go to Gower
but he told her to stay with the show for as long as she could do it. She
stayed into her fifth month. Her baby was sitting on a nerve and Nicole could
no longer move as much. She also fell on stage.
Jerry Herman and Charles Nelson Reilly
|
The Company knew by then and she could
hear an audible gasp from the company.
It was at the end of the Dancing number in which Nicole and
Paul Solen fell.
Everyone was moving in one direction as the set was moving in
another.
Nicole and Paul were going out on the ramp.
They were running around and waltzing. Their
timing had to be just right; otherwise they would be stuck behind the set. She
fell, but that didn’t stop her. She just got right up and continued. Once when she arrived at the theater, coming
all the way in from Long Island, there was a sign on the stage door, “Stay
away, Nicole! There are measles!!” Someone in the company had contracted
measles and they didn’t want her to be exposed. When she
left, she was out of the show for six months before returning.
When Nicole returned, Carol was still in the show but they
were getting ready to put Ginger Rogers in the show.
Nicole thought Rogers was
OK in the show. In the Dancing
number, from the moment the chorus came on, Nicole never stopped. She did
almost every step of that number. Gower told Nicole that he had to take some of
that away from her. The same thing happened to Sondra Lee regarding her dance
around Dolly at the end of that number. It was modified to put the focus on
Dolly/Ginger. Nicole was distraught. It was one of her favorite moments in the
show. She thought she would never again find something that was so fluid and so
much fun. Ginger did it for one or two nights and could not do it, so Nicole
got everything back. She was just too out of breath for it. It was a non
stopping dance number in which Ginger would have to waltz out of one wing and
waltzing back in the other…seemingly to never stop. Nicole stayed on with Ginger
for about a year and a half. She left the show prior to Betty Grable coming in.
Nicole was offered to come back as the dance captain when
Ethel Merman came into the show. Nicole thought she would be a better dance
captain if she was not in the show. They were not interested in just that
scenario.
Nicole was involved in other things at that time and didn’t want to go “backwards”.
Nicole did see Pearl Bailey as Dolly. She found her
interesting. Bailey brought a whole new element to the show.
It was very
entertaining. Carol was Carol when she did it and the same could be said of
Pearl. Nicole also saw Phyllis Diller play Dolly. She could not compare it to
either Carol or Pearl. It was an interesting portrayal, however.
Nicole is such a Streisand fan, but feels the movie was so
wrong.
The movie became “too big” even though it was Gene Kelly. It just didn’t
have the excitement or the theatricality of the stage production.
Gower Champion had such an eye for detail. He was a painter
on stage. Everything was really, really specific. Sunday Clothes worked anyway, but it wasn’t as breathtaking as when
everyone was angled in the way he staged everyone.
Marge and Gower,1952 ...
|
Also, in Dancing, he always stressed that when
the dancers glided, they didn’t bounce. When they ran, they flowed with it, when
they stood in their plie, they were taught to cover the ground.
Nicole attributes Dolly’s staying power to Gower’s staging
and original intention. It was all in the details. She feels that he is so
under rated. He had a flow as a director/choreographer. There is more of an
innate sense of timing when you have a director/choreographer as opposed to having
two people to cover that, depending upon the talent, of course. Gower had such a
sense of timing and style that the combination just worked.
Nicole thinks Dolly should eventually return to Broadway,
but not so soon. She hopes that whoever brings it in will pay as much attention
to detail as Gower did. She doesn’t know if today’s generation would have the
patience for a show like Dolly.
What did Nicole like most about being in the show? “The
dancing.” She felt a freedom working with Gower. She felt that on all the shows
she did with him. Everyone had to dance together when they all danced together,
but they were all individuals. He always stressed that his work was simple.
What made it work is what each individual brought to the stage. Nicole felt
very free and also felt that she was in on the creativity of the shows she did
with Gower. Whatever she felt when she was dancing, he accepted.
Gower Champion. -He died on Aug/25/1980, was born on Jun/22/1921
|
He was not a
cookie-cutter. Even when he was choreographing, she could almost feel what he
was going to do next. There was a certain circular thing that the female dancers
did in Dancing that had to go at a
certain speed. Gower got behind Nicole and chased her to make the circle go
even faster. He was very keen on angles. The dancers were staged in a way to
create certain tableaux’s on stage. Nicole watched Gower like a hawk. She felt
she danced “differently” after working with him.
The only low point for Nicole during her Dolly days was
President Kennedy’s assassination.
The wildest thing that happened to Nicole on stage happened
in Detroit. It was during the transition of the set from the Hay and Feed store
on to the next scene. Paul Solen and Nicole were waltzing around the stage
during the transition. There was supposed to be a step inside the Hay and Feed
Store for Nicole to step on to and do a well timed leap. One night, they forgot
to set the step! She was determined to do what she was directed to do and she
did! Gower and Lowell teased her for a long time after this.
Working with Freddy Wittop, the costume designer, this was the second time for
Nicole. She thought he was great and he was so nice. She remembers his mink
lined fur coat! She felt his costume designs were wonderful.
Hello, Dolly is
such a wonderfully story telling Broadway show. It is so up.
It is very stylized.
It is a wonderful vehicle for a leading lady.
Speaking of leading ladies, Gower was very hands on with Carol.
In addition to Marge, Ed Kressley also worked with Carol a lot.
Nicole adored working with Jerry Herman. She felt like a
little kid in a toy store. He was so sweet and so enthusiastic. She remembers
when they first met. He had done a show off-Broadway called Parade. He had written a song, Your Hand in My Hand. She didn’t know it
was him.
When they started working together on Dolly, and she realized that he had written this song that she
loved. She remembers loving that song from the moment she heard it and still
believes it is a wonderful song. She also feels that he is so cruelly underrated
with all that he has done. It took way too long for the Kennedy Center Honors.
There have been legendary varying versions of the night
Carol fell off the stage into the orchestra pit.
Nicole’s recollection is that
she never stopped. She fell off of the stage right side. She was getting ready
to cross over to stage left on the ramp and she missed but she continued! She
climbed back up and ended up on stage left. The audience response was amazement.
Gower during his MGM days |
Nicole does not recall her closing night but she does recall
her closing day due to her pregnancy. They gave her a “closing party” at a
restaurant called El Soma. She was happy/sad going home. She was excited about
giving birth to her daughter but she hated to leave the Company. Her husband
picked her up loaded with gifts.
She recalls this huge teddy bear in the car. It
was a wonderful send off.
Gower sent a note saying that he was sorry that he couldn’t
be there.
When she finally left the show, she immediately went into
rehearsals for an industrial. She needed a change.
Hello, Dolly, for Nicole Barth, is extremely personal. She
loved Broadway since she was a little girl and never desired to do anything
else. She started out as a ballet dancer but that way of life seemed very
restrictive to her. The moment she heard an overture she was hooked. She
enjoyed the other shows of her career but LOVED Dolly! She loved going to work every night. It was such a hit show.
It was like wearing a special suit.
When people found out she was in Hello, Dolly, they reacted differently.
Thank you Nicole Barth for the gifts you have given to the world and will continue to give!
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!
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!
Thank you, to all the mentioned in this blog!
TILL TOMORROW...HERE'S TO AN ARTS FILLED DAY
Richard 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!
Thank you Nicole Barth for the gifts you have given to the world and will continue to give!
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!
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... My interview with Dancer Jerry Bell on Hello, Dolly!
Thank you, to all the mentioned in this blog!
Here's to an INCREDIBLE tomorrow for ALL...with NO challenges!
TILL TOMORROW...HERE'S TO AN ARTS FILLED DAY
Richard 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!
Thanks for sharing, nice post! Post really provice useful information!
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