The choreographed heart attack is said to be brilliant.
Posted on 04/27/2019 5:00:00 PM PDT by Twotone
Half-a-century ago this month - April 1969 - Bob Fosse began his career as a Hollywood director with Sweet Charity. It ended barely a decade later, and within the next both Fosse's Broadway bankability and then Fosse himself died too. Yet his name endures: Right now, the FX Network is halfway through a biodrama about him and (which he would have appreciated) with his name in the title - Fosse/Verdon, sharing billing with his missus and muse, Broadway's greatest dancer. Michelle Williams looks eerily like Gwen Verdon, at least from the side on the poster, although Sam Rockwell appears to me to be trying less for Fosse than for the last guy to play him on screen - Roy Scheider in All That Jazz. I had a very slight acquaintanceship with Fosse in his final years (when he seemed to me unhappy and frustrated) and a somewhat greater one with Gwen, who couldn't have been kinder and more generous to me. She had a taut, supple dancer's body, and told me that, after watching her in rehearsal on Redhead, the lyricist Dorothy Fields added a line for one of the songs - "Her posterior? Superior!" - of which Gwen was rather proud. I saw her in rehearsal late in life for a couple of TV things of mine she agreed to take part in, and can testify to how that couplet held up over the decades.
In the Sixties Broadway was the domain of the hyphenates: the choreographer-directors - Fosse, Jerome Robbins, Gower Champion... Hollywood was less friendly terrain for the species, excepting (for a brief moment) Gene Kelly. Fosse had been dancing and choreographing on screen for a decade and a half...
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
All That Jazz is a terrific film.
Nobody did better JAZZ HANDS than Fosse!
This mini-series captures the tawdry, scummy world for Broadway and show business in general. It will remind you that no matter how much you enjoy the end product, the world it comes from is dark, godless, selfish, and hedonistic. These are people you wouldn't want to know in real life.
Good point!
The choreographed heart attack is said to be brilliant.
Never got “All That Jazz”.
There were high points, but those points couldn’t redeem the already confusing story line edited to pieces, imho.
Michael Jackson copied his moves.
I watched most of the first episode. The Fosse character broods and smokes, smokes and broods, broods and smokes for long, long moments. The story barely moved. I finally turned it off. Yawn. I had to dust the top of my refrigerator anyhow.
Although I never met Mr. Fosse, I was with the original Broadway production of Pippin for several years. I provided the live animals that appeared in the show: a lamb and a duck. I only used two ducks for the entire run but the lambs outgrew their part quickly and were replaced often. I knew some of the cast and most of the stagehands and musicians. None that I knew were dark, godless, selfish, or hedonistic. Except, maybe, John Rubinstein, who was the first Pippin. He constantly whined that the lambs smelled. I’d have to spray perfume on them or pat them down with baby powder before bringing them to the stage.
Agreed.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.