Topic Some article excerpts from the General Chit-Chat forum.
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PTM
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6/26/2003 | posted: 12/2/2003 at 12:48:29 AM ET
From the November Boston Magazine profile of Roger Marino one of Gypsy’s producers. Before the tech bust his net worth was estimated at around $1.2 billion, now it’s supposedly only in the hundreds of millions 
While Marino's cinematic appetites have found their smorgasbord, he's still sensitive to opportunity's whiff. When Broadway producers Ron Kastner and Robert Fox approached him about a revival of the classic musical Gypsy, his first impulse was to turn his nose. Then they told him Bernadette Peters was involved. "I really love her," says Marino. "People want to grab her off the stage and eat her up. I said it first: If Ethel Merman played that part after Bernadette Peters, they would boo her off the stage."
The critics -- to many people's astonishment -- agreed. The production had been the subject of much black-hearted speculation. This was fueled in part by criticism from Arthur Laurents, who had penned the book, and also by the suspicion that Peters was too much the waif to pull off a role made famous by the strapping Merman. Gypsy, of course, is one of the great American musicals, a tale of bad mothering that, if not comparable to Medea, is still a beastly portrait of a would-be vaudeville queen. A revival was bound to draw comparisons, and director Sam Mendes worked the cast to their thespian bones to make sure that the critics were friendly.
"Take the hearse back to the garage, and start popping Champagne corks," wrote Ben Brantley in the next morning's New York Times. Within four days of opening, Gypsy had sold $950,000 in tickets. It set a record at the Shubert for box-office sales in one week.
Marino had a hit. Then came an unexpected snubbing at the Tony Awards. "It absolutely sucked," he says. "I was there in a tuxedo, waiting to go onstage. If Bernadette had won, then I would have said, ‘Okay, they made a mistake with me.' But to make that big of a mistake . . . " Asked if he'd ever produce a musical again, Marino will only reply: "If Bernadette was in it."
From a recent Palm Beach Post interview with Jerry Herman
Bernadette Peters
'Oh, a darling, darling girl. We became real pals on Mack & Mabel and have retained that relationship. Just a warm and loving lady who has proven now that she's the new Angela Lansbury.'
From Variety article on all the recent star illnesses 11/11/03
Is there a bug going around? Or is it those high-stress weeks of rehearsals on top of previews that put an actor at high risk?
There are at least two recent examples of legit stars being health-challenged around preem time.
"Right after opening night, Sutton Foster got sick," said "Thoroughly Modern Millie" producer Hal Luftig. "It's the 12-hour days, the horrible tech, the dust of scenery being built and the psychological stress of opening a show."
More famously, Bernadette Peters canceled a few previews of "Gypsy," but she made it through the critics' perfs and opening night, then took a week off to fully recuperate. You'd have thought she pulled a no-show on the Queen Mother, and the ensuing bad press may have cost her the Tony. A true trouper, Peters has not missed one perf of "Gypsy" due to illness since.
PTM
| PTM
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6/26/2003 | posted: 12/2/2003 at 12:51:13 AM ET
Hmmm, does anyone know why that little purple head is floating around the end of my first paragraph?
PTM
|  Brandon29
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6/13/2003
From:
Brooklyn, NY | posted: 12/2/2003 at 12:53:06 AM ET
I don't get it... did he lose money on GYPSY, or was he losing money before producing GYPSY?
LOOK WHAT HAPPENED TO MABEL!!
| PTM
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6/26/2003 | posted: 12/2/2003 at 1:04:09 AM ET
No, he lost some 100 million or so when the tech market took a nosedive a couple of years ago so now he's only got hundreds of millions instead of a billion. This guy is apparently so wealthy he could drop $40 million on a professional hockey team and not flinch.
PTM
|  moljul
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4/2/2001
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Fav. BP CD: I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
Fav. BP Song: Dublin Lady
| posted: 12/2/2003 at 10:33:05 AM ET
In the second paragraph it says that Arthur Laurents fueled the criticsm of this production. I have never read that and have always seen him being very supportive. He, in fact, was the one who really decided Bernadette would be perfect for the part.
| jmslsu01
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Registered:
6/9/2003
From:
northern VA | posted: 12/2/2003 at 12:03:33 PM ET
PTM-I just thought you were overly concerned about Marino.
Moljul-one of the people who reported that Laurents was unhappy with the production (Mendes,not with Bernadette) was Riedel. I clearly remember Riedel writing that,and then it was probably taken up by a few others.
Jenn,who wonders who Riedel's next target will be now that Bounce isn't coming to Broadway.
Jenn
| PTM
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6/26/2003 | posted: 12/2/2003 at 10:40:58 PM ET
Is that what that floating purple head is a symbol for -- being upset? Wouldn't we all like to experience the "sadness" of going from a billionaire to a mere mega multi millionaire.
Moljul -- The article in the New York Times that ran the Monday after Gypsy opened also quoted Laurents as saying he had concerns about "practically everything" during the early previews though he "never doubted Bernadette's abilities" so maybe that's what the article is referring to.
PTM
| moljul
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Registered:
4/2/2001
From:
New York
Fav. BP CD: I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
Fav. BP Song: Dublin Lady
| posted: 12/3/2003 at 10:31:39 AM ET
Oh, okay. I remember his concerns but didn't really consider it that bad to list him as fueling the criticism. I think everyone was concerned about several things during previews. I know I was. 
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