Bits: A Comedy Writer's Screams of Consciousness by Kenny Solms Carol Burnett

Author:Kenny Solms, Carol Burnett
Format: epub
Publisher: Perseus Books, LLC
Published: 2014-12-27T05:00:00+00:00

LORELEI

When Gail and I got signed for a Broadway show, we couldn’t believe it. It was everything I had always dreamed of. Who would have guessed it would end up a nightmare? Alas, here’s where the success streak started to slide. The show was called Lorelei, and it starred Carol Channing. It was a revisit of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, which she had done twenty years before on Broadway. We had to find a hook why Lorelei was still singing “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” at the age of eighty.

It was a dream package. Besides Channing, it was Jule Styne’s music, and Betty Comden and Adolph Green were going to write new lyrics to enhance Leo Robin’s already existing brilliant lyrics. I remember the day we pitched it to Channing. We told her it would be a flashback of Lorelei’s life after her husband, Gus, died. I could tell it worked. She lit up and with a big smile said, “He dies!” I still don’t know why she thought that was funny. But the important thing is that she liked it. So did Jule. He even started playing “Bye Bye Baby.” One hitch: there was no piano in the room. His excited fingers were playing the desk.

That show had a weird schedule. The producers wanted to get their investment back fast, so we were on the road for an entire year before it went to Broadway. About six directors were fired. Miss Channing was not talking to any of the writers. Of course two of them were dead: author Anita Loos and lyricist Leo Robin. To calm things down, Gail suggested we encourage Channing: “Tell her you liked the tech. Maybe she’d be nicer to us.” She was convinced that Channing couldn’t actually see us, as her vision wasn’t that great. So I went right up to her. “That was a great tech rehearsal,” I said. She growled right back at me, “You do your job and I’ll do mine.” In an instant, Gail turned to me and whispered, “I still don’t think she saw you.”

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