Was it a big scandal when Madeline Kahn left 20th Century?

[Leadingplayer]

Did the box office drop a lot?

[FishermanBob]

It was only 2 months into the run and it ran for almost another year after Kahn left and Judy Kaye took over so if there was a drop, it would seem they recovered. Forgive me but I have to ask... have you spent the last 34 years wondering about this and finally decided you had to know for sure?

[Leadingplayer]

No Fisherman...I read about it in the alternate thread and got curious, you smartass...

[allofmylife]

Watch the footage online from the Tonys and you'll see why nobody complained too loudly. What an amazing voice Judy Kaye has.

[allofmylife]

Watch the footage online from the Tonys and you'll see why nobody complained too loudly. What an amazing voice Judy Kaye has.

[After Eight]

^

Yes. And yet, Kahn was far superior in the part.

[South Fl Marc]

I would so disagree - Judy Kaye was brilliant in the part.

[GoSmileLaughCryClap]

Judy Kaye was professional in the part, with a big voice, and she was certainly game.

Madeline Kahn not only gave a star performance, she gave a completely original and hilarious one, full of crazy little details and the aura of a genuine unique talent.

She had that Bea Lillie, Judy Holiday, Barbra Streisand, Barbara Harris, Carol Channing thing that doesn't seem to exist any more; an indelible personality on stage. The audience would laugh just anticipating her next bizarre line reading.

And I can attest that the box office took a big hit after Kahn left. I sat in the first row of the mezzanine with some friends one night a month after Kaye took over. We were alone. The show was a passion of mine, and there were holes in the theater at a number of the performances I attended.

I believe attendance did pick up about a third of the way through the run, but it was never SRO after Kahn left.

[newintown]

I'm with GoSmile - Kahn was a genius comic actress; the best Kaye will ever be is moderately amusing and workmanlike. She had a great voice back then, though, it's true.

[brettarnett]

Did Kaye bring anywhere close to the comedy that Kahn brought to the role? Just listening to the cast recording I can tell how nuanced Kahn's performance. Is there any video or any document of Kahn's performance. Was the role written specifically with Kahn in mind? Sorry for the millions of questions. And lastly, is there anyone currently thy could do the role of Lily Garland justice?

[JoeKv99]

You know, you can be Streisand, Bea Lillie and Sarah Bernhardt combined but if you can't get your ass into the theater to perform every night there isn't much point to it.

[morosco]

Opening Night

[Bettyboy72]

Why did she leave?

[morosco]

While we're on the subject check out this high school production of Twentieth Century. This young actress is phenomenal!
Never

[nobodyhome]

I saw both and I thought Kaye was much better in the role, and that included being funnier. I may have seen Kahn on an off night, but she seemed to be working much too hard and seemed rather tense.

My memory is that the box office did not take a huge hit when Kahn left. Shows usually have a somewhat downward trajectory at the box office, and this one did, but I think there was no big drop when Kahn was gone. More harmful was that it lost the Tony to Ain't Misbehavin'. I think it might have helped had the show opened with Kaye, who would have had a good shot at winning the Tony, which was never going to happen for Kahn after she was fired/left.

Honestly, I don't think she was much of a draw. I love her too, but it's not like she was a huge star and it's not as if she got extraordinary reviews that made people feel that it wasn't worth seeing the show without her. In fact, at least a couple of the reviewers who saw the show at critics' performances expressed disappointment with Kahn, saying that she seemed to be walking through the show.

[GavestonPS]

Madeline Kahn was famous for off-nights. I thought she was easily the funniest woman in film at that time and I don't doubt any of you who found her brilliant in the stage show.

But the night I saw it, she slept-walked through the role and the whole "these characters behave like opera characters" concept made no sense. All I saw was a show that Cole Porter should have written with a bad Forrest and Wright score instead.

I saw Judy Kaye many, many times in the part and she was never less than an sheer, larger-than-life joy. What I learned from this is that it's not enough for an actor to be skilled, s/he also needs to give the impression s/he wants to be on that stage. Later, it really helped me in directing actors.

But as for scandal, that seems too strong a word. Kahn was admired and her departure inspired much talk; but there was also a groundswell of support for Kaye as more and more people saw her in the part. Obviously, Kaye's career didn't suffer from comparisons to Kahn.

[Dollypop]

I recently had a conversation with someone who was in the original production. He told me Kahn was terribly uneven in her performances. One day she'd be brilliant, other days she'd be lackluster. She was let go because of her erratic performances.

This is pretty much what Gaveston talks about.

[Leadingplayer]

I guess I thought she was a much bigger deal at the time than she was. I thought this would be the equivalent of Nathan Lane say leaving a show a month in nowadays.

Thanks for the interesting info!

[GavestonPS]

I recently had a conversation with someone who was in the original production. He told me Kahn was terribly uneven in her performances. One day she'd be brilliant, other days she'd be lackluster. She was let go because of her erratic performances.

This is pretty much what Gaveston talks about.

This has been set out elsewhere, but in the Prince office years later they were still telling the story of the show's opening night, back when most reviewers still attended the opening night. By all accounts, Kahn was brilliant.

Prince's longtime associate producer, Ruth Mitchell, went backstage to congratulate Kahn, who snapped, "Well, I hope you don't expect me to do that eight times a week!"

Unfortunately, since I was a HUGE Madeline Kahn fan, I saw the show the night before that opening. As I said, Kahn acted as if she would have rather been anywhere else.

Similar stories were told about Marlon Brando in STREETCAR. Such performers are better suited to film because the director can keep doing takes until the performer comes "alive" and a brilliant take is recorded. Then they use that one in the final movie.

[GavestonPS]

I guess I thought she was a much bigger deal at the time than she was. I thought this would be the equivalent of Nathan Lane say leaving a show a month in nowadays.

She was a big deal and had at least one Oscar nomination at the time. It was certainly noticed when she left and the reason why was, if not printed, certainly passed by word of mouth. But I think fans such as myself just figured the demands of 8 shows per week in such a large role weren't suited to her talents.

It didn't make her any less brilliant in films such as WHAT'S UP DOC?, BLAZING SADDLES and PAPER MOON.

Although she later had a couple of TV shows, it is my memory that her best work was behind her by the time she did ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. Did the episode hurt her? (My guess is no.) Or was she back on Broadway because she was no longer getting interesting film parts? Chicken or egg?

[Owen22]

Man, it was great listening to those two songs again! I feel like such and old fogey actually saying "They don't write them like that anymore..."

It made me all the more excited to see Kristen (this generation's Madeleine) take on the role. I so hope that actually happens...

[joeybiltmore1]

While her Oscar-nominated roles in PAPER MOON and BLAZING SADDLES are rightly celebrated, I don't think her best work was behind her by the time she did ON THE 20TH CENTURY. Her Tony-winning performance in THE SISTERS ROSENZWEIG in the '90's was both brilliantly hilarious and utterly heartbreaking. She also did solid work in the films CLUE and NIXON among many others. My favorite "later" film of hers, though, is JUDY BERLIN, which would be her last. Kahn gives a performance (in a cast of well-known theatre vets) that is joyous and lonely and ethereal.

I have many fond memories of receiving the 20TH CENTURY record for Christmas and savoring every second of her performance as Lily over and over.

She was a great, unique talent. I miss her.

[nobodyhome]

"This has been set out elsewhere, but in the Prince office years later they were still telling the story of the show's opening night, back when most reviewers still attended the opening night. By all accounts, Kahn was brilliant."

By then, the critics were no longer mostly attending opening night. Prince had been one of the first producers to start inviting critics to previews, starting with Zorba. By the time of On the Twentieth Century, it had been standard for a while. For some reason, Richard Eder (in the Times) seems to have attended opening night for this show, but that was unusual.

In the Foster Hirsch book, Prince tells that story as if it had happened to him.

Never heard such stories about Brando in Streetcar, but it was apparently true of him in the only thing he did onstage after Streetcar, which for some reason was a stock tour of Arms and the Man in which he played Sergius, rather than Bluntschli. William Redfield, who played Bluntschli, wrote about it in his terrific book, Letters From an Actor.

[henrikegerman]

Gaveston, i trust you are right about Kahn's inconsistency. But I'm shocked that you think the score to On The Twentieth Century is a bad one.

[GavestonPS]

She was a great, unique talent. I miss her.

I agree, joeybiltmore. I didn't see Kahn in ROSENZWEIG, but I'm happy to take your word for it. In terms of film and while the fault may not have been Kahn's, the later work doesn't compare to the earlier for me. (This is not to say I didn't watch every episode of her TV show and the later Bill Cosby show in which she had a supporting role.)

[GavestonPS]

nobodyhome, I can only tell you what I saw and heard and how the story was told to me. I saw the dull performance at the last preview; if there were critics there, I doubt they were impressed. Perhaps Kahn simply got caught up in the opening night excitement and it had nothing to do with critics.

Yes, I know Prince claims the story. But long before he published that, I heard the same story attributed to Ruth Mitchell by several members of Prince's staff. (My husband worked there.) So I tend to think Prince appropriated the memory and recast himself in a central role. (And for all I know Mitchell may have been delivering a message from Prince, so perhaps he was indeed involved.) In the end, the point was Kahn's response.

That Marlon Brando was sheer genius--but only in one performance per week--has been reported by so many sources, I didn't think it required attribution.