Posted on 11/19/2004 9:36:52 AM PST by Borges
Cy Coleman, the Tony Award-winning Broadway composer who rose from child classical pianist to jazz player to master of the catchy show tune, died Nov. 18 of a heart attack, according to friends and colleagues in the theatre community.
Among Broadway musicals composed by Mr. Coleman are Little Me, On the Twentieth Century, City of Angels, Barnum, The Will Rogers Follies, I Love My Wife and The Life.
He was 75. A revival of Sweet Charity, a musical many consider his masterwork, is slated for Broadway in spring 2005. He had previously told Playbill the score will be revised and include songs he wrote with Dorothy Fields.
Mr. Coleman attended the Nov. 18 of the opening of the play Democracy and felt ill at the party afterward. He and his wife, Shelby, went to the hospital, where he collapsed and died, Playbill learned. Mr. Coleman is also survived by a young daughter, Lily Cy.
Mr. Coleman, a native New Yorker, was born Seymour Kaufman. He played classical music at Carnegie Hall and Town Hall as a child, but as an adult heard the siren call of jazz, pop and theatre music and never looked back. Working with the lyricist Carolyn Leigh in his early writing career in the late 1950s and '60s, he penned such hits as "Witchcraft," "You Fascinate Me So" and "When in Rome."
Leigh and Coleman would venture into the musical theatre, writing the scores to the Lucille Ball vehicle Wildcat (which offered the tune "Hey, Look Me Over!") and Little Me (which boasted "I've Got Your Number"). There was friction in the relationship. Pianist Coleman and his Cy Coleman Trio were playing engagements around the country, and Leigh wanted him to stay put in New York and focus on writing musicals.
Though Coleman did settle down to a theatre-writing life, he and Leigh did not write another show. With the legendary lyricist Dorothy Fields, he wrote "Where Am I Going?," "If My Friends Could See Me Now," "Big Spender" and "There's Gotta Be Something Better Than This" for Sweet Charity, Bob Fose and Neil Simon's 1966 reimagining of Federico Fellini's "Nights of Cabiria." In the musical fable, Gwen Verdon starred as a dance hall hostess named Charity Hope Valentine (in the film, Cabiria is a prostitute).
The show's second Broadway revival (Fosse staged it in 1987) begins in April following out of town tryouts. Walter Bobbie directs and Wayne Cilento choreographs. Opening has been announced as April 21, 2005.
Those who only knew Cy Coleman as a Tony Award winning composer caught a rare glimpse of the pre Broadway Coleman when he returned to his jazz piano roots Oct. 12-23 for a gig at Feinstein's at the Regency.
The engagement represented life as Mr. Coleman lived it some 40 years earlier — performing not just his own jazz waltzes and songs but tunes by other writers. His October 2004 songlist included "Green Dolphin Street," "But Not for Me," "Comin' Home," "Mean to Me" and more. His side men were Gary Haase (on bass) and Buddy Williams (on drums).
The Feinstein's run (with the composer playing piano and singing) conjured Mr. Coleman's milieu of the 1950s and '60s, when he played smoke-filled rooms in Florida, hotels in Detroit and even his own 75-seat 58th Street nightclub, The Playroom, which he ran with partners in the late 1950s. William Holden had his own barstool there, Mr. Coleman told Playbill On-Line.
A couple of jazz performance albums from that era have been re-released for CD, but Mr. Coleman said recently he'd like to unearth some others and get them on the market.
Why did Coleman stop performing? It's not that people stopped asking, he said. The Emmy-wining, Oscar nominated and Grammy-winning composer grew so busy creating and/or rehearsing musicals, from the film of "Sweet Charity" to Seesaw and beyond (including such unproduced shows as Eleanor, about Mrs. Roosevelt), that it became impractical to accept bookings.
The Feinstein's gig (with Coleman on piano and vocals) included some of his classic pop songs as well as his beloved show tunes and material from such forthcoming shows as Like Jazz (with lyrics by Marilyn and Alan Bergman) and Pamela's First Musical (with lyrics by David Zippel).
Pamela's First Musical will have its world premiere by Goodspeed Musicals in Connecticut in 2005.
RIP to a great of Broadway.
Bob Fosse's choreography was "out there" for Sweet Charity.
God rest his soul ... what a talent!
Frist the magnificent Fred Ebb (Chicago, Caberet lyricist), and now Cy Coleman. A very sad year for Broadway.
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"Those finger up and down my spine...
...it's WITCHRAFT"
"And I've got not defense for it, the heat is too instense for it, what good would common sense for it do?"
...cause it's WITCHRAFT" =
...FRANCIS ALBERT SINATRA's life story.
.
Personally, I feel that his eccentricity was what made for such a great choreographer and unfortunately, a tragically short career.
A definite goosebump song.
Big Spender!
(Peggy Lee, & others!)
The minute you walked in the joint
I could see you were a man of distinction, a real big spender
Good looking, so refined
Say, wouldn't you like to know what's going on in my mind?
So let me get right to the point
I don't pop my cork for every man I see
Hey big spender!
Spend a little time with me
Wouldn't you like to have fun, fun, fun?
How's about a few laughs, laughs?
I could show you a good time
Let me show you a good time
The minute you walked in the joint
I could see you were a man of distinction, a real big spender
Good looking, so refined
Say, wouldn't you like to know what's going on in my mind?
So let me get right to the point
I don't pop my cork for every man I see
Hey big spender!
Hey big spender!
Hey big spender!
Spend a little time with me
Yes
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