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[0:00] Paul Lazarus: Hi, this is Paul Lazarus. In the 1980s, I produced and hosted a radio series called Anything Goes, a celebration of the American musical theater. Now the Broadway Podcast Network is bringing back these shows. This is the conclusion of a two-part program featuring the composer of Bye Bye Birdie and Golden Boy, Charles Strouse. In January of 1982, Strouse came to my apartment in Manhattan and discussed everything from his collaboration with lyricist Lee Adams to working with Ray Bolger and Linda Lavin.

[0:41] Charles Strouse: Let's talk a little bit about your collaboration with Lee Adams, who you've worked with almost for most of the shows that you've written. How do you work together on a song? Well, Lee and I have a very close relationship. I must say, I love Lee Adams, and I think we've known each other long enough that I might say the reverse, too. We've been close all our lives, our professional lives together, over 30 years. And it's gotten so that we do each other's work, you might say, but I wouldn't put it that way. He's not really a musician as I am, and I'm not a lyricist as he is, but nevertheless we contribute to each other. I rely on his being suggesting certain things to me, certain ideas, and I think he relies on me for doing the same thing for him.

So there would be times where it would be just a phrase, musically and lyrically, that I can't remember whether he suggested I do it up instead of down, and where I said to him, gee, this should be the title, not that thing you say. It's about that second thing you said. It's one of those things. We work very closely that way together. And I think one of the reasons that we don't work as much together now is Lee's not a New Yorker, and he's not as hungry as I am sometimes. He doesn't like doing as much. And he's probably right. He lives a much more healthy life than I do. He's always said that I work too much. I mean, I think I do, but I can't help it. I just love doing it so much. Yeah, the different strokes and all of that. Yeah.

[2:22] Paul Lazarus: Have you ever had your marital tiffs, if collaboration is a marriage?

[2:25] Charles Strouse: Yes. I would say they haven't been tiffs as much as the fact that I think sometimes people who are too close over too long a period of time tend to use one another, manipulate one another. And I think Lee and I both have been in our career guilty of doing that, pulled back from doing it, but nevertheless do it. I mean, you find it in marriages all the time and close friendships that aren't collaborative. Somebody has to make the other person feel guilty or has to make the other person feel sorry for him or has to use his aggressions. And I think both of us have done that. And I think both of us are aware of it. And I think both of us are going to work together again, I hope for many years.

[3:30] Charles Strouse: All American in 1962 was your next show, and it was still with Lee Adams and Lyrics, with the new book writer Mel Brooks in this case. Right. Have you ever done a show before? Had Mel? Yeah. Well, he worked on Archie and Mahitabel. I don't think he had inaugurated it. Mel is a, I'm just making up this phrase now, but I think it's accurate, is a stand-up writer. He likes to talk. As a matter of fact, the movie that he did, The Producers, after All American, he told Lee and me every scene of it throughout the rehearsal of All American. It was as though he didn't want to or trust himself to simply type it out. He would try it out. He would then do scene three for us.

[4:25] Paul Lazarus: Had you thought that Once Upon a Time would be the hit of the score?

[4:25] Charles Strouse: No, I certainly didn't. Lee and I had written a version of the song Once in the Review, which we didn't feel was right in Green Mansions again, and we rewrote it. But as a character song, we thought Mel had a scene in which Ray Bolger and Eileen Hurley had to meet and to discuss somehow the exposition of where he came from was important. There was a romantic glow to the scene, but it was basically about, I come from here, and this is what I did in my life. And we wrote the song to kind of help with eight pages of dialogue. The only person who thought it was going to be a hit song, oddly enough, was Tony Bennett, who recorded it. But it didn't work that well in the show. That's a very funny thing about shows. Sometimes the best songs don't work in the dramatic sense. So many factors that work in the theater, yeah.

[5:19] Charles Strouse: Lee Adams, together with Charles Strauss at the piano, performed the song Once Upon a Time at the Lyricists and Lyrics Evening at the 92nd Street YMHA.

[5:25] ♪ Musical number: "Once Upon a Time" — performed by Charles Strouse and Lee Adams ♪

[7:42] Paul Lazarus: Are there any funny stories about Ray Bolger at that time? What strikes me is that he's the kind of person that would generate...

[7:46] Charles Strouse: Well, the only one... I've told this before, but it's perfectly true that the only funny thing that I can think of was that he did play the part of a Slavic professor and decided to do it in a Slavic accent. And I remember one day during rehearsal, Mel Brooks walked into me and he said, why is that man speaking Japanese?

[8:10] ♪ Musical number: "What a Country" — performed by Charles Strouse ♪

[9:55] Paul Lazarus: Ray Bolger as Professor Stanislas Fedorsky and the original cast of All American performing What a Country, a song by Lee Adams and my guest today on Anything Goes, composer Charles Strauss.

[10:11] Charles Strouse: Golden Boy in 1964. I was curious because I went back last night and read the Odette's play because I hadn't ever looked at that. Why the change from an Italian white fighter to a black fighter from Harlem for the musical? I'm sure that obviously was the generating factor of the show.

[10:29] Charles Strouse: Oh yes, no question about it. It was because that had become the larger truth in American life. The depression didn't exist as such, so an Italian boy who had to fight to the top was only true in a very period sense. It was true because the play is true and beautiful, but for it to be a black man became more American. It became more of a pressured situation as the depression had made it with the poor Italian and because it was more particular, to my mind anyway, more pressure, it was more universal. I think Golden Boy exists even more strongly as a black boxer.

[11:09] Paul Lazarus: Did Sammy Davis Jr. come after that?

[11:17] Charles Strouse: No, that was one of the few, if not the only show that Lee and I ever wrote where it was prepackaged in a sense. There was a producer, Hillard Elkins, who said to Sammy, look, I can get Clifford Odette's if you do this. Sammy said, well, if you can get Odette's to do the book and then he said to us, I got Sammy Davis to do it if you will do it. Oh really, Sammy Davis, wow. And then I think we've compared notes at one time. Nobody had committed themselves to do it at that time. He just went around getting everybody to say yes. But then it was right. The unfortunate part about that show was that Clifford, after working for two and a half years with us, died the week before rehearsal and didn't live to see it.

[12:22] ♪ Musical number: "I Want To Be With You" — performed by Sammy Davis Jr. and Paul DeWayne ♪

[15:58] Paul Lazarus: Sammy Davis Jr. and Paul DeWayne singing "I Want To Be With You" from the score to "Golden Boy," a 1964 work by lyricists Lee Adams and Charles Strouse, who is my guest today on Anything Goes.

[16:16] Paul Lazarus: It fascinates me to Clifford Odets, one of our really greatest American playwrights, working as a librettist. Being a librettist is such a different thing from being a playwright. You have to be so generous about the material. Did he have any trouble with that?

[16:30] Charles Strouse: Yes. Tremendous amount. He wanted the show. He sensed the show. He sensed the importance of the show. But he found it very difficult to unlock his heart from his original inspiration. There were many instances where he said, but that's my best scene. We did the usual songwriter's tricks of taking the best scene and putting a song there. And the connectives and the elimination, the additions, he found it very hard. And sometimes he would rewrite a whole scene, stay up the whole night, because he always wrote, with us at least, in a feverish pitch. And then we'd come in the next day and it was essentially the same scene. Clifford Odets said to Lee and me regarding a song we wanted very much in "Golden Boy," that it could not be done because the drama that took place immediately before was too contradictory.

Those of you who know the story of "Golden Boy," it's a sensitive young man tells his father he's going to give up music for a life of violence. The old man's heart is broken and the young man feels very guilty. The song Lee constructed following this was a sardonic goodbye to Harlem and would include jokes, tap dancing, and a great deal of affection it put on among the young men's street pals. Clifford was a venerable playwright. It shouldn't have worked, but musicals are curious animals. The song was an instant hit and only enhanced the dramatic structure of the play. Was it Donald McHale's staging, Sammy Davis, a great song and dance man, Johnny Brown's humor, or Lola Falana's great walk? Personally, I think it was Lee's lyric.

[18:22] ♪ Musical number: "Don't Forget 127th Street" ♪

[19:21] Paul Lazarus: Your first comic strip musical was 1966, "It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman." Interesting team, David Newman and Robert Benton, who later did "Bonnie and Clyde," the film, and also Robert Benton, "Kramer vs. Kramer," wrote the book for that show.

[19:42] Charles Strouse: I know so little about the show, oddly enough. I mean, I assume it's a...

[19:45] Paul Lazarus: Well, if you saw the movie "Superman," it was exactly that with a little change of plot. It was exactly that tone. That's what it was. We were 10 years too early on that. That was, I think, one of our big problems. The history of musical theater, every now and then it crops up that someone goes...

[20:07] Charles Strouse: I think 10 years later, in fact, convinced by the grossness of that movie, that 10 or was it 15 years later, we would have been a much different kind of success. As it was, we had a kind of critical success, and I've always liked the show, but it didn't work on Broadway.

[20:28] Paul Lazarus: Hal Prince was the producer and director on that show.

[20:29] Charles Strouse: Producer, director, yes.

[20:30] Paul Lazarus: That was the first time you worked with him.

[20:32] Charles Strouse: First time, yes.

[20:34] Paul Lazarus: Michael O'Sullivan played the villain in that plot, and he played a mad scientist who despairs of having never been awarded a Nobel Prize, and he sings that wonderful song he wrote called "Revenge."

[20:45] Charles Strouse: "Revenge," yes.

[20:45] Paul Lazarus: It's terrific.

[20:47] ♪ Musical number: "Revenge" ♪

[24:16] Paul Lazarus: The other song in that score that I particularly like, and it's the one that's really emerged from that score is "You've Got Possibilities."

[24:20] Charles Strouse: Yeah, that did pretty well.

[24:23] Paul Lazarus: That was early in Linda Lavin's career.

[24:26] Charles Strouse: Yeah.

[24:26] Paul Lazarus: What was her character? She played a character named Sydney, but who was that?

[24:29] Charles Strouse: She was the, at the Daily Planet, she was the associate to the bad columnist who was played by Jack Cassidy. And she had a real crush on Cassidy who spurned her.

[24:45] Charles Strouse: Used her at every opportunity that he could to do her legwork. And she sings "You've Got Possibilities" when one night Cassidy stands her up for a date and all, and she has nowhere to go and nothing to do, and she's mad, and she spies Clark Kent. You can barely see him for the woodwork, of course. And she says, "Oh hell, why not? I've got nothing to do tonight." And she says, "Come here, you." You know, and he's amazed that anybody would even notice him. Sort of a double-edged swamp because while she's singing, it obviously—oh, she's toying with his shirt and all, which he has to cover. It was quite, quite funny. Linda was wonderful in it. I mean, she is one of the best musical comedy performers and has been trapped by great success as an actress now, but she's the best as a musical comedy performer.

[25:42] Charles Strouse: Little necktie, the worst bearing, just unbearable. What to tackle first? Still, you've got possibilities, though you're horribly square. I see possibilities underneath. There's something there. Collar, pure Peoria, ha ha. Oh no, I'm not Queen Victoria. This suit has to go. Still, you've got possibilities, let us give it a try. I see possibilities maybe more than meets the eye. Don't back away. Come on, unbend. Why can't I be your little friend? Baby, you're improvable. It won't take long. Mountains can be moveable if the spirit's strong. You've got possibilities, takes a woman to tell. I see possibilities. Let me pry you from your shell. Relax, sweetheart, I'm not going to bite you yet. You'll be shy when I get through.

Come on and roll, you tiger, I know. Somewhere, way down deep in you, there's life, no doubt. It's just been asleep in you. Let me bring it out. You've got possibilities, maybe even a lot. Red hat, possibilities, why be shy? I see possibilities. You don't even know you've got.

[28:01] Charles Strouse: Linda Lavin, in the 1966 show "It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman," produced and directed by Harold Prince, with a score by Lee Adams and Charles Strouse. Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention, please? The film you are about to see is based on really true incidents that actually happened. We know you are a real sophisticated audience, and what you are about to see is some mature story. In 1925, there was this real religious girl, and by accident, she invented the striptease. This real religious girl, in 1925. Thank you.

[29:00] Charles Strouse: William Friedkin's "The Night They Raided Minsky's," which I finally got to hear that score when you lent me the record, I think it's terrific. The title song and that number, "Take Ten, Terrific Girls," are wonderful.

[29:12] Paul Lazarus: Yeah, we like that. That must have been a really fun film to work on.

[29:15] Charles Strouse: It was, except for the tragedy of Burt Lahr's death, which changed not only the film, but it changed the film totally.

[29:22] Paul Lazarus: It happened right in the middle of the shooting.

[29:23] Charles Strouse: Yeah. Yeah, I'd forgotten that.

[29:25] Charles Strouse: It was a major decision on Norman Lear's part and United Artists to go ahead with it, which they did, and then the film was masterfully cut, almost created, recreated certainly by Ralph Rosenblum.

[29:38] Paul Lazarus: To keep him in the film.

[29:39] Charles Strouse: To not only keep him in, but to suddenly give the picture an entirely different emphasis. It became a different story because that part, which was a major part, had to become, I don't know.

[29:52] Paul Lazarus: Almost a cameo.

[29:53] Charles Strouse: Like a cameo thing.

[29:54] Paul Lazarus: Right.

[29:55] Charles Strouse: The whole emphasis of the film was changed, and Ralph and Norman recreated that. Can you just describe the atmosphere and set up these songs? I'm going to play them both.

[30:03] Charles Strouse: It was, Minsky's is obviously the burlesque house. "Take Ten Terrific Girls" was simply a number in burlesque. We just imagined and then were blessed with a tenor who could sing that way. It was wonderful, and that was a number that they did. Billy Friedkin's idea was always to show the perspiration, so to speak, on the girls. It wasn't just a burlesque, the glamorous aspect. It was really life on the Lower East Side, the various religious New York tensions and things like that, along with the burlesque.

[30:53] ♪ Musical number: "The Night They Raided Minsky's" — performed by Rudy Vallee ♪

[32:38] Charles Strouse: Rudy Vallee from the original soundtrack of "The Night They Raided Minsky's" singing the title song by Lee Adams and Charles Strouse. One thing about Lee, if I may say so in front of him, is this love-hate relationship with the theater. He'd rather, I think, be sitting around in the country reading or traveling and writing a new show, and he always seemed rather annoyed when I'd call to say I've heard about a new idea. Nevertheless, here's some of the love part of that relationship: two theater songs, burlesque in this case and from a film, not a musical this time.

[33:19] ♪ Musical number: "Take Ten Terrific Girls" — performed by Charles Strouse ♪

[36:07] applause

[36:38] Paul Lazarus: For more information, visit AnythingGoes.com. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to rate and follow us. Thanks for listening.