The 34th Annual Cabaret Convention – Night Two
By Alix Cohen . . .
Doris Day, born Doris Mary Kappelhoff (1922 –2019) was a singer, actress, and animal rights activist who for many years unwittingly shone as America’s Sweetheart. Day’s success in music and on the screen was not carried over to a personal life she spent unsuccessfully trying to replace a father that died early with a series of what turned out to be dishonest and/or abusive men. Host Rex Reed was her friend.
“She was a girl from Cincinnati, Ohio who wanted to be a dancer,” Reed begins. Sidelined at 15 after a horrific car accident, over two years in bed, with shattered legs, her mother Alma encouraged Doris “to try to sing.” Vocal lessons began; radio spots followed, now under the name Doris Day. “Shanghai” (after Charlie Yee’s Shanghai Inn) brought her to the attention of Les Brown (Les Brown and His Band of Renown) who signed the young woman in 1940.
Among Maude Hixon’s songs tonight are “It’s Magic,” “the one that catapulted Doris to superstar in her very first film,” a poignant “My Buddy,” and an emotionally translucent “My Romance.” Like a breath of fresh air, this vocalist seems to effortlessly communicate the essence of material. She has a lovely, almost shimmering voice and graceful manner. ‘New to me and a find. (Rick Carlson- MD)
Maude Hixon
Doris was down to her last fifty dollars and on her way back to New York for a job at a small club when she was invited to a party at Jule Styne’s home. ‘There’ll be food!’ she was told, a serious enticement. Styne’s custom was to have his guests sing after dinner. He’d seen Doris in New York and, pulling her from behind a plant, egged the young woman to perform. She sang “Embraceable You” in front of songwriter Sammy Cahn and director Michael Curtiz who invited her to Warner Brothers to audition. Doris was hired for her first film, Romance on the High Seas. She was twenty-five.
“When do we leave for the ship?” Reed tells us she asked. “I don’t need a dressing room, I don’t have any dresses,” he says the nascent star told staff. Unfortunately, Doris naïvely signed not with the studio, but with Curtiz himself. For many years, the director took a large part of what she made and kicked some back to the studio. Still, the young woman earned more than she’d ever imagined. She was able to buy a small house and to send for her son Terry (with first husband trombonist Al Jorden, a violent schizophrenic who would commit suicide.)
Husband #2 was sax player George William Weidler who introduced her to Christian Science which would seriously alienate son Terry when he got Cancer and chose to be treated at a hospital. Her third marriage to film producer Marty Melcher saw him dictating every aspect of her personal and professional life, almost ruining both. After his death, she became a Protestant. The fourth, Barry Comden, was maitre d’hotel at a favorite restaurant. He declared his wife paid more attention to her creatures.
“After four disastrous marriages, she gave up on people and turned to her animals. Doris started four separate organizations for their support and care.” Reed describes what it was like to guest at a house where animals, who clearly had priority overran.
Nicolas King delivers a satiny “Day by Day” ending with adroit scat and a swing version of “Canadian Capers” including cool call/response with each musician. Later, we hear “Just One of Those Things” and “Nobody’s Heart”: “I admire the moon” (he shrugs) “As a moon, just a moon…” King’s crooning skill is at least as good as the Rat-Pack-persona songs for which he might be better known. His understated approach and artful phrasing works wonderfully. “It’s alright, I guess, if you like singing,” Reed quips.
Linda Purl renders 1949’s “My Dream is Yours” and 1955’s “Love Me or Leave Me” both from films of the same name. Fine-grained performance suits the material, but the second song is too up tempo to embody its lyrics. The artist also duets with Tom Wopat on a lively “There Once Was a Man” (The Pajama Game). His baritone grit and infectious enthusiasm punch along with her happy, awkward gestures.
Wopat’s “A Town is a Blue Town,” recall his first days in New York City from Wisconsin; an easy-tap-tempo “Makin’ Whoopie.” “Don’t forget folks,” (eyebrows rise)…is thoroughly engaging. “They Say It’s Wonderful” in duet with the extravagant Deborah Silver is less successful due to her over acting. In his Convention debut, Seth Sikes exuberantly sings “Lullaby of Broadway” with solid tenor and feel for tempo, but tense and all at the same decibel level.
Sikes is better with new collaborator, Nicolas King. They perform “The Joint is Really Jumpin’ at Carnegie Hall” (Doris sang it on the radio) as advertisement for an upcoming show. The rousing number is a choreographed firework.
Karen Oberlin (Photo: Conor Weiss)
Karen Oberlin, known for her own Doris Day show, shares the Oscar winning “Secret Love” from 1953’s Calamity Jane, Doris’ favorite film. Reed tells us the studio was so pleased with its success, they had her record an entire album of Annie Get Your Gun, a role she never played. Later, “I’ll See You in My Dreams” (from a musical biography of Gus Kahn) is rendered by Oberlin with breathy hope.
Doris Day in ‘Calamity Jane’
Perhaps the actress’s only “heavy breathing drama” as Reed describes it, was 1951’s Storm Warning in which she played a pregnant woman killed by the Klu Klux Klan. Alfred Hitchcock saw it and cast her in The Man Who Knew Too Much with Jimmy Stewart. Until the day she died, we’re told, Doris hated “Que Sera Sera,” the indelible song from the film everyone asked her to sing. “This cast felt a similar dread so, who’s gonna sing the song tonight? You are!” Reed announces. Lead by the fearless Jay Leonhart, we do just that.
Heather MacRae, whose father Gordon MacRae made four films with the actress tells us he affectionately called her “Dodo”, she called him “Gordo.” MacRae performs two songs including the copacetic “Tea for Two,” managing to get Tedd Firth to sing on the second choice. Counterpoint is nifty.
Eschewing introduction she doesn’t need, Marilyn Maye’s “With a Song in My Heart”, including the rarely heard verse Reed insisted she include, arrives understated, warm and real, turning into a spirited waltz. Her pithy “Blues in the Night” is terrific. The lady rules.
Reed goes on to share amusing and telling anecdotes and tell us about Doris.
Unless otherwise specified, MD Tedd Firth is at the piano.
The Walk of Fame Star
Performance Photos by Richard Termine
The 34th Annual Cabaret Convention
Sentimental Journey: A Tribute to Doris Day
Host Rex Reed
MD Tedd Firth-Piano, Jay Leonhart -Bass, Ray Marchica-Drums
Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater Fredrick P. Rose Hall
The Mabel Mercer Foundation
