This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Michael Betts: I did go to my local library, plug local public libraries, and checked out Carol Channing's memoir of sorts called Just Lucky, I Guess. Now, I don't have a great Carol Channing impression. Oh, my God. I mean, you can't. How can you not have a good Carol Channing? Of course, they're going to say that I don't sound like Carol Channing at all. So you can edit this out. I love that in order to do a Carol Channing, you have to speak lower than your voice naturally goes. And you sort of have to lean forward, you just have to do it with your hands. And you just, it just is.

[0:45] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Welcome, everybody, to A Musical Theatre Podcast, where we discuss the emotional and cultural impact of some of our favorite musicals in theatre history. My name is Jeffrey Scott Parsons, you can call me Jeff. And little Jeffrey is very excited because today we're talking about Hello, Dolly. And to discuss that glorious show is my dear friend, and patron saint of musical theatre. Oh, my God, not dead yet. Mr. Michael Betts. Michael, we met in 2008, right?

[1:17] Michael Betts: I don't even remember when we met.

[1:18] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I'm thinking it was 2008 because I moved to California in 2007.

[1:22] Michael Betts: Okay.

[1:23] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And then for a long time, you ran the Reiner Reading Series, which gave all of us in Southern California the great opportunity to be in or see shows that we would never get to do or see.

[1:34] Michael Betts: I feel like I emailed you when you announced you're doing Anyone Can Whistle. And I was like, I'll be a cookie in the cookie jar. I don't care what it is. Just let me be in the show.

[1:42] Michael Betts: The closing of our first season. And I was just saying yesterday was the first time that we sort of knew what the series could be because it was a rock concert. We had no idea. Cynthia Ferrer finished Me and My Town and the audience literally went nuts. And it was like, what is going on? We had no idea. Yeah, that's so cool. And then they got to the book scenes and would go, what is going on? What is this? And then another number would happen and the audience would scream and then we'd go back to a book scene and be like, what is going on? And that is Anyone Can Whistle. So thank you. Thank you for all of your work to make all of that happen.

[2:15] Michael Betts: I love musicals, I think as much as you do. And when you say Little Jeffrey, Little Michael's like, this is life giving to coming here and doing especially this show. What was your first exposure to Hello, Dolly?

[2:28] Michael Betts: You know what? I honestly have no idea. I think my first exposure to Dolly might have been doing it at Long Beach Civic Light Opera a million and a half years ago in 1991 with Nell Carter and Nipsey Russell.

[2:41] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Hold on. I'm sorry. I just need to. It's a good thing I'm sitting down. So Nell Carter.

[2:46] Michael Betts: Nell Carter.

[2:47] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Was freaking Dolly.

[2:48] Michael Betts: She was Dolly Levi. And it's on YouTube. It's on YouTube. I literally like how you stop. And I feel like in preparation for this episode, I've gone through every YouTube clip associated with Hello, Dolly. And somehow I never came across that.

[3:02] Michael Betts: It's not the whole show. It's Nell doing Before the Parade Passes By and doing Dolly. And it's like, oh my gosh, it's everything. She was perfection.

[3:12] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: OK, I saw Nell Carter in Annie in the Annie revival. And that's all I have to say about that.

[3:21] Michael Betts: But then you also saw Sutton Foster.

[3:23] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. Oh, no, you're exactly right.

[3:24] Michael Betts: Sutton Foster was Stardew Bay.

[3:25] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Was Stardew Bay.

[3:27] Michael Betts: This is going to be one of those podcasts that just goes on and on and on. We're just going to free associate.

[3:31] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. And then later on, I kind of edit something together that is under two hours.

[3:37] Michael Betts: When you can get a break and they're like, I do some of the video work for work. And I'm like, can you all please take a breath because I can't edit if there's no. And so far, I don't think there's been a pause or a breath.

[3:47] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Not really.

[3:48] Michael Betts: This entire conversation.

[3:49] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's OK. So we're rewinding to, you know, pre-1964, which is when Hello, Dolly is coming to be now. At that point, musicals in the 60s, composers were discovered off Broadway, but ideas weren't really discovered off Broadway. Whereas nowadays we think of kind of the more cutting edge stuff is off Broadway and then it transfers to Broadway. But Jerry Herman was doing his review parade, which was not to be confused with the Jason Robert Brown parade. This was a lot more sunny and it was literally a review. And David Merrick discovered him and had him pitch for Dolly.

[4:25] Michael Betts: But right before, right out of parade, he wrote Milk and Honey, right? Didn't he do a score for Milk and Honey at that point?

[4:32] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I believe you're correct. The Jerry Herman autobiography is sitting right next to us, just for fact checking.

[4:38] Michael Betts: So Milk and Honey was a show that took place in Israel and the producers of that flew him because he was and has always been a composer and lyricist, music and lyrics, flew him to Israel. He created a great score for Milk and Honey, got nominated for a Tony Award that year. David Merrick hears his score and decides that he might be a good fit for the musical version of Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker, which he's putting together.

[5:05] Michael Betts: So David Merrick, titan of Broadway, huge personality in terms of old school producing musicals. Ken Mandelbaum wrote a biography on him called The Abominable Showman, excuse me. And everybody knew exactly who it was just from the title. So he's pretty legendary in both temper and, I guess, just getting things done.

[5:26] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: But brilliant.

[5:27] Michael Betts: But yeah, absolutely. Absolutely brilliant. From what I remember Jerry Herman saying, David Merrick was a little concerned that he wasn't, quote unquote, American enough to write the score of Hello, Dolly, because he had just written Milk and Honey and had this obviously very Jewish, I guess, reference in terms of his musical writing. So he had Jerry Herman write four songs as a pitch, right, as an audition to write this show.

[5:56] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And so he went and did it in a weekend, I think three of which are still in the show. And he got essentially the job.

[6:06] Michael Betts: At this point...

[6:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: But there was still concern all along the way.

[6:10] Michael Betts: Like Merrick sort of never let up. And it's something Jerry talks about in his autobiography, that Merrick never let up on him not being the right fit all the way through the process.

[6:20] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Now, at this point, we have Michael Stewart, who has already written the book. Jerry Herman, who's now on the team as composer, lyricist. You got Gower Champion as director, choreographer. And you have Carol Channing as the star.

[6:39] Michael Betts: Well, Merman was originally who Merrick and Herman wanted.

[6:46] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It was first Merman, and then it was Mary Martin.

[6:49] Michael Betts: And both of them turned it down.

[6:50] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Both of them passed, yes. And then, according to Carol Channing's biography, he saw her in a play and then said, and this is according to her, We love her. that he was going to create a show for her.

[7:09] Michael Betts: So, and it ended up being Hello, Dolly. Now, Hello, Dolly was originally titled Dolly colon A Damn Exasperating Woman, which I don't know how that title didn't survive. And I'm sure they tried to replace the colon with an exclamation point at some point. That was very big in the 60s.

[7:30] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: This is a very good point. Hello, Dolly. Donnie Brook. Hello, Dolly. Oklahoma. Exclamation points.

[7:37] Michael Betts: Yeah, well, 40s. Sure.

[7:38] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Hello, Dolly, though, is one of the shows, I think, that deserves the exclamation point.

[7:42] Michael Betts: Oh, Abso-frickin-lutely.

[7:44] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[7:44] Michael Betts: Like, Oliver. Why does Oliver get an—Oliver should, like, have an ellipsis.

[7:49] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Carnival had one.

[7:51] Michael Betts: Carnival did, too. Carnival had one, but it was taken away because Gower Champion did not feel like that that told the story of the show.

[7:59] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: The exclamation point made it too much of a big, splashy musical.

[8:02] Michael Betts: Sure.

[8:02] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. It was a little softer.

[8:04] Michael Betts: Needed a dash.

[8:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Maybe the first act needs a question mark. I don't know.

[8:14] Michael Betts: I can't with you.

[8:17] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Carol Channing.

[8:18] Michael Betts: Can you—

[8:18] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Golden Globe winner.

[8:19] Michael Betts: I mean, Golden Globe winner.

[8:21] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: One of my favorite movies of all time.

[8:22] Michael Betts: Academy Award nominee.

[8:25] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[8:26] Michael Betts: For Thoroughly Modern Millie. Now, can you give just kind of a brief intro as to who Carol is?

[8:34] Michael Betts: I mean, pre-Hello, Dolly.

[8:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Pre-Hello, Dolly, Carol was famous for playing Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, another show that she wasn't necessarily wanted for.

[8:44] Michael Betts: Right.

[8:45] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: She had to prove herself to win that role, and she became known and synonymous with that character and that role until Dolly came along.

[8:53] Michael Betts: That's what she did. For those who might not know, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is famous for the song Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend.

[9:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Currently being sung in Moulin Rouge on Broadway.

[9:05] Michael Betts: So just remember, before Satine sang that song, it was Carol Channing.

[9:10] Michael Betts: And before Marilyn Monroe sang that song, it was—lots of people think it's a Marilyn song, and it is absolutely a Carol Channing song.

[9:16] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[9:17] Michael Betts: But she understood the satire. That's where she did a review called Lend an Ear. She was known for her satiric performances, for her impressions. She did everybody from Carmen Miranda to Marlena Dietrich. Like, she—

[9:31] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Lula Bankhead.

[9:32] Michael Betts: She did those. That's what she was famous for. And she was also famous for being a personality. It's when Broadway shows starred personalities and people who were very different and not sort of homogenous as they are today. You had these variety shows on television, and you wanted people who were—I mean, strange, to say the least, right? But individuals who people loved to love. And Carol Channing was absolutely one of those people.

[10:01] Michael Betts: And Carol was also maverick. She and her husband, Charles Lowe, or her former husband, Charles Lowe, crafted—her campaigns were amazing. She had three-by-five cards that she would write things down on, information about the people who were interviewing her and the towns and things. So when she came back through on a tour, she would be able to ask them personal questions like, how is this person in your life? How is—so she knew how to cultivate those relationships so beautifully. And she learned from the Lunts that, as they said and she said, you have to tour the provinces. To be known at that time, you took a show on tour. It wasn't that—Patty LuPone does Gypsy in New York, and New York is the only place to see it. Carol Channing took Gentlemen Prefer Blondes out on the road, took Dolly out on the road a thousand times. But she got to know the people, and the people got to know her, and that's how she became famous.

[11:00] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's an incredible work ethic. Can I tell you my exposure to Carol and Hello, Dolly? Because they didn't happen at the same time. I find that to be problematic, is what I should say.

[11:13] Michael Betts: I first saw Hello, Dolly as the movie version.

[11:20] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I know.

[11:21] Michael Betts: And I loved it. This is true. I was young. I was young, forgive me.

[11:27] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: He's still young, everybody.

[11:30] Michael Betts: But this was back in the day when the Disney Channel in the evening had programming for grown-ups. Do you remember that? During the day, it would be 90s party fonts, and then you'd hit 7 o'clock, and everything would change to this golden, elegant hue, and they would have programming for older people.

[11:49] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And that's how I saw the Gloria Estefan concert coming home. That's how I saw the ghost in Mrs. Muir. And that's how I saw Hello, Dolly. And when I saw that Hello, Dolly was going to be on, I remember I wanted to record it, so I got out a VCR tape. I put it in my VCR.

[12:06] Michael Betts: A VCR tape?

[12:08] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: A VHS tape. Put it into the VCR. There's so many technological terms back then that I don't use anymore. And I recorded it. I got done, took it out, put a big old piece of masking tape on it, and I wrote Hello, Dolly, exclamation point.

[12:27] Michael Betts: Comma. Hello, comma, Dolly, exclamation point.

[12:30] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Don't forget the comma.

[12:31] Michael Betts: Absolutely. Do not record over parentheses, Dad, this means you.

[12:37] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Because my dad was very into recording NASCAR races, and he would just grab any old VHS tape. And I had a lot of episodes of the new Mickey Mouse Club that had been recorded over because of those races.

[12:50] Michael Betts: Britney Spears, Britney Spears.

[12:51] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: This was pre-Britney. It was like late 80s.

[12:55] Michael Betts: Wow.

[12:55] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So Hello, Dolly was preserved because of that piece of masking tape, much to the chagrin of my family, I'm sure, because I watched that thing all the time. There was one summer, I think I watched it every single day, and if in a BuzzFeed sort of way you asked my family, like, which Pixar character I am, they'd most definitely say WALL-E because I watched the film version of Hello, Dolly incessantly.

[13:19] Michael Betts: So I thought Dolly Gallagher Levi was Barbra Streisand in terms of type and performance. That is how I understood the story.

[13:26] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And I just have to interject this. Before the parade passes by, sung by Barbra Streisand, the parade is already gone and six miles away before she finishes singing the word parade.

[13:38] Michael Betts: Like, I can't. I just can't. And you're going to leap across and grab me by the throat and go, how could you? I am on this show telling you that other than clips, I have never seen the movie from beginning to end.

[13:50] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Really?

[13:51] Michael Betts: I don't like Barbra and Michael Crawford's intonation. He's doing a really weird voice. I just can't. I can't. I can't. Walter Matthau is in it as well, and he and Barbra have, like, zero chemistry.

[14:05] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: The rumor is they hated each other.

[14:06] Michael Betts: Yeah. Well, she's playing it like Barbra meets Mae West.

[14:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes.

[14:10] Michael Betts: But there's a lot of comedy that's still really great. Gene Kelly directed it. So you've got a lot of interesting interpretations of what he sees as Gower Champion. It's huge, and it's epic. And I go back to the actor Lance Roberts put this beautiful post up when the haters were hating on Carrie Underwood in Sound of Music Live. And he said, hey, people, I loved Hello, Dolly! when I was a kid. Loved it, loved it, loved it. It wasn't until college that someone told him it was bad, and then he looked at it again and went, oh, yeah, it's a terrible movie. Who cares? What we fall in love with as kids that bring us to being able to record a show with Jeffrey Scott Parsons. Who cares?

[14:50] Michael Betts: I really did. I did love it. And this is proving your point. I loved it so much that when the Carol Channing revival tour came through Salt Lake City in like the early 90s, my grandparents got tickets for themselves and for me. That's how well known it was that I loved HELLO, DOLLY! It was my grandparents who are farmers were like, well, you know, it's coming through down in Salt Lake. Let's let's all go. And I was like, great. Who's playing Dolly? Because Barbara has some big shoes to fill. And it was Carol Channing. And I like who? No, my first thought was the crazy raspberry lady from Thoroughly Modern Millie is playing Dolly. How is that going to work? And how it worked if seeing Dolly in the theater, because I had only done HELLO, DOLLY! before I'd never seen the show until I saw Carol Channing do the tour.

It was life changing for me to every word was funny. But but I mean, literally, every word was funny. It's what you can do when you have 30 years with a role with a role. But there wasn't a beat that wasn't filled. There wasn't air to the show. There was so much heart. I was talking I teach on Thursday afternoons, and I was talking to my kids about roller coaster shows, roller coaster moments that I love. The lap bar comes down and you're suddenly taken somewhere emotionally that you didn't expect to. Sure. And she is so funny and so fun. And so the show is moving forward and forward and forward. And she comes out on the pass around before the first act ends and says, let me go from and the audience just it's this beautiful, sparkly, emotional moment that you didn't think you were going to get from this woman or this show.

And it plays different than anyone else I've ever seen it play with. Because she is so funny that that moment just the lap bar comes down and you're like, Oh, we're going on a ride now. That's really beautiful. And exactly how I felt because once again, I was walked into it being, you know, thinking I knew everything at the age of 11. And not expecting her to win me over. And she instantly did. And to this day, I think it's, it's burned in my memory as what comedy in musical theater looks and feels like. Like it was just a masterclass from beginning to comedy with an emotional bottom.

[17:21] Michael Betts: Well, because when we get to talking about the revival, I have very, very, very strong opinions on the revival. And I think that that is what real comedy is, then is that it's not just about bits. And it's not just it's, it's the, it's the cleanliness, you know, of Carol, because there were there were moments where I was like, Oh, it's funny, because she's not doing anything. And you think of Carol Channing as being this wild person. And she just stands, she would just she would stand her ground stuff would just happen around her. Now, I had heard that part of that was because of her age. And I also, there were enough people had seen it originally, who said like she was or had worked on it originally, who said she was not a shadow of what she could do before, but not, it wasn't what it was before.

But I didn't know it. And I also remember at the very end of the show, she addressed the audience and would always and you could tell that she had done this a gajillion times before, and someone probably removed Cerrito, right? Like, like, right before, I'm sure they reminded her where she was and everything. But people ate it up. And we had just been told that we were going to be hosting the Olympics, the Winter Olympics. And so she had found that out and included it in the speech and people went insane because she had personalized the show just for them. But she knew she was a brand. And she had to do that as her brand. I will say the other thing the 94 tour did for me was I had heard the cast album, the original cast album, and they were albums at that point.

It might have been on disc, but I think I had the LP. And I had done it twice at that point. But I didn't get ribbons down my back. I didn't get it. I didn't get it. I didn't get it. And then Florence Lacey came out stood without moving a muscle and belted the crap out of that song. He went, Oh, of course, Irene Malloy is this really strong woman in this time that that wasn't necessarily accepted and entrepreneur. And so she belted ribbons down my back. He went, Oh, yeah, yeah, that's, that's it. That's what it should be. But it's this beautiful story about these really, really strong women. That's the thing that the show's not done as often as it should be in this time period that we need those strong women on stage. And it's not a strong woman like a Mama Rose who has a dark side. Dolly's just trying to make everybody she's trying to make everyone's story work.

[20:02] Michael Betts: Okay, when I was younger, excuse me, which was yesterday. No, when I was little, which was yesterday, when I was a young lad, my, my dad would have us go caroling to the widows in town during Christmas. So as a family, we would get plates of cookies together. Dress up as Carol Channing. Yeah, exactly. When I say caroling, you mean like, I mean, we put on the white wig. Yeah. And dance like a Muppet. No, we we sang Christmas carols. My brother, my older brother would accompany us on the guitar, and we'd give them a plate of cookies. Now, that was my understanding of who widows were. So they were these elderly women who didn't have anybody in their lives, and were kind of waiting for us to come and sing to them and bring them plates of cookies. They were always really sweet, wonderful ladies, and they were always very grateful to have us. But what I forget is that Dolly Levi, who's kind of the antithesis of that type of person, is also a widow. And I love...

[21:02] Mary Jo Catlett: It's a show about widows at the end of the day.

[21:04] Michael Betts: Yeah, as a, as a, as someone who grew up with a mom who became a widow very, very young, I think that Hello Dolly is an incredible tool for not only women, but for us as a society to remember that like crap happens in life. And that we are not all just one thing. We are when we are widows, we're not just, you know, white haired ladies waiting for Christmas carols. We are, we are people who are trying to figure out what's next and how to live. And in Dolly's case, she decides that she needs to rejoin the human race that she she's been looking and taking care of everyone else. And in the meantime, letting the parade pass her by. And not only that, I mean, there's, there's a few musical theater moments and there's a couple movie moments that always get me, always, always.

The entire production of 1776 always gets me. Captain Andy telling Magnolia to smile nullly in the second act of the show that always gets me. But Irene coming out and saying, Dolly says, Irene, why, Irene, you're crying. And she says, Oh, Dolly, the world is full of wonderful things. This woman whose life she's trying to rebuild after the death of her husband, and she's trying to become a millionairess, a wicked woman. And she's doing all of these things has sort of forgotten the joy in the world. And as Dolly has taught and has taught and as Dolly has taught Cornelius how to dance with Irene, and dancing happens after this joyous number. Irene realizes that there's joy and wonder in the world again.

And Dolly, it goes to how beautifully the show is crafted. Because without Irene saying that, Dolly doesn't have before the parade passes by. It's a constant, the show is a constant volley and a constant tennis match. They're all just throwing each other little bits of things. And lots of that has to do with Thornton Wilder, because so much of Michael Stewart's book, Sorry, Michael Stewart, is actually cut and paste from Thornton Wilder from The Matchmaker.

[23:12] Michael Betts: Now, let's start, because it's a farce. Explaining the plot can always go real crazy, real, real fast. But let's just do a brief once through. Are there people listening to this podcast who've never seen Hello, Dolly?

[23:27] Mary Jo Catlett: Very possibly. The way that I am thinking of it, you've got a podcast generation. I visited a classroom not too long ago, and showed them that Gwen Stefani's Rich Girls was based on Fiddler on the Roofs, If I Were a Rich Man, and their minds melted. And I thought, wait, I just assumed everyone knew that. I had presented this information as though like, and of course, we all know. And I think we had this conversation very briefly after I was teaching on Thursday and got asked to sub the musical theater history class, because believe it or not, I don't teach musical theater, which is amazing. If you know me, it's really amazing. But I went in and we were talking about the 20s, and I was talking about Gershwin, and I watched their eyes glaze over. And I was like, crazy for you, my one and only, not realizing that as those titles fell out of my mouth, I was 20. These 16 year olds that I'm teaching have no frame of reference for Gershwin. They just don't.

[24:29] Michael Betts: So you're right, Dolly. So the plot of Dolly is essentially, there's this woman, Dolly Gallagher, who is a widow. She's lost her husband, Ephraim. And she is known as a matchmaker of sorts, right? She also does lots of side hustles, side gigs. But her main thing is helping people find their love. And over the course of the first half of the first act, we are introduced to a lot of characters through her. There's Horace Vandegilder, who's a rich and famous citizen of Yonkers who owns a hay and feed store. He owns a hay and feed store. He's very successful. He has a clerk, chief clerk, Cornelius Hackle, and then the assistant, Barnaby Tucker. Horace's niece is named Ermengarde. She cries a lot. Stop sniveling. And she is in love with a very tall artist.

[25:33] Mary Jo Catlett: In the movie.

[25:34] Michael Betts: Named Ambrose Kemper. They want to get married, but because Horace is a rich guy, he doesn't want his niece marrying a poor artist. And more than a little bit of a curmudgeon.

[25:45] Mary Jo Catlett: Fair enough. Dolly comes to help Ermengarde and Ambrose. And sort of with her sights set. We don't know that yet. But sort of with her sights set on Horace Vandegilder.

[25:58] Michael Betts: Absolutely. The movie spells that out. The show does not.

[26:01] Mary Jo Catlett: Right. We get the feeling that maybe she's interested in him.

[26:05] Michael Betts: For his money.

[26:06] Mary Jo Catlett: Sure.

[26:07] Michael Betts: And very clearly.

[26:08] Mary Jo Catlett: Very clearly.

[26:08] Michael Betts: You find out three quarters of the way through that she's going to marry Horace Vandegilder for her money and his money.

[26:13] Mary Jo Catlett: And nothing else.

[26:13] Michael Betts: She comes right out and says it. Yeah. And also, she is going to help him meet someone in New York named Irene Malloy, who owns a hat shop. Irene is also a widow, correct?

[26:26] Mary Jo Catlett: Yep.

[26:27] Michael Betts: And she has an assistant named Minnie Fay.

[26:29] Mary Jo Catlett: Right. Now...

[26:32] Michael Betts: We sound like Minnie Fay's monologue.

[26:33] Mary Jo Catlett: Right? Seriously. Chairs and feathers. Chairs and feathers. So spoiler alert, this is how everybody fits together. Horace and Dolly end up together. Cornelius ends up with Irene Malloy. Barnaby ends up with Minnie Fay. So the assistants end up together. Ambrose and Ermengarde end up together. And we all live happily ever after.

[26:52] Michael Betts: Now...

[26:53] Mary Jo Catlett: Because it is a musical.

[26:54] Michael Betts: Yeah.

[26:54] Mary Jo Catlett: In 1964.

[26:55] Michael Betts: In 1964. Between that, there's a lot of farce. There's a lot of mistaken identity. There's a lot of someone's not supposed to be there, but they are there because Cornelius and Barnaby should be back in Yonkers, but they've decided to go to New York to...

[27:09] Mary Jo Catlett: To have an adventure.

[27:09] Michael Betts: To have an adventure. Once again, to live their best life, right? And that's essentially the plot of Hellbound.

[27:14] Mary Jo Catlett: All with a gorgeously optimistic Jerry Herman score.

[27:18] Michael Betts: Now, how the musical got crafted as beautifully as it did is a very interesting story, because it didn't all just fall together.

[27:25] Mary Jo Catlett: No, none at all.

[27:28] Michael Betts: In fact, it had quite a bumpy ride. It's interesting in Carol Channing's book, she talks about how the first two weeks of the rehearsal process were just the Hello Dolly number. It was Gower piecing together bit by bit this number. He had... At one point early on, he had the men lift her up into the air. And so he taught the steps and the lift and everything, and then went back out into the house of the theater to watch it all happen. And they did it and he said, stop, stop, stop. And he runs back up on stage and pulls Carol aside and says, that is the first and last time Dolly's feet will ever leave the ground. This is a grounded woman. She does not get lifted in the air. But they spent two weeks working on the number, which I can't even imagine that kind of luxury to spend two weeks on one number.

But after that point, that number never changed the way that he said after those two weeks. Everything else, however, changed a lot. When they finally went out of town, for some reason, David Merrick decided to take them to Detroit to open the show. And they were in some real trouble, particularly in the first act. And so they brought in composers, because as you said, he was never totally satisfied with Jerry Herman. And there are various accounts of whether David Merrick was just trying to scare Jerry Herman into writing faster and writing better, or whether he was actually going to be not necessarily replaced. But they also did that at the time. A composer would come in and ghostwrite things.

[29:08] Mary Jo Catlett: What is your favorite ghostwriting song? A song that people probably don't know was written by somebody else.

[29:15] Michael Betts: My White Night.

[29:17] Mary Jo Catlett: Oh, I didn't know that. Who wrote My White Night?

[29:21] Michael Betts: Supposedly Frank Lesser wrote My White Night.

[29:24] Mary Jo Catlett: Really? From Music Man? Interesting.

[29:28] Michael Betts: And you just did that at the time. You didn't get any credit for it. But if you listen to it, My White Night is very much a Frank Lesser song. It's very much not a Meredith Wilson song. Interesting. I totally buy that.

[29:42] Michael Betts: We're doing a Music Man episode, so now I have something to share.

[29:45] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: You do.

[29:46] Michael Betts: Okay, so they brought a couple of composers in.

[29:48] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: They brought Bob Merrill, speaking of Carnival!

[29:51] Michael Betts: Or was it?

[29:52] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Or Carnival! No exclamation point, yeah.

[29:54] Michael Betts: And then they also brought in Strauss and Lee.

[29:57] Michael Betts: Charles Strauss, who had written Bye Bye Birdie and later wrote Annie, with his lyricist partner at the time, Lee Adams.

[30:05] Michael Betts: Why did I call him Lee? Lorelei Lee. We're getting Carol Channing and we're getting it mixed up.

[30:09] Michael Betts: I actually really like Charles Strauss' story that he talks about going to Detroit.

[30:14] Michael Betts: So David Merrick calls them and basically says, hey, we're having trouble with the first act. Would you mind coming and looking at it, possibly writing a few things? See if you can help doctor the show.

[30:24] Michael Betts: Charles Strauss says that he specifically said, yes, but only with Jerry Herman's blessing. We will not come unless Jerry signs off on it.

[30:32] Michael Betts: David Merrick calls back and says, absolutely. Jerry knows that this is happening. It's a go.

[30:36] Michael Betts: So Lee Adams, Charles Strauss go to Detroit. They walk into the hotel and who's the first person they see? But Jerry Herman, who immediately breaks out into a sweat and is like, am I fired? What are you guys doing here?

[30:49] Michael Betts: And they were really upset because they said, David Merrick told us that you knew about this and he had no idea. And he said, do not.

[30:54] Michael Betts: So they were trying to tell Jerry Herman, don't worry, we're just here to help in any way we can. We're going to go see the show.

[31:01] Michael Betts: So they go see the show and they take notes. According to Charles Strauss, their notes included some restructuring of the first act, bringing some of Thor and Wilder's original matchmaker back into the script and then creating a moment for a song called Before the Parade Passes By, which they wrote.

[31:22] Michael Betts: They wrote a song called Before the Parade Passes By. That's all of the work that they did. Then they went and left. The show continues to go through changes. It closes in Detroit, moves to Washington, D.C. to open up again, and it opens up with a song at the end of the first act called Before the Parade Passes By.

[31:41] Michael Betts: But it's not the one that Charles Strauss wrote. Jerry liked the title.

[31:44] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Exactly. He took the title, but he wrote his own song. Sometimes when you're so close to a project, right, you can't see what needs to happen. And I think that's what makes musical theater one of the hardest art forms out there is because the collaboration is so vast and so intense.

[31:57] Michael Betts: And why show doctors were and are, Tommy Tune got his start as a show doctor. All of these people came in and would fix things because they would be able to have perspective.

[32:11] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Right, right, right.

[32:13] Michael Betts: So it got terrible reviews in Detroit.

[32:16] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[32:17] Michael Betts: I don't know that I knew that.

[32:18] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[32:19] Michael Betts: But then it goes to Washington, it gets better, and then it goes to Broadway and becomes a huge smash.

[32:24] Michael Betts: And it also became a huge smash due to Merrick and his being so freaking smart. I mean, it was a parade of try and think of any other title that the replacement cast, the tour cast, the overseas cast were so starry.

[32:42] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Right.

[32:43] Michael Betts: Well, let's talk about the original cast.

[32:44] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Great.

[32:45] Michael Betts: Because, okay, so you had Carol.

[32:46] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[32:47] Michael Betts: You had Mrs. Peacock.

[32:49] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Well, and that's what I was going to say. So the original Irene Molloy was Eileen Brennan, which to my generation is the iconic Mrs. Peacock from Clue.

[32:57] Michael Betts: Go figure. And Private Benjamin. You have Cornelia Tackle played by Charles Nelson Reilly, who was kind of like Carol in terms of being—

[33:06] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[33:07] Michael Betts: Well, all of them were.

[33:08] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[33:09] Michael Betts: I mean, I assume that Eileen Brennan, all we have is the recording of her singing Ribbons Down My Back, and it's very ingenue soprano-y.

[33:15] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[33:16] Michael Betts: We can only imagine with someone like Eileen Brennan that that's not what you got. She was just as ballsy as every other performance she ever gave.

[33:23] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: No, comedy titans.

[33:25] Michael Betts: Seriously, comedy titans. And, of course, our L.A. favorite Mary Jo Catlett.

[33:31] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, my God. Mary Jo Catlett.

[33:33] Michael Betts: And who, like, yeah, Mary Jo Catlett is one of the most amazing human beings on the face of the earth. Mary Jo played Ernestina Simple.

[33:42] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: All right, we are going to press pause on my conversation with Michael about Hello, Dolly! because as I got listening to our conversation and us talking about the legendary Mary Jo Catlett, I thought, you know, why don't I just reach out to her and see if she might record a little something for the podcast? And because she is amazing, she said yes. So, ladies and gentlemen, Mary Jo Catlett is here with me.

[34:05] Mary Jo Catlett: Hi, Jeffrey.

[34:06] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Hi.

[34:07] Mary Jo Catlett: It's so nice to be here.

[34:08] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I'm so tickled that you said yes and were willing to do this. Thank you so much.

[34:11] Mary Jo Catlett: Well, I'm just thrilled to be here.

[34:13] Mary Jo Catlett: What actor doesn't want to talk about themselves?

[34:16] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Well, if there is anybody out there who doesn't know who Mary Jo is, please go to IMDb and put in her name, Mary Jo Catlett, and you can see what a legend she is. But I'm not going to sit here and make her listen to me talk about her resume. Instead, we're just going to jump right in to a little talk about Hello, Dolly! because you're an original cast member.

[34:34] Mary Jo Catlett: I'm an original cast member.

[34:38] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So, what was going on in your career when Hello, Dolly! entered it?

[34:42] Mary Jo Catlett: I was doing children's theater. I had been in New York about eight months.

[34:46] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay.

[34:47] Mary Jo Catlett: And I was 23, and I was so excited about possibly. Here's what happened. I had five auditions.

[34:58] Mary Jo Catlett: Oh, wow.

[34:59] Mary Jo Catlett: So, my fourth audition for Dolly! I thought, I think they're interested. You know, maybe, maybe. But then when I went to the audition, Gower Champion was up there, and he would point to different girls who were sitting there, and he'd say, okay, would you get up now and do a little dance and sing a little song, and they'd do it. And he didn't ask me to do anything. I just sat there, and I started to really feel out of place because they were tall, willowy, or short, gorgeous dancers. You know, they were not my type. I'm a soft, thick woman. Character actress.

[35:39] Mary Jo Catlett: And so, pretty soon, I think he had such great sensitivity, he stepped behind the girls that were there and looked at me, and he said, don't worry. We have something special in mind for you.

[35:53] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh! Did that just make your heart sing?

[35:56] Mary Jo Catlett: It did. I thought, holy crow, I'm going to be on Broadway. Finally, a dream come true.

[36:03] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, my gosh. Of course, Jerry Herman wasn't a household name at that point, but certainly Gower Champion and David Merrick were big-time Broadway personalities.

[36:13] Mary Jo Catlett: That's right. So that had to be just so exciting.

[36:17] Mary Jo Catlett: It's true, and I had loved the movie Showboat with Ava Gardner and Catherine Grayson and Howard Keel and Gower and Marge Champion. So I was starstruck, rather, you know, too, about him. He was so handsome and so nice.

[36:33] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, my goodness. All the pictures I see of him, he always looked very, like, with the sweater tied around his shoulders, like he was about to go play tennis at any moment.

[36:41] Mary Jo Catlett: Yes, very preppy put together, he was.

[36:43] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's so cool. I kind of mentioned on the episode that I recorded with Michael who your character is or was. Could you describe her, though?

[36:53] Mary Jo Catlett: Sure. It's funny because people say, oh, you played Ermengarde. Well, Ermengarde was my best friend in the whole cast. Alice Playten, we were very good friends. Anyway, Alice was about 4'9". I mean, she was really little and really petite, and she played the niece, Ermengarde. But my character's name is Ernestina, so it was a little similar.

[37:18] Mary Jo Catlett: And I'd say, no, it wasn't Ermengarde. Not quite. And Ernestina was this young lady that Dolly Levi fixed Horace Vandergelder up with. She wanted him to like Dolly. She wanted him to like her. But she would describe Miss Money, Ernestina, money, and that's all Vandergelder had to hear. Oh, yes, yes, I want to meet her. Sign me up. And she'll come on with a little yellow dress, with baby pink roses, and she's just wonderful.

[38:00] Mary Jo Catlett: Oh, my gosh, I can't do Carol. I feel like I'm the only musical theatre nerd who doesn't have a very decent Carol Channing impression.

[38:08] Mary Jo Catlett: Oh, I think everybody does. Little Scott, oh, Little Scott, hello. Oh, Little Mary Jo, come and meet Little Scott.

[38:20] Mary Jo Catlett: She was great. I loved her so. She and Alice and I had a slumber party one night. We had so much fun.

[38:27] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: You're kidding me.

[38:28] Mary Jo Catlett: We put up our hair and talked about boys.

[38:32] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, my gosh.

[38:33] Mary Jo Catlett: I mean, it was great. Chewed gum. She liked to chew gum at the time.

[38:37] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Really?

[38:38] Mary Jo Catlett: I guess, you know, she would develop these allergies, whether they really were or whether somebody said, don't do that anymore. But she was a wonderful person.

[38:49] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, my gosh. That's so cool. A slumber party with Carol Channing.

[38:53] Mary Jo Catlett: It was. It was great. I'd put that on my gravestone.

[38:57] Mary Jo Catlett: And one of my favorite stories of Carol with Charles Lowe was her husband, and he was all for Carol's career. And he was a terrific guy, but funny and kind of light. And so the chorus boys said, have you ever had sex with Carol? And he said, would it help her career?

[39:28] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, my gosh.

[39:29] Mary Jo Catlett: It was fun. They're self-aware enough to know what they're putting out into the world.

[39:34] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes, that self-deprecation is so funny.

[39:37] Mary Jo Catlett: It's so good. Okay, so you rehearse the show in New York, and then you take it out of town. And from what I understand, Detroit was not easy.

[39:46] Mary Jo Catlett: Oh, my goodness. It was a little rough. Detroit.

[39:52] Mary Jo Catlett: The Fisher Theater in Detroit was almost brand new, then a beautiful theater. But they said, be sure to walk with somebody if you walk to your hotel.

[40:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, really?

[40:02] Mary Jo Catlett: It was not great. Well, it was kind of unusual to take a show out of town to Detroit.

[40:05] Mary Jo Catlett: It was. It wasn't the usual. I wonder what that was now that you say that. Maybe Mr. Merrick had some connection there. I don't know.

[40:14] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Maybe.

[40:15] Mary Jo Catlett: That makes sense. That would make sense. The critics would be kind because they'd been kind to other things.

[40:20] Mary Jo Catlett: Well, they were not kind to one other thing. There was a show that went through there called Bravo Giovanni.

[40:25] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, yeah. Do you remember that show?

[40:27] Mary Jo Catlett: That's like a famous flop, isn't it?

[40:28] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, you're good. Yes.

[40:30] Mary Jo Catlett: That and Dude. I mean, really big flops.

[40:33] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Big, big, big flops.

[40:35] Mary Jo Catlett: But it opened on Broadway and closed. And the first line of our review after our opening night in Detroit was, not since Bravo Giovanni has there been such a losing...

[40:51] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And it went down from there.

[40:54] Mary Jo Catlett: And Mr. Merrick wanted to close the show.

[40:58] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Well, I mean, that's one of the worst omens you could have received.

[41:01] Mary Jo Catlett: Isn't it? And yet it couldn't be more wrong in terms of the legend it became.

[41:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Of what you saw.

[41:08] Mary Jo Catlett: Yeah. I guess it had a lot of work. I thought it was wonderful. Of course, everything was wonderful then. I was going to be on Broadway. Hey!

[41:17] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Was your track or your role in the show, did you have it pretty easy? Because most of Ernestina's stuff is in the second act.

[41:25] Mary Jo Catlett: It is, except that they put her into the chorus in the first.

[41:28] Mary Jo Catlett: In one of my favorite little walk-on things that I had, playing Brunhilde in the parade.

[41:34] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh!

[41:35] Mary Jo Catlett: And today, I saw Dolly on Broadway with Bette Midler, and it was quite good. They now have three Brunhildes in the parade.

[41:44] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And you're like, come on.

[41:45] Mary Jo Catlett: Yes, come on.

[41:52] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: What were the biggest changes that you remember from Detroit to, because then you went to Washington after that, yeah?

[41:59] Mary Jo Catlett: In Detroit, they had four ladies who they called the Biddies, who were probably a little similar to pick a little, who would do crossovers and who would comment to Dolly. They were sort of the Greek chorus, these four Biddies who go across. And one of the first things Gower did was to cut the Biddies.

[42:22] Mary Jo Catlett: Wow.

[42:23] Mary Jo Catlett: A stage manager later told me that Merrick said, well, then you have to fire the Catlett girl.

[42:29] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh!

[42:31] Mary Jo Catlett: And he said, why? And he said, well, she's part of the Biddies and she works fine, but she's a large character lady. She won't work in the Sunday clothes chorus.

[42:38] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: She would today.

[42:43] Mary Jo Catlett: Yeah, seriously. But anyway, then, no, you couldn't have any extra body fat there.

[42:49] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Eye roll.

[42:51] Mary Jo Catlett: Yes. Oh, my goodness. Oh, thank you. I'm glad that Gower cut you back.

[42:56] Mary Jo Catlett: Well, Gower said, well, I won't let her go yet in Detroit. So they kept the parade and they kept me in it. And then I was in the chorus. And then we must have had a run through in New York. And this woman who played Ernestina was named Gloria Leroy. Do you know that name at all?

[43:18] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: No, I don't.

[43:19] Mary Jo Catlett: She had been a stripper. She was rather gorgeous in an older kind of way.

[43:28] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Sure.

[43:29] Mary Jo Catlett: So the way that they made her look unattractive to Vandergelder was to make her, like, cheap and blousy and, hey!

[43:39] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah.

[43:40] Mary Jo Catlett: And so Gower decided she was not right for the part. And that was hard because she was a very nice lady. Anyway, then he opened the casting to agents and people. And I remember I was outside sitting on the steps reading the little part of the script that we had. Because Gower had asked Lucia Victor, our stage manager, if I could. He said, I want her to audition. And, of course, I was thrilled.

[44:12] Mary Jo Catlett: Sure. And I was on the steps with Renee Taylor. She was up for it, too.

[44:17] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, wow.

[44:18] Mary Jo Catlett: And she said, oh, you're perfect for this. She was so nice to me. I'm not used to, at that time, actresses being that giving. She was so nice.

[44:32] Mary Jo Catlett: Really sweet. Kind of generous. For those who might not know, Renee Taylor, Fran Drescher's mom on *The Nanny*. Right. She's just been around in the theatre for a long time. Funny lady.

[44:45] Michael Betts: Funny, funny lady.

[44:46] Mary Jo Catlett: How cute. So then you read it.

[44:53] Mary Jo Catlett: So then I read it and got the part and it was really a thrill. And I knew nothing about money or billing. That's the saddest part that my name isn't on the album. And it is now. The Ernestine is always included in the principles. They didn't want to give you anything more than like, I think I got a $10 or $20 raise.

[45:14] Michael Betts: Oh, wow. For that huge step out.

[45:21] Mary Jo Catlett: Yeah. So I feel like we all have that moment where we're like, oh, yeah, this is a business.

[45:27] Mary Jo Catlett: Exactly. I guess maybe I should get someone to help me look out after that. But then it was great because Charles Nelson Reilly produced a show, this is after *Dolly* opened, called *Talent 65*. And everybody sort of did their specialty. And he asked me to be in it. And they invited agents. So what I was doing, they seemed to like. And I got a lot of commercials after that. So it didn't really, that was okay that I wasn't being paid much for *Dolly*. That was just pure love.

[46:03] Michael Betts: Wow. Well, that is like a labor of love.

[46:10] Mary Jo Catlett: Yes, exactly. When I think about because you mentioned Charles Nelson Reilly, I think about *Hello, Dolly!* and I think about how many legendary comedians were a part of that show. Amazing. Huge comedic talents and personalities.

[46:23] Michael Betts: And what was it like? Because you got Eileen Brennan and Davy Burns.

[46:31] Mary Jo Catlett: Oh, so big, baggy pants comic.

[46:31] Michael Betts: Yeah, yeah.

[46:37] Mary Jo Catlett: Funny, funny, wonderful man. And Gordon Connell was Jane Connell's husband. And he was so funny. He was so great in it. He played the judge in just a little part and just was wonderful.

[46:43] Michael Betts: And did everybody get along? You know what I mean? I mean, I can't imagine that with all of those personalities that there wasn't a little bit but it seems like you still had a wonderful time regardless.

[46:55] Mary Jo Catlett: Yeah, there was a problem with Sondra Lee and Eileen Brennan, who played Minnie Faye and Mrs. Malloy.

[47:02] Michael Betts: Yeah.

[47:09] Mary Jo Catlett: One time Eileen almost Sondra was tiny. You know, she was this little fly of a wonderful dancing, acting, singing. No, she didn't sing really, but she was really so talented, where they were on the edge of the stage. And Eileen nearly pushed her off the stage into the pit.

[47:22] Michael Betts: Oh, my gosh.

[47:29] Mary Jo Catlett: Just enough, I guess, to threaten her saying, look what I could do. Don't cross me. And when the show opened, they shared a dressing room. A few months into it, they demanded to have a big barrier put in and separate doors. So they had two tiny dressing rooms, which are still there. When I went back, I thought, oh, they're still there.

[47:53] Michael Betts: What theater were you guys in?

[47:57] Mary Jo Catlett: St. James.

[47:57] Michael Betts: Oh, at the St. James. So when did you know that it was going to be a hit? That it wasn't going to be *Bravo Giovanni*?

[48:01] Mary Jo Catlett: When we went to Washington, Richard Coe, this wonderful critic, he'd be wonderful, even if he didn't like us, he was great. He just gave great accolades. And the show was greatly changed by then.

[48:20] Mary Jo Catlett: Oh, and when I meant to say when Mr. Merrick wanted to close the show, Gower offered to buy him out.

[48:26] Michael Betts: Really?

[48:26] Mary Jo Catlett: And just because of that, he thought, well, I guess I'll stay in.

[48:32] Michael Betts: Yeah. Pretty good decision.

[48:42] Mary Jo Catlett: Yeah, seriously. Because then you went on tour, right? Did you go on tour with Ginger Rogers?

[48:46] Mary Jo Catlett: I did later, yes. I did. And Dorothy L'Amour and Martha Rae.

[48:51] Michael Betts: Oh, no, Martha Rae was in New York. I did it in New York with Martha Rae and Ginger Rogers. Yes, Ginger Rogers was great.

[48:57] Mary Jo Catlett: Really? She was a lovely person. I saw a clip of her doing *Before the Parade* on *The Sullivan Show*. She was fantastic.

[49:05] Michael Betts: Wasn't she?

[49:05] Mary Jo Catlett: Yeah. In her own way. She wasn't Dolly. There was only one Dolly, I think. But just like Ethel Merman was wonderful, Pearl Bailey was wonderful. And a little of themselves in every show.

[49:19] Michael Betts: Yes, yes.

[49:19] Mary Jo Catlett: But Ginger was great. And in her *So Long, Dearie*, of course, she did a tap.

[49:24] Michael Betts: Oh, really? They added tap?

[49:24] Mary Jo Catlett: They added a tap. Oh, it was great.

[49:31] Michael Betts: Oh my gosh, I would have eaten that up.

[49:31] Mary Jo Catlett: She had to be near 60 by then, but she was in great shape. Just wonderful.

[49:40] Michael Betts: Okay. I talked about this in the episode, but I grew up on the movie. Like, that's how I got to know *Hello, Dolly*. And the Carol Channing tour in the 90s was coming through Salt Lake City. And my grandparents, knowing how much I loved *Hello, Dolly*, got me tickets to go with them down to the big city to see *Hello, Dolly*. And I was like, All right, well, who's playing Barbara's role? And it was Carol Channing, and I couldn't believe it. And I mean, of course, changed my life in terms of just seeing this performance, this iconic performance.

[50:12] Michael Betts: But the thing that really cemented my understanding of what the comedy on stage could be, was that eating scene. And for those who don't know, maybe because you've only seen the movie, but in the stage version, everybody, because of all of the chaos in Harmonia Gardens, ends up going to court. And the judge wants to talk to this Dolly Levi, who seems to be the through line for all of the chaos. Meanwhile, she's still back at the restaurant eating.

[50:46] Michael Betts: And there's this great little device where she realizes, Oh, I got to finish my food, because girl can eat. And so she just starts eating everything as fast as she can. And at this one point starts grabbing these little potato puff things and shoving them in her mouth as fast as she can. And the audience just went nuts. And I had never seen anything like that before.

[51:04] Mary Jo Catlett: Wasn't it fabulous the way she did it?

[51:10] Michael Betts: Oh, just so clean. Fabulous. And were you on stage to see that? Were you in the docket?

[51:17] Mary Jo Catlett: Yeah. And I can only imagine that it was really consistent every night with the audience kind of going nuts. Just wonderful. Just right on the money. Her timing was delicious.

[51:22] Michael Betts: And they were supposed to be dumplings. So they were this sort of a beige color.

[51:31] Mary Jo Catlett: Okay. So originally, they used cotton candy.

[51:39] Michael Betts: Oh, really?

[51:39] Mary Jo Catlett: And it worked beautifully, because you know, it just would melt and disappear. And the audience didn't know it. But they thought, how does she do that? It's just put all those in her mouth. Well, pretty soon she got, which was legitimate, a real sugar problem.

[51:50] Michael Betts: Oh, for me. Two shows on Saturday. You know?

[51:58] Mary Jo Catlett: Yeah. So they had to devise something else. So this brilliant prop guy, David, can't remember David's last name right now, but he was great. Anyway, he took Kleenex, and he put it over a light bulb and sprayed tea on it. So the tea color would be the color of dumplings. And he'd take it off, it'd be dry, take it off gently, put it on the plate. And it was even better, because it would really disappear. And then pretty soon, she'd find time to use the napkin and get rid of it. But it worked wonderfully.

[52:35] Michael Betts: Those were napkins?

[52:35] Mary Jo Catlett: Yes. Those are like little Kleenexes.

[52:42] Michael Betts: Oh, my gosh. Theater magic.

[52:50] Mary Jo Catlett: Isn't it funny? Wow. How cool.

[52:50] Michael Betts: Yeah. In terms of the legacy of *Hello, Dolly!* because I know that you're proud to have been a part of it. How do you see it in terms of, you know, our Broadway history, our musical theater history? What do you think it gave us?

[53:01] Mary Jo Catlett: Oh, gosh, I think it was rich in the texture of the show. It was so beautiful to watch. That's what people would say more than anything. It was like watching a valentine. It was just so beautiful. Gower had such an eye for beauty of every number.

[53:26] Michael Betts: I wonder in terms of big, beautiful American musicals, I wonder if *Hello, Dolly!* is about as good as it gets.

[53:33] Mary Jo Catlett: I think so, since maybe the time of Florence Ziegfeld way back when it was dazzling.

[53:39] Michael Betts: And well, *Follies*, we have to factor *Follies* into that.

[53:45] Mary Jo Catlett: Yeah, sure. The original.

[53:45] Michael Betts: Yeah. Just like eye popping.

[53:53] Mary Jo Catlett: Yeah, the eye candy. But then also, I think what *Dolly* has going for it is this heart and joy, you know, because we forget that it's a story about a widow.

[54:00] Michael Betts: Exactly.

[54:09] Mary Jo Catlett: And how wonderful that this big, colorful musical is all about this woman kind of at a point in her life, realizing that she needs to join the human race again.

[54:17] Michael Betts: Right. Thornton Wilder. Wonderful. Wonderful writer.

[54:23] Mary Jo Catlett: I love it. I'm so grateful you came to talk to me.

[54:29] Michael Betts: I'm so glad to be here. It was great fun.

[54:36] Mary Jo Catlett: I hate that we're done.

[54:36] Michael Betts: I know, right? It went by so quickly.

[54:42] Mary Jo Catlett: Yes, I adore you. Thank you for all that you've given us and thanks for being here today.

[54:42] Michael Betts: Thank you so much. Bye-bye.

[54:42] Mary Jo Catlett: Bye now.

[54:47] Michael Betts: Well, let's go ahead and talk Pearl Bailey because...

[54:52] Mary Jo Catlett: Oh, everything. Everything. But it actually, if I'm not mistaken, it actually closed and the tour went out with Pearl Bailey and then it ended up, the Bailey tour ended up on Broadway.

[54:58] Michael Betts: Oh, really?

[54:58] Mary Jo Catlett: Okay, so that was '68 because if you look up on YouTube, 1968 Tony performance, you'll see the full African-American cast of *Hello, Dolly!* with Pearl Bailey doing *So Long, Dearie* and I dare you to watch it and not get the chills because it's amazing.

[55:11] Michael Betts: And her Dolly on recording is just...

[55:18] Mary Jo Catlett: Yeah, they made their own recording for that whole cast, that whole show, and it's wonderful. It's one of the best *Hello, Dolly!* recordings, period.

[55:24] Michael Betts: It really is.

[55:31] Mary Jo Catlett: Yeah, sorry, Carol. It really is.

[55:31] Michael Betts: Yeah, because it's everything you want in that character. And Pearl never stops being Pearl, but you can hear her as Dolly Gallagher Levi.

[55:47] Mary Jo Catlett: Once again, I feel like these huge personalities can pull off Dolly as long as they're connected to something.

[55:51] Michael Betts: Even if it is Pearl Bailey, she understands life and she's a deep soul and she's a soul singer for crying out loud, so it's going to work.

[56:00] Mary Jo Catlett: It will. It's going to work.

[56:11] Michael Betts: Oh, okay, Broadway. Here we go. Ginger Rogers, Martha Rae, Betty Grable.

[56:19] Mary Jo Catlett: Oh, B.B. Osterwald did do it. Phyllis Diller and Merman.

[56:19] Michael Betts: So Ethel Merman finally came back around.

[56:25] Mary Jo Catlett: Yes. Do you know this sort of apocryphal story that she said? She told Merrick that now that previews were out of the way, she would take over the role.

[56:33] Michael Betts: Now that you've got your previews out of the way, I'll take over the role.

[56:36] Mary Jo Catlett: I love Ethel. And that the whole...

[56:43] Michael Betts: Are we going to go there right now? What?

[56:43] Mary Jo Catlett: That she did two numbers that were originally written for her that they put back in the show for her. Clea Blackhurst says it beautifully in her act, but no one but Merman, who was such a huge Broadway star at that point, no one but Merman would have introduced two new songs in a show that had been running for seven years.

[57:03] Michael Betts: Was one of them the *Welcome to the World* or...

[57:08] Mary Jo Catlett: *World, Take Me Back*.

[57:08] Michael Betts: *World, Take Me Back*. And *Love, Look in My Window*.

[57:15] Mary Jo Catlett: Yes. And Jerry has said before that he explained that this was replacing *Before the Parade Passes By*, and she goes, that's okay, I'll sing them both. So she did *World, Take Me Back* into *Before the Parade Passes By*.

[57:25] Michael Betts: And you just think again, like the star power of that, like even LuPone, who sort of is the closest thing we have to that, albeit a better actress and not so one note.

[57:31] Mary Jo Catlett: But you can't imagine somebody today being that big because she was a Broadway star.

[57:45] Michael Betts: She did the *Call Me Madam* film. She did the film with Marilyn. There's no business like show business, but she wasn't a star anywhere except on Broadway. And that's, again, those personalities.

[57:56] Mary Jo Catlett: There's a clip of her. Which show is she on?

[58:06] Michael Betts: Oh, my heavens. OK, this is... Let me explain to you all what just happened. I pulled out of my Mary Poppins bag a Tiffany lamp, a ficus, and...

[58:12] Mary Jo Catlett: And Ethel Merman sings the songs from *Hello, Dolly*.

[58:19] Michael Betts: Is this a... What is it called?

[58:19] Mary Jo Catlett: This is an LP. Hold the bottom because it's all broken. She did it on her label called Bar Mike for her Bar Mike Records. I mean, theoretically, it's No Mike, but it was named for her grandchildren, Barbara and Michael.

[58:30] Michael Betts: And she... So side one is *Love, Look in My Window*. Side two, *Will Take Me Back*. It's just a 45, but it's both. It's both songs. You can also hear them on a... It streams. There's an album called *Mermania*, and it streams on Amazon. And I believe you can get it on Apple, too. And you can hear both numbers there. They're quintessentially Jerry Herman. They're just optimism and beautiful. And they're fantastic songs.

[58:54] Mary Jo Catlett: I want to go ahead and read this quote from the New York Times that's on back of the cover here. It says, "There's a new hit in town. Truly, Ethel Merman is one of the great ladies of the musical stage. She received three standing ovations. Applause, cheers, whistles weren't enough. It was like being in Shea Stadium the day the Mets clinched the pennant."

[59:21] Michael Betts: And musical theater fans were like, "What's a pennant?"

[59:23] Michael Betts: Oh, is that that thing from Damn Yankees? Damn Yankees, thank you. The year the Yankees lost the pennant. Come on. That's that title song. Going back to construction of the show, you have this absolute frenzy of the waiters gallop, for those of you not in the Hello, Dolly! know. There is a number with all of the waiters in Harmonia Gardens, and they are, it's very athletic, very acrobatic. There are flaming kebab sword fights, and there are chickens being tossed and plated, and it's just this craziness. Acrobatics. Acrobatics. And the beauty, and again, the beauty of the construction is that this all, this craziness happens for three to four minutes. Also preserved, thank God, Bruce Kimmel on the '94 recording preserved the entire waiters gallop, which hadn't been on record before.

And then she appears, she's about to come in, and everything stops, and it's a dead stop. So the audience has been worked up into this frenzy. There is a dead stop, and then the iconic trumpet blast of Dolly's arrival. Because this woman, this female, this musical theater role gets not one star entrance in this show, but she gets two star entrances in this show. And it is thrilling. From community theater to Broadway, it is thrilling. I sat there with my arms mostly crossed for this revival. This past revival with Bette Midler. But let me tell you, when she came down those stairs, it was musical theater heaven for five minutes. And like, you just couldn't help but leap up onto your feet, because it was perfection.

All the other flaws that I felt about the show were completely erased for that moment of musical theater brilliance. And it has everything to do with what Gower and Jerry Herman and Michael Stewart created in that moment. It's just, it's perfect.

[1:01:16] Michael Betts: Well, you know, there's kind of a trope in musical theater that Act Two is always the problem child. That you make Act One perfect, and then Act Two just kind of falls apart. Hello, Dolly! is one of the few times where I think Act Two is better than Act One. Just because it's almost like classic sitcom, where we've spent all of the evening up until this point getting to know these characters so well, and then you put them into a completely different setting that we haven't seen before, which is the Harmonia Gardens restaurant, and throw in a little bit of chaos, and then you just watch what happens. Because it's the payoff for the farce. Every farce sets itself up, and then... And while Act One is incredibly entertaining and has more songs than Act Two, you just get to just sit back and let it all wash over you.

And there's no greater example of that than Dolly's entrance, with the feathers in her hair coming down the staircase. And it's one of those moments of iconic musical theater where no matter what production you see, that better happen. And it's not about copying other people's work. It's just, you have to pay respect.

[1:02:25] Michael Betts: Okay, favorite songs in the show. Title number. Title number. There's no better title number. Those horns, like, come on! Well, we talked about that the original title of the show was Dolly Cullen, a damned exasperating woman. And it was David Merrick's decision to change the title of the show to Hello, Dolly after Louis Armstrong recorded the song, made it a huge smash. And that helped with the success of the show, too.

[1:02:54] Michael Betts: Absolutely. So then, that's the name of the show. It's gotta be. And apparently, rightfully so, because it's one of your favorite numbers. Do you know what's one of mine?

[1:03:03] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: What?

[1:03:03] Michael Betts: Dancing.

[1:03:04] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, yeah. Again, get me. So in Act One, Dolly teaches Cornelius Hackle, the head clerk, and his friend Barnaby how to dance so that they can dance with Irene Molloy and Minnie Faye. And as far as I'm concerned, there's no greater moment in musical theater than when people get taught how to dance in a number. And I feel like dancing is probably the best of all of those, including Shall We Dance, because what is Shall We Dance without the dress?

[1:03:34] Michael Betts: Mm-hmm. The song Dancing starts in Hello, Dolly. And I've heard it said that a waltz is the time signature closest to our own heartbeat. And if you listen to my heartbeat, that's what dancing sounds like, because the minute that it starts, the, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. Well, then that orchestration takes over during the dance break, the, ba-da, ba-da, ba-da, da, at the end. And it's just, yeah.

[1:04:03] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: No, it's really, like, my heart swells. Going back to the revival for a second, I was horrified when they announced the director, because I knew exactly what would happen. But I do believe that Dolly, I think Jeffrey's heard me use this term before, Dolly is a metronome show. Dolly is a show that you have to put a metronome on the front edge of the stage and go, okay, you have to keep this pace. You have to, have to, have to keep this pace. There's no air between the lines. It's like an old Preston Sturgis film where you're just jumping on each other's cues. And that is something Jerry Zaks does very, very, very, very well. So the timing was perfect. Jerry Zaks does not do heart very well. So there was timing at the expense of heart.

And while it's not on the surface, Dolly is all about heart. And if he can't nail that, I'm shrugging. The shoulders are coming up to the ears. I mean, I spent more money than I've ever spent on Broadway. Well, until I saw Jake Gyllenhaal do Sunday in the Park with George, but we won't talk about that. Also brilliant. But I spent more money than I've ever spent in my entire life to see Bette Midler do Dolly. That was my whole point in going back.

[1:05:12] Michael Betts: Knowing full well that you might not.

[1:05:14] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Knowing full well that with Jerry Zaks, it was like, oh, but nobody better. And that's also a reason I think we don't see the show as often as we should. It is a star vehicle.

[1:05:25] Michael Betts: All right. So I'm going to read a few things.

[1:05:29] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Do a traumatic reading, please.

[1:05:30] Michael Betts: Once again, I do not have a good Carol voice, but this book that she wrote, which first of all, there's no way that there was an editor like because she repeats herself constantly. It is just a stream of conscious. I keep using the word heaven, but it's heaven. It is heaven. It is. It is so fascinating to get into her brain, but you have to like read it in increments. I just wanted to read a few things because when we're talking about what a unicorn Carol Channing is, the back of the book, the quote that I can only assume she chose for the back of the book is I have been prostituting myself all my life. I've been making love to an audience since the fourth grade. It's kind of interesting to me that what I do on stage is legal, whereas what's done in bed is not. Carol Channing, everybody. And now say that again with the voice in your head. I've been prostituting myself all my life.

[1:06:34] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yours is like the love child of Carol Channing and Charles Nelson Reilly.

[1:06:37] Michael Betts: OK, look, hey, I'll take it. Maybe there was a like secret trisk. They're both in the Hello, Dolly! universe. I know.

[1:06:44] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Hello, Dolly! universe. I sort of want. Can we do that? Can we have like unicorn planet, you know, like totally a gay boy wished for a planet full of Hello, Dolly!

[1:06:57] Michael Betts: Carol Channing planet. I also think what's really fascinating about Carol is that she doesn't have really a bad word to say about anybody, Streisand included, who stole her baby. Do you know the story years ago about whether it was a Tony party or an Oscar party or some huge party that they were walking into that there was a band playing as each star would walk in and there was a concern about what was going to happen. And the band played Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend and Don't Rain on My Parade for Streisand because they were both there. And it was like during the time that Hello, Dolly! was big. So they're like, just stay away from Dolly! Like the room sort of was like, oh, what's going to happen? And they stayed away from Dolly completely. That's fascinating.

[1:07:41] Michael Betts: From what I understand, there is if she has an enemy in the world, it's this one like Hollywood agent who really heavily pitched Streisand for the film. Carol was, I think, just a little too weird for Hollywood. But the thing is, like, and Streisand was the biggest star in the world because Funny Girl and Hello, Dolly! came out the same year on Broadway, and they became friends because they were both the toast of the town. And then Streisand got the film and then that friendship very much stopped. But she still didn't really ever trash her publicly. But she was hurt. She was absolutely hurt. She never says anything bad about David Merrick, which is insane. She never says anything bad about Gower.

[1:08:25] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Well, but you also have to think about, like, Jerry Herman is such a premier optimist and he considered Carol one of his best friends. That optimism has to be in her too, to a point.

[1:08:38] Michael Betts: Yeah. Have you seen her documentary?

[1:08:43] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Of course. So sweet.

[1:08:45] Michael Betts: They have that great story in the documentary about how she took everyone to go see Interview with a Vampire. And like it finished and she stood up and said, like, well, that wasn't what I expected. Can you imagine watching Interview with a Vampire with Carol Channing? Amazing. Let's do Tony Awards, shall we?

[1:09:06] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes, please.

[1:09:07] Michael Betts: So Hello, Dolly! won pretty much every Tony Award in 1964 and continued to hold the title for most Tony Award wins up until the producers, right? So nominated for Best Musical in 1964, you had Hello, Dolly! which won Funny Girl, starring Babs, got She Loves Me, written by Bakken Harnick, and then High Spirits was the fourth. The musical version of Life Spirit by Noel Coward.

[1:09:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So then to be clear, the actresses up for Best Actress in a Musical were Carol Channing, Beatrice Lilly, Barbra Streisand, and then we're not even including Inga Swenson, because 110 in the Shade wasn't nominated for Best Musical. Which, I mean, Inga Swenson and 110 in the Shade, come on. Like, that's an insane year of musical theater.

[1:09:58] Michael Betts: Well, that's sort of the height of the golden age. A composer-lyricist at that time, Jerry Herman, Hello, Dolly! Hugh Martin, Timothy Gray for High Spirits, Harvey Schmidt, Tom Jones, 110 in the Shade, Julie Stein, Bob Merrill, Funny Girl. That means that Bakken Harnick didn't get nominated for She Loves Me.

[1:10:17] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: What?

[1:10:19] Michael Betts: I feel like She Loves Me is the better score than High Spirits, right? But at the time, She Loves Me was a little jewel box show, and High Spirits was a big Noel Coward piece.

[1:10:30] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's true. And then I guess the other thing of interest is that this was also the season of a show that we've already discussed on this episode, Anyone Can Whistle.

[1:10:41] Michael Betts: Oh, I love that show.

[1:10:43] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Isn't that crazy? Which was only nominated for choreography.

[1:10:46] Michael Betts: And nine performances, yes.

[1:10:50] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: One other thing that I want to touch on is the international tour of Hello, Dolly!, which was led by Mary Martin.

[1:10:56] Michael Betts: Mary Martin, which the recording is available on Amazon. And she sounds phenomenal. What I love about the Mary Martin thing, and there's a whole, if you go on YouTube, you can see it. She did this international tour to Japan, Vietnam, China, I think. And there's a performance of her doing it for the troops in Vietnam, and they are losing their minds. And it really touched me in a profound way to think of these military types reacting to musical theater in such a beautiful way, and to have someone as nurturing as Mary Martin on stage, as warm and nurturing, saying hello, fellas, and making them feel at home in the way that the waiters have made her feel at home in the story. It's really, really touching.

[1:12:01] Michael Betts: And it's a piece of media that reminds me how beautifully American musical theater can be, and unifying, and the power of laughter, but also of heart. And the troops weren't only from the U.S. They were also, I believe, from the Republic of Vietnam and Australia and New Zealand, who had all kind of been at this base. And to see them all come together under one roof for one evening, and that it's Hello, Dolly, just made my heart really, really happy.

[1:12:30] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Well, I think you've just spoken to the lasting legacy of the piece. It's about joy, and heart, and love, and the human condition. And that's why it's been around for as long as it's been around, and that's why it can be revived.

[1:12:45] Michael Betts: That's great. Because I think sometimes it gets harder and harder for us in media to choose joy. And I really respect people who are willing to be optimistic. And that's sort of your life philosophy, isn't it? Jeffrey Scott Parsons, like, choose joy.

[1:13:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, yeah.

[1:13:05] Michael Betts: All right. Thank you, everybody, for listening. Thank you, Jerry Herman, for bringing us a lot of optimism, hope, love, and laughter.

[1:13:14] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And a lot of dollies.

[1:13:15] Michael Betts: And a lot of dollies, man. Keep them coming.

[1:13:18] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I invite everybody to listen, like, subscribe to A Musical Theatre Podcast. If you have any suggestions as to what shows we should cover, you can always email us at amusicalpodcast at gmail.com, or follow us on Twitter at amusicalpodcast. We want to hear from you. This is your community to listen to a bunch of nerds talk about these wonderful shows. Thank you, Michael Betts, for coming over and chatting with me. I adore you.

[1:13:47] Michael Betts: Thank you so much for having me, Jeffrey Scott Parsons.

[1:13:50] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Of course. And everybody, have a great day.

[1:13:53] Michael Betts: So long, dearie.

[1:13:54] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Bye!