Sunday Morning, Hopelessly Hollywood: Collaborating at College with a Composer Destined to Make Movieland History

During my senior year at San Francisco State College, while preparing to produce and direct the annual student revue, Kampus Kapers, one of the respondents to my call for original songs was a very young Shirley Rogers. All of 20 years.  So talented was she, that she ended up not only setting the lyrics of others to music, but also orchestrating the entire score and composing a haunting ballet of modern symphonic depth, Market Street. 

She was eager and polite, very efficiently organized, all business-like.  . 

Here, from my book, Hopelessly Hollywood:

Shirley Rogers was also the first person to score a lyric of mine; what a day to remember when we adjourned into a small piano practice room and she played the music she had written for the song that would open the show.  The notes were thrillingly strange, taking my words in a direction I’d never imagined when I first drafted them to my own dummy melody:

                        Kick up the Kapers again!

                        Stick out your hearts

                        Stir up a fuss

                       This is the show that is us!

The verse may read, yes, corny, but Shirley’s sophisticated setting, full of subtle modulations on a forceful ascent, was anything but.

 Whatever in the world happened to her?

In the years ahead, four members from the Kapers cast would reach Broadway stages.  As for Shirley Rogers, I had hoped to write a musical about the Ringling brothers, believing that she would be the ideal composer, but my reaching out to her was not returned.  My student revue had been a step in her career, and she was onto a step higher than that.  Much higher. Whatever happened to her, however, became a mystery for me, lasting many years.  My friend Mike, of Kapers days, only knew that she was composing music for industrial films. Now and then I would google "Shirley Rogers" and come up with nothing.

A few years ago, by sheer serendipity, I discovered that Shirley Rogers had become one of the first female composers to earn solo score credit on a major Hollywood motion picture.  And while she did not achieve populist fame, she was highly respected and revered within the industry.  Prolifically active, she scored and/or conducted music for TV and film, much of it at Warner Brothers.

Why had I been unable to find anything about Shirley Rogers?  Because, when she married, she took the name of her husband and became Shirley Walker. 

 She died, following a stroke, in 2006.

What a talent. What a day in that small piano practice room, when, for the first time, I heard somebody else's music to my verse.

                        Gosh, but the feeling was strong
                        We were on edge moments ago,
                        Now we are bursting to go!

Charlie Berliner, left, a member of the cast, and the director.  They always love you before the show opens!

Trapeze King Miguel Vazquez Retakes the Air in Documentary About His Life and Art, Set to Premiere at Sarasota Film Festival, April 17-18

Miguel Vazquez, over the net, seen here with Juan Vazquez, left, film producer-director Philip Weyland, and Bruno Vargas  

Six year's in the making, Philip Weyland's documentary on the life and times of quad God Miguel Vazquez, will world premiere at the Sarasota Film Festival,  on April 17th and 18th.                            
                                                                                     
A circus fan from boyhood, says Philip, the film "is, in part, a way to offer my respect to the heroes of my youth."

Weyland, like many of us with similar boyhoods,  knows how circuses have changed.  During the century just past, without  a flying trapeze act on the bill,  "circus was not and could not be considered a real circus," he writes.  I vividly recall how that almost any trap act would bring the audience to its most rapt attention.   A double and a passing leap, a few twirls -- Americans thrilled to whatever flew overhead!

Weyland was luckily (or skillfully) able to track down and capture the cooperation of the elusive retired flyer, then making a living on the ground, moving props around in Vegas shows, one of them being a Cirque du Soleil unit.  I remember, a few years earlier, making many calls myself to a number allegedly belonging to Vazquez, allegedly obtained from Tony Steel, and never reaching a voice at the other end -- not even Ma Bell coming on to say, "if you would like to make another call, please hang up and dial again."   But it was the call of the Weyland that got through.  And for that, we are lucky.

It was in 1982, when the young prince of the air completed his first four revolutions before a Ringling audience in Arizona.  The miraculous achievement landed major media attention, New York Times to Tom Brokow on NBC. Irvin Feld, his own greatest press agent, had laid the groundwork well. Some hailed it, correctly, the greatest feat ever in all of circus history.

Days of high-flying glory: Miguel with his wife, Rosa, starred on Ringling every season during the 1980s

You might say that Miguel, by divine coincidence, flew through my heart late one August night on my birthday (the 19th) , when he actually completed his first quad -- in a late night practice session in Long Beach, CA, the city where Alfredo Codona took his own life.  How tangled up I vainly feel in a great cosmic convergence of circus history.  Codona's death.  Miguel's quad.  My birthday.   Miguel raised my pulse once again, the next year during an afternoon show at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, the city of my birth, when, after turning another quad, (the first of his I had seen), upon returning to the fly bar, he performed another first --- a pair of mid-air pirouettes!

 Yours truly, center, with the director, right, waiting for my big moment under the L.A. sun

So it was especially exciting when Philip Weyland reached out to me one day, asking if I would be up for an interview.  It took place, six years ago this August, in Monrovia, a little east of Hollywood, in one of those large swanky hillside homes that give off a certain air of glamor.  Where even the flowers have to audition to appear.  Maybe it was the cameras, the cables,  the crew.  They sat me out on a veranda, under a heavy sun, and there the first part of the interview would take place. How like a celebrity it made me feel.

Weyland was just beginning.  Over the next few years, he and camera would travel to Las Vegas, to Sarasota and Bloomington, among other locations.  They filmed at Ringling and Vargas. 

Tony Steel makes a strong, winning impression in the film

About a year or so ago, Phil sent me a few short clips of the film-in-progress.  Surprise!  I had told him and worried that I might come across looking too lethargically detached.  Saw myself, many years ago on a local San Francisco kids show, and what a stiff.   Here, at least I look alive and animated.  Relief.  That's the good part.  Now, as for the other part -- oh, to see ourselves as others see us!  I did not see Me.  I saw -- deep sigh, well, let's say, a hyperactive cross between a very famous comedian and a very unfamous but most powerful circus owner. Not saying who.  That's not me there!

For you who love and respect Tony Steel, from the few clips I saw, he comes across as cool, likable, down-to-earth, a genuine asset.  Steel was the first flyer to advance beyond the triple into three-and-a-half revolutions.
 

Two trap titans:  Miguel Vazquez and Tito Gaona (all photos courtesy of  Philip Weyland) 

.

Are there really flyers out there today turning genuine quads?  Maybe so.  Maybe not.  Maybe in semi-free falls, or starting out higher.   Five somersaults in Korea -- sounds absolutely breathtaking, however spun.  I'm not a doubter, just a realist.  The Russians turned quads -- who among them, and for how long?  Trapeze acts have exploded in dazzling creativity, and that I like.  And yet, gazing up to watch a solo flyer swing out, somersault over and over and over again, perfectly into the hands of the catcher is one of the most elevating thrills under a big top.

Miguel brought great dignity to the air.  Like Codona, he flew in flawless form -- more the swan than the sprinter, more ballet than ballyhoo.  He set the gold standard, and has no doubt influenced new generations to reach for the same.  That his sky-high triumphs did not make it into either Paul Binder's book Never Quote the Weather to a Sea Lion, or Linda Simon's The Greatest Shows on Earth is inexplicable.  Sadly, we live in times when stopping the show to announce a quad may not be as momentous as once it was -- for there may not be as much of the right kind of show to stop.  Not, anyway, in this corner of the planet.

And please remember, if you go to see The Last Great Flyer, when you see me talking, that's not really me.

P.S. Thank you, Phil.  

Old Tops to New Tops: Barnum & Bailey Crackers Fall ... English Circus Takes America ... Felds Get Their Day in New Book ...

Animal Crackers to What?    Hula hoops?  Spin the bottle?  From my nephew, Jeff, this picture of the old perennial  Barnum's Animals Crackers.  Now to be a thing of the past, blame it on the passing scene --- you know who and you know what.   Cry, Jumbo, cry.

A Scottish circus man to America  Comes this, from Douglas McPherson in London town, "Did you know today (Friday, yesterday) is the 222nd anniversary of the first American circus, presented by John Bill Ricketts on the corner of Market and 12th Street Philadelphia, April 3, 1793?"

No, Sir Douglas, I did not, but thanks for reaching out.    BTW:  Over the last few years, another British big top Lord, George Sanger, has finllay rattled my brain into proper respect.  Sanger tried three-rings on the public, but did not succeed, BEFORE Barnum & Bailey ran with the idea, a few years later, and gave birth to the Great American Three-Ring Circus.

Barnum & Bailey & Feld  I’ve read Ernest Albrecht’s new book, From Barnum & Bailey to Feld: The Creative Evolution of the Greatest Show on Earth.

This is I can promise you.  If you are a Feld fan, there is nothing here to fear.  Everything to gild your idyllic regard for the triumphal Irvin Feld & Family story. It appears that the extensive access and cooperation granted Albrecht by the Felds has been generously returned in coverage that essentially sets in stone — at least in this book — the way they wish to be known by the public at large

The problem is, when you fictionalize your own legacy, you may diminish that of others.  Of many examples, here is but one.

"There was also much antisemitism as well, directed at the Felds, who were the first Jews to play a major role in the American Circus."

I remember Kenneth Feld raising this issue to the press during the roll-out of his ill-fated one-ring Cirque du Soleil-inspired Barnum's Kaleidoscope (not mentioned in the book), down in Florida.

Was that really so?  Once again, I looked up the names Irving J. Polack and Louis Stern; they were Jewish, were they not? Yes, it seems they were. Their top-drawer Polack Bros. Circus, something of an artistic revolution launched back in 1935, reintroduced American society to the one-ring format.  Made a big spread in the Saturday Evening Post.  So good did their shows become, that some people preferred Polack over Ringling.

Still, maybe they were not Jewish.  Fearing egg on my face, I googled them again, this time landing  on the Circus Historical Society's History Message Board, and into a discussion dealing with Jews in the circus.  To my surprise, not only were Polack and Stern among those mentioned, but a number of other names were tossed around as likely Jewish – all of whom came before the Felds.  Among them:

Jess Adkins (Cole Bros.) and  Si Rubens (Rogers Bros. Circus).

And let us not overlook Samuel Gumpertz, who managed Ringling-Barnum quite well for five years (1933-1937) during one of its most difficult periods.  I would say he played a major role.  

When I was a kid in Santa Rosa and Polack Bros. Circus came to town, I was so entranced by it all, I knew who the boss man was from his picture in the program magazine.  He ran the show.  He was always there.  Once, at around the age of eleven,  I went up to him after the show and pointed to a picture of the Karrel Troupe (a second Wallenda act, on ladders), in the magazine, and said, "I didn't see that act, sir?"

He grumbled back, “Yes, they were there, sure!” and walked away

Louis Stern.  His great showmanship, working with Barbette on productions,  was a key factor in my succumbing to the spell of circus.

Was I  disappointed in Mr. Albrecht's book?  Considering my high regard for his general approach to circus reviewing on his website, Spectacle, especially his discriminating critiques of acts competing at the Monte Carlo Circus Festivals; considering that I have quoted from his well-received book, The New American Circus. Yes, I was disappointed.

Surprised?  Sorry to say, sad to stay, no, not exactly.

4.4.15

Sunday Morning, Hopelessly Hollywood: Witnessing the Birth of a Circus Song

This is about my first meeting David Baron, who would compose the music for my show, Those Ringlings, as recounted in my book.  We were feeling out each other's talents and attitudes that morning.

            Baron, it seemed, was something of a loose fuse, forever close to going off.  When I first met him I handed him my typed lyric sheet for “The Circus is Coming,” to show him a sample of my work.  He looked at it, mulled it into his mind a bit and swelled up into a ball of action.
          “Follow me” he said, crossing to a door, like a kid anxiously on his way to the bathroom, needing to relieve himself.   The door opened into a small anteroom featuring a piano.  David sat down and invited me to take a seat.  He spread out the sheet on the stand, began to talk out the words, and shortly after, was running his fingers up and down the keyboard.  

                   Tho circus is coming!
                   Right under the big top,
                   Step up, see a pig hop
                   through a flaming hoop --
                   We’re one amazing troupe!    
.                                
                   Arabian tumblers --
                   Your spines will be tingling!
                   Step up!  See the Ringling Brothers famous show,
                   with acts from Kokomo!

                   [and so on...]

           He grew more excited as he tried out various melody lines, looking and listening to me all the while for feedback.  I liked what he was up to ... Sure, yes ... sounds on the right track! ... Yes, keep it going!   David grew more vocal, more intensely committed to his creative instincts.  How exciting it was to witness, even take part in, the birth of a song.
          In ten minutes, maybe less — The Circus Is Coming had music.  Damn good music.   At that moment, I had no doubt I would likely be asking David Baron to compose the score.  I had already heard a lovely ballad of his, “Little Snowflake,” and now I had ample evidence that he could go Cohan, too.  You need both emotions from  a theatre composer.

 "Dreamy Hollywood magic"

  - Kirkus Reviews 

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