Jean Kerr, Part 2: Mary Mary but no Tony? -- Garbo
Jean Kerr's best-known work was the bestseller Please Don't Eat the Daisies, but long before her collections of humorous essays were published, Kerr was writing plays, first for college productions and later for the Broadway stage.
Jean Kerr had one big Broadway hit ("Mary, Mary") and she wrote or collaborated on (sometimes with her husband, critic Watter Kerr) a number of theatre projects which were not hits. Each of them, in my view, however, contributed something valuable to the world. For example, look at this wonderful photo of Don Ameche and Elaine Stritch laughing.
The two are recording the soundtrack for the musical "Goldilocks," which has a title which sounds like a children's matinee about the Three Bears. But "Goldilocks" was more interesting than that, something along the lines of "Annie Get Your Gun."
Stritch plays a silent-film star whose contract forces her to appear in something called "Frontier Woman." "Goldilocks" was a flop in 1958, but the musical is seen much more favorably these days.The music was composed by Leroy Anderson, of "Sleigh Ride" and "The Typewriter" fame, not to mention this one:
Selections from the "Goldilocks" soundtrack can be found on YouTube. Here's one of my favorites.
With a little effort, I found this blog post which fills in a few details I ddin't know about the failed show. Also, VOGUE had a feature about Elaine Stritch's role in "Goldilocks," which confirms my suspicion that a gorilla suit might have been used in the hope of boosting the comedy level.
Besides a good laugh and the legacy of a fun show soundtrack with "Goldilocks," Jean Kerr provided more positives to the world with her other theatre work. For instance, the music revue "John Murray Anderson's Almanac", for which Kerr wrote sketches, earned Harry Belafonte a Tony Award as Best Supporting Actor in a musical.
Here's Belafonte singing "Mark Twain," a song not about Samuel Clemens, but about boats on the river.
Of course, because it's the 1950s, the show also required Belafonte to sing a calypso number.
Having just mentioned Belafonte winning a Tony Award, I'll take a moment to say I have been wrestling with a bit of a research puzzle:
Several biographies and obituaries mention Jean Kerr and/or one of her shows winning a Tony. I've seen a couple of dates given for the prestigious award -- often 1954 is listed but I did a search for Kerr's name on the Tony Awards' official website, and I came up with nothing. In 1954, the actor John Kerr (no relation) won Best Supporting Actor in a drama for "Tea and Sympathy," and then Belafonte won in the musical category for a show Jean Kerr contributed to (the Almnac revue) so could one of these bits of information been conflated? I don't know. I'm going to keep trying to figure it all out. Here's the list of 1954 Tony winners.
The show which is most often mentioned as a Tony winner is "King of Hearts," which shouldn't be confused with the 1970s play/film with the same name. The 1950s "King of Hearts" is a romantic comedy, co-written by Kerr with Eleanor Brooke.
Former child star Jackie Cooper co-starred with Cloris Leachman and Donald Cook in the stage version of "King of Hearts."
The play was a modest success on Broadway, and it was given the new title "That Certain Feeling" when it became a film. (A reference to the Gershwin tune or perhaps a play on the 1941 movie title "That Uncertain Feeling"?)
There are four screenwriters listed in the film credits but under that in somewhat hard to read cursive lettering you can see Jean Kerr's and Eleanor Brooke's names.
If you'd like, you can watch "That Certain Feeling" on YouTube. The picture quality's imperfect, but then on the other hand, it's free and right handy.
In my opinion, the movie hasn't aged that well (the cultural incompetence is appalling), but it has some notable moments. Pearl Bailey (who plays a maid of course -- sigh) both sings the opening musical number and serves, delightfully, as the film's narrator. Her facial expressions in reaction shots are pure gold.
Despite the film's faults, I do enjoy the carnival scene in "That Certain Feeling." Bob Hope's character initially sends a boy (Jerrry Mathers, who went on to play television's "Beaver" Cleaver) to go on the rides by himself, but later relents. Hope's character realizes that the youngster is crying, and he wipes away the boy's tears with his handkerchief, then gets on a number of whirling, tumbling, and spinning rides. Each of these leave him clutching the support poles and or his hat and clearly feeling somewhat queasy.
In addition to the highlights above, this movie contains a curious little cultural artifact: "That Certain Feeling" is about two syndicated cartoonists and the woman who loves them both, there's a cameo appearance by cartoonist Al Capp, who not only drew "Li'l Abner," but who, in 1958, was a brash, opinionated celebrity well known enough to the public to play himself. The cartoon panels below form a magazine advertisement for the film; Li'l Abner has gone to see "That Certain Feeling" at a movie theater.
(As a side note, Al Capp became famous in the 1960s as someone who'd become socially conservative. He strongly opposed the counterculture, particularly young people protesting the Vietnam conflict. John Lennon was one of many liberals who despised Capp. Capp's granddaughter made this short documentary about the famous cartoonist, and the doc cuts Capp a little slack.)
Capp's celebrity at the time takes me into a short discussion of the film version of Jean Kerr's most successful play, "Mary Mary." By the time "Mary, Mary" was filmed, Kerr had gone from someone who wrote lines for celebrities to becoming a celebrity herself. in the middle of the "Mary, Mary" trailer (link below, after the poster), you'll observe that Kerr's success with Please Don't Eat the Daisies --book and movie -- is touted as a reason for moviegoers to buy tickets to see "Mary, Mary," though with a cast headed up by Debbie Reynolds, it seemed a safe bet that people who would go see the film.
Here's the trailer for "Mary, Mary." (The video still below does look like a gay love story, but that wouldn't have gone over at the time, now would it?)
Before it was a movie, "Mary, Mary" was on Bradway and the casting was different. For instance, Barbara Bel Geddes starred on opening night, but later Maggie Smith played the part of Mary.
Next time: Jean Kerr as a character in the movies, and more.
In the meantime, here's a film still featuring the suspiciously-familiar writer character played by played by Eva Marie Saint in "That Certain Feeling." Honestly, I think Cloris Leachman, who played the character on Broadway was a better fit. Eva Marie Saint playing a regular person is always going to be a bit like James Brolin portraying PeeWee Herman on his beloved bicycle. But hey, Hollywood. . .
Jean Kerr had one big Broadway hit ("Mary, Mary") and she wrote or collaborated on (sometimes with her husband, critic Watter Kerr) a number of theatre projects which were not hits. Each of them, in my view, however, contributed something valuable to the world. For example, look at this wonderful photo of Don Ameche and Elaine Stritch laughing.
The two are recording the soundtrack for the musical "Goldilocks," which has a title which sounds like a children's matinee about the Three Bears. But "Goldilocks" was more interesting than that, something along the lines of "Annie Get Your Gun."
Stritch plays a silent-film star whose contract forces her to appear in something called "Frontier Woman." "Goldilocks" was a flop in 1958, but the musical is seen much more favorably these days.The music was composed by Leroy Anderson, of "Sleigh Ride" and "The Typewriter" fame, not to mention this one:
Selections from the "Goldilocks" soundtrack can be found on YouTube. Here's one of my favorites.
With a little effort, I found this blog post which fills in a few details I ddin't know about the failed show. Also, VOGUE had a feature about Elaine Stritch's role in "Goldilocks," which confirms my suspicion that a gorilla suit might have been used in the hope of boosting the comedy level.
Besides a good laugh and the legacy of a fun show soundtrack with "Goldilocks," Jean Kerr provided more positives to the world with her other theatre work. For instance, the music revue "John Murray Anderson's Almanac", for which Kerr wrote sketches, earned Harry Belafonte a Tony Award as Best Supporting Actor in a musical.
Here's Belafonte singing "Mark Twain," a song not about Samuel Clemens, but about boats on the river.
Of course, because it's the 1950s, the show also required Belafonte to sing a calypso number.
Having just mentioned Belafonte winning a Tony Award, I'll take a moment to say I have been wrestling with a bit of a research puzzle:
Several biographies and obituaries mention Jean Kerr and/or one of her shows winning a Tony. I've seen a couple of dates given for the prestigious award -- often 1954 is listed but I did a search for Kerr's name on the Tony Awards' official website, and I came up with nothing. In 1954, the actor John Kerr (no relation) won Best Supporting Actor in a drama for "Tea and Sympathy," and then Belafonte won in the musical category for a show Jean Kerr contributed to (the Almnac revue) so could one of these bits of information been conflated? I don't know. I'm going to keep trying to figure it all out. Here's the list of 1954 Tony winners.
The show which is most often mentioned as a Tony winner is "King of Hearts," which shouldn't be confused with the 1970s play/film with the same name. The 1950s "King of Hearts" is a romantic comedy, co-written by Kerr with Eleanor Brooke.
Former child star Jackie Cooper co-starred with Cloris Leachman and Donald Cook in the stage version of "King of Hearts."
The play was a modest success on Broadway, and it was given the new title "That Certain Feeling" when it became a film. (A reference to the Gershwin tune or perhaps a play on the 1941 movie title "That Uncertain Feeling"?)
There are four screenwriters listed in the film credits but under that in somewhat hard to read cursive lettering you can see Jean Kerr's and Eleanor Brooke's names.
If you'd like, you can watch "That Certain Feeling" on YouTube. The picture quality's imperfect, but then on the other hand, it's free and right handy.
In my opinion, the movie hasn't aged that well (the cultural incompetence is appalling), but it has some notable moments. Pearl Bailey (who plays a maid of course -- sigh) both sings the opening musical number and serves, delightfully, as the film's narrator. Her facial expressions in reaction shots are pure gold.
Despite the film's faults, I do enjoy the carnival scene in "That Certain Feeling." Bob Hope's character initially sends a boy (Jerrry Mathers, who went on to play television's "Beaver" Cleaver) to go on the rides by himself, but later relents. Hope's character realizes that the youngster is crying, and he wipes away the boy's tears with his handkerchief, then gets on a number of whirling, tumbling, and spinning rides. Each of these leave him clutching the support poles and or his hat and clearly feeling somewhat queasy.
In addition to the highlights above, this movie contains a curious little cultural artifact: "That Certain Feeling" is about two syndicated cartoonists and the woman who loves them both, there's a cameo appearance by cartoonist Al Capp, who not only drew "Li'l Abner," but who, in 1958, was a brash, opinionated celebrity well known enough to the public to play himself. The cartoon panels below form a magazine advertisement for the film; Li'l Abner has gone to see "That Certain Feeling" at a movie theater.
(As a side note, Al Capp became famous in the 1960s as someone who'd become socially conservative. He strongly opposed the counterculture, particularly young people protesting the Vietnam conflict. John Lennon was one of many liberals who despised Capp. Capp's granddaughter made this short documentary about the famous cartoonist, and the doc cuts Capp a little slack.)
Capp's celebrity at the time takes me into a short discussion of the film version of Jean Kerr's most successful play, "Mary Mary." By the time "Mary, Mary" was filmed, Kerr had gone from someone who wrote lines for celebrities to becoming a celebrity herself. in the middle of the "Mary, Mary" trailer (link below, after the poster), you'll observe that Kerr's success with Please Don't Eat the Daisies --book and movie -- is touted as a reason for moviegoers to buy tickets to see "Mary, Mary," though with a cast headed up by Debbie Reynolds, it seemed a safe bet that people who would go see the film.
Here's the trailer for "Mary, Mary." (The video still below does look like a gay love story, but that wouldn't have gone over at the time, now would it?)
Before it was a movie, "Mary, Mary" was on Bradway and the casting was different. For instance, Barbara Bel Geddes starred on opening night, but later Maggie Smith played the part of Mary.
Next time: Jean Kerr as a character in the movies, and more.
In the meantime, here's a film still featuring the suspiciously-familiar writer character played by played by Eva Marie Saint in "That Certain Feeling." Honestly, I think Cloris Leachman, who played the character on Broadway was a better fit. Eva Marie Saint playing a regular person is always going to be a bit like James Brolin portraying PeeWee Herman on his beloved bicycle. But hey, Hollywood. . .
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