July 13, 2021 • 59 mins
Musical theater legends Ken Page and Betty Buckley have a lot in common. Both grew up dreaming of performing on Broadway: Ken in St. Louis; Betty in Fort Worth. Both were in the original Broadway production of Cats, Ken as Old Deuteronomy and Betty as Grizabella, for which she won a Tony. And both were pioneers in transforming musical theater over the past several decades. One of Ken Page’s most recognizable roles was as Oogie Boogie in The Nightmare Before Christmas, and, on Broadway, he starred in the 1976 all-Black revival of Guys and Dolls and in the original cast of The Wiz and Ain’t Misbehavin’. Betty Buckley has been called “the Voice of Broadway” with and she’s also starred in TV (Eight is Enough) and films (Split, Carrie, Tender Mercies, Frantic).
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
I'm Alec Baldwin. Then you were listening to Here's the
Thing from My Heart Radio. My guests today are two
of my all time favorite musical theater actors, Ken Paige
and Betty Buckley, and there are parallels to their stories.
Both grew up dreaming of performing on Broadway. Ken in St. Louis,
(00:23):
Betty and fort Worth both were cast in the original
Broadway production of Cats, Ken as Old Deuteronomy and Betty
as Guizzabella, for which she wanted Tony. Both became key
figures in the vibrant community that transformed musical theater over
the past several decades. In addition to being the voice
of Broadway, Betty Buckley's acting chops earned her roles as
(00:46):
the step mom on the hit TV series Eight Is
Enough and in films including Carrie, Tender Mercies, and Frantic.
But first, I'm talking with Ken Page. You may know
him as the voice of Bogie Boogie in The Night
There Before Christmas. In his breakout role on Broadway, he
played Nicely Nicely Johnson in an all black revival of
(01:08):
Guys and Dolls in nineteen seventy six. He went on
to perform as the Lion in the Whiz and in
the original cast of Ain't Misbehavior. Ken Paige was drawn
to musical theater early. Yeah, it was my life blood.
It was the thing that got me out of where
I was to where I went. It was the thing
that kept me going through years of up and down
(01:30):
childhood things. But it was always musical theater and all
of that related world that got me through. I mean,
I remember being ten and eleven, of course, watching Barbara
strei Sen's TV special going I Am Barbara Streisand and
I would go to the library in St. Louis, the
big Public Library, and in the basement they had a
(01:51):
section of LPs, and I would thumb through all of
these Broadway cast albums. I would read the line of notes,
and this one lady when I first couple of times
that came, she was a little triviuted, like what are
you doing in here? And she saw, you know, I'd
be sitting on the floor reading Broadway cast album liner notes,
and I'm sure she thought, is this child from Mars?
(02:12):
Or was was the deal? But I started to educate
myself that early about musical theater because it just fascinated me.
And of course the own two only things that I
really saw was the Tony Awards once a year, and
I would see all the shows and I was fascinated
by it. And we had this grand outdoor theater still
have in St. Louis called at that time it was
(02:32):
the Municipal Opera and now it's called the Muni, so
a lot of people in the business know the Muni.
And that was the first time I saw a live
production on stage. It was Oklahoma with Robert Horton as
Curly and he came out on a real horse. And
all those people in Missouri demand no less, they must
have a real horse. That's right, show me to show
me state. So he came out on a horse, and
(02:55):
of course when you see something like that, you fall
in love with it. And subsequently it's a lot of shows.
And it was the theater that made me really fall
in love with musical theater because I could see it.
And then it was the theater that inspired me to
move to New York. And when did you study voice acting?
I did acting school. I did. I went to two
years at Fontbonne University in St. Louis in a scholarship.
(03:18):
I like to say this because now I'm over fifty.
I can brag right. I received a scholarship in art
music for vocal performance and theater, and I chose theater subsequently.
At the same time those two summers, I did seasons
at the Muni in the ensemble I started when I
was eighteen, those two shows of the Muni. With those
your first two shows you did. Had you been doing
(03:39):
shows when you were younger? When did you start performing
in front of people? In front of people? Really sixth grade,
I was part of a thing here in Saying. It
was called the Bellerman's Speech League, which my cousin had
been in, but it was one of those competitive citywide things.
So that was really the first time I stepped in
front of people performing ring. And then of course in
(04:00):
high school I did your usual high school musical's Funny Girl, Oliver, Hello,
Dolly Fitler on the Route And it was that that
led me to audition for scholarship or college, which I got.
I wish at the time I'd known about Juilliard and
Goodman and schools like that, but they really didn't promote
it because the idea was stay here and go to school,
and St. Louis has a very home grown mentality that way,
(04:25):
and it really wasn't promoted to me to audition for
The Goodman, which was only in Chicago, and certainly not Juilliard,
which was New York. And I think, not to be egotistical,
but I think I might have really been able to
to get into those schools and for so for you,
I wonder it's it's like, and again I'm gonna say
this eleven times during the course of this interview, but
you're so talented. I mean, you are so talented. You
(04:48):
like the male musical theater, Annie Oakley, boom boom boom.
Anything you can do, I can you can do better than.
But if you've gone to those Nancy schools, what would
have changed everything? You think? So everything? Oh? Sure, Because
first of all, to go to any of those schools,
you're living away from home. So that's the first big change,
(05:10):
which means you explore your life, never mind the education,
you explore your life differently. For me, I think being
away from St. Louis would have made a big difference
in how I explored what I was doing. My mentor,
God Bless and rest him, Don Garner, when I realized
that I wanted to go to New York, I went
to him and I said, look, I think I want
(05:30):
to go to New York, and you shut the door
to his office. He says, all right, I didn't say this,
but I think you will learn in the next two
years in New York what you would It would take
you six years here to learn if you go and
apply yourself and really do what I think you would
do or will do. And indeed, by the two years
when my class graduated, I was in my first Broadway show,
(05:50):
which was an all black revival of Guys and Dolls. Yeah,
and how long did that run? Not long? Now? What
what do you attribute that too? Well, it was very
controversial because at one it was an all black version
of something, and then this is minus nineteen seventies six,
so things hadn't moved quite nearly as far as they
(06:12):
have come to thus hard. And also it was Guys
and Dolls, which is a sacred musical theater piece. And
there were people who were pro because you know, pro
Bailey's version of Hello Dolly had already happened, and people thought,
oh my god, that was wonderful, so dusk Guys and Dolls.
But I think because Hello Dolly is such a the
whole from Thornton Wilder on it's such an open book
(06:34):
of who these people are. Guys and Dolls was a
very specific New York Jewish idiom. So there were people
who thought we had no business tampering, tinkering, tooling with
guys and dolls. And then there were other people who thought,
thank god, there's some different energy on it and our production,
the the arrangements, since we couldn't change a note of
(06:54):
the music. But that's all another story. The arrangements had
a sort of a wa waca waca disco kind of
thing running under and when you hear the Broadway cast
album now, it's really very electric and alive. People loved it.
Those who loved I remember, may I say Rex Read
said something about saying that songs sit down, you're rocking
the boat, and he said I turned it into a
(07:14):
gospel stomp and it was just terrible. Oh, Rex was
unkind to you, I'd say, yeah, but he was unkind
to everybody, but he was specifically. But it was interesting
because I always remember thinking, even then, at twenty one,
I thought, what didn't Frank Lesser write a gospel number?
Isn't that what this is supposed to be? These people
in the Savus all mission and its gospel tinge and
(07:36):
so all we really did was took it the next
step towards what he was writing to begin with, which
I think the last eight measures of the song go
sit down, you're rocking, Sit down, sit down, sit down,
you're rocking the boat blah blah blah blah. Were they
allowed us to change that to the devil drag you under.
It was so so heavy you never bloat, sit down,
sit down? Is it down? Sit huh? Which took it
(07:56):
in another direction. Well that was successful in uf that
the audience would scream and carry on and they loved it.
So then they wrote an encore which is completely new,
and sometimes the encore would get two and three renditions
a night. Thank god I was twenty one, you know,
because the people dream and they'd applaud and they go
on and Joe Marshall, God Resting was our drummer. It
was really he who decided he'd listened to the crowd
(08:19):
and he looked at me, and he listened to the crowd,
and then he'd hit the drum field but had a dream.
And the more the people screamed, of course, we do
it again and again again. So I'm saying that to
say that was one of the things out of that
show that kept it going, frankly, because people came to
see what was new in Guys and Dolls. You weren't
(08:41):
in The Whiz prior to Guys and Does No. I've
seen that written a few places, and I always try
to correct it because Guys and Dolls was nineteen seventy
six and I didn't go into The Whiz until late
seventy almost seventy seven. So you go from one adaptation
of a sacred musical to another adaptation of someone. I'm
(09:02):
sure you also were impersonating in the bathroom with a
brush in your hand, Judy Garland, when you go do
the Whiz? Was it a different bowl of wax there?
And the way you were treated with adapting Wizard of
Us with a podcast, Oh god, because The Whiz was
unapologetically black, even though based on L. Frank Baum's in
the music and so forth. But the Whiz open and
(09:22):
that was a blockbuster. It wasn't at first they actually
had the closing notice up, and then Ken Harper went
to twenty Century Fox. They invested in a TV commercial
and it was so great, and then they went to
the churches in Brooklyn. Stephanie Mills belonged to the biggest church,
African American church in Brooklyn. They went to them. They
(09:44):
then went to Sister brother churches. All of these people
started buying tickets and came in bust loos and we
know the dollar rules. So as long as there were
people there, the show was going to keep running by
virtue of its staying where it was. The word of
mouth picked up and then other people started coming. Finished
that story to say that by the time it got
around to the Tony Awards, they were nominated for eleven
(10:05):
Tony Awards. I think they won six. So guys and
Dolls nicely, nicely, the Lion and the Whiz and these
are not lead roles. You're playing more supporting roles. And
the next thing is ain't misbehavior and correct and when
you do that, you get a lead role in Ain't Misbehaving? Yeah, well,
you know, I mean it's interesting because the five characters,
(10:26):
if you will, and amos behavior, we're all supporting people.
So the five of us really were the leads, but
we were used to being supporting people, so we supported
each other in the way that we had supported other people.
In productions, which made it a very powerful ensemble. When
did you notice that you walked in the room and
(10:46):
everybody sat up and they were like, it'sken, you know
what I mean? Like you really the town started to
adopt you, that you were part of a business in
an industry in New York. That was the blessing of
guys and dolls is that I did a beloved role
and by me having some sort of a personal signature
on it, it separated me from the great stu w k.
So Broadway sort of said who is this I remember
(11:09):
Clive Barnes. I didn't know who he was at the time,
but he wrote a sort of love letter in The
Times and saying who is this guy? Where did he
come from? People calling me up saying did you read
that thing at the Times this morning? Clive Barnes wrote
you a love letter? And I'm like, well, who is
Clive Barnes? First of all, they're like, okay, letters, he
writing me love letters. But what it did was it
(11:31):
opened the door to Broadway and it said this guy
is Broadway caliber. Wherever he came from, welcome dot dot dot.
So it sort of sucked me right into the center
of the Broadway community immediately and then they get to
do The Whiz behind it, which was a huge, huge,
huge hit and still very much at the top of
the list of appreciate it shows. I'll tell this story
(11:52):
and I think you'll know what I mean. I had
done a club act at Leemouche. You know, it was
a big disco, but it was also a big club
there too. I did a tribute it to all of
the black shows who were running abroad WITHY at the time,
and there were many at the time, and I sort
of linked them. I didn't songs from Raisin and the
Whiz and of course Guys and Dolls and a couple
of and I would link them together with He's on
(12:13):
down the Road, Okay, let's go on, we go, He's
on down He's on down road to raise it and blow.
And some of the people from the Whiz came to
see my show because I was in Guys and Dolls
and they heard so they called me in shortly after
Guys and Dolls closed, and I had auditioned for The
Whiz before, and I just knew I was perfect for
(12:34):
it because I had seen the out of town tryout
in Detroit, and I went in and I sang men
no line and they said, thank you, that's it. I
know I'm right for this put How damn you say
that like that? So when it came back around, my
agents said, well, you know, they want to see you
at the Majestic you know, And I said, hih auditioned
for the Whiz they didn't like me. He said no, no,
(12:55):
I don't think you understand. They saw your club act.
They want to see you at the Majestic Theater. They're
not having auditions, they're auditioning you. So I said, oh ship.
So I went in and Ken Harbor indeed was there,
and I sang the songs and he walked down to
the edge of the stage and he shook my hand
and he says, are you busy for the rest of
the afternoon? And I said no. He said good, then
(13:17):
go down and get your costume measurement. And it took
me a minute to understand that mean I got the part.
I was like, why, how what do you want? I wonderful? Yeah,
he said. So in answer to your question, I would say,
that's the first time people sat up when I walked
in the room. But it was still different because they
invited me into the room Broadway star Ken Paige. If
(13:41):
you enjoy listening to conversations with the grades of musical theater,
be sure to check out my conversation with another Broadway star,
Kelly O'Hara. Even after hos a week, I find myself
kind of dealing with all of this, all of my
innards out there. It's how I filter, it's how I process,
I think, and it's why I'm not quite tired of it.
(14:04):
For the most part, I find that I go inside
it as opposed to just dealing with it all out here.
You're more of my conversation with Kelly O'Hara that Here's
the Thing dot org. After the break, Ken Paige talks
about learning comedic timing from some of the best in
(14:25):
the business. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's
the Thing I dream last night. I got on the
(14:47):
boat to Heaven and by some chance I had brought
my das along and there are start and someone fade me.
But the acid test they do right from wrong. All
(15:11):
the people all sends it up. Sit down on your
rocket boat. Yes, people all sence it out. Sit down.
That's Ken Paige performing sit Down You're rocking the Boat
from the nineteen six Broadway revival of Guys and Dolls.
During his tenure on Broadway, Ken Paige would often perform
(15:32):
solo in smaller clubs. Oftentimes, his cast mates and other
performers were his best audience with the Broadway community, especially
back then. You were in that show at that time,
but you were still part of a larger community at large.
However long you've been around, chances are you'd worked with
just about anybody or everybody at some point. So there
(15:56):
was a serious sense of community, that support of people,
knew people. I can't even tell you. I remember doing
again Guys and Dolls A Burrows, who of course was
a towering figure in the musical theater him teaching me
about comedy timing. He said, look, these jokes are funny,
you know what I'm saying. I said, well, I assume him,
but you got to do a three rhythm thing for
(16:18):
him to work. If you break the rhythm, they're not funny.
And my example was I came out with a sandwich
and Nathan says, hey, nicely, where you've been, And I'd
say I had to get something to eat. I felt
a little faint and I would just say the line crickets.
You could hear not spart. It was that quiet, you know.
And he said to me, no, no, hey, you gotta
(16:38):
take two beats before you speak, take a bite of
the sandwich, and then you say the line with your mouthful.
And it's funny. Thought, well, that's very specific. I don't know,
you know, maybe I don't want to do that. Hey,
he wrote it. He ought to know, right, So I
did it. He says, hey, nicely, where have you been?
And I stopped and I took a bye to the sandwich.
(16:59):
I would all heard a good trouperty. I felt a
little faint roaring laughter. So you know what I mean? Right?
And I thought to myself, learn, learn, learn. Is people
were generous, not only in the production, but they were
generous to tell you things. So getting into that whole
thing of like, you start to feel more, uh, emboldened. Sure.
(17:23):
I think with each show successively, you become more and
more aware of what you have that's yours, that is
applicable to whatever situation you're in. But it takes. It's
a process to you get that sort of confidence that
while I'm gonna sing this song, there's something I do
(17:44):
with my boys, with my intention with this that that
is particular to me, that's gonna make this sing, you
know what I mean? And with a mis behaving. Of course,
the opportunity was golden because there was nothing. Hello, There
was a stack of Xerox music that Fats Roller and
other people wrote. And then that was it who shaped that?
Who was responsible for shaping that? Uh? Well, we all were.
(18:08):
I'm gonna say that now on record, because Richard Mulby
was a wonderful director in many ways, and he certainly
put us together. Murray Horowitz who was the jazz aficionado,
and Arthur Farria, who was our choreographer. It was really
this combined effort of everybody. Needless to say, five African
American performers brought much of what you saw from our
(18:30):
own selves. There was no written characters, There was no
scenario that we were following. It was just a matter
of you walk in the door and she walks over
to you and she sayings, baby, baby, what is the
matter with you? Well, you gotta know who you are,
what your intention is, what you're trying to do. All
(18:50):
that had to be provided by the actor who was
us right, And that was the way the show really
was created. I mean, you know it was set up
so a misbehaving and then you go into Cats. Now,
you were in the original company of Cats, the original
Broadway cast. Yes, you were in the original You were
(19:13):
in the original Broadway company of Cats. American Daughters in
Buckley and Harry groner Man, Terry Man amazing, Betty Buckley,
Oh my god. So how did that come together? Well,
we want to say first, it was a huge hit
(19:35):
in London, so it had it had already sailed the seas.
It was just coming in our direction. But that was
part of what made it such a big deal for Broadway.
It's because it was such a huge hit in London
and they were going to do the American production, and
how do you get summoned to that? Well, weirdly, because
they were seeing people for six months for this show.
Everybody who could crawl on four legs was there auditioning.
(19:59):
And I didn't think there was anything in the show
for me. I just thought it was a dance show
and it was about people in leotard's not me. And
I know I didn't paid any attention. And I went
to the closing performance of Ain't misbehavior on Broadway. I
wasn't in the show by that point, but I went
to the closing performance and Bernard Jacobs, Bernie Jacobs was
there and he came up to me and said, Kenny,
(20:21):
have you been seen for Cats? And I said, no, no,
I haven't. He says, I want you to go in.
I want you to blah blah blah, so oh Deuteronomy.
I think it's a good role for you. I didn't
know anything about it. He said, go up to Benny
Lifts office and get the music and I'm gonna have
them call you in now. Footnote. They had not called
me in, and I was certainly someone who was on
(20:42):
the scene well enough by that point, but I guess
they did not see me the way Bernie summy. But
he says, that's it. You're gonna go in, and that's
what it's gonna be. Right. So I am. They're learning
the addressing of Cats. I'm going over the song. I
had to audition for the show and Armelia, my late dear, dear,
dear friend of me, it was in the room next
to me, and she said, i'd hear you in the
(21:02):
shower page that you've heard of said kind. She said,
I would think, okay, not so good yet, but but
it'll get there. That it was great, so we come back.
I go in and by this point it's the last
week of the auditions and they were really calling a
(21:23):
lot of people's names and thrown them around. So I
go in on Monday. I sang and they said okay, great.
So they said come back on Friday and could you
possibly said could you possibly learn a dramatic monologue? I thought, oh,
f me from the show or from some other source,
something anything, just a monologue, And I think, or not
(21:44):
to be yes, I'm thinking, ain't it a musical? So
I go I learned I luckily had done this monologue
and a show I did about Louis Armstrong. I played
the character Joe Oliver, his mentor. So I had a monologue. Okay,
so I come back. I do the monologue again. Trevor
comes in the stage after monologue and he says, your
talents are many fold and manifest. I thought, well, if
(22:07):
that wasn't a kiss of death, I think I was like,
thank you for playing the British way of saying thank you,
you know. So I go out Fire Island for the weekend.
They're announcing it on Monday, and this is Friday, and
I thought, I'm out of the city. I don't want
to be here. So I get back Monday morning. The
phone rings and it's Tyler Getchell and he says, oh,
(22:30):
Ken Rage is Tyler Gatchell. I said, yes, Tyler, good morning,
how are you? I was it? Tell funk around to
tell me what's up. I said, I'm good. I'm good.
He goes, well, we were wondering here in the office
if you'd like to play old Deuteronomy and cats for us,
and you know you're not feeling when your heart like
sinks and rises at the same time. And I thought, yeah,
yes I will, I would please, Yes, I'll take it.
(22:54):
How long did you do the show? Two years? Did
you find that? You know? Two years? I mean, my god,
two years of your life? Every night? What happens during
the ark of the two years? Many things. The beginning,
of course, is exciting because it's the opening and it's
this and the energy and that carries you almost a year.
(23:15):
Then it settles in like, okay, now they're coming to
see what they've heard about, which means second phase. You've
got to deliver the show. It's not just a matter
of coming out there on the energy of being fabulous
and amazing. Now you've got to deliver them to show
that they have paid this high price ticket to see
that they've heard is amazing. I like to say that's
the second phase. You've got to You've got to meet
(23:37):
the standard of the show, not just your own standard.
And then the third phase is where I think it
becomes a matter of being a professional, where you you
know what you're supposed to do, you know the temperature
of the show, you know what it's supposed to do.
If you know what I mean and you do it,
it isn't always inspired, because some nights you do not
feel it, but you have po road marks that you
(24:01):
hit that gets you through the show, and your technique
will carry you the performer. The show will carry everyone,
but your technique will carry you personally. And I think
also it has a lot to do with how you
were trained and you know how you came through the
ropes as to how you do that. I came from
the old school of you know, you give it your all,
you hit it, and if you're doing that, you're not
(24:23):
even conscious of it being maybe boring or a little
wrote because you always find yourself in the doing. You know,
you're considered one of the great great performers in the
musical theater, and you walk into the room. What does
the director have to offer you? Well, you know, I
will use someone as an example. It's Michael Griff, who
(24:43):
directed many wonderful things, but Rent was among them. And
I've worked with Michael twice. We did a production of
Brandy Newman's Faust. I love Michael Griffe because he's one
of the and I I you know, I admit I'm
not easy because I've been around a long time. So
if you don't know something, you better know something. That's
what I'm leading to. Yeah, And my feeling is if
(25:06):
you know something, I'm down with it. Tell me what
you know. But if you don't know anything, you cannot
fake it out with me because I see you. As
my grandmother said, I knew where you were going before
you knew where you were going. It's real, you know
what I mean. Michael Griff is one of those directors
where and he's so like open and interested in what
you think, and not in the sense of you get
(25:27):
to do whatever you want. That's not it at all.
It's like, well, let's talk about what is it that
you think. There's no bad ideas. There's no bad ideas,
so there's no bad idea. And I did another show
with him called Most Wanted, a musical which was Believing
or Not, a musicalization of the Kunanan murder. It was
really actually very very good and dark and so forth.
(25:47):
It was too dark for people. This is before the
TV movie and all that sort of stuff, and people
were freaked the funk out. You get a musical about that, Yes,
a wonderful musical. And of course Rosashi was the end
of his murdering spree. What was the name of the show,
post Wanted? Oh my God? And what year was this produced?
(26:08):
Oh god, about fifteen years ago at Lahoya Playhouse. And
it didn't transfer, It didn't go anywhere. They talked about it.
We did another reading thing of it in New York.
I played a drag queen named Stormy Leather. Oh God,
thank you, thank you, I'm here all week. Yeah. And
I had this great song called I Never Saw It Coming,
(26:32):
which was about how you do these things in life
and you never see it coming. You think you're gonna
do this, you're gonna be that, You're gonna do, and
then something else happens and you never see it coming.
And the first line of the song was I met
a bit the boy, which gives you a set up.
I knew a bit the boy had it all class, money,
everything and so and so forth. Very deep, very dark show. Anyway,
(26:56):
Michael says to me. And I'm doing the thing and
it's working. You know, it's doing well, I said, Michael,
I keep having this feeling. I said, would you mind
if I can I smoke? And this is the example
of Michael Grive And he looked at me as only
he kidding. I wish you would please do? I said yes, yes,
(27:16):
And it changed the whole feel of it, because one
the lighting and the cigarette smoke and the whole thing.
And it gave me something to start with. And I
exhaled on the first note, you know, all that kind
of should you do? And it made it a thought
rather than a delivery of a thought. It was a
Burrows in the sandwich all over again. That's right. Hey, Hello,
if I could take an inhale on this cigarette and
(27:38):
exhale and go, I met a boy, bitch had it all.
It's set up a whole different thing. You know now
l a New York L, A New York L A
New York St. Louis. How did the Great Ken Page
decide St. Louis is where I need to be in
this point in my life. Well, other than your mom,
(28:01):
Well that's kind of I mean, if it were only
you know, it was my mom, my stepdad. I have
two aunts, one of whom I'm in charge of her
care now she's in a facility. But I knew like
that they were all getting older. And the older I got,
the more I started to understand they weren't these wizard
people that I thought they were when I was young.
They were vulnerable. There were needs that they had that
(28:23):
they didn't even know how to be in to address,
and as they got older, they couldn't, you know, sort
of jockey their way through it. It was becoming more
of an issue how to dot dot dot and not,
you know, to put it all on them. It was
easy as easier to be here. And I did a
calculation of could I still work from here? And I
had initiated a show that I do called Page by Page,
(28:46):
which is a autobiographical two hour one hand and blah
blah blah, and I went all over the country with it.
That's how I kept my bills paid. I took I
got on the road like an old actor does, and
I sang my songs and I got my check and
I touched a lot of people. But I could do
that from St. Louis. Of course, show business, whether it's sports, music, entertainment,
(29:06):
the African American performer gets into the same limo. He's
picked up to go to the show. He's got the
star dressing room. Everything is when you're making money for them.
Everything is as fluffy and as comfortable for the white
or the black performer. But whoever roadblocks for you in
that area getting all the time. It's a constant that
(29:27):
I can say that, and I don't mean that to
be evasive. It's a constant from the time. I think
of when I started in seventy six with guys and dolls,
where people would say, to my face, how dare you
that'st w K's role, And I'm thinking, but I'm up
there eight times a week. I'm doing it on on on,
through many things. Cats. When I was casting Cats, there
were people black and white who just we're not having it.
(29:50):
The white continuency thought someone why you should of course
been cast. Why did they cast me? My brothers and
sisters were like, well, you've gone over to the enemy,
you know what I mean. But mind you, any one
of them would have certainly been happy to have the part.
So it's a constant in Hollywood. It was very difficult.
There were many auditions. I went on Alec where they
(30:10):
just wanted me to just be more urban, which was
a code, you know. I did one show where I
played the owner of a diet company. Okay, that's funny enough.
I'm a big guy. But as the progression of the
rehearsals went on, they said, well, you're gonna come in
eating a candy bar. I thought, come on, you know,
it's funny enough, you don't have to put a candy bar.
(30:31):
By the time we got to filming, they gave me
a giant, oversized hershey bar that I was to walk
in with, and those kinds of things. That's just sort
of on the one side, but it it is a constant,
and it continues, you know. And because I have been
around a long time and I am sixty seven years
old as of yesterday, you know what I'm saying. I
know what's up. And people try to bullshit you with
(30:53):
stuff that they're trying to veil, or you know, they're
really being racial, or they're being prejudicial. My generation, we
were the beneficiaries of the idea of we better do
the right thing because people are watching. The generation before
us was we can do anything we want because nobody's watching.
You know, my kids are obviously going through the catalog
(31:13):
of films and they wanted to start watching Nightmare before Christmas.
And of course there's nothing more thrilling in my life
than them being captivated by a performance of you as
Boogie Boogie and me sitting there on a couch with
my kids and going, I know him, I know him.
And then my kids are gonna be like, oh please,
I've never seen night there before Christmas, and I see
it like six months ago, and we watch it. You know,
(31:34):
the kids want to watch every movie twenty times, and
so we watch it. It's very inventive and inside of
that song, it defines your talent. You do so many things.
What makes you one of the greatest performers in the
history of the musical theater ever is the acting inside
the singing. How did that go down? As a child?
(31:56):
Like I said in my room, playing cast albums and
being everybody on the album and so forth. That was
the beginning of all that for me, because you know,
for me, I wasn't seeing anything. I was only hearing
it right. So when Nightmamber four, Christmas came around, I thought,
oh my god, I'm gonna get to do what I've
been tipping around for years. Man, do you ever, man?
(32:19):
Do you ever? You feel that song you've got There's
so much great acting inside that song, and the and
the and your vocalizing. I produced you in a show
one time. Yes, And I think the deepest I ever
fell in love with another man, I'm a straight guy.
But the deepest I've ever fell in love with the
man was when he sang are you with me? We're
gonna sing one phrase of this ready whispering above Tam
(32:42):
Tammy ties in love. You sang that song and I
melted in the I thought, this guy is the most
beautiful soul. And you are of the people I've known
in this business, one of the most beautiful souls I've
ever met. My laugh here so talented, Well, that is
beyond kind. I love you, and I love your talent.
(33:04):
I'll love you back. Actor and singer Ken Paige. Betty
Buckley grew up dreaming of singing her heart out and
in the stuff of legend. On her first day in
New York City, Betty Buckley landed a part in the
(33:26):
Broadway musical seventeen seventy six. That early success gave her
a chance to prove to herself and the folks back
home she was ready. My mom had been a singer
dancer growing up, and she was very good, very talented,
but my father, when he married her, told her she
couldn't do that anymore. My father was a lieutenant colonel
(33:47):
in the Air Force. When I was in the fifth grade,
he retired and he became a college professor. He was
a really brilliant guy, but he was very opposed to
show business. And my mother had this extensive cast album
collection and all the great singers and everything, and she
sang around that house all the time. So I was
(34:07):
exposed to all that very early on and loved it
from and she took me to see my first musical,
which was Pajama Game with the original Bob Fossey choreography,
when I was eleven, and when the number steam heat
and I remember where I was sitting in the theater,
and there was this energy that just went up to
my head. What I've learned as an adult was an epiphany.
(34:28):
You know, it's just like boom that that's what you're
going to be doing for the rest of your life.
So then from age eleven, I became fixated on that.
What did you do with that fixation? Well, I listened
Bye Bye Bertie all the time, and I told my mother,
you know, I could play one of the teenagers in that,
and when she was mad at me, I would run
down the hall into her room and slide in on
(34:49):
my knees and do the whole speech that the kid
does to Conrad Bertie, tell us a beautiful one. Tell
us how you make that glorious? Sala looked around my
house for years. My mother would go, what are you
gonna do you homework? I go, baby, really sublime. I
mean I knew that song exactly. That was his junior
(35:11):
high talent show that I wanted to be in. But
I was really short forever. I was like four ft
eight inches tall for m and I grew all at
once in one summer, I thought I would be short forever,
and I, you know, thought, well, maybe I'll be the
first girl jockey, you know. But anyway, there was this
talent show and I came home and I knew they
would never ask me to be in it. But I'd
(35:32):
studied dance with my aunts since I was three. She
was a dance teacher and my grandmother, so I had
these two very powerful female role models that were performers
and artists. And I told my mother I wanted to
do Steam Heat and the Junior High Talent Show. And
my mother was like, oh, that's interesting because the guys
who were the choreographer and the director of that just
(35:54):
opened a dance studio in Fort Worth. I will call them.
So she called them and said, my daughter wants to
learn and Steam Heat and they said, well, can she sings?
And I was like yeah, because I sung in the
church choir, but they always put me in the back
road and told me to blend in, you know. So
I sang and they said no, no, Betty, sing as
loud as you can. So I knew I had this
giant voice. When did you know you had a giant voice? When?
(36:16):
Because I was constantly singing with all the great lady
singers in my bedroom to their albums and basically imitating them,
and I knew I had this like sound, and but
I didn't know its value because our choir teacher would
always put me on the back road and really get
annoyed because my voice cuts through, you know, and and
I was trying so hard to sing soft, but it
(36:38):
still has this resonant edge. So so they told me
to sing as loud as I could. So I did,
and I just felt unleashed, and they were like, oh
my god. And they those guys made me realize I
had this unique voice. So they gave me the original
Fosse choreography, and I got in the Junior High Talent
show and I brought the house down. They all went nuts,
(37:00):
and from that time I was like little bitty Betty
Buckley with this giant voice. Then my mother became this
like huge stage mother, and she was constantly entering me
and everything, and my father was going nuts about it.
And then I got my first professional job when I
was fifteen. I played the role of Dainty June and
Gypsy at our local theater and I joined Equity and
(37:22):
all that stuff, and then I worked there every summer,
and so I had a lot of experience. By the
time I got to New York. What got you to
New York? Well, I I was recruited to enter the
missful Worth pageant. I hated beauty pageants. I mean, I'm
sorry to say all that, because I have friends and
beauty pageants and I won a lot of scholarships, and
(37:43):
it wasn't for you. Shall we say? I was this
budding young feminist. I was. I was a charter subscriber
to Miss magazine. In glorious Tina gave me words for
all these feelings of inequity that Gloria Steine. That's a
good one. I'll take that. But you didn't want that, No,
I was embarrassed by it. I remember once I won
(38:06):
the missfoot Worth pageant, because I was basically recruited to
do that. And then I was in the Miss Texas pageant.
I didn't win the talent competition, which was really strange.
So I was runner up to Miss Texas, I think
second runner up or something. But the producer of the
Miss America pageant was there, and I was invited the
following year to be a guest entertainer at the Miss
(38:27):
American pageant. And this agent saw me on television singing
dance and they asked me to fly to New York
right after the Miss American pageant audition for them. So
it was Ashley Famous Agency, which became my CM. And
there was a very famous agent named Eric Shepard who
I sang for these like eleven or twelve agents, and
he just stood up and said signer and he walked
(38:49):
out of the room. So this responsible agent, roder Has
who went on to become a big Broadway producer. He's
a really nice, wonderful guy, still a great friend. He said, well,
what do you want to do? And I said I
have to go back and finish college or my father
will kill me. And so he he was like, okay,
do that, and when you finished college, you'll come to
New York. And you did finish TCU for journalism. Yeah.
(39:13):
Why why journalism? Because my mother had been a journalist.
My dad thought that being a journalist was a complimentary
profession for a wife and mother to the husband. But
that my purpose in life, as all young women should have,
he thought, was to be married and have children. But
I didn't want to do that. I wanted to go
to New York and and I knew what my voice
(39:36):
would sound like, and I knew how it would affect people.
And then when I was thirty five and I was
in my dressing room at the Winter Garden, they brought
in my recording of memory after we'd made the record,
and I heard the recording and that vision flashback of
when I was thirteen, and I was like, oh, he
took from age thirteen to thirty five, but there it is.
(39:58):
So anyway, this agent kept calling me after college and
asking me to come to New York and I was
at that point I was really experiencing I think PTSD
because I'd been with Miss America on a USO tour
and Miss America and I and one other girl went
into all the intensive care units and all the hospitals
(40:18):
in Japan, and we also toured all the military bases
in Korea. I was like, my dad is wrong. War
is not noble. You know. My father was a real
hawk and he really believed in the nobility of war
and stuff. And I I came back really changed, and
we were in a consistent debate about the validity of
a show business career, which he thought was beneath me.
(40:41):
And I was very confused about it all. And I
was also in love. When I was in a senior
with this Dallas cowboy quarterback, and he turned out to
be he broke my heart. So when I came back,
I thought, okay, forget my show business aspirations. Because I
was a journalism major and I'd written for this newspaper
quite at I even had a team page when I
(41:01):
was in college for the Fourth Press, so I had
a job there and I thought, Okay, that's it. I'm
just gonna do this. And so the agent kept calling
and he got me to come see this show in
Dallas with my mother, which was an industrial show that
Flip Wilson, the comedian was doing with a band called
Your Father's Mustache. So they called me up on stage
(41:22):
and had me sing. And the only song I knew
my key and was You Made Me Love You. So
I sang it and the audience went nuts, which was great.
And then Rogers talks to the buyer and they offered
me a job to put me in this show but
to pretend I'm an audience member in all these different cities.
And they offered me a lot of money. It was
way more than I was being paid at the Fourth Press.
(41:45):
So my father couldn't deny the job the money, and
so he reluctantly. Let me do that. When I think
of you, I think of the acting and the singing,
and the acting is in the singing. Thank you. When
you teach people, you teach acting or singing. I've taught
for the Terry Schriber School for years and years and years,
and I used to teach scenes study and song interpretation.
(42:07):
And I was teaching these five day workshops maybe three
times a year for them whenever I was in New York.
And what do you teach them about how the acting
influences the singing? Well, that's complicated. I was really fortunate
that in seventeen seventy six I worked with all these
incredible actors. They were like thirty men and two women,
and they really mentored me, and they were like, set
(42:27):
me down when I was twenty one, and I've gotten
that show my first day in New York City because
of this wonderful agent, Roger Hess, who got me to
New York and shepherd me into that. And so I
got that audition, which was amazing. So they sent me
down and said, look, Betty, this is what you're good at,
this is what you've got talent wise, and this is
what you need to learn. Go here, go there, do this,
(42:51):
and so I did because I loved musical theater. I
love but it used to be called musical comedy, right,
So there was like a dancing chorus in a scene
in chorus, and you know, everything was separate, and everything
was like that, you know, shove is And so I
wanted I really My favorite actresses were Kim Stanley and
Geraldine Page and later on General Rowlands, and I was like,
(43:14):
oh my god, what it must be like to have
that skill heavy duty dramatic act to do like really
psychological portraits, to like bring raw truth to uh theater
and film. And you know, I wanted to be that
skilled and I wasn't. So I was really lucky that
in that time period I did some Broadways shows. And
then I got that TV show eight is Enough and
(43:36):
not eight is enough. I went to my dailies and
I was like, wait a minute, I get I see
ten seconds of good work over there when I'm in
the doorway. Why can't I bring that same quality to
the same work? Right? What's wrong with me? And I
was also studying with Stella Adler. I never put my
work in front of her. I took her acting class.
I took her script analysis class in New York, and
I took her script analysis class again in l A
(43:59):
while I was on eight Enough. I knew I wasn't
a good enough actress to keep my sense of self
respect or whatever, you know. If she gave me her
like Syrian critiques, I wasn't ready, So that was okay.
I learned a lot in the back road, taking copious notes.
But that TV show was great because I really was
(44:19):
able to see what worked and why you were on
there for two seasons, three seasons? How many? For four
seasons Dick Van Patten. Yeah. And then on the heels
of It is Enough, I got the wonderful classic American
film Tender Mercy, starring Robert Duval with a Horton foot
script directed by Bruce Beresford, and I was like, oh
(44:39):
my god, she's an alcoholic country western singing. It was
like written for me. It was amazing, and I learned
so much working with Duval and Wilford Brimley and Ellen Barkin.
And they wouldn't let me see my dailies until I
finished the job. And then they brought me in on
a Saturday and had me sit down and look at
(45:00):
my scenes. Back to back, and I sat there in
that little screening room and I was like, oh, okay,
I know how to do this. Now when you're there,
You're in Los Angeles. Is enough? Was what the late seventies,
mid seventies to eight one. So when you're out there
doing you shot out in California. And when you're out
(45:21):
there and you go from a show that I recall
was a successful show that was a hit show, huge,
Why don't you just stay out in California and camp
out there and pursue movies and television? Well, were you
just addicted to singing on Broadway? Well? I knew I
was going to sing on Broadway, and I had this
brilliant teacher and I was flying back to work with
him every six weeks, which the heads of eight is
(45:44):
enough mocked me for I remember this guy passed me
in the parking lot and I was driving a Bundy
rental wreck and he had a black Porsche and he
but sleek, black hair and wore black clothes and he's like,
where are you going? And I'm like, I'm going to
New York for my voice. Listening goes, you have such
delusion of grander Betty, you'll be lucky if you play
American Mothers the rest of your life. And I was like,
(46:04):
we'll see, Greg, will see. Isn't that horrible? They were
really weird guys, I mean, and they were mean, really mean.
But anyway, I survived all that, and so I got
this Tender Mercy and then I got Cats that following
on the heels of that. Tender Mercies was actually released
in the winter that Cats opened in October. But is
(46:27):
that what you want? To go? From Tender Mercies to
the next movie. Yeah, that would have been great. But
my dream was to bring like really that authenticity to
the musical theater to originate, right, And so those of
us who were fortunate enough to work in the musical theater,
we changed the face of the musical theater in that
(46:48):
time period, you know, with Sondheim, foss All that it
evolved from musical comedy to musical theater. And Grizabella in
in Cats Senior Memory was my first opportunity to bring
that level of dramatic intensity to the musical theater stage.
And I knew it was my turn, and I knew
(47:10):
I was ready to do that. So, had you been
offered an attractive role in a film on the heels
of tender mercies. You would have passed because Kat's was
what you wanted to do. That well, I think that's
a weird exercise. Would I have passed? I don't know
everything I'm sharing with you. I learned in retrospect and
but honestly, growing up, I didn't think I was beautiful,
and I aspired to the musical theater. That I met
(47:33):
Brian de Palma and auditioned for his film Phantom of
the Paradise. He didn't cast me, but several months after
that he took me to dinner and gave me the
book Carrie and said, read this book. I want you
to play the gym teacher. Awful gym teacher. She was
a great character. So that was a great film debut
that he gave me the opportunity to do. And then
(47:53):
from that movie I got eight is enough now? It
is enough? Was at the time I thought I'd made
a horrible miss day taking a job. Why because I
was like working in a factory and in retrospect only
it was where I needed to be to learn the
next thing. Well, no, Cats, I mean there's not much
to say about Cats. I think that hasn't been said. Obviously,
(48:17):
it's this iconic and your performance and there's a song
which we don't need to go into now that you're
sing that is this kind of dream state everybody goes
into when they sing this song. Good description, that's accurate,
a dream stay, and I think that a lot of
the music and Cats is a dream state. It's really
it's just you have to suspend. It's moving art. It's
like an art installation. Yeah, you can't have any preconceptions
(48:40):
of what, just to sit there and go with it. Yeah,
it's like it's it's like and when I think about that,
what I think about is you work hard in the theater.
People work hard. Did you have any ongoing injuries pains?
Did you suffer physically from your years of working in
the theater. Yeah, my knees were shot after two of
(49:00):
Sunset Boulevard, running up and downstairs twelve times a night,
and then repetitive choreography. I had a shoulder replacement in
my right shoulder was replaced in September, which I'm really grateful.
I did. It's and then the surgeon was great and
that apparatus is great. I'm really grateful. I'm gonna have
to have a knee. Probably both kneeds replaced, but I'm
gonna start with one. But you have to be in
(49:22):
a process either with a great osteopath or chiropractor or
the other. Thing. I found out recently that's very disturbing
to me, as I've had because of working in these
dusty old theaters that they never keep clean and mold
in the atmosphere and stuff. I've had repetitive bouts of
bronchitis for years now and it's created a kind of
(49:42):
asthmatic lung condition that I have to work with now,
which is not nice. Singer and actor Betty Buckley be
sure to follow Here's the Thing on the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast
when we come back. Betty Buckley talks about the challenges
(50:04):
of playing Norma Desmond and Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard.
I'm Alec Baldwin and this is here's the thing. Betty
Buckley worked with famed British director Trevor Nunn twice, first
(50:28):
in Cats In two, then again in Sunset Boulevard. In
in the intervening years, Betty Buckley's confidence in her own
vision grew. First of all, he's a genius in the
way he directed us in Cats, and the way he
put all that together was really unbelievable. I mean, no
(50:50):
other Cats company had that kind of amazing bond. We
did improv workshops, theater games and at least a month
of rehearsals and a couple of weeks on our hands
and kneeses Cats, but just incredible Grotowski theater games and
stuff like that. What does he have to offer you
when you do Sunset? Well, it was interesting because they
(51:11):
flew me to London and my audition took an hour.
I've never auditioned that long in my life. They brought
me in a week in advance and taught me all
the songs and then told me I had to sing
them in Glenn close his keys, and I was like, no,
I won't be singing them in Glenn close his keys,
And so the music director was a little in flams
about that, and then he kept coming up on stage
(51:33):
directing me and directing me. And I'm a meditator, so
whatever they threw at me, I just stayed in my
focus and did what they said. And then when I
got the part, I was then back in London in
this rehearsal process, and I was like, okay, So I
brought in mythological references the Greek drama Medusa media and
(51:56):
he was interested in that. And then he would listen
really closely and then he say, okay, show me, and
then I would show him what I meant, and gradually,
over a six week rehearsal process to eight weeks, I
saw him liking what I was doing right, and I
and then he gave me rain to interpret it that way.
(52:17):
You earned the right to do it your way. Yeah.
And so then we opened and it was like a
huge success, and I was just like, oh, yeah, you know.
So then I got New York and they were very
nervous because the New York Times they followed me around
to do this big feature in the Arts and Leisure section,
(52:38):
and it was really nice. This writer was really great,
but the angle the editor wanted was is she a
big enough star to replace Glenn Close. So they were
really nervous that my interpretation because it was so vastly
different from what Glenn Close had done. It was vastly
different from what any of them had done, and so
(52:59):
they got nervous. And he was very nervous Trevor None, Yeah,
and I one day in rehearsal, he was very nervous
and very upset, and I was like, what, what's going on?
And so I started crying because I couldn't understand what
he wanted. And when I was crying, he said this, this,
(53:21):
This is what's missing. And I was I said what what?
And he goes this and I was like wretched because
I felt wretched. He goes wretched and I said oh,
and then I just stopped crying. I said, why didn't
you just tell me that? Where do you want wretched?
And so I got really calm and he goes okay.
And then we went through the whole script and he
(53:43):
goes here, here, here, and here, and I'm like, okay,
I said, I saw all you gotta do. Just tell
me what you need now, Betty Buckley, I want to
get to something else. The power of your voice and
the uniqueness. Where does the power come from? Can I
just share with you a moment I had with you
when we were younger. We were at a big public
(54:06):
theater benefit years ago and you were part of it too,
and I sang Aquarius and it was a very powerful
performance and you were watching me, and and you just
like shook your head, and I was like so touched
by that because I felt so seen and cherished and
(54:28):
valued by you than you. So you ask where my
power comes from. It comes from a spiritual connection, right,
It's like I believe that essence, all human beings are connected.
Like I have a heart that's beting that wants to
love and be loved. You have a heart that's being
that wants to love and be loved. At that essence,
we are entirely the same. Our stories are different, but
(54:50):
that I am no, that essence is the same. Since
my since I was like twenty six years old, and
I've been on this quest, thought there has to be
a handbook. And I found that there's like this core
body of truth in every religion, in every major philosophy
on the planet. So I found meditation. While I was
(55:13):
on Ati Is Enough. I went my ex husband Peter Flood,
took me to a meditation class after my first season
on It Is Enough. And then I learned that I
could use meditation in my work and that there was
this higher consciousness in me that was the creative force
that if I made myself an instrument of that good
(55:33):
things happened, and I was a witness about that as
surely as the audience was. And I learned how to
do that before Cats and before Tender Mercies, and then
my work just changed and every everything opened up. And
the power that I was able to access as an
instrument of that consciousness, that's where it comes from. Is
(55:56):
I'm meditating my way through that. And it's like being
away on Mr. Toad's wild ride, right, because when you
have a part like Norma Desmond that you can go
all out, full tilt boogie to quote Janis Joplin, then
this it's like holding to this mantra, holding to this
like focus point and then let everything happen. That's how
(56:19):
I work. You are on island of your own in
terms of your talent and your uniqueness. It's just as unbelievable.
It's unbelievable you, Alec. I feel humbled by your compliment.
Thank you well. Listen, um, we interviewed Ken, my old
friend Ken, and the thing the two of you also
have in common other than cats, as you both went
home can move back to St. Louis. Yeah, he moved
back to take care of his mom, isn't he the
(56:39):
greatest guy ever. He and I had addressing room right
next to each other at the Winter Garden, so we
were really close pals. He's a lovely, lovely man. Well,
let me ask you this one more question, which is,
if I'm on iTunes, which of these albums would you
say is not your favorite? Which one you're particularly fond of?
Ghost Like the two bum Burnett produced is a beautiful
(57:02):
album that's very haunting, and the Tibon and I grew
up together and forth and he made the first recording
of my voice when we were both like seventeen, but
so ghost Light. And then my recent stuff that I
really love is story songs and hope. Thank you for
taking the time to do this. My love to you, Aleck,
thank you, good luck down there. I adore you and
(57:23):
I'm so happy to connect with you. Thank you, My
thanks to Broadway legends Betty Buckley and Ken Paige. I'll
leave you with Betty singing as if we never said
goodbye from Sunset Boulevard Live at Carnegie Hall. I'm Alec
Baldwin and this is Here's the thing from my Heart Radio,
(57:43):
The Whispered Conversations, an old cloud of so much to say,
not just today, bottle well, wellness well, the body in
(58:12):
the making. Guess everything's as if never sad boy. Everything says,
if we never said good bye, we taught the world
(58:46):
you waste too dream
I'm Alec Baldwin. Then you were listening to Here's the
Thing from My Heart Radio. My guests today are two
of my all time favorite musical theater actors, Ken Paige
and Betty Buckley, and there are parallels to their stories.
Both grew up dreaming of performing on Broadway. Ken in St. Louis,
(00:23):
Betty and fort Worth both were cast in the original
Broadway production of Cats, Ken as Old Deuteronomy and Betty
as Guizzabella, for which she wanted Tony. Both became key
figures in the vibrant community that transformed musical theater over
the past several decades. In addition to being the voice
of Broadway, Betty Buckley's acting chops earned her roles as
(00:46):
the step mom on the hit TV series Eight Is
Enough and in films including Carrie, Tender Mercies, and Frantic.
But first, I'm talking with Ken Page. You may know
him as the voice of Bogie Boogie in The Night
There Before Christmas. In his breakout role on Broadway, he
played Nicely Nicely Johnson in an all black revival of
(01:08):
Guys and Dolls in nineteen seventy six. He went on
to perform as the Lion in the Whiz and in
the original cast of Ain't Misbehavior. Ken Paige was drawn
to musical theater early. Yeah, it was my life blood.
It was the thing that got me out of where
I was to where I went. It was the thing
that kept me going through years of up and down
(01:30):
childhood things. But it was always musical theater and all
of that related world that got me through. I mean,
I remember being ten and eleven, of course, watching Barbara
strei Sen's TV special going I Am Barbara Streisand and
I would go to the library in St. Louis, the
big Public Library, and in the basement they had a
(01:51):
section of LPs, and I would thumb through all of
these Broadway cast albums. I would read the line of notes,
and this one lady when I first couple of times
that came, she was a little triviuted, like what are
you doing in here? And she saw, you know, I'd
be sitting on the floor reading Broadway cast album liner notes,
and I'm sure she thought, is this child from Mars?
(02:12):
Or was was the deal? But I started to educate
myself that early about musical theater because it just fascinated me.
And of course the own two only things that I
really saw was the Tony Awards once a year, and
I would see all the shows and I was fascinated
by it. And we had this grand outdoor theater still
have in St. Louis called at that time it was
(02:32):
the Municipal Opera and now it's called the Muni, so
a lot of people in the business know the Muni.
And that was the first time I saw a live
production on stage. It was Oklahoma with Robert Horton as
Curly and he came out on a real horse. And
all those people in Missouri demand no less, they must
have a real horse. That's right, show me to show
me state. So he came out on a horse, and
(02:55):
of course when you see something like that, you fall
in love with it. And subsequently it's a lot of shows.
And it was the theater that made me really fall
in love with musical theater because I could see it.
And then it was the theater that inspired me to
move to New York. And when did you study voice acting?
I did acting school. I did. I went to two
years at Fontbonne University in St. Louis in a scholarship.
(03:18):
I like to say this because now I'm over fifty.
I can brag right. I received a scholarship in art
music for vocal performance and theater, and I chose theater subsequently.
At the same time those two summers, I did seasons
at the Muni in the ensemble I started when I
was eighteen, those two shows of the Muni. With those
your first two shows you did. Had you been doing
(03:39):
shows when you were younger? When did you start performing
in front of people? In front of people? Really sixth grade,
I was part of a thing here in Saying. It
was called the Bellerman's Speech League, which my cousin had
been in, but it was one of those competitive citywide things.
So that was really the first time I stepped in
front of people performing ring. And then of course in
(04:00):
high school I did your usual high school musical's Funny Girl, Oliver, Hello,
Dolly Fitler on the Route And it was that that
led me to audition for scholarship or college, which I got.
I wish at the time I'd known about Juilliard and
Goodman and schools like that, but they really didn't promote
it because the idea was stay here and go to school,
and St. Louis has a very home grown mentality that way,
(04:25):
and it really wasn't promoted to me to audition for
The Goodman, which was only in Chicago, and certainly not Juilliard,
which was New York. And I think, not to be egotistical,
but I think I might have really been able to
to get into those schools and for so for you,
I wonder it's it's like, and again I'm gonna say
this eleven times during the course of this interview, but
you're so talented. I mean, you are so talented. You
(04:48):
like the male musical theater, Annie Oakley, boom boom boom.
Anything you can do, I can you can do better than.
But if you've gone to those Nancy schools, what would
have changed everything? You think? So everything? Oh? Sure, Because
first of all, to go to any of those schools,
you're living away from home. So that's the first big change,
(05:10):
which means you explore your life, never mind the education,
you explore your life differently. For me, I think being
away from St. Louis would have made a big difference
in how I explored what I was doing. My mentor,
God Bless and rest him, Don Garner, when I realized
that I wanted to go to New York, I went
to him and I said, look, I think I want
(05:30):
to go to New York, and you shut the door
to his office. He says, all right, I didn't say this,
but I think you will learn in the next two
years in New York what you would It would take
you six years here to learn if you go and
apply yourself and really do what I think you would
do or will do. And indeed, by the two years
when my class graduated, I was in my first Broadway show,
(05:50):
which was an all black revival of Guys and Dolls. Yeah,
and how long did that run? Not long? Now? What
what do you attribute that too? Well, it was very
controversial because at one it was an all black version
of something, and then this is minus nineteen seventies six,
so things hadn't moved quite nearly as far as they
(06:12):
have come to thus hard. And also it was Guys
and Dolls, which is a sacred musical theater piece. And
there were people who were pro because you know, pro
Bailey's version of Hello Dolly had already happened, and people thought,
oh my god, that was wonderful, so dusk Guys and Dolls.
But I think because Hello Dolly is such a the
whole from Thornton Wilder on it's such an open book
(06:34):
of who these people are. Guys and Dolls was a
very specific New York Jewish idiom. So there were people
who thought we had no business tampering, tinkering, tooling with
guys and dolls. And then there were other people who thought,
thank god, there's some different energy on it and our production,
the the arrangements, since we couldn't change a note of
(06:54):
the music. But that's all another story. The arrangements had
a sort of a wa waca waca disco kind of
thing running under and when you hear the Broadway cast
album now, it's really very electric and alive. People loved it.
Those who loved I remember, may I say Rex Read
said something about saying that songs sit down, you're rocking
the boat, and he said I turned it into a
(07:14):
gospel stomp and it was just terrible. Oh, Rex was
unkind to you, I'd say, yeah, but he was unkind
to everybody, but he was specifically. But it was interesting
because I always remember thinking, even then, at twenty one,
I thought, what didn't Frank Lesser write a gospel number?
Isn't that what this is supposed to be? These people
in the Savus all mission and its gospel tinge and
(07:36):
so all we really did was took it the next
step towards what he was writing to begin with, which
I think the last eight measures of the song go
sit down, you're rocking, Sit down, sit down, sit down,
you're rocking the boat blah blah blah blah. Were they
allowed us to change that to the devil drag you under.
It was so so heavy you never bloat, sit down,
sit down? Is it down? Sit huh? Which took it
(07:56):
in another direction. Well that was successful in uf that
the audience would scream and carry on and they loved it.
So then they wrote an encore which is completely new,
and sometimes the encore would get two and three renditions
a night. Thank god I was twenty one, you know,
because the people dream and they'd applaud and they go
on and Joe Marshall, God Resting was our drummer. It
was really he who decided he'd listened to the crowd
(08:19):
and he looked at me, and he listened to the crowd,
and then he'd hit the drum field but had a dream.
And the more the people screamed, of course, we do
it again and again again. So I'm saying that to
say that was one of the things out of that
show that kept it going, frankly, because people came to
see what was new in Guys and Dolls. You weren't
(08:41):
in The Whiz prior to Guys and Does No. I've
seen that written a few places, and I always try
to correct it because Guys and Dolls was nineteen seventy
six and I didn't go into The Whiz until late
seventy almost seventy seven. So you go from one adaptation
of a sacred musical to another adaptation of someone. I'm
(09:02):
sure you also were impersonating in the bathroom with a
brush in your hand, Judy Garland, when you go do
the Whiz? Was it a different bowl of wax there?
And the way you were treated with adapting Wizard of
Us with a podcast, Oh god, because The Whiz was
unapologetically black, even though based on L. Frank Baum's in
the music and so forth. But the Whiz open and
(09:22):
that was a blockbuster. It wasn't at first they actually
had the closing notice up, and then Ken Harper went
to twenty Century Fox. They invested in a TV commercial
and it was so great, and then they went to
the churches in Brooklyn. Stephanie Mills belonged to the biggest church,
African American church in Brooklyn. They went to them. They
(09:44):
then went to Sister brother churches. All of these people
started buying tickets and came in bust loos and we
know the dollar rules. So as long as there were
people there, the show was going to keep running by
virtue of its staying where it was. The word of
mouth picked up and then other people started coming. Finished
that story to say that by the time it got
around to the Tony Awards, they were nominated for eleven
(10:05):
Tony Awards. I think they won six. So guys and
Dolls nicely, nicely, the Lion and the Whiz and these
are not lead roles. You're playing more supporting roles. And
the next thing is ain't misbehavior and correct and when
you do that, you get a lead role in Ain't Misbehaving? Yeah, well,
you know, I mean it's interesting because the five characters,
(10:26):
if you will, and amos behavior, we're all supporting people.
So the five of us really were the leads, but
we were used to being supporting people, so we supported
each other in the way that we had supported other people.
In productions, which made it a very powerful ensemble. When
did you notice that you walked in the room and
(10:46):
everybody sat up and they were like, it'sken, you know
what I mean? Like you really the town started to
adopt you, that you were part of a business in
an industry in New York. That was the blessing of
guys and dolls is that I did a beloved role
and by me having some sort of a personal signature
on it, it separated me from the great stu w k.
So Broadway sort of said who is this I remember
(11:09):
Clive Barnes. I didn't know who he was at the time,
but he wrote a sort of love letter in The
Times and saying who is this guy? Where did he
come from? People calling me up saying did you read
that thing at the Times this morning? Clive Barnes wrote
you a love letter? And I'm like, well, who is
Clive Barnes? First of all, they're like, okay, letters, he
writing me love letters. But what it did was it
(11:31):
opened the door to Broadway and it said this guy
is Broadway caliber. Wherever he came from, welcome dot dot dot.
So it sort of sucked me right into the center
of the Broadway community immediately and then they get to
do The Whiz behind it, which was a huge, huge,
huge hit and still very much at the top of
the list of appreciate it shows. I'll tell this story
(11:52):
and I think you'll know what I mean. I had
done a club act at Leemouche. You know, it was
a big disco, but it was also a big club
there too. I did a tribute it to all of
the black shows who were running abroad WITHY at the time,
and there were many at the time, and I sort
of linked them. I didn't songs from Raisin and the
Whiz and of course Guys and Dolls and a couple
of and I would link them together with He's on
(12:13):
down the Road, Okay, let's go on, we go, He's
on down He's on down road to raise it and blow.
And some of the people from the Whiz came to
see my show because I was in Guys and Dolls
and they heard so they called me in shortly after
Guys and Dolls closed, and I had auditioned for The
Whiz before, and I just knew I was perfect for
(12:34):
it because I had seen the out of town tryout
in Detroit, and I went in and I sang men
no line and they said, thank you, that's it. I
know I'm right for this put How damn you say
that like that? So when it came back around, my
agents said, well, you know, they want to see you
at the Majestic you know, And I said, hih auditioned
for the Whiz they didn't like me. He said no, no,
(12:55):
I don't think you understand. They saw your club act.
They want to see you at the Majestic Theater. They're
not having auditions, they're auditioning you. So I said, oh ship.
So I went in and Ken Harbor indeed was there,
and I sang the songs and he walked down to
the edge of the stage and he shook my hand
and he says, are you busy for the rest of
the afternoon? And I said no. He said good, then
(13:17):
go down and get your costume measurement. And it took
me a minute to understand that mean I got the part.
I was like, why, how what do you want? I wonderful? Yeah,
he said. So in answer to your question, I would say,
that's the first time people sat up when I walked
in the room. But it was still different because they
invited me into the room Broadway star Ken Paige. If
(13:41):
you enjoy listening to conversations with the grades of musical theater,
be sure to check out my conversation with another Broadway star,
Kelly O'Hara. Even after hos a week, I find myself
kind of dealing with all of this, all of my
innards out there. It's how I filter, it's how I process,
I think, and it's why I'm not quite tired of it.
(14:04):
For the most part, I find that I go inside
it as opposed to just dealing with it all out here.
You're more of my conversation with Kelly O'Hara that Here's
the Thing dot org. After the break, Ken Paige talks
about learning comedic timing from some of the best in
(14:25):
the business. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's
the Thing I dream last night. I got on the
(14:47):
boat to Heaven and by some chance I had brought
my das along and there are start and someone fade me.
But the acid test they do right from wrong. All
(15:11):
the people all sends it up. Sit down on your
rocket boat. Yes, people all sence it out. Sit down.
That's Ken Paige performing sit Down You're rocking the Boat
from the nineteen six Broadway revival of Guys and Dolls.
During his tenure on Broadway, Ken Paige would often perform
(15:32):
solo in smaller clubs. Oftentimes, his cast mates and other
performers were his best audience with the Broadway community, especially
back then. You were in that show at that time,
but you were still part of a larger community at large.
However long you've been around, chances are you'd worked with
just about anybody or everybody at some point. So there
(15:56):
was a serious sense of community, that support of people,
knew people. I can't even tell you. I remember doing
again Guys and Dolls A Burrows, who of course was
a towering figure in the musical theater him teaching me
about comedy timing. He said, look, these jokes are funny,
you know what I'm saying. I said, well, I assume him,
but you got to do a three rhythm thing for
(16:18):
him to work. If you break the rhythm, they're not funny.
And my example was I came out with a sandwich
and Nathan says, hey, nicely, where you've been, And I'd
say I had to get something to eat. I felt
a little faint and I would just say the line crickets.
You could hear not spart. It was that quiet, you know.
And he said to me, no, no, hey, you gotta
(16:38):
take two beats before you speak, take a bite of
the sandwich, and then you say the line with your mouthful.
And it's funny. Thought, well, that's very specific. I don't know,
you know, maybe I don't want to do that. Hey,
he wrote it. He ought to know, right, So I
did it. He says, hey, nicely, where have you been?
And I stopped and I took a bye to the sandwich.
(16:59):
I would all heard a good trouperty. I felt a
little faint roaring laughter. So you know what I mean? Right?
And I thought to myself, learn, learn, learn. Is people
were generous, not only in the production, but they were
generous to tell you things. So getting into that whole
thing of like, you start to feel more, uh, emboldened. Sure.
(17:23):
I think with each show successively, you become more and
more aware of what you have that's yours, that is
applicable to whatever situation you're in. But it takes. It's
a process to you get that sort of confidence that
while I'm gonna sing this song, there's something I do
(17:44):
with my boys, with my intention with this that that
is particular to me, that's gonna make this sing, you
know what I mean? And with a mis behaving. Of course,
the opportunity was golden because there was nothing. Hello, There
was a stack of Xerox music that Fats Roller and
other people wrote. And then that was it who shaped that?
Who was responsible for shaping that? Uh? Well, we all were.
(18:08):
I'm gonna say that now on record, because Richard Mulby
was a wonderful director in many ways, and he certainly
put us together. Murray Horowitz who was the jazz aficionado,
and Arthur Farria, who was our choreographer. It was really
this combined effort of everybody. Needless to say, five African
American performers brought much of what you saw from our
(18:30):
own selves. There was no written characters, There was no
scenario that we were following. It was just a matter
of you walk in the door and she walks over
to you and she sayings, baby, baby, what is the
matter with you? Well, you gotta know who you are,
what your intention is, what you're trying to do. All
(18:50):
that had to be provided by the actor who was
us right, And that was the way the show really
was created. I mean, you know it was set up
so a misbehaving and then you go into Cats. Now,
you were in the original company of Cats, the original
Broadway cast. Yes, you were in the original You were
(19:13):
in the original Broadway company of Cats. American Daughters in
Buckley and Harry groner Man, Terry Man amazing, Betty Buckley,
Oh my god. So how did that come together? Well,
we want to say first, it was a huge hit
(19:35):
in London, so it had it had already sailed the seas.
It was just coming in our direction. But that was
part of what made it such a big deal for Broadway.
It's because it was such a huge hit in London
and they were going to do the American production, and
how do you get summoned to that? Well, weirdly, because
they were seeing people for six months for this show.
Everybody who could crawl on four legs was there auditioning.
(19:59):
And I didn't think there was anything in the show
for me. I just thought it was a dance show
and it was about people in leotard's not me. And
I know I didn't paid any attention. And I went
to the closing performance of Ain't misbehavior on Broadway. I
wasn't in the show by that point, but I went
to the closing performance and Bernard Jacobs, Bernie Jacobs was
there and he came up to me and said, Kenny,
(20:21):
have you been seen for Cats? And I said, no, no,
I haven't. He says, I want you to go in.
I want you to blah blah blah, so oh Deuteronomy.
I think it's a good role for you. I didn't
know anything about it. He said, go up to Benny
Lifts office and get the music and I'm gonna have
them call you in now. Footnote. They had not called
me in, and I was certainly someone who was on
(20:42):
the scene well enough by that point, but I guess
they did not see me the way Bernie summy. But
he says, that's it. You're gonna go in, and that's
what it's gonna be. Right. So I am. They're learning
the addressing of Cats. I'm going over the song. I
had to audition for the show and Armelia, my late dear, dear,
dear friend of me, it was in the room next
to me, and she said, i'd hear you in the
(21:02):
shower page that you've heard of said kind. She said,
I would think, okay, not so good yet, but but
it'll get there. That it was great, so we come back.
I go in and by this point it's the last
week of the auditions and they were really calling a
(21:23):
lot of people's names and thrown them around. So I
go in on Monday. I sang and they said okay, great.
So they said come back on Friday and could you
possibly said could you possibly learn a dramatic monologue? I thought, oh,
f me from the show or from some other source,
something anything, just a monologue, And I think, or not
(21:44):
to be yes, I'm thinking, ain't it a musical? So
I go I learned I luckily had done this monologue
and a show I did about Louis Armstrong. I played
the character Joe Oliver, his mentor. So I had a monologue. Okay,
so I come back. I do the monologue again. Trevor
comes in the stage after monologue and he says, your
talents are many fold and manifest. I thought, well, if
(22:07):
that wasn't a kiss of death, I think I was like,
thank you for playing the British way of saying thank you,
you know. So I go out Fire Island for the weekend.
They're announcing it on Monday, and this is Friday, and
I thought, I'm out of the city. I don't want
to be here. So I get back Monday morning. The
phone rings and it's Tyler Getchell and he says, oh,
(22:30):
Ken Rage is Tyler Gatchell. I said, yes, Tyler, good morning,
how are you? I was it? Tell funk around to
tell me what's up. I said, I'm good. I'm good.
He goes, well, we were wondering here in the office
if you'd like to play old Deuteronomy and cats for us,
and you know you're not feeling when your heart like
sinks and rises at the same time. And I thought, yeah,
yes I will, I would please, Yes, I'll take it.
(22:54):
How long did you do the show? Two years? Did
you find that? You know? Two years? I mean, my god,
two years of your life? Every night? What happens during
the ark of the two years? Many things. The beginning,
of course, is exciting because it's the opening and it's
this and the energy and that carries you almost a year.
(23:15):
Then it settles in like, okay, now they're coming to
see what they've heard about, which means second phase. You've
got to deliver the show. It's not just a matter
of coming out there on the energy of being fabulous
and amazing. Now you've got to deliver them to show
that they have paid this high price ticket to see
that they've heard is amazing. I like to say that's
the second phase. You've got to You've got to meet
(23:37):
the standard of the show, not just your own standard.
And then the third phase is where I think it
becomes a matter of being a professional, where you you
know what you're supposed to do, you know the temperature
of the show, you know what it's supposed to do.
If you know what I mean and you do it,
it isn't always inspired, because some nights you do not
feel it, but you have po road marks that you
(24:01):
hit that gets you through the show, and your technique
will carry you the performer. The show will carry everyone,
but your technique will carry you personally. And I think
also it has a lot to do with how you
were trained and you know how you came through the
ropes as to how you do that. I came from
the old school of you know, you give it your all,
you hit it, and if you're doing that, you're not
(24:23):
even conscious of it being maybe boring or a little
wrote because you always find yourself in the doing. You know,
you're considered one of the great great performers in the
musical theater, and you walk into the room. What does
the director have to offer you? Well, you know, I
will use someone as an example. It's Michael Griff, who
(24:43):
directed many wonderful things, but Rent was among them. And
I've worked with Michael twice. We did a production of
Brandy Newman's Faust. I love Michael Griffe because he's one
of the and I I you know, I admit I'm
not easy because I've been around a long time. So
if you don't know something, you better know something. That's
what I'm leading to. Yeah, And my feeling is if
(25:06):
you know something, I'm down with it. Tell me what
you know. But if you don't know anything, you cannot
fake it out with me because I see you. As
my grandmother said, I knew where you were going before
you knew where you were going. It's real, you know
what I mean. Michael Griff is one of those directors
where and he's so like open and interested in what
you think, and not in the sense of you get
(25:27):
to do whatever you want. That's not it at all.
It's like, well, let's talk about what is it that
you think. There's no bad ideas. There's no bad ideas,
so there's no bad idea. And I did another show
with him called Most Wanted, a musical which was Believing
or Not, a musicalization of the Kunanan murder. It was
really actually very very good and dark and so forth.
(25:47):
It was too dark for people. This is before the
TV movie and all that sort of stuff, and people
were freaked the funk out. You get a musical about that, Yes,
a wonderful musical. And of course Rosashi was the end
of his murdering spree. What was the name of the show,
post Wanted? Oh my God? And what year was this produced?
(26:08):
Oh god, about fifteen years ago at Lahoya Playhouse. And
it didn't transfer, It didn't go anywhere. They talked about it.
We did another reading thing of it in New York.
I played a drag queen named Stormy Leather. Oh God,
thank you, thank you, I'm here all week. Yeah. And
I had this great song called I Never Saw It Coming,
(26:32):
which was about how you do these things in life
and you never see it coming. You think you're gonna
do this, you're gonna be that, You're gonna do, and
then something else happens and you never see it coming.
And the first line of the song was I met
a bit the boy, which gives you a set up.
I knew a bit the boy had it all class, money,
everything and so and so forth. Very deep, very dark show. Anyway,
(26:56):
Michael says to me. And I'm doing the thing and
it's working. You know, it's doing well, I said, Michael,
I keep having this feeling. I said, would you mind
if I can I smoke? And this is the example
of Michael Grive And he looked at me as only
he kidding. I wish you would please do? I said yes, yes,
(27:16):
And it changed the whole feel of it, because one
the lighting and the cigarette smoke and the whole thing.
And it gave me something to start with. And I
exhaled on the first note, you know, all that kind
of should you do? And it made it a thought
rather than a delivery of a thought. It was a
Burrows in the sandwich all over again. That's right. Hey, Hello,
if I could take an inhale on this cigarette and
(27:38):
exhale and go, I met a boy, bitch had it all.
It's set up a whole different thing. You know now
l a New York L, A New York L A
New York St. Louis. How did the Great Ken Page
decide St. Louis is where I need to be in
this point in my life. Well, other than your mom,
(28:01):
Well that's kind of I mean, if it were only
you know, it was my mom, my stepdad. I have
two aunts, one of whom I'm in charge of her
care now she's in a facility. But I knew like
that they were all getting older. And the older I got,
the more I started to understand they weren't these wizard
people that I thought they were when I was young.
They were vulnerable. There were needs that they had that
(28:23):
they didn't even know how to be in to address,
and as they got older, they couldn't, you know, sort
of jockey their way through it. It was becoming more
of an issue how to dot dot dot and not,
you know, to put it all on them. It was
easy as easier to be here. And I did a
calculation of could I still work from here? And I
had initiated a show that I do called Page by Page,
(28:46):
which is a autobiographical two hour one hand and blah
blah blah, and I went all over the country with it.
That's how I kept my bills paid. I took I
got on the road like an old actor does, and
I sang my songs and I got my check and
I touched a lot of people. But I could do
that from St. Louis. Of course, show business, whether it's sports, music, entertainment,
(29:06):
the African American performer gets into the same limo. He's
picked up to go to the show. He's got the
star dressing room. Everything is when you're making money for them.
Everything is as fluffy and as comfortable for the white
or the black performer. But whoever roadblocks for you in
that area getting all the time. It's a constant that
(29:27):
I can say that, and I don't mean that to
be evasive. It's a constant from the time. I think
of when I started in seventy six with guys and dolls,
where people would say, to my face, how dare you
that'st w K's role, And I'm thinking, but I'm up
there eight times a week. I'm doing it on on on,
through many things. Cats. When I was casting Cats, there
were people black and white who just we're not having it.
(29:50):
The white continuency thought someone why you should of course
been cast. Why did they cast me? My brothers and
sisters were like, well, you've gone over to the enemy,
you know what I mean. But mind you, any one
of them would have certainly been happy to have the part.
So it's a constant in Hollywood. It was very difficult.
There were many auditions. I went on Alec where they
(30:10):
just wanted me to just be more urban, which was
a code, you know. I did one show where I
played the owner of a diet company. Okay, that's funny enough.
I'm a big guy. But as the progression of the
rehearsals went on, they said, well, you're gonna come in
eating a candy bar. I thought, come on, you know,
it's funny enough, you don't have to put a candy bar.
(30:31):
By the time we got to filming, they gave me
a giant, oversized hershey bar that I was to walk
in with, and those kinds of things. That's just sort
of on the one side, but it it is a constant,
and it continues, you know. And because I have been
around a long time and I am sixty seven years
old as of yesterday, you know what I'm saying. I
know what's up. And people try to bullshit you with
(30:53):
stuff that they're trying to veil, or you know, they're
really being racial, or they're being prejudicial. My generation, we
were the beneficiaries of the idea of we better do
the right thing because people are watching. The generation before
us was we can do anything we want because nobody's watching.
You know, my kids are obviously going through the catalog
(31:13):
of films and they wanted to start watching Nightmare before Christmas.
And of course there's nothing more thrilling in my life
than them being captivated by a performance of you as
Boogie Boogie and me sitting there on a couch with
my kids and going, I know him, I know him.
And then my kids are gonna be like, oh please,
I've never seen night there before Christmas, and I see
it like six months ago, and we watch it. You know,
(31:34):
the kids want to watch every movie twenty times, and
so we watch it. It's very inventive and inside of
that song, it defines your talent. You do so many things.
What makes you one of the greatest performers in the
history of the musical theater ever is the acting inside
the singing. How did that go down? As a child?
(31:56):
Like I said in my room, playing cast albums and
being everybody on the album and so forth. That was
the beginning of all that for me, because you know,
for me, I wasn't seeing anything. I was only hearing
it right. So when Nightmamber four, Christmas came around, I thought,
oh my god, I'm gonna get to do what I've
been tipping around for years. Man, do you ever, man?
(32:19):
Do you ever? You feel that song you've got There's
so much great acting inside that song, and the and
the and your vocalizing. I produced you in a show
one time. Yes, And I think the deepest I ever
fell in love with another man, I'm a straight guy.
But the deepest I've ever fell in love with the
man was when he sang are you with me? We're
gonna sing one phrase of this ready whispering above Tam
(32:42):
Tammy ties in love. You sang that song and I
melted in the I thought, this guy is the most
beautiful soul. And you are of the people I've known
in this business, one of the most beautiful souls I've
ever met. My laugh here so talented, Well, that is
beyond kind. I love you, and I love your talent.
(33:04):
I'll love you back. Actor and singer Ken Paige. Betty
Buckley grew up dreaming of singing her heart out and
in the stuff of legend. On her first day in
New York City, Betty Buckley landed a part in the
(33:26):
Broadway musical seventeen seventy six. That early success gave her
a chance to prove to herself and the folks back
home she was ready. My mom had been a singer
dancer growing up, and she was very good, very talented,
but my father, when he married her, told her she
couldn't do that anymore. My father was a lieutenant colonel
(33:47):
in the Air Force. When I was in the fifth grade,
he retired and he became a college professor. He was
a really brilliant guy, but he was very opposed to
show business. And my mother had this extensive cast album
collection and all the great singers and everything, and she
sang around that house all the time. So I was
(34:07):
exposed to all that very early on and loved it
from and she took me to see my first musical,
which was Pajama Game with the original Bob Fossey choreography,
when I was eleven, and when the number steam heat
and I remember where I was sitting in the theater,
and there was this energy that just went up to
my head. What I've learned as an adult was an epiphany.
(34:28):
You know, it's just like boom that that's what you're
going to be doing for the rest of your life.
So then from age eleven, I became fixated on that.
What did you do with that fixation? Well, I listened
Bye Bye Bertie all the time, and I told my mother,
you know, I could play one of the teenagers in that,
and when she was mad at me, I would run
down the hall into her room and slide in on
(34:49):
my knees and do the whole speech that the kid
does to Conrad Bertie, tell us a beautiful one. Tell
us how you make that glorious? Sala looked around my
house for years. My mother would go, what are you
gonna do you homework? I go, baby, really sublime. I
mean I knew that song exactly. That was his junior
(35:11):
high talent show that I wanted to be in. But
I was really short forever. I was like four ft
eight inches tall for m and I grew all at
once in one summer, I thought I would be short forever,
and I, you know, thought, well, maybe I'll be the
first girl jockey, you know. But anyway, there was this
talent show and I came home and I knew they
would never ask me to be in it. But I'd
(35:32):
studied dance with my aunts since I was three. She
was a dance teacher and my grandmother, so I had
these two very powerful female role models that were performers
and artists. And I told my mother I wanted to
do Steam Heat and the Junior High Talent Show. And
my mother was like, oh, that's interesting because the guys
who were the choreographer and the director of that just
(35:54):
opened a dance studio in Fort Worth. I will call them.
So she called them and said, my daughter wants to
learn and Steam Heat and they said, well, can she sings?
And I was like yeah, because I sung in the
church choir, but they always put me in the back
road and told me to blend in, you know. So
I sang and they said no, no, Betty, sing as
loud as you can. So I knew I had this
giant voice. When did you know you had a giant voice? When?
(36:16):
Because I was constantly singing with all the great lady
singers in my bedroom to their albums and basically imitating them,
and I knew I had this like sound, and but
I didn't know its value because our choir teacher would
always put me on the back road and really get
annoyed because my voice cuts through, you know, and and
I was trying so hard to sing soft, but it
(36:38):
still has this resonant edge. So so they told me
to sing as loud as I could. So I did,
and I just felt unleashed, and they were like, oh
my god. And they those guys made me realize I
had this unique voice. So they gave me the original
Fosse choreography, and I got in the Junior High Talent
show and I brought the house down. They all went nuts,
(37:00):
and from that time I was like little bitty Betty
Buckley with this giant voice. Then my mother became this
like huge stage mother, and she was constantly entering me
and everything, and my father was going nuts about it.
And then I got my first professional job when I
was fifteen. I played the role of Dainty June and
Gypsy at our local theater and I joined Equity and
(37:22):
all that stuff, and then I worked there every summer,
and so I had a lot of experience. By the
time I got to New York. What got you to
New York? Well, I I was recruited to enter the
missful Worth pageant. I hated beauty pageants. I mean, I'm
sorry to say all that, because I have friends and
beauty pageants and I won a lot of scholarships, and
(37:43):
it wasn't for you. Shall we say? I was this
budding young feminist. I was. I was a charter subscriber
to Miss magazine. In glorious Tina gave me words for
all these feelings of inequity that Gloria Steine. That's a
good one. I'll take that. But you didn't want that, No,
I was embarrassed by it. I remember once I won
(38:06):
the missfoot Worth pageant, because I was basically recruited to
do that. And then I was in the Miss Texas pageant.
I didn't win the talent competition, which was really strange.
So I was runner up to Miss Texas, I think
second runner up or something. But the producer of the
Miss America pageant was there, and I was invited the
following year to be a guest entertainer at the Miss
(38:27):
American pageant. And this agent saw me on television singing
dance and they asked me to fly to New York
right after the Miss American pageant audition for them. So
it was Ashley Famous Agency, which became my CM. And
there was a very famous agent named Eric Shepard who
I sang for these like eleven or twelve agents, and
he just stood up and said signer and he walked
(38:49):
out of the room. So this responsible agent, roder Has
who went on to become a big Broadway producer. He's
a really nice, wonderful guy, still a great friend. He said, well,
what do you want to do? And I said I
have to go back and finish college or my father
will kill me. And so he he was like, okay,
do that, and when you finished college, you'll come to
New York. And you did finish TCU for journalism. Yeah.
(39:13):
Why why journalism? Because my mother had been a journalist.
My dad thought that being a journalist was a complimentary
profession for a wife and mother to the husband. But
that my purpose in life, as all young women should have,
he thought, was to be married and have children. But
I didn't want to do that. I wanted to go
to New York and and I knew what my voice
(39:36):
would sound like, and I knew how it would affect people.
And then when I was thirty five and I was
in my dressing room at the Winter Garden, they brought
in my recording of memory after we'd made the record,
and I heard the recording and that vision flashback of
when I was thirteen, and I was like, oh, he
took from age thirteen to thirty five, but there it is.
(39:58):
So anyway, this agent kept calling me after college and
asking me to come to New York and I was
at that point I was really experiencing I think PTSD
because I'd been with Miss America on a USO tour
and Miss America and I and one other girl went
into all the intensive care units and all the hospitals
(40:18):
in Japan, and we also toured all the military bases
in Korea. I was like, my dad is wrong. War
is not noble. You know. My father was a real
hawk and he really believed in the nobility of war
and stuff. And I I came back really changed, and
we were in a consistent debate about the validity of
a show business career, which he thought was beneath me.
(40:41):
And I was very confused about it all. And I
was also in love. When I was in a senior
with this Dallas cowboy quarterback, and he turned out to
be he broke my heart. So when I came back,
I thought, okay, forget my show business aspirations. Because I
was a journalism major and I'd written for this newspaper
quite at I even had a team page when I
(41:01):
was in college for the Fourth Press, so I had
a job there and I thought, Okay, that's it. I'm
just gonna do this. And so the agent kept calling
and he got me to come see this show in
Dallas with my mother, which was an industrial show that
Flip Wilson, the comedian was doing with a band called
Your Father's Mustache. So they called me up on stage
(41:22):
and had me sing. And the only song I knew
my key and was You Made Me Love You. So
I sang it and the audience went nuts, which was great.
And then Rogers talks to the buyer and they offered
me a job to put me in this show but
to pretend I'm an audience member in all these different cities.
And they offered me a lot of money. It was
way more than I was being paid at the Fourth Press.
(41:45):
So my father couldn't deny the job the money, and
so he reluctantly. Let me do that. When I think
of you, I think of the acting and the singing,
and the acting is in the singing. Thank you. When
you teach people, you teach acting or singing. I've taught
for the Terry Schriber School for years and years and years,
and I used to teach scenes study and song interpretation.
(42:07):
And I was teaching these five day workshops maybe three
times a year for them whenever I was in New York.
And what do you teach them about how the acting
influences the singing? Well, that's complicated. I was really fortunate
that in seventeen seventy six I worked with all these
incredible actors. They were like thirty men and two women,
and they really mentored me, and they were like, set
(42:27):
me down when I was twenty one, and I've gotten
that show my first day in New York City because
of this wonderful agent, Roger Hess, who got me to
New York and shepherd me into that. And so I
got that audition, which was amazing. So they sent me
down and said, look, Betty, this is what you're good at,
this is what you've got talent wise, and this is
what you need to learn. Go here, go there, do this,
(42:51):
and so I did because I loved musical theater. I
love but it used to be called musical comedy, right,
So there was like a dancing chorus in a scene
in chorus, and you know, everything was separate, and everything
was like that, you know, shove is And so I
wanted I really My favorite actresses were Kim Stanley and
Geraldine Page and later on General Rowlands, and I was like,
(43:14):
oh my god, what it must be like to have
that skill heavy duty dramatic act to do like really
psychological portraits, to like bring raw truth to uh theater
and film. And you know, I wanted to be that
skilled and I wasn't. So I was really lucky that
in that time period I did some Broadways shows. And
then I got that TV show eight is Enough and
(43:36):
not eight is enough. I went to my dailies and
I was like, wait a minute, I get I see
ten seconds of good work over there when I'm in
the doorway. Why can't I bring that same quality to
the same work? Right? What's wrong with me? And I
was also studying with Stella Adler. I never put my
work in front of her. I took her acting class.
I took her script analysis class in New York, and
I took her script analysis class again in l A
(43:59):
while I was on eight Enough. I knew I wasn't
a good enough actress to keep my sense of self
respect or whatever, you know. If she gave me her
like Syrian critiques, I wasn't ready, So that was okay.
I learned a lot in the back road, taking copious notes.
But that TV show was great because I really was
(44:19):
able to see what worked and why you were on
there for two seasons, three seasons? How many? For four
seasons Dick Van Patten. Yeah. And then on the heels
of It is Enough, I got the wonderful classic American
film Tender Mercy, starring Robert Duval with a Horton foot
script directed by Bruce Beresford, and I was like, oh
(44:39):
my god, she's an alcoholic country western singing. It was
like written for me. It was amazing, and I learned
so much working with Duval and Wilford Brimley and Ellen Barkin.
And they wouldn't let me see my dailies until I
finished the job. And then they brought me in on
a Saturday and had me sit down and look at
(45:00):
my scenes. Back to back, and I sat there in
that little screening room and I was like, oh, okay,
I know how to do this. Now when you're there,
You're in Los Angeles. Is enough? Was what the late seventies,
mid seventies to eight one. So when you're out there
doing you shot out in California. And when you're out
(45:21):
there and you go from a show that I recall
was a successful show that was a hit show, huge,
Why don't you just stay out in California and camp
out there and pursue movies and television? Well, were you
just addicted to singing on Broadway? Well? I knew I
was going to sing on Broadway, and I had this
brilliant teacher and I was flying back to work with
him every six weeks, which the heads of eight is
(45:44):
enough mocked me for I remember this guy passed me
in the parking lot and I was driving a Bundy
rental wreck and he had a black Porsche and he
but sleek, black hair and wore black clothes and he's like,
where are you going? And I'm like, I'm going to
New York for my voice. Listening goes, you have such
delusion of grander Betty, you'll be lucky if you play
American Mothers the rest of your life. And I was like,
(46:04):
we'll see, Greg, will see. Isn't that horrible? They were
really weird guys, I mean, and they were mean, really mean.
But anyway, I survived all that, and so I got
this Tender Mercy and then I got Cats that following
on the heels of that. Tender Mercies was actually released
in the winter that Cats opened in October. But is
(46:27):
that what you want? To go? From Tender Mercies to
the next movie. Yeah, that would have been great. But
my dream was to bring like really that authenticity to
the musical theater to originate, right, And so those of
us who were fortunate enough to work in the musical theater,
we changed the face of the musical theater in that
(46:48):
time period, you know, with Sondheim, foss All that it
evolved from musical comedy to musical theater. And Grizabella in
in Cats Senior Memory was my first opportunity to bring
that level of dramatic intensity to the musical theater stage.
And I knew it was my turn, and I knew
(47:10):
I was ready to do that. So, had you been
offered an attractive role in a film on the heels
of tender mercies. You would have passed because Kat's was
what you wanted to do. That well, I think that's
a weird exercise. Would I have passed? I don't know
everything I'm sharing with you. I learned in retrospect and
but honestly, growing up, I didn't think I was beautiful,
and I aspired to the musical theater. That I met
(47:33):
Brian de Palma and auditioned for his film Phantom of
the Paradise. He didn't cast me, but several months after
that he took me to dinner and gave me the
book Carrie and said, read this book. I want you
to play the gym teacher. Awful gym teacher. She was
a great character. So that was a great film debut
that he gave me the opportunity to do. And then
(47:53):
from that movie I got eight is enough now? It
is enough? Was at the time I thought I'd made
a horrible miss day taking a job. Why because I
was like working in a factory and in retrospect only
it was where I needed to be to learn the
next thing. Well, no, Cats, I mean there's not much
to say about Cats. I think that hasn't been said. Obviously,
(48:17):
it's this iconic and your performance and there's a song
which we don't need to go into now that you're
sing that is this kind of dream state everybody goes
into when they sing this song. Good description, that's accurate,
a dream stay, and I think that a lot of
the music and Cats is a dream state. It's really
it's just you have to suspend. It's moving art. It's
like an art installation. Yeah, you can't have any preconceptions
(48:40):
of what, just to sit there and go with it. Yeah,
it's like it's it's like and when I think about that,
what I think about is you work hard in the theater.
People work hard. Did you have any ongoing injuries pains?
Did you suffer physically from your years of working in
the theater. Yeah, my knees were shot after two of
(49:00):
Sunset Boulevard, running up and downstairs twelve times a night,
and then repetitive choreography. I had a shoulder replacement in
my right shoulder was replaced in September, which I'm really grateful.
I did. It's and then the surgeon was great and
that apparatus is great. I'm really grateful. I'm gonna have
to have a knee. Probably both kneeds replaced, but I'm
gonna start with one. But you have to be in
(49:22):
a process either with a great osteopath or chiropractor or
the other. Thing. I found out recently that's very disturbing
to me, as I've had because of working in these
dusty old theaters that they never keep clean and mold
in the atmosphere and stuff. I've had repetitive bouts of
bronchitis for years now and it's created a kind of
(49:42):
asthmatic lung condition that I have to work with now,
which is not nice. Singer and actor Betty Buckley be
sure to follow Here's the Thing on the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast
when we come back. Betty Buckley talks about the challenges
(50:04):
of playing Norma Desmond and Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard.
I'm Alec Baldwin and this is here's the thing. Betty
Buckley worked with famed British director Trevor Nunn twice, first
(50:28):
in Cats In two, then again in Sunset Boulevard. In
in the intervening years, Betty Buckley's confidence in her own
vision grew. First of all, he's a genius in the
way he directed us in Cats, and the way he
put all that together was really unbelievable. I mean, no
(50:50):
other Cats company had that kind of amazing bond. We
did improv workshops, theater games and at least a month
of rehearsals and a couple of weeks on our hands
and kneeses Cats, but just incredible Grotowski theater games and
stuff like that. What does he have to offer you
when you do Sunset? Well, it was interesting because they
(51:11):
flew me to London and my audition took an hour.
I've never auditioned that long in my life. They brought
me in a week in advance and taught me all
the songs and then told me I had to sing
them in Glenn close his keys, and I was like, no,
I won't be singing them in Glenn close his keys,
And so the music director was a little in flams
about that, and then he kept coming up on stage
(51:33):
directing me and directing me. And I'm a meditator, so
whatever they threw at me, I just stayed in my
focus and did what they said. And then when I
got the part, I was then back in London in
this rehearsal process, and I was like, okay, So I
brought in mythological references the Greek drama Medusa media and
(51:56):
he was interested in that. And then he would listen
really closely and then he say, okay, show me, and
then I would show him what I meant, and gradually,
over a six week rehearsal process to eight weeks, I
saw him liking what I was doing right, and I
and then he gave me rain to interpret it that way.
(52:17):
You earned the right to do it your way. Yeah.
And so then we opened and it was like a
huge success, and I was just like, oh, yeah, you know.
So then I got New York and they were very
nervous because the New York Times they followed me around
to do this big feature in the Arts and Leisure section,
(52:38):
and it was really nice. This writer was really great,
but the angle the editor wanted was is she a
big enough star to replace Glenn Close. So they were
really nervous that my interpretation because it was so vastly
different from what Glenn Close had done. It was vastly
different from what any of them had done, and so
(52:59):
they got nervous. And he was very nervous Trevor None, Yeah,
and I one day in rehearsal, he was very nervous
and very upset, and I was like, what, what's going on?
And so I started crying because I couldn't understand what
he wanted. And when I was crying, he said this, this,
(53:21):
This is what's missing. And I was I said what what?
And he goes this and I was like wretched because
I felt wretched. He goes wretched and I said oh,
and then I just stopped crying. I said, why didn't
you just tell me that? Where do you want wretched?
And so I got really calm and he goes okay.
And then we went through the whole script and he
(53:43):
goes here, here, here, and here, and I'm like, okay,
I said, I saw all you gotta do. Just tell
me what you need now, Betty Buckley, I want to
get to something else. The power of your voice and
the uniqueness. Where does the power come from? Can I
just share with you a moment I had with you
when we were younger. We were at a big public
(54:06):
theater benefit years ago and you were part of it too,
and I sang Aquarius and it was a very powerful
performance and you were watching me, and and you just
like shook your head, and I was like so touched
by that because I felt so seen and cherished and
(54:28):
valued by you than you. So you ask where my
power comes from. It comes from a spiritual connection, right,
It's like I believe that essence, all human beings are connected.
Like I have a heart that's beting that wants to
love and be loved. You have a heart that's being
that wants to love and be loved. At that essence,
we are entirely the same. Our stories are different, but
(54:50):
that I am no, that essence is the same. Since
my since I was like twenty six years old, and
I've been on this quest, thought there has to be
a handbook. And I found that there's like this core
body of truth in every religion, in every major philosophy
on the planet. So I found meditation. While I was
(55:13):
on Ati Is Enough. I went my ex husband Peter Flood,
took me to a meditation class after my first season
on It Is Enough. And then I learned that I
could use meditation in my work and that there was
this higher consciousness in me that was the creative force
that if I made myself an instrument of that good
(55:33):
things happened, and I was a witness about that as
surely as the audience was. And I learned how to
do that before Cats and before Tender Mercies, and then
my work just changed and every everything opened up. And
the power that I was able to access as an
instrument of that consciousness, that's where it comes from. Is
(55:56):
I'm meditating my way through that. And it's like being
away on Mr. Toad's wild ride, right, because when you
have a part like Norma Desmond that you can go
all out, full tilt boogie to quote Janis Joplin, then
this it's like holding to this mantra, holding to this
like focus point and then let everything happen. That's how
(56:19):
I work. You are on island of your own in
terms of your talent and your uniqueness. It's just as unbelievable.
It's unbelievable you, Alec. I feel humbled by your compliment.
Thank you well. Listen, um, we interviewed Ken, my old
friend Ken, and the thing the two of you also
have in common other than cats, as you both went
home can move back to St. Louis. Yeah, he moved
back to take care of his mom, isn't he the
(56:39):
greatest guy ever. He and I had addressing room right
next to each other at the Winter Garden, so we
were really close pals. He's a lovely, lovely man. Well,
let me ask you this one more question, which is,
if I'm on iTunes, which of these albums would you
say is not your favorite? Which one you're particularly fond of?
Ghost Like the two bum Burnett produced is a beautiful
(57:02):
album that's very haunting, and the Tibon and I grew
up together and forth and he made the first recording
of my voice when we were both like seventeen, but
so ghost Light. And then my recent stuff that I
really love is story songs and hope. Thank you for
taking the time to do this. My love to you, Aleck,
thank you, good luck down there. I adore you and
(57:23):
I'm so happy to connect with you. Thank you, My
thanks to Broadway legends Betty Buckley and Ken Paige. I'll
leave you with Betty singing as if we never said
goodbye from Sunset Boulevard Live at Carnegie Hall. I'm Alec
Baldwin and this is Here's the thing from my Heart Radio,
(57:43):
The Whispered Conversations, an old cloud of so much to say,
not just today, bottle well, wellness well, the body in
(58:12):
the making. Guess everything's as if never sad boy. Everything says,
if we never said good bye, we taught the world
(58:46):
you waste too dream
Host
Alec Baldwin
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