No man who has met her can ever forget her

Grrrr. Another weekend disappears in a flash...

Here at Dolores Delargo Towers, we're still wearing black armbands, mourning the loss of the legendary Chita Rivera [read my tribute].

By way of a (further) fitting wake-up call on this Tacky Music Monday, I've found a marvellous piece of (audience-recorded) footage of the great lady at her very best, cavorting with her safety gays!

Chita Rivera - Gimme Love [Act One Finale, Kiss of the Spiderwoman, 1996]

Gimme love, Gimme love, Gimme kisses, Gimme love
Gimme love, Gimme kisses, Gimme love, love, love!
Gimme love, Gimme love, Gimme kisses, Gimme love
Gimme love, Gimme kisses, Gimme love, love, love!

If there's a war on, don't bring me the news
Ask me to bull fights and I must refuse
But if you want to get my attention
Let's make love!
Gimme love, Gimme kisses, Gimme love
Gimme love, Gimme kisses, Gimme love!

If there's an earthquake I will not attend
Gimme kisses, Gimme love!

If there's a plague don't invite me my friend
Gimme kisses, Gimme love, love, love!

But if you want to
Keep me looking in your direction
Let's make love!

Gimme love, Gimme kisses, Gimme love
Gimme love, Gimme kisses, Gimme love, love, love!
Gimme love, Gimme love, Gimme kisses, Gimme love
Gimme love, Gimme kisses, Gimme love!

It's like giving to the needy
And I don't mind being greedy.
Come on, Chico, please be speedy
And bring me what I long for...

If there's a fire don't bring me a hose!
Gimme kisses, Gimme love!

Call me a coward, that's true, I suppose!
Gimme love, love, kisses, Gimme love

But all I want is beauty...
So...

Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, Gimme Hugs
Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, Gimme Squeezes
Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, Gimme Lips
Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, Gimme Kisses

So let's not make more trouble
Let's make love!

Gimme love Kiss
Gimme, Gimme love, love, love! Kiss
Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, love, love Kiss
Gimme love, love Kiss, kiss!
Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, Gimme
Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, Gimme
Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, love!
Gimme love, Gimme love, Gimme kisses, Gimme love
Gimme love, Gimme kisses, Gimme love, love, love!
Gimme love, Gimme love, Gimme kisses, Gimme love
Gimme love, Gimme kisses, Gimme love, love, love!
Gimme...

(Molina:)
Come with me...
Her name is Aurora
And she is so beautiful,
No man who has met her
Can ever forget her
They're madly in love
Forever in love.

Have a good week, dear reader.

Sondheim of the Day - West Side Story

Way back in 2009, I posted a tribute to the long-forgotten model-turned-society-hostess Ruth Ford, who hosted a famous theatrical [="gay"] salon at her home in the Dakota Building in New York:

...she hosted parties attended by such luminaries as Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, Terrence McNally and Truman Capote - just imagine a single room that could possibly hold all those queens together!

But most exciting of all, it was in Ruth Ford's apartment that a young Stephen Sondheim was first introduced to Arthur Laurents and, later, to Leonard Bernstein. Together, these three remarkable men came up with one of the best musicals of all time - West Side Story! And it was all down to Miss Ford...

One of the most extolled successes in musical theatre history, this updated version of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet was made even more popular when Mr Laurents and producer Robert Wise turned it into a blockbuster movie in 1961 - which went on to win 10 Academy Awards; the most ever for a musical film. [Its influence stretches even to the modern era, as Steven Spielberg's just (groan) remade it; I shan't be rushing to see that.]

For young Stephen Sondheim, this was a spectacular debut indeed!

Without further ado, on with the show. It's a familiar and well-trodden plot - but with a plethora of tight-trousered gorgeous (and indelibly camp) boys, pretending to be members of macho street gangs, cavorting in Technicolor, what's not to like..?

West Side Story - Prologue [Russ Tamblyn and the Jets vs George Shakiris and the Sharks]

Of course, its score is timeless (with typically Bernstein staccato notes balanced by Mr Sondheim's clever and complex lyrics), and birthed a number of classics...

Chita Rivera, Rita Moreno and Bette Midler - America

Pet Shop Boys - Somewhere

Lin-Manuel Miranda and Raul Esparza - A Boy Like That/I Have a Love

[NB it was this version, from Lenny Bernstein's studio production of the score (see below) that spawned a famous French & Saunders skit]

Joyce DiDonato - I Feel Pretty

Kiri Te Te Kanawa and Jose Carreras [conductor Leonard Bernstein] - Tonight

Julian Ovenden - Maria [BBC Proms 2015]

It's no wonder, really, that West Side Story is still consistently voted among the best musicals of all time.

RIP, Stephen Joshua Sondheim (22nd March 1930 – 26th November 2021)

[One of a series of tributes I will be posting to Mr Sondheim this week. Yesterday's "Sondheim of the Day" was Company.]

With my hips kind of swivelly and swervey

After a faboo "extended weekend" - that included our much-awaited outing to see Anything Goes (yay!), and much pottering in the extensive gardens here at Dolores Delargo Towers [a load of dead stuff cleared, and two window-boxes of daffs and a bowl of Iris siberica planted for Spring] - we face the ultimate disappointment. It's over, and another working week has unfortunately begun.

Never mind. With Hallowe'en impending, let's start the week in a most appropriate fashion this Tacky Music Monday with an unlikely combination of legendary ladies and a most bizarre treatment of a Rodgers-Hammerstein classic:

Carol Burnett, Chita Rivera, Caterina Valente [as Morticia Addams] - I Enjoy Being A Girl

All that, and a snippet of an elderly Boris Karloff, to boot!

Have a good week, dear reader.

---

Footnote:

Both the original performer of this song (in the Broadway show Flower Drum Song) Pat Suzuki (age 91), and the actress who performed it in its screen adaptation Nancy Kwan (age 82) [actually dubbed by one of Mickey Rooney's wives Miss Betty Jane Baker] are, thankfully, still with us...

Got up and got out

And so, farewell then, Miss Paula Kelly.

Who? I hear some people ask...



Miss Kelly may not have been a huge household name - indeed, much of her on-screen career was spent in supporting roles in Blacksploitation movies and US telly shows such as Police Woman - but it is for one memorable screen appearance we love her the most: that of the sassy "Helene" in Sweet Charity, more than holding her own alongside the estimable talents of Shirley MacLaine and Chita Rivera in my favourite movie musical number, ever!

Chita Rivera, Paula Kelly & Shirley MacLaine - There's Gotta Be Something Better Than This

Here's the lady herself in a bizarre clip from the Oscars [yes, them again!], in the company of the great Miss Bergman and Mr Poitier...

Ingrid Bergman, Sidney Poitier, Paula Kelly and the UCLA Marching Band - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

...and again, with Miss Verdon, Miss McKechnie and Miss Gallagher at the 1973 Tony Awards [did they only ever drag her out for awards ceremonies?]:

Gwen Verdon, Donna McKechnie, Paula Kelly, Helen Gallagher - Dance Medley

A sad loss.

RIP, Paula Kelly (21st October 1943 – 9th February 2020)

I don't care for wearin' silk cravats, ruby studs, satin spats

It's cold and frosty again, and we at Dolores Delargo Towers are getting heartily sick of it. The garden looks like something Queen Jadis would recognise, and we can only keep our fingers crossed that some of our "treasures" (such as Salvia "Amistad" and our less robust fuchsias) survive...

However, as we make weary preparation to slide off to work, there are some things worth celebrating - not least the fact that it is our Patron Saint Chita Rivera's (84th) birthday today. And on this Tacky Music Monday, we have a corker of a performance from the great lady!

Señorita Rivera was the star of the show in 2016's Broadway Backwards LGBT charity gala - where men sing songs originally written for women and vice versa - and, on this Tacky Music Monday, here she is as "Billy Flynn" (Chicago's smarmy anti-hero), with All I Care About is Love:

Chita Rivera - All I Care About is Love

What a trouper!

Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero (born 23rd January 1933)

Have a good one, dear reader...

Dame Commander

One of the greatest of our Patron Saints Dame Angela Lansbury - who we had the privilege of seeing for the first time on stage this year in Blithe Spirit - is 89 years old today!

All hail.

To celebrate, in a most suitable fashion, here she is - together with two other great ladies from our Pantheon, Miss Chita Rivera and Miss Carol Channing, and a cast of thousands - giving her own nod to a man who did so much for her Broadway career (at the 2010 Kennedy Honours Gala) Mr Jerry Herman...

The Best Of Times Is Now? If I had been in this audience, you bet!

Angela Lansbury, Chita Rivera, Carol Channing, Christine Ebersole, Christine Baranski, Kelsey Grammer and company - I Don't Want to Know/The Best of Times is Now (Jerry Herman's Kennedy Center Honors tribute)

Many happy returns to a fantabulosa lady - and remember, I am Angela Lansbury!

Dame Angela Brigid Lansbury, DBE (born 16th October 1925)

The original razzle-dazzler

It's "diva season"! Over at the Museum of Camp, we celebrate the 85th birthday of the iconic Jeanne Moreau. Here, more to our razzle dazzle nature, we celebrate the 80th birthday of another, far different diva - Miss Chita Rivera!

Needless to say, we celebrate her often, so without further ado...

...here she is in the estimable company of Miss Gwen Verdon to perform two numbers from her ground-breaking show Chicago - All That Jazz and Nowadays:

Chita Rivera and Gwen Verdon - All That Jazz/Nowadays

...and here she is, spectacularly solo in the uber-camp title number from another classic she made her own, Kiss of the Spiderwoman:

Chita Rivera - Kiss of the Spiderwoman

We adore her.

Chita Rivera official website

You lovely island

In honour of the 81st birthday today of the fantabulosa Rita Moreno (one of the few performers to have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony), rather than once more revisit my favourite screen appearance of hers The Ritz, nor indeed my other fave West Side Story, here instead is a classic number from the latter - as performed by the inimitable and never-to-be-repeated combination of Miss Moreno, Miss Rivera and Miss Midler!

Chita Rivera, Rita Moreno and Bette Midler - America

Shame it's such duff quality. America, however, has never quite recovered from this performance...

Rita Moreno (born Rosita Dolores Alverio, 11th December 1931)

Some life cleaner than this

It's wet, it's autumn and it's Monday. Three things to make everyone miserable.

So, to cheer ourselves up on this Tacky Music Monday before another soul-destroying week in the office, what better than a tryptych of razzle-dazzle numbers - Hey Big Spender, There's Gotta Be Something Better Than This [so true!] and If They Could See Me Now - by those fabulous hoofers Miss Juliet Prowse (who would have been 76 years old tomorrow; RIP) and Miss Chita Rivera?!

Chita Rivera and Juliet Prowse - Sweet Charity medley

As ever, enjoy!

Every street's a highway of your dreams

photo by Laura Marie Duncan

So where did that weekend go, exactly?

Never mind, it's another day, another diva's birthday to salute! As rumours abound that Miss Chita Rivera - who celebrates her 79th birthday today - will appear at an all-star charity gala this April (duetting with either Miss Minnelli or Miss Reinking, depending on which article you read), so on this Tacky Music Monday let us enjoy her remarkable showbiz talents.

Here is the lady herself - and her collected gays - with Every Street's A Boulevard!

Chita Rivera - Every Street's A Boulevard

Miss Rivera is quite a frequent visitor to this regular Monday celebration of razzmatazz, understandably - you can find more Chita here, here, here, here and indeed here.

We love Chita Rivera!

A little fantasy will not fail

So summer is officially over. It's really miserable weather. All the events we are planning from now on will most likely be mainly indoors. It's a Monday again. Ho hum.

It's not all gloomy, however! For your delectation on this Tacky Music Monday, Miss Chita Rivera provides the most appropriate pick-me-up. These boys are in prison for heaven's sake, and they are tap-dancing - why shouldn't we?!!

Chita Rivera - Where You Are (from Kiss of the Spiderwoman; Tony Awards 1993)

Where You Are

When you feel you've gone to hell in a hand basket
And the world in which you dwell's no paradise...

I've some counsel I can give
You need but ask it
I'm so very glad to share this good advice
You've got to learn how not to be
Where you are.

The more you face reality, the more you scar
So close your eyes and you'll become a movie star
Why must you stay where you are?
You've got to learn how not to see
What you've seen.

The slice of hell you call your life
Is harsh and mean
So why not lie beside me on a movie screen
Why must you see what you've seen?

And if you find that you land in jail
A little fantasy will not fail
It's just as simple as ABC!

Come up here, play with me, play with me!
You've got to learn how not to do
What you've done
The pistol shot can't kill if you unload the gun
So build a place where you're the shah
And we'll embrace in that Shangri-La
If you run away, some matinee
From where you are.

You've got to learn how not to be
Where you are
The more you face reality, the more you scar
So close your eyes and you'll become a movie star
Why must you stay where you are?

So why not lie beside me on a movie screen
Why must you see what you've seen?

And if you find that you land in jail
A little fantasy will not fail
It's just as simple as ABC.

Come up here, play with me, play with me!

You've got to learn how not to do
What you've done
The pistol shot can't kill if you unload the gun

So build a place where you're the shah
And we'll embrace in that Shangri-La
If you run away, some matinee
From where you are

And if you find that you land in jail
A little fantasy will not fail
It's just as simple as ABC
Come up here, play with me, play with me!

Turn off the lights and turn on your mind
And I can promise you you will find
You will like my plan, my sweetest fan,
My leading man
Anywhere you are!

Kiss of the Spider Woman - the musical

Let me entertain you

RIP another hero...

From the BBC:

Arthur Laurents, writer of such classic stage musicals as West Side Story and Gypsy, has died in New York aged 93.

The director and screenwriter died at his Manhattan home from complications of pneumonia, his agent said.

Born in Brooklyn, the attorney's son began in radio and wrote military training films during World War II.

His screen credits include the Alfred Hitchcock film Rope, Barbra Streisand romance The Way We Were and 1977 ballet drama The Turning Point.

Laurents won a Tony award in 1968 as author of the book for the musical Hallelujah, Baby!, and another, in 1984, for directing La Cage aux Folles.

He remains best known for writing the books for West Side Story and Gypsy, hit Broadway shows that were later turned into movies.

Over at Dolores Delargo Towers Museum of Camp today, there is more on Mr Laurents - read my blog.

As a little tribute to a great man, here are not one, not two, but three of Broadway's greats performing Let Me Entertain You from Gypsy!

Ann Reinking, Donna McKechnie and Chita Rivera - Let Me Entertain You (from Broadway Sings: The Music of Jule Styne, 1987)

Read the BBC article

McEvil Monday

Hey ho, it's Tacky Music Monday again, and today the focus is on the kitsch (as if I would have it any other way) - and fitting that bill magnificently is this bizarre dance routine from none other than Broadway legend Chita Rivera, whose 78th birthday it was yesterday...

I am certain she would prefer to forget this particular segment of her glittering career!

Chita Rivera - Lucretia McEvil

Enjoy!

Jerry Herman honoured in style

On Sunday 5th December, the 33rd Annual Kennedy Center Honours celebrated, among others the talents and contributions of one of our icons here at Dolores Delargo Towers, none other than composer and lyricist Jerry Herman, the genius behind Hello, Dolly!, La Cage Aux Folles, Mame and Mack and Mabel, among other camp classics.

Speaking of camp - the line-up of stars who turned out (or were wheeled out in some cases!) sounds tremendous!

Our divine mother Angela Lansbury introduced the tribute. Kelsey Grammer (as Zaza) led a chorus of dancing "girls" on We Are What We Are from La Cage.

The triumph of art over nature that is the wonderful Carol Channing then sang Hello, Jerry (Hello, Dolly) with lyrics especially adapted for the occasion.

The sexy Matthew Morrison of Glee (who is apparently not gay - as these pictures prove) performed It's Today from Mame, and two of our favourite showgirls, none other than Christine Baranski and Christine Ebersole, teamed up for Bosom Buddies.

A host of Broadway stars did their turn - Laura Benanti sang the beautiful Time Heals Everything from Mack and Mabel, and returning to Hello Dolly!, Sutton Foster performed Before the Parade Passes By, and Kelli O'Hara and Matthew Bomer duetted on It Only Takes a Moment.

Leading the finale, living legend Chita Rivera sang and danced to I Don't Want to Know (from Dear World) and the tribute concluded with two of Mr Herman's greatest songs, I Am What I Am and The Best of Times.

Now if that isn't a celebration, then I don't know what is!!

The show is not going to be televised in the US until December 28th so there is no footage of this glittering gala available yet - and somehow I doubt it will even get a mention on telly here in the UK. But I'll be looking out for it!

PS Apparently also honoured on the night were Sir Paul McCartney, Oprah Winfrey, Merle Haggard and choreographer and director Bill T. Jones.

Kennedy Center Honours 2010

---

STOP PRESS

Here it is!

Kennedy Centre Honours 2010 - Jerry Herman

Pretty for Me

As it is Saturday, and I am in the mood for some dancing boys, I make no excuse for posting a little Chita Rivera!

Chita Rivera - Pretty for Me on The Hollywood Palace

Nobody does it like...

Today would have been the 80th birthday of the fabulous composer, songwriter, and jazz pianist Cy Coleman.

In a career that spanned eight decades (from his debut as a child piano prodigy), Cy wrote dozens of songs and shows for some of the greats, including Lucille Ball, Frank Sinatra, Gwen Verdon, Shirley MacLaine and Tony Bennett. Among the standards Cy wrote were such wonderful songs as Witchcraft, The Best Is Yet To Come, Nobody Does It Like Me and Hey, Look Me Over.

But it was his partnership with the magnificent grande dame of American theatre Dorothy Fields that produced the masterpiece for which he is most remembered (and one of my favourite musicals ever) - Sweet Charity. Although he continued to write, produce and perform right up until his unexpected death in 2004, he could never quite match the eternal success of this classic!

Here are a few samples of the prodigious musical talent of Cy Coleman...

Sweet Charity (trailer)

Shirley MacLaine, Chita Rivera and Paula Kelly - There's Gotta Be Something Better Than This

Linda Clifford - If My Friends Could See Me Now

Dame Shirley Bassey - Nobody Does It Like Me

Tony Bennett - The Best Is Yet To Come

Read Cy Coleman's entry in the Internet Broadway Database

A living legend

>

The legendary Chita Rivera is 75 years old today!

Always a class act, Chita emerged from ballet school in New York into the glittering lights of Broadway and, still in her teens, landed a part in one of the biggest shows of the day Call Me Madam. This was soon followed by high profile roles in Guys and Dolls and Can-Can, and a starring role in West Side Story - which really launched her in the public eye as an all-round sensation of musical theatre.

Indeed, Chita Rivera is regarded by many theatre aficionados as a "living legend", has received two Tony awards, and is the first Hispanic woman to receive a Kennedy Center Honors award.

Chita is due to appear in London as part of the Michael Feinstein season at the Shaw Theatre (although her legendary unpredictability, and the fact she cancelled a similar London appearance last autumn leads some observers to wonder if she will actually turn up).

But in person, on stage or on screen she is indeed a sensation, as this (shaky) video of a TV appearance with Gwen Verdon shows...

Chita Rivera and Gwen Verdon

Chita Rivera website