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[0:00] Robert W. Schneider: Hey, lady, what if I whipped out my chignakha and used to pedal all over your shoes? Nope, that is not a line from an R-rated nutty professor, but a quote from self-proclaimed genius Jerry Lewis that he hurled at accomplished actress Lynn Redgrave during the out-of-town tryouts of Hellzapoppin' '77. There were threats of urinating on shoes, loaded guns, lawsuits, comparisons to Hitler, Israeli trees being uprooted, and the firing of the leading man's female protégé, sparking an all-out war in Boston. You see, what happened was, well, you're just going to have to stay tuned to hear all about falling star Jerry Lewis, rising star Lynn Redgrave, and star fucker Alexander Cohen as they all battle for supremacy in the 1977 Broadway-bound litigious disaster Hellzapoppin' '77 on this week's Broadway Bound: The Musicals That Never Came to Broadway.

[1:07] Robert W. Schneider: Hello, friends, and welcome back to another episode of Broadway Bound: The Musicals That Never Came to Broadway. Today, we're looking at two stars, one in front of audiences and one behind the scenes, who were both in career slumps and needed each other to become relevant again. But these two men's egos wouldn't allow them to share power. Oh, no, one must be the captain, and that is where Hellzapoppin' imploded. In one corner, we have auteur Jerry Lewis, one-half of Martin and Lewis, creator of the MDA telethon, and a man whose comedy was either the funniest thing you ever saw or the most interminable. To quote Lewis—and I feel like I should have a cough drop in my mouth to really give a good Jerry Lewis impression, but we'll try—A good performer doesn't think about the audience first.

He starts with himself. He's looking to satisfy his needs through giving other people pleasure. That's the kind of selfless, selfish act I have no qualms about. I'll be that selfish. Sadly, that selfishness will be one of the main reasons, if not the main reason, Jerry Lewis didn't launch a second career on the legitimate stage. And as big as Lewis's ego was, Cohen's might have been equal. Might have been.

[2:19] Robert W. Schneider: Now, the origin of this battle of egos didn't start in 1976 or 77. Oh, no, it started in 1938 with two comedians named John Olsen and Harold Johnson. At a time when reviews were all the rage, writers and performers Olsen and Johnson created the ultimate review, Hellzapoppin', which sounds like a New Orleans gay bar, but I digress. Hellzapoppin' was a mixture of Saturday Night Live and Family Guy before Saturday Night Live and Family Guy. It not only broke the fourth wall, it demolished it. Like an absurdist circus, the show was mostly improvised every night and seemed demented. The show usually opened with footage of Hitler being overdubbed in Yiddish and then devolved into one slapstick gag after another.

A wraparound included a guy carrying a plant looking for its owner, and each time he reentered, the plant would get bigger and until after the show, as the audience exited the theater, that same guy was now atop a 20-foot tree in the lobby begging to get down looking for the owner. If you also looked, you also saw an escape artist. Worthing, worthing, he was worthing. He was tithing. He was writhing. That's what he was, ladies and gentlemen. He was writhing on the floor in a straightjacket, something he promised to remove at the top of the show. Some audience seats had buzzers implemented to shock the patrons literally. Chorus girls came down and danced with the customers. Laundry-filled clotheslines hung above the audience's head.

In one sketch set in a living room, Olsen and Johnson would break character and notice some set dressing. It was a portrait of a battleship. Randomly, they pulled out guns and shot the ship until it sunk from the painting. A bit later, a captain entered, soaking wet, and he was also shot because the captain goes down with the ship. For the longest time, in an era when 200 performances was a smash hit, Hellzapoppin' ran for 1,400 performances. There is a movie version, and it's still really, really funny. Needless to say, Hellzapoppin' left an impression on a lot of people, especially a young man named Alexander Cohen.

[4:16] Robert W. Schneider: Cohen was a huge fan of Hellzapoppin', which he saw as an impressionable college student 19 times and never forgot it as he ventured forth in life as a producer of unsuccessful commercial productions. When you think of major Broadway producers of the Golden Age, you think Hal Prince and David Merrick, not Alexander Cohen. See, Cohen was not in the same league as those guys, but he wanted to be. A lot. While Prince was concerned with art, and Merrick was concerned with the bottom line, Cohen was concerned with prestige. He wanted to be the big macha, the big shot, the muscle, as famous as the people he employed. That was his major concern, and in order to do so, his projects became really eclectic.

One of these would pay off for him, he thought. One-person shows like An Evening With, which included evenings with Nichols and May and Marlena Dietrich. Classics like Richard Burton and Hamlet. He produced the Tony Award broadcast from 1967 to 1986. Yes, all those themed Tony Awards are because of Cohen and his wife, Hildy Parks. You know what I'm talking about? Broadway salutes kinesias, kinesias that were eaten in the lobby of the Morosco Theatre. All those actor-fun benefits of Night of 100 Stars, that was all Alexander Cohen, but no matter what he did, Cohen was always looked on as desperate. Less than. Not as artistic as Hal Prince, not as financially savvy as David Merrick. He hated them, and he wanted to create something that would solidify his impresario status, something Prince and Merrick did not have. What if, just what if, Cohen brought back Hellzapoppin' for a new audience? New sketches, new songs, and a big celebrity ringmaster he could dangle in front of New York City and prove his legitimacy.

[6:05] Robert W. Schneider: In 1967, Montreal hosted the World's Fair Expo 67, and Cohen brought Hellzapoppin' '67 to the fair. Its star was former child TV host Soupy Sales. I wonder if his name was really Sam Sales, but there was another Sam Sales in Equity. The goal was it would be such a hit it would then come to Broadway in 1968, play the Broadway Theatre with Soupy and Nancy Walker, but no one at the expo was interested in seeing it, so the show folded there. Still not deterred, Cohen hooked up with ABC Television and did a one-hour Hellzapoppin' in 1972. It starred Jack Cassidy as host, and one of the music groups was the Jackson 5, and as the lead female was Golden Globe-winning British actress Lynn Redgrave of the film Georgie Girl, and it got okay reviews and average ratings.

Overall, the consensus was that the show was groundbreaking in its day, yes, but with the counterculture comedy like the Smothers Brothers and Laugh-In, it just didn't hold up. But people's taste be damned. Cohen knew he could become the next Mike Todd or Billy Rose and make Merrick and Prince lick his boots. He had the vehicle, it was Hellzapoppin', he just needed the star. Enter Jerry Lewis.

[7:12] Robert W. Schneider: Jerry Lewis, the perpetual man-boy. You either loved him or hated him. For those who loved him, he was a comic genius up there with Chaplin, Keaton, a major movie star who, when teamed with Dean Martin, created comedy gold as a goofy child in a man's body, a face of rubber and a body like a limp noodle. Lewis was cute, he was funny, he was talented, a great humanitarian raising millions of dollars, if not billions, with his annual muscular dystrophy telethon, which Lewis held court for 24 hours to help those living with the fatal disease, looking, hoping for a cure. If you hated him, he was a one-note jerk, an arrogant sleaze who thought he was God's gift to entertainment, going through life with an open fly, a cruel father to his kids, and a very limited range whose success was bolstered by the actually talented Dean Martin.

Even his MDA telethon motives were called into question when it was alleged that Lewis fathered a child out of wedlock that had muscular dystrophy, and this was his way of atoning for that. Jerry Lewis's number one fan, though, was Jerry Lewis. I, unfortunately, am on this end of the spectrum. I'm sorry, friends. I never found Jerry Lewis funny. I found his arrogance funny, his inability to be self-aware hysterical, a man who extolled the virtues of making a funny face, grunting and falling to the ground like a toddler, as if it were the beautiful artistry of Picasso or Chaplin. He was annoying, phony, self-involved, mean-spirited, paranoid, and just a general jerk. Yes, I have seen The Nutty Professor, and I don't think he's funny.

The funniest thing about Lewis to me is Martin Short's impression of Lewis in his cough drop era phase, the greasy hair, tuxedo-clad, lozenge-sucking Lewis opining on the state of comedy as if he was a statesman. To me, that's funny.

[9:06] Robert W. Schneider: In the mid-1960s, however, it was clear that Lewis was really becoming the telethon guy. His films weren't making money. Paramount didn't renew his contract. He tried reinventing himself and ended up creating one of the most fascinating movies in cinema history, The Day the Clown Cried, a movie about a clown in a concentration camp that to this day has never been released again because it is so bad. Those who have seen it say you cannot imagine how bad it was. Lewis was on tough times, but there was enough love for him still in a land of nostalgia that Cohen thought he was the perfect choice to headline a Broadway revival of Hellzapoppin'. He was a big name, could be an emcee, be brilliant on stage, and most importantly, it would legitimize Jerry Lewis.

Lewis's father, no matter what Lewis did, said Lewis wasn't legitimate because he had never done theater. Here was Lewis's chance to legitimize himself. Jerry Lewis, Broadway star, with daddy issues. Now, dad would be impressed. The game plan would be to do what was called Hellzapoppin' '77 at the Minskoff Theater in the 1976-1977 season with Lynn Redgrave as the female co-star beating out Gina Lola Brigida and Brigitte Bardot.

[10:29] Robert W. Schneider: The only reason I know Gina Lola Brigida is honestly because of I Love Lucy. If you remember, they're in that train and they're all sleeping and they want Fred to get up and he won't move, so they yell, look, there goes Gina Lola Brigida, and then he gets up and runs around. That's the only reason why I know Gina Lola Brigida. I love the name, though, although every time I see her name, I'm always hungry for a Lorna Doon, and I don't know why. Comic genius Abe Burroughs would direct and write the book, and there would be new songs by the great Carolyn Lee, Cy Coleman, Julie Stein, and the rest of the 42-member cast would feature a pre-Stan Spornak, Herb Edelman, Burlesque's very own Joey Fay, the great dog routine of Bob Williams and Louie, an apathetic dog that would do the opposite of every command given to him. Also starring in the show was Jill Choder. Yes, Jill Choder. Never heard of her? Don't worry, you soon will.

[11:04] Robert W. Schneider: By opening night of February 13, 1977, not only would the New York audiences, but so would all of America and 25 other countries because Cohen convinced NBC to televise the first 30 minutes of the show live, as well as including audition and rehearsal footage for the whole world to see in exchange for NBC's $350,000. Cohen would dominate not only Broadway, but TV as well. The 1976-1977 season was dominated by revivals. There was Pal Joey, Guys and Dolls, Porgy and Bess, the list goes on and on. Originals were slim, and those originals were I Love My Wife, Happy End, Annie, and that's about it. Hellzapoppin' would have been a great addition, adding the nostalgia wave to this revival craze of the 1976-1977 season.

[11:55] Robert W. Schneider: What's interesting was that season, Lewis was supposed to do another musical called Feeling No Pain, which was going to have a score by Leslie Brickus. It was going to also be a good year for Leslie Brickus because not only was he going to do that, he was also doing a musical version of Sherlock Holmes. And another musical that was supposed to come in that did not, like those two as well as Hellzapoppin', was Kay Ballard in Serafina, which was going to be a musical version of The Rose Tattoo. Let's talk a little bit about the show. Now, usually on this podcast, we are able to play audio clips and demos, but there is only one bootleg of this show, and it's pretty bad condition. So you get a lot of me today.

If you do want to hear it, it is available, I believe, on YouTube. It's tough to listen to just because the audio is not very good, but it is there if you want to hear it. So like I said, unfortunately, going to get a lot of old Uncle Rob talking to you today.

[12:44] Robert W. Schneider: The entire show would be directed by Abe Burrows, like I said, and it will be written by him. The show opened, it's a review, so I should say the review opened with a spoof of a chorus line with all the cast lined up at the front of the line with Jerry Lewis as a nervous dancer being called forward, begging for the director to love him. It then went into the opening number, which featured a famous Lewis pratfall by having him fall into the orchestra pit. Unfortunately, he got up, and he did a routine where plants in the audience would disturb him, including an usher who kept asking for the spotlight to be on her so she could see the ticket stubs, the old tree routine, a guy hawking tickets to the Wiz. Then mercifully, Lewis left and turned it over to a juggling act. Then there was a five-line sketch about prisoners and escapists who can't escape, a song called Bouncing Back, in which Lewis was consistently interrupted by various events.

[13:34] Robert W. Schneider: Then, Lyd Grengrave sang a song about how she doesn't want to perform Ibsen, Shaw, or Moliere, like her rest of the family, but wants to do bedroom scenes, and that led to a montage called A Bed, a Husband, and a Wife, where Redgrave played various characters in and around the bedroom.

[13:50] Robert W. Schneider: Then Lewis came back as his nutty professor character and sang a song called Let's Put a Man on the Sun. Then the first act ended with average Joe, or I should say Jerry, trying to record a message to his mother, but a director appeared out of nowhere, coaching him on the right sentiment to really move his mother in the message, and that ended act one.

[14:10] Robert W. Schneider: Act two picked up with Lynn playing a hooker, lamenting she wasn't allowed to loiter in places that were not near her residence. This was actually pretty funny, because Lynn Redgrave had actually made a name for herself in a film called The Happy Hooker. Then that nosy usher again showed up, and Lewis invited her onstage to have her moment called A Miracle Happened, allowing her her big break.

[14:32] Robert W. Schneider: Then Jerry did a number dedicated to his cane, because he had lots of cane tricks. And then there was a political slant, because Hellzapoppin did have a little political commentary in it, and this came in with a montage called A Hymn to Her, where the feminism movement was skewered, most obviously in a sketch between Lewis and Redgrave, where Redgrave hosted a news program and was happy to bring on a first for the network, a male co-anchor, Jerry Lewis, who has trouble reading but doesn't want to be emasculated by a female.

[15:02] Robert W. Schneider: The last long sketch of the evening was that of an auditor doing the tax returns of various people, including hookers, mobsters, and a little boy played by Jerry Lewis. And that, my friends, was the structure of Hellzapoppin, '76. Rehearsals began on October 25th, 1976, at the Minskoff Studios, and it seemed to go well because each thought the other a genius, Cohen and Lewis.

[15:26] Robert W. Schneider: All the photos from the first day is everyone smiling and hugging and laughing and celebrating one another, but the ladies doth protest too much, methinks, depending on who you believe. The first issue came when Lewis wanted to ad-lib. According to Lewis, he was told by Cohen that he would have total artistic control and should be the genius audiences loved, and that genius was rooted in spontaneity, so ad-libbing was okay.

[15:50] Robert W. Schneider: Now, according to Cohen, Lewis wanted this to be a foray into legitimacy, and he would not ad-lib anything he promised. Every word he spoke would be that of Abe Burroughs, just like they do in a real show. Gone would be spastic Jerry Lewis, who would be legitimate actor Jerry Lewis. Burroughs, a stickler for the written word, didn't know what to do, but knew that Lewis had ideas.

[16:12] Robert W. Schneider: Lewis wanted freedom, so Cohen let Burroughs go from his directing duties, but he would let Burroughs stay on as a writer. That way, he would get Burroughs's script, but he would also get a director in there that could help keep Lewis on a short leash. Cohen used to go around bragging to people, "If Jerry Lewis just listens to me, he's going to become an international star." So, he needed somebody to keep that leash short, and for that, he turned to his production stage manager, a guy named Jerry Adler, to take over the reins as director.

[16:45] Robert W. Schneider: Adler was Cohen's right-hand guy, and Cohen could lead Adler to lead Lewis in the right direction. When a difference of opinions came up about if a joke would work, Lewis would take $100 out and slam it on the table, tell Cohen to pony up a quarter, and if the audience laughed, they would be the winner. Cohen said he hated taking Lewis's money so much, but he donated it all back to the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

[17:07] Robert W. Schneider: Cohen wanted final say, always with a sense of it doesn't matter if the audience is laughing, the critics won't. Everything has to be done for the critics. Lewis felt anything for a laugh. You do the show for the audience, not the critics. There was also another problem emerging in rehearsals. Redgrave was the co-star, but it was clear she was talented and should be equal to Lewis. She sang better than Lewis, she danced better than Lewis, she was hotter than Lewis.

[17:32] Robert W. Schneider: But Lewis was not a fan of anyone upstaging him, even if it was not intentional, and he began to refuse to do scenes or songs with his co-star. A lengthy scene for them at the top of the show was cut, and they would only interact for the first time with each other during the second act in that newscaster scene, and that would only be dialogue. That wasn't even a song. Lewis made it clear that if he was going to sing a song with a woman, it would be Jill Choder.

[17:57] Robert W. Schneider: Now, who is Jill Choder? Jill Choder was Jerry Lewis's protege, a girl he found that he had on his Muscular Dystrophy telethon in 1974 to do a little sad clown routine, and he was convinced she would be a star. Her part in Hellzapoppin' was substantial, and Lewis wanted more of her, less of Redgrave. For her, Lewis created the whole Usherette scenario. The cast grumbled that it should be Redgrave's slot or another girl's slot, not Jill, who really lacked the personality of the other people in the show, but as always, once the show was in front of audiences, either Cohen or Lewis would be proven right about Jill, Lynn, and the comedy.

[18:44] Robert W. Schneider: Baltimore, November 15, 1976. Hellzapoppin' opened in Baltimore for its first preview at the Morris Mechanic Theater. Lewis would try to stick to the script as much as possible, but he felt something was off. Audiences weren't really responding to the Donald Sadler choreography or the antiquated sketches by Abe Burroughs or the tepid songs. He could feel audiences were wanting Jerry to be the Jerry they knew. Not Tuxedo Jerry, but Silly Jerry, Improv Jerry, but honestly, no one wanted any Jerry.

[19:15] Robert W. Schneider: Breakeven for this show was $140,000 a week. They needed $140,000 a week in Baltimore to break even. Only once in the three weeks did they ever get to that. Jerry Lewis, we found out, was not the draw they thought he would be. Why should I go and pay to see Jerry when I can see it on the telethon or the late night? Soon, Lewis brought in not only more of his little Jerry routine where he acts like a man-child, like talking about his aunt's big cushions when she hugs him, but his Leroy Anderson typewriter routine.

[19:46] Robert W. Schneider: Cohen begged him, don't do these things. Stick to the script. Prove your legitimacy. Don't fall back on old tricks. If Lewis felt a joke would work, Cohen would cut it. If Lewis hated a joke and no one laughed, but Cohen liked it, he would keep it, thinking the critics would like it. When the reviews came in in Boston, it was not so good. Quotes included, only half the fun it could be. The show was saddled with weak material, but it praised Lewis and said Redgrave deserved better.

[20:14] Robert W. Schneider: Why is the female co-star which she relegated to glorified chorus? None of these reviews mentioned Jill Choder, positive or negative. Next stop over Thanksgiving and Christmas is Washington, Washington in D.C. The gloves really came off. Frustrated that the show wasn't getting better and that his name was on it, meaning that no matter what the audience sees, they're going to think Jerry Lewis approved it. He decided to take matters into his own hands.

[20:40] Robert W. Schneider: He demanded that the creatives appear in his suite for a two-hour meeting where he read aloud for two hours a memo outlining how the show needed to be fixed. But he really had one basic solution, top of that list, fire Lynn Redgrave. That would fix everything. She was not pretty, not musically strong, and her hooker song was offensive with lyrics like I miss the gang I used to bang. How could Cohen, a notorious advocate for cleaning up in New York City, allow this?

[21:09] Robert W. Schneider: Lewis went on and on and on, and the producers countered that they, too, were uncomfortable with the number but needed to wait to get to Boston where critic Elliot Norton's opinion would allow the number to stay or go. Lewis couldn't believe it. They were waiting for the critic's blessing. But Cohen explained that that is what happens in legitimate theater. And the issue is Lewis and Redgrave don't really share any time together. It's not that Redgrave is bad, it's just the audiences don't understand why the two stars don't appear in any scenes together.

[21:38] Robert W. Schneider: Redgrave was contractually obligated to have one song in the show. The producers would write a new duet for the first act called Butterflies for Lewis and Redgrave. If Lewis liked it, it would go into the show, and then the hooker number would be cut. The next morning, Lewis and Redgrave met in the rehearsal room to rehearse Butterflies for the first time. Lewis laid on the floor, and they sang through the number. At the end, Lewis said, It's cute, like the second stanza of the National Anthem, and he refused to sing it.

[22:09] Robert W. Schneider: Adler and Cohen put it on the rehearsal schedule for the next day, and Lewis said, I'm not singing with her. If you want, I'll sing it with Jill, but not Lynn. The actor was refusing the director and producer. Maybe this flies in Hollywood, but not on Broadway. Lewis knew he had to get more people on his side, and his generosity began to overflow. When Redgrave's kids came by rehearsal selling candy bars for charity, Lewis bought all their candy bars for $84.

[22:37] Robert W. Schneider: Cohen decided, well, fine, I'm going to take the whole cast to dinner for Christmas. Lewis said, well, I'm going to give them all Gucci keychains and beautiful cameras, all with a handwritten note from Hollywood star Jerry Lewis. Cohen was losing a grip on the reins, and so was director Jerry Adler, also over a girl on his end, a woman named Kathy Rice. Kathy Rice, who had a friendship with Jerry Adler, would kiss him in rehearsal and call him baby cakes in rehearsal, and when the management would chastise the cast for personal conversations they had had for out of earshot of anybody, they knew who was getting that information.

[23:14] Robert W. Schneider: It was from Kathy Rice who was attending all of the production meetings with Jerry Adler. The reviews were tepid in D.C., same complaints from Baltimore, and in this world, they needed $560,000 to break even, and they only got $304,000. This was a record loss for a musical on the road. To make matters worse on his own volition, critic Richard Coe came back to re-review the show. No critic had done this before. He railed against the show, furious that Redgrave was being wasted and that the most obvious thing to do was to fire Jill Choder and replace her and that whole Usherette sequence with Lynn Redgrave.

[24:02] Robert W. Schneider: Needless to say, this did not go over very well. Now we're going to go to Boston. By now it's early January 1977, and Boston will host the show at the Colonial Theatre on January 4th for three weeks, then go to the Minskoff for the February opening. Everyone tried to stay on their best behavior until the reviews came out. Elliot Norton, Dean of Critics, said that the show needs more poppin', tighter pacing, and better material. He never mentioned Choder or the song A Miracle Happened.

[24:30] Robert W. Schneider: Kevin Kelly of the Boston Globe lashed into the show with the headline, Hell's a-floppin', and here was his review. Bad things first. Jerry Lewis, despite his popularity, not to mention his cachet du cinéma reputation, has never seemed to be more than a fifth-rate movie madman, manic in his mugging, technically limited and totally lacking in any comic notion that might possibly march his intelligence beyond a pratfall. He represents to me the paramount Las Vegas comic performer.

[25:02] Robert W. Schneider: And maybe. Most of the evening, he's stiffly self-conscious, perhaps because he knows he's beyond his range. Then for the rest of the evening, he commands a kind of shuffling showbiz authority to which his lack of talent inexcusably gives the lie. He can't sing, even within an off-key comedy style, can't dance, can't ad-lib convincingly, and he's flatly unable to establish anything more than glib mimicry in his chosen characterizations. He's outclassed by the past as well as the present.

[25:31] Robert W. Schneider: Watch Lewis, for example, in a superbly staged dance routine created by Donald Sadler, a typical Caine strutting number with more imagination and style than the sum total of the full production. Lewis simply doesn't have the sophisticated reserve to handle the choreography, but gritting under his black patent leather hair, he pretends he does. He dances like one of those Clydesdales pulling a beer truck, in fact, with less celebrity. He's a hollow jokester.

[25:57] Robert W. Schneider: And in Hell's a-Poppin', trading on his lackluster grace to hear him sing and understand the lyrics, even with amplification, requires fluency in lip-reading. To listen to him playing a five-year-old with a lemon lollipop or a, oh, and he uses the R-word here, a R-word schizophrenic recording his voice for his mother, is to contemplate murder. Two and a half hours of Jerry Lewis, someone called out in mock agony. Oh my God. The agony was then punctuated with a gunshot. It's a bit. It's a joke. But part of the fun of that joke is that it isn't too far from the truth.

[26:31] Robert W. Schneider: At this point, Cohen needed to exert his leadership. Before the matinee, the cast found out that both Miracle and 8th Avenue, the hooker song, would be cut. Tommy Tune was also there to take over all the direction and choreography, and some numbers would be choreographed by Tommy Tune's new assistant, Catherine. Now, who is Catherine? Of course, it's Kathy Rice. This also did not go over very well with the cast.

[26:58] Robert W. Schneider: Now, while this was happening at the Colonial, Cohen was meeting with Jerry Lewis's reps, who were explaining why Jerry Lewis would not be performing Butterflies or attempting to learn Butterflies.

[27:09] Robert W. Schneider: But then their meeting was interrupted by a phone message. Jerry Lewis was furious. How dare they cut Jill's number? How dare they do this? How dare they do that? He was going to walk out of the second act of the matinee, and he warned Cohen, don't come to the theater, because Jerry Lewis had a loaded gun in his dressing room and was willing to use it. The next day, a meeting had to be held. Lewis and Cohen. One of these men would win. Cohen said that he was making Lewis sing Butterflies with Redgrave, and Lewis said the only thing he would do with Lynn Redgrave is take out, quote, his cock and piss on her, end quote. Cohen pressed on. He was firing Jill Choder. He had that power, and he was using it.

Lewis backed down. He wept. He begged. He pleaded, but to no avail. Choder would be gone for Broadway. Cohen also informed Lewis that he, too, was replaceable. Lucille Ball said she was interested. Flip Wilson was in the audience watching the show, as was Dick Cavett, whom Jerry Lewis detested. In fact, Cavett knew that Lewis hated him so much that when he went backstage to greet him afterwards, the only compliment Cavett gave him was that he loved the dog act. Cohen said to him, all these people would be out of a job if Lewis didn't shut up and follow orders. Lewis called Cohen a till of the hun and stormed out.

[28:36] Robert W. Schneider: That evening, Alexander Cohen sat with six men in the audience at the Colonial Theater. Two of them were executives from NBC who had sunk $350,000 into this thing, and four were Alexander Cohen's colleagues. He asked them honestly, was there anything here at Hell's a Poppet or should he close it? And they all said the same thing. Close it. Cohen posted the closing notice, and on the final day, Lewis was in very rare form. In a scene that required him to do a spit take, he did the take right on Redgrave's face, spitting on her. Cohen then did an interview and exclaimed, quote, the show is for sale for anybody who wants it. At closing on January 22nd, 1977, Lewis looked out into the audience, which included producers Maggie Minskoff and the Shuberts, both who disliked Cohen, and said he would try everything to bring the show to New York in a few weeks.

Maggie Minskoff agreed and said she would help too. She did not. Hell's a Poppin' '77 closed on January 22nd, 1977, at a record $1.3 million loss. It didn't get better for Lewis. The February 7th, 1977, New York magazine had an illustration—this was their front cover—of Jerry Lewis being yanked off the stage with a vaudeville hook, and the headline, Hell's a Floppin', is this the end of Jerry Lewis, which then detailed the entire experience, his behavior, his ego trips, his megalomania.

[30:15] Robert W. Schneider: Lewis said that this was the lowest point of his career. The issue to Lewis was the critics. People loved it. People loved him. Fuck the critics. Fuck Alexander Cohen. He said he wanted to be improvisational and free-spirited. Lewis said he had no problems with Lynn Redgrave. He said that Cohen had promised him, you can go and do whatever you want. Then he said Cohen pulled the rug out from under him. Lewis said, quote, he called me chaplain in Wells. He said I was the same level of genius as them. What makes them geniuses is that they never worked with Alexander Cohen. Lewis went off on Cohen. He wasn't a producer. He was a star fucker. Quote, I'm the only one that's a successful showman. He's a fraud, a conman.

You think Hitler wanted to rule the world? Shit, he was a fucking pygmy. But with the name Cohen, God willing, we'll have six or seven trees uprooted in his name from Israel. Lewis was convinced in this article that he was under attack, that he was the victim of a witch hunt, and that people like Streisand and Frank Sinatra, whom he started to emulate, they were all part of the same rare breed and tribe, individuals that were brilliant geniuses, auteurs, that were always being pissed upon because they were better than everybody else. Well, say what you say to get through the day.

[32:02] Robert W. Schneider: It was also revealed that Cohen had said the only way to get the son of a bitch out of this show is to close it. Then in March, a group of investors sued Alexander Cohen. Not that Cohen closed the show, but did he close the show with cause? Couldn't he just replace Lewis? Where's Flip Wilson? They said that their numbers show the show could run nine months as a flop, and still they would make their money back from the NBC deal alone. Cohen said the show was not ready for Broadway, and the critics had validated that. That's why he closed it, period. What's interesting to note is that that lawsuit never really went anywhere because it was revealed that Cohen invested and lost $770,000. Those angels that were suing each put in $1,000.

If anyone should have kept it running to benefit themselves, it was Alexander Cohen. Then in July of '77, before the MDA telethon that year over Labor Day, Cohen let it slip that he would be suing Lewis for sabotaging the production. This was a pretty big deal. Cohen was saying the show could have been fixed if Jerry Lewis had actually done what he was supposed to do, rehearse. Lewis had to go in front of Equity, and an Equity arbiter said, yes, Jerry Lewis is at fault. This is not Alexander Cohen's fault. This is not the material's fault. This is not the critic's fault. This is the fact that there was a lead actor who was employed and didn't do the job that they were asked to do.

[33:34] Robert W. Schneider: Finally, in 1981, facing mounting legal costs and debts, Lewis settled with Cohen out of court for an undisclosed sum. And with that, Hell's a-Poppin' never came to Broadway. Lewis's career never really recovered. It wasn't just Hell's a-Poppin' that was the nail in the coffin. It was tons of things. It started to get revealed what a sleazebag he was, how arrogant he was. His interviews in the press made him sound like he was God's gift to the world. That arrogance just sort of turned people off. Plus, comedy had moved on. Comedy was no longer Jerry Lewis and the Three Stooges and people acting like Boy Child. Comedy was Saturday Night Live. It was arch. It was cynical. It had a sense of irony about it.

And that wasn't a world that Jerry Lewis could live in. Jerry Lewis no longer was the setup and the punchline. Jerry Lewis was now just the punchline. Martin Short on SCTV would skewer him. The telethons became a laughingstock within themselves. It was so clear that there was all of this money and effort going in, but unfortunately, the telethon never seemed to produce really a lot of results for people. So the MDA telethon, unfortunately, also became a punchline, no matter how much good that it did for people.

[35:11] Robert W. Schneider: If you ever are interested, go onto YouTube and take a look at some of the wonderful clips from the Jerry Lewis day telethon. My favorite, besides the one where he called the cameraman the F-word, is when he has Laini Kazan come on and she sings Copacabana. Yes, the great Laini Kazan sings Copacabana. It is the most bizarre, fascinating, erotic, enticing rendition of Copacabana you'll ever see. You will sit there the whole time going, what is happening and why couldn't I be there live and in person to watch it? Lewis had one kind of minor success later on in life. He did the film The King of Comedy with Robert De Niro, directed by Martin Scorsese, where he played a thinly veiled version, not only of himself, but of Johnny Carson.

And while he's wonderful in the film, he didn't lead to anything else, which is a shame because he was actually quite a good dramatic actor. Eventually, Jerry Lewis did come to Broadway in the mid-1990s to great acclaim, actually, in a revival of Damn Yankees, where he replaced the great Victor Garber as Applegate. But his career never did hit the heights. The telethon trudged along, and Lewis kept hosting the telethon until 2010, when he unceremoniously was either fired or quit the program. Nobody knows exactly what happened.

[36:58] Robert W. Schneider: Alexander Cohen, on the other hand, never had the show that he wanted that would make him a hit, and he was always looked at as less than in the community. He would pass at Sardi's and Joe Allen's and people would giggle. When he would park his limo in Shubert Alley, it was often towed. His night of 100 stars occurred, but they ended up being expensive and spending more money than it was getting, and the Tonys finally stopped using him in 1987 so they could focus on a different, classier way of doing the event. Herb Edelman, who was Jerry Lewis's yes-man and agaron of all of Jerry Lewis's slights and senses that he was wronged, he, as you know, became a staple of TV history when he was cast as Bea Arthur's yutz of a husband on The Golden Girls.

Star to be Jill Choder, well, she left the industry and she became a therapist. And Jerry Adler, the production stage manager turned director, wandered into a career as an actor and became known as Hesh on The Sopranos and Howard Lyman in The Good Wife. He was also the second-longest member of Actors' Equity until his passing.

[37:58] Robert W. Schneider: If you want, I used to have a podcast called Behind the Curtain, Broadway's Living Legends, and we interviewed Jerry Adler, who had an amazing, amazing history. Of course, he comes from the great Adler acting family, the whole dynasty, but on top of that, he was also the original stage manager for My Fair Lady, and he had some amazing stories. So if you want to take a listen to that interview with the great Jerry Adler. Would Hell's a-Poppin' '77 been successful on Broadway? Probably not. That season, like I said, was overloaded with revivals of great shows and great stars. Hell's a-Poppin' was outdated, and you could see it for free if you watched SNL or Carol Burnett. Lewis wasn't Jerry Lewis anymore.

If you wanted Lewis, you could go to Vegas, eat a prime rib and play Keno. On his next assignment, Damn Yankees, word was he was reigned in, but that was a legit show. There was a clear script. It was existing. He was walking into a pre-existing production. Hell's a-Poppin' was being built from the ground up. Finally, with that structure, he went legit.

[39:01] Robert W. Schneider: Could Jerry Lewis have made a great Broadway star? Probably. I think he probably would have been great as a Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls if he was willing to share an ensemble. I mean, he would have been a marvelous Pseudolus in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Could he do an original show? That I don't know, and honestly, I don't think so. One of the things that makes a show successful is when everyone focuses on the audience. Lewis could only focus on himself. Cohen could only focus on himself. No one focused on the audience, what they needed, what they wanted. Perhaps if they did, Hell's a-Poppin' might have made Alexander Cohen a global phenomenon and Jerry Lewis a new career as a legit Broadway performer.

But unfortunately, when the ego is so big, it obscures the playing audience's needs. No one ends up a winner. But what happens when the star is Broadway royalty, someone who has grease paint in his bones, a proven entity? And what if he closes not one, but two shows out of town? The story of Robert Preston's two Broadway-bound musicals, We Take the Town and The Prince of Grand Street, on our next episode. Until then, buh-bye.

[39:40] Robert W. Schneider: And any financial assistance is always appreciated. If you like what we are doing, please head over to robwschneider.com, that's r-o-b-w-s-c-h-n-e-i-d-e-r.com. Click the tab that says AMTA, that stands for the American Musical Theater Archives, and make a tax-deductible donation to keep shows like this one on the air. Oh my gosh, I sound so much like PBS right now. I'm so sorry. And sadly, I can't even send you a tote bag, but I can wave energetically if I see you on the street. And isn't that worth the price of a donation alone? Actually, donate to PBS. That way they can send you a tote bag. You can put it over your head so nobody sees me waving at you if you're really ashamed and embarrassed of my vociferous energy. Once again, robwschneider.com. Click AMTA, make a tax-deductible donation, and I will be forever grateful.