David Merrick's Big Announcement: The Infamous Opening Night of 42ND STREET

Have you ever wondered what was the most dramatic night in Broadway history? Well, boy, do I have a story for you! The year: 1980. The show: 42nd Street. I sat down with the show's lead, the iconic and peerless Lee Roy Reams to get the true story straight from someone who was actually there that momentous evening.

42nd Street was a musical, written by Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble, based on the 1932 Bradford Ropes novel and it's subsequent 1933 Hollywood film adaptation. It tells the story of a young Broadway hopeful from Allentown, PA during the Great Depression, who is thrown into the spotlight when a Broadway show's leading lady breaks her ankle. The musical features the songbook of Harry Warren and Al Dubin. An earlier iteration of a jukebox musical of sorts.

42nd Street was directed and choreographed by Gower Champion, who notably directed and choreographed the original Broadway production of Hello, Dolly! almost two decades earlier to critical acclaim. The 1960's saw many successes for him, but by the 1970's Gower had a string of flops, including the infamous Rockabye Hamlet. 42nd Street was set to be his big comeback! Audiences were craving nostalgia after the successful Broadway revivals of No, No Nanette and Irene. And MGM song and dance man Gower Champion was the perfect match for this old-fashioned 1930's throwback.

The show was produced by the infamous David Merrick, who was one of the top producers during the 1950's and 60's. Producing hits such as Gypsy, Carnival!, Oliver!, and Hello, Dolly!. (A bunch of shows with exclamation points in the titles). He was known for his love of publicity stunts. For example when his show Subways Are For Sleeping was running on Broadway, he sought after people that had the exact same names as the top theatre critics. Such as John Chapman, Walter Kerr, Howard Taubman, Richard Watts Jr., John McClain, Robert Coleman, and Norman Nadel. He invited the namesakes to the show and got rave reviews from them. He put all seven of the namesake's glowing reviews on an advertisement instead of the actual critics, and then had it published in the New York Herald Tribune. Helping the mediocre show run for almost six months. I think you get the gist.

Enough of the back story- let's cut to the drama. Gower had divorced his longtime wife and performing partner Marge Champion in 1973. In 1979, he was diagnosed with Waldenstrom's macroglobulinemia, a rare form of blood cancer. He was advised by doctors to quit working because of his bad health, but Mr. Champion being of the hardworking MGM studio system ignored them and pushed through. He wanted to be remembered as successful and not a "has been". He knew 42nd Street would be a hit.

During the rehearsal process, Gower started a romantic relationship with the show's female ingenue, Wanda Richert, who portrayed the hopeful young performer Peggy Sawyer. On August 25, 1980 the production was set to open. That morning at 10 a.m. Gower Champion succumbed to his illness, and died at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan. David Merrick asked the Champion family not to tell anyone about his passing - at least not until after opening night. The show was a hit! At curtain call the audience was yelling it's praises. Mr. Merrick walked onto the stage, shushed the crowd and announced the death of director Gower Champion.

I have often wondered how this moment must have felt to those intimately connected with this production Was this some kind of sick publicity stunt using Gower's death to get more promotion for the show? This is where I want to hand over the conversation to someone who was actually there.

I interviewed the show's romantic lead Lee Roy Reams to get the inside dish on the drama and how it unfolded:

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Tell Me about the late 1970's into 1980. What was the social climate on Broadway?

Well there was a change happening on Broadway. The new music was coming in, which is always reflective. I did Lorelei, which was a remake of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. And then in 1976, I did Wonderful Town in L.A, which is again, a revival. That kind of genre. Then there was the new stuff coming in, you know, like Pippin, and those kinds of shows, and Hair, and all of that where there was a new sound coming in. 42nd Street is an old-fashioned show. And obviously, that's where my heart is. It's a great score. Those songs are classics forever. The basic story works because it's about Broadway, and you had an incredible man who knew how to do musicals- Gower Champion. Who had a great cinematic style. Whenever he did his shows, scenes would meld into each other without seeing the changes. He would start a song in one area, and then a change would happen into the next one. It was always seamless. He really knew how to stage shows.

Being that Gower was coming out of a long string of flops, what were his feelings towards 42nd Street?

Well, it was a genre he knew really well. And we all did. Because those of us who love the old movies... the MGM movies and their stories, and the music. That's in our blood. That's what we liked. That's what stimulates us. And that's how he felt about 42nd Street. He knew the genre.

Was David Merrick known for mistreating casts and crews?

David could be contrary and unpredictable, but he knew what he was doing too. I always had a good relationship with David. And the first day we did our read-through, David said to me, "You're going to be very good in the show". I said "oh, thank you Mr. Merrick!", and he responded "Don't call me Mr. Merrick. I'm not your father. Call me David". Nobody called him David. Even Carol Channing called him Mr. Merrick. And so I said "yes, David. I will call you David". I mean... I have so many stories to tell you about, but let's stay specific for now.

What was the cast of 42nd Street's general opinion of Merrick?

They admired him. They respected him. But you know, he was unpredictable. You never knew what he was going to do. And everybody was out to please him. He left us to do the work. He didn't interfere until the show opened out of town. And then he started to let his ideas be known. There were very heavy contract agreements between Gower and David because of their past, and Gower was in full control. But David was the producer. And you know, there was friction there. But there was also respect. I never saw any blowups, or I wasn't aware of any. The show got a lukewarm reception in (the pre-Broadway) Washington D.C., but I knew it was going to be a hit... because the story just worked... and the songs were so great. And you know the book was slight, and they picked at it, but the numbers were just too good. They tightened them up and made some changes. Not a lot, but it worked.

When we got back to New York, it was the beginning of August. We were supposed to go right into previews, and then open. But David wasn't happy with the show. So David wouldn't let it open. And Gower by this time was going more frequently to the hospital for transfusions, which we did not know. Gower got very upset with David, because he wouldn't open the show, and Gower was desperate to get the show up. David didn't think it was ready.

We would do full run-throughs with full orchestra and full costumes... full everything. Only David Merrick was in the audience. One time, some of the kids brought their 8"x10" glossy headshots, dolls, and teddy bears, and put them in the front couple of rows. So we could have an audience. It was very funny. And then David told us we were going to have our first invited audience. We showed up and there was maybe a third of the house filled with people who we didn't know. And David found out Cliff Jahr from the New York Times was in the audience. David came out and said "I'm terribly sorry, but we're going to have to cancel tonight's performance. There's a rat in the generator", and they emptied the theatre. We did the show with only David sitting in the audience. He was very frustrating.

Then when there was finally an invited audience, again a third of the house was filled. We did the show, and the audience was screaming. It was wonderful. Gower was there and we didn't know. He was in Wanda's (Peggy Sawyer) dressing room. I went in. I was so happy to see him. I said "Oh my God! You're here!", I said "You just heard your first New York audience! You got a HIT! Listen to that audience!". And Wanda looked at him with those big doe eyes and said, "Oh Gower, It's all because of you". He put his arm around her, then put his arm around me, pulled us in and squeezed us tight, and said "No, it's because of us". I cried. I could cry again now.

Tell me about the day of opening night. What was your experience leading up to the show that evening?

Well everybody was so anxious to have the show open. We'd been doing run-throughs with no audience for a month. Finally, David came to a party one night that one of the kids had and threw a newspaper on the floor in the room and said said "read when you're going to open". It was August 25th, which ironically was Ruby Keeler's birthday. (The star of the original film).

So, we're all set for opening night. God knows we were ready for it! Gower was not going to be there. We knew he was in the hospital. And we knew he wasn't well, but we didn't know he was gonna die. But the opening day... in the afternoon, we got a telephone call from the stage manager saying David wants everybody at the theatre for rehearsal. Rehearse what? We've been doing the show every night. It's opening night! We've got limousines. We're dressing in tuxedos. There's people in from out of town. And we're gonna go to the theatre for rehearsal? What are we going to rehearse? But you had to go...

So we all went to the theatre and we were locked in! By this time David had us all wear name tags and there was security. You couldn't get in the theatre without a name tag. He had built all of this up for publicity. So we open the show, and it's a success. The audience was sensational. At the end of the show, all of these cameras come down the isles. I'd never seen that on an opening night. They're flashing pictures. We're having fifteen curtain calls. Just like in the movies. And David Merrick came out on stage. We all were so surprised to see him. I thought he was going to say "Gower Champion could not be here with us tonight, and I just want to publicly thank him for giving me this beautiful production". That's what I thought he was going to say.

He held his hands up and said "this is tragic". And everybody laughed, because what's tragic? We just had fifteen curtain calls! And you know David did stuff like that... publicity stunts. He said "No, no, no... you don't understand. Gower Champion died this afternoon". Everyone gasped! He turned upstage and walked towards Wanda and embraced her. Jerry Orbach, God bless him, because everyone was shell shocked, looked to the crew and told them to bring the curtain in. When the curtain hit the ground, the first thing in my mind was a story of Gower not wanting to die a "has been", and I thought "boy, was he set". It was like Sondheim's song "not going left, not going right". But then it suddenly clicked in that it's opening night! We've got a party to go to.

So everybody, in a trance, went up, got dressed, and went to the Waldorf Astoria. We had a sit down table at the Waldorf Astoria with an orchestra. When have you ever gone to an opening night where you were served at a table sitting down? When I came in, the first person who came up to me was Bob Fosse, who said, "that son-of-a-bitch! I filmed my own death in All That Jazz, and he had to do me one better by actually doing it". We laughed, and I said "you know, Bobby, if Gower was looking down from heaven, he's having as big a laugh as we are".

This is not the last time a director or choreographer has passed away famously on opening night. In 1987, when the National Tour of the revival of Sweet Charity opened in Washington D.C., the show's director/choreographer, the illustrious Bob Fosse passed away that day. The cast had no idea. When the curtain came down at the end, the show's composer, Cy Coleman, was waiting in the star's (Donna McKechnie) dressing room with the news. Similarly composer Jonathan Larson died a few days before the opening preview of his rock musical masterpiece, Rent, in 1996. Sending the cast into sorrow. They decided to do the first preview as a reading, but by Act II, the cast broke out into the show's staging.

I went into this interview assuming that the cast and crew were furious with David Merrick for the way he handled the bad news, but they weren't. They understood that's how he was. Show Business can be so unpredictable, and sometimes someone comes along who knows how to navigate the twists and turns of fortune. David Merrick took a chance and leveraged the shocking events of that day to extreme success. How the times have changed. This type of stunt would never fly in this day and age.