FOSSE, VERDON AND ‘CHARITY’: TOGETHER AGAIN

“There will be applause here, right?”

It’s the inevitable Bob Fosse Question. And everybody in the rehearsal hall was trying to convince Fosse that yes, absolutely, there will be applause. The show is “Sweet Charity,” 20 years old and once-proven, but the seven-week engagement at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion (beginning last week) is a kind of dry run for a possible Broadway return. Director Fosse has taken 11 shows to Broadway, and all 11 have been bona fide hits, but instead of cocky, he’s insecure. Permanently, and forever. And only one voice seemed to matter.

Gwen Verdon, his performing alter ego and former wife, came out from the wings and put her hand to her forehead. She looked out at the darkened theater, Fanny Brice looking at Flo Ziegfeld in “Funny Girl.” Then she did what nobody else could do: She reassured Bob Fosse. “Yes, Bob, there will be applause here. But we have to time Charity’s entrance.”

Finally Fosse relaxed, which meant he allowed himself a cigarette. For three weeks now, he has been putting finishing touches on the revival of the show he conceived for Verdon. “Finishing touches” means that Fosse technically is acting only as production supervisor (the credited director is John Bowab). But even “Charity” co-producer Joseph Harris isn’t mincing words: “Fosse is Fosse, and nobody does what he does. For all intents, he’s directing.” And Verdon, 20 years after creating the role of the tough taxi dancer, is choreographing the new Charity, Debbie Allen.

“Can you imagine Ethel Merman coming back, telling the new girl how to perform ‘You Can’t Get a Man With a Gun?’ ” joshed Fosse, lighting another of the unfiltered Camels he still smokes despite three open-heart surgeries. “Gwen wouldn’t do this for anybody but me. What she understands better than anybody is the detail work. Look,” he instructed, pointing at the stage.

There Verdon, still a soubrette at 60, crouched in a closet and shared secrets about Charity Hope Valentine, the taxi dancer inspired by Fellini’s “Nights of Cabiria.” Commented co-star Michael Rupert: “Gwen has a memory like a computer. She will say, ‘In the elevator scene, find something to hold onto, anything. Otherwise, you look silly.’ She’s helpful in ways nobody else could be.”

Verdon behaves like a gypsy, not a star, and so does Fosse. The two of them did their time in the backside of show business. At 6, Gwyneth Verdon was billed as “The World’s Fastest Tapper” at the Shrine Auditorium while Fosse, simultaneously, was juggling between strip shows on the South Side of Chicago. Observing them, together and apart, one can’t miss the likenesses--and the chemistry. Workhorses, both half-Irish, they have the kind of superstitiousness that comes from another shared truth: Both tried to cut it as movie stars, and neither could. Instead, they took Broadway.

No other show dancer has a track record like Verdon: five star-vehicle musicals, all hits. The redhead also made the cover of Time at age 30, while Fosse had to turn 45 before he got the triple crown (Oscar, Tony, Emmy the same year for “Cabaret,” “Pippin” and “Liza With a Z”). Neither had a major Broadway failure, a fact no other major Broadway figure (Merman aside) can match.

None of that counts when mounting a revival of a show that’s not only 20 years old but lacks the nostalgia value of its original star. This isn’t Yul Brynner in “The King and I.” In rehearsal, nobody was quite sure yet if “Charity” is dated. And that’s why nobody but Verdon could reassure Fosse.

“People don’t change, they only get more so,” claimed “Charity” composer Cy Coleman, “and Bobby only gets more worried, and has more cigarettes dangling from his lips. And yet from out of the dark, he lights a candle. He’s done it every time.”

Meanwhile, up on the stage, the Fosse style--the locked ankles, the acrobatics, the backward lean, the pelvic thrust--was being perfected. Verdon watched the details, while Fosse saw the whole picture--and looked worried. The problem was, nobody could take their eyes off Verdon. She did everything on the stage but dance. Which was what everybody was waiting for.

“She looks good enough to dance the show,” said a chorus member.

“You know what?” Coleman responded. “In a pinch, she could--but she wouldn’t.”

This particular musical, like any show aiming for Broadway, is a little like “Rashomon.” There are at least three sides to every story or rumor. In April, the Civic Light Opera announced and advertised a revival of “Sweet Charity” to be “directed by Bob Fosse.” Fosse was the calling card, the draw, especially in a season whose only other new production was an ill-fated revival of “South Pacific.” The only hitch was that Fosse isn’t officially directing “Charity.” But even the program for the recently closed “South Pacific” included ads promising Fosse “directing.”

“Those ads were placed without our sanction,” the show’s New York publicist, Jeffrey Richards, said the other day. “The words ‘directed by Bob Fosse’ were not on a single press release or still photo or contract or anywhere. Not on one piece of paper were those words printed. The Civic Light Opera took it upon themselves to advertise it with Fosse as director.”

But Joseph Harris, the show’s co-producer and general manager, offered a different view: “It’s a matter of nomenclature, that’s all. With all due respect to (credited director) John Bowab, Bob is directing. It’s Bob’s vision, his show. . . .”

Fosse, days earlier, had yet a different story: “Never ever did I agree to direct. When they came to me about it, I wasn’t sure at all. I thought, ‘Gee, it’s 20 years old. Maybe it creaks.’ I never said I’d direct, but that I would come in later. The organization out here apparently advertised anyway.”

Back to co-producer Harris: “Well, let’s be fair. Originally, Bob agreed to be involved in ‘Sweet Charity,’ and so did Debbie Allen, and so did Gwen, schedules permitting. So when the Civic Light Opera ran those first ads, they weren’t wrong, technically. We hadn’t hired another director, so they assumed Bob’s involvement meant he was directing. It was going to be ‘Sweet Charity,’ and Bob was to be involved; those first ads were before we decided to have John Bowab direct. But Bob did all the auditioning, and he’s here for 3 1/2 weeks. . . .”

Commented Bowab: “It was always fairly clear that this is Fosse’s piece--he created the show. I don’t see any conflict.” According to CLO executive Stan Seiden, the CLO “did not place the ads for ‘Sweet Charity.’ The New York producers did.” (Those New York producers include Seiden’s employer and CLO head James Nederlander.)

“Are we going to Broadway?” asked publicist Richards. “Well, let’s say we’re not making any announcements. No ads in the New York Times. That’s the kiss of death. But we are hopeful.”

Composer Cy Coleman (“I Love My Wife,” “Barnum”) was seated in the last row of the Pavilion, looking at the empty house with some amusement. “This is one of the few shows big enough for this theater. It was always a big show, and Bob did something nobody understood in 1966. He directed it cinematically; the critics don’t always grasp what you’re up to. Anyway, Bob was anxious then to direct films, and he experimented with ‘Charity.’ He tried various techniques, like dissolves, and he never forgot that ‘Charity’ was based on Fellini. It’s dark, and it’s cinematic. . . . “

From the orchestra, the Fosse voice could be heard. “In my next lifetime, I want to come back as a composer.”

Coleman laughed, the appropriate response (the two men are friends and neighbors on Long Island). “Bob and I always say when we give all this up, we’ll do an act called ‘Fingers and Feet.’ ”

Coleman was kidding, of course; he is one of those composers who, in his words, “generate projects” in an era when independent producers are almost extinct. “I wait five or six years to get a project going,” he said, “but I’m the opposite of Fosse. I’m positive in the extreme, whereas Bobby always has that it-will-never-happen feeling. I feel it will always happen. But don’t misperceive Fosse. He has the most important thing for survival in the theater, and that’s energy. I’ve never seen anyone sweeter to people who audition, and I’ve never seem him falter. But don’t mistake sweet for weak. Bobby is strong.”

“I usually put him here when he has girls,” said the maitre d’ at the Coterie, a dining room at the Beverly Hills Hotel that Fosse likes because “nobody watches you.” Huddled in a corner booth, dressed--as usual--in black, Fosse opened what would be the first of several conversations by reminiscing. “Bob Fosse in Hollywood” would be an apt title for a monograph one day: the MGM hoofer who wanted to make good and wound up a star director.

“Oh God, yes, I wanted to be a movie star,” he confessed, an unusual admission for Fosse, who downplays his performing days. (He’s only danced once in the last decade, in Stanley Donen’s film “The Little Prince,” but at the funeral of his best friend, Paddy Chayefsky, he did do a time step just as he promised Chayefsky he would.)

“I’m still ambivalent about Hollywood,” he said. “I think that’s why I made ‘Star 80.’ To deal with the ambivalence. I really wanted to succeed Gene Kelly, and I thought it was a fair bet.” Instead, he did a backward somersault (never in rehearsal, but perfectly on camera) in “Give a Girl a Break” in 1953, and then played the original Dobie Gillis. “I was living in a one-room apartment in Culver City, with a Murphy bed, believing in my own stardom. There were only a few contenders, if you think about it--me and Tommy Rall and Bobby Van. But then, within a year, I realized those people who told me I’d be a movie star weren’t telling me the truth.”

Here Fosse paused, then uttered a line of real Hollywood gravity. “My parts were getting smaller. I knew what that meant.” A beat. “It meant that if I’d become a movie star, I’d now be wearing a toupee.”

It meant Broadway. He’d already been there, as a chorus boy (in “Call Me Mister”), but went back to become a choreographer. His debut, “The Pajama Game,” provided him his first showstopper, “Steam Heat,” made him an overnight Wunderkind and won him a Tony (the first of eight). “Oh God, was I ever eager, pushy, needy, scared, hungry, confident. I felt there was nothing I couldn’t do.”

When choreographer Jerome Robbins brought Fosse to the attention of “Pajama Game” director George Abbott, the neophyte was living in a 35-cent-a-day rooming house. “I lied my way in, by saying I’d choreographed more than I really had.” It didn’t matter: The climb had begun. With Verdon (“Damn Yankees,” “Redhead”) and without (“How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” “Little Me”), Fosse was working compulsively, successfully, but always insecurely.

Ever the paradox--gentle with actors (unlike Robbins), he was hard when necessary. (On “Cabaret,” to get Marisa Berenson to cry at the death of her dog, he had a package of dog intestines placed in front of her as the camera rolled.) If Fosse was/is a taskmaster, he was/is toughest on himself. (For proof, see “All That Jazz,” his 1980 homage to narcissism and show business.)

Whatever else he is, he’s not on the outs with his dark side. There was a time of flirting with suicide. There were other times, or years, of amphetamines. Talking about the subject now, he’s candid: “When you stage a dance, you’ve gotta care if the dancer’s hair bow is red or green. Dexedrine makes you care. A lot of people would rather I didn’t say that, but it’s true.”

Oddly, the drugs didn’t alienate Fosse from actors, even though he talked lots about early death, and still expects to live only another six or seven years--he’s 58 now. (Last fall, a group of actors were discussing directors who understood actresses, and they were coming up blank. Finally Shirley MacLaine piped in: “Bob Fosse understands actresses, and women.”)

If Fosse’s love life has been well reported--flings with Jessica Lange, Julie Hagerty, Ann Reinking are among many--his 12-year marriage to Verdon was the anchor; the two remain best friends. When they married in 1960, Verdon semi-retired and gave birth to their daughter Nicole (soon to be seen in the film of “A Chorus Line”).

“There was this point of great happiness,” Fosse remembered wistfully, “and I wanted to give Gwen something wonderful. I wanted to give her the best show she ever had. And Irwin Shaw’s brother David suggested I go see Fellini’s ‘Nights of Cabiria,’ and sometime in the middle of that night I got this idea for a musical.” The character of the tattooed taxi dancer in “Charity” fit into the Fosse mold: the vulnerable victim--Dorothy Stratten (“Star 80”) and Lenny Bruce (“Lenny”) were others--with a good, and broken, heart.

Fosse is a closet writer. His best friends (Peter Maas, Pete Hamill) are writers, and his favorite time is collaborating with writers, out at his Long Island house-cum-dance studio. If his eye is good, his ear is not to be discounted. Nor are his friendships; it was he who persuaded Neil Simon to write the book for his first musical, “Little Me.” Simon followed up with “Charity.”

“I saw it as three one-act musicals,” recalled Fosse, detailing each at length. “The one about the girl jumping off the bridge saying ‘Life stinks’ was considered too dark. . . . “ The grin was knowing. “Doc Simon got hooked on the show, and offered to work for free. We agreed the Fellini film was too sentimental, but I was unprepared for what happened.”

Fosse meant the Broadway community’s reaction to “how hard it was on Gwen, physically. Charity isn’t offstage more than 20 minutes. People said, ‘Oh, he’s killing his own wife by overworking her.’ And here I thought, ‘Well, the marriage is going great, we have a wonderful child.’ ” Fosse forgot that Verdon was then 40, a grandmother, and hadn’t danced in five years. “God, I just wanted to give her the best role.”

The role went to MacLaine in the movie version, which was Fosse’s directorial debut; its failure nearly did him out of a career as a movie director. Still, he defends his film of “Charity” as being “maybe too tricky with camerawork, but take a look at MTV and you’ll know why I’m proud of ‘Charity.’ People said when I directed ‘Cabaret’ it was a leap, but ‘Charity’ was the leap. I always resented Universal for saying it cost $20 million when it only cost $8 million. I think they just wanted a $20-million musical. What I did with ‘Cabaret’ (which cost an uninflated $1.2 million) was not let myself get carried away with camera angles.”

“Cabaret” also meant the end of Fosse’s marriage to Verdon. It was during the Munich filming that the couple separated. Eighth on a list of sought-after directors (after Gene Kelly and William Wyler, among others), Fosse knew the musical was a career leap. It’s simplistic to say it won him the Oscar and cost him his marriage, and nothing about Fosse is simplistic. “Gwen was just so great, even though we were breaking up. The costume designer on the movie wasn’t working out, what she was giving me was like something from Caesars Palace. And Gwen just went through tons of wardrobe closets and improvised. Finally we used my vest for Liza (Minnelli), without a shirt but with garters. Gwen did that.”

Back at a “Charity” rehearsal, the onlookers got their wish: Verdon danced. Wearing a sequin apron over a pair of slacks, she went through the paces on “There’s Gotta Be Something Better Than This.” At 5 p.m., after working all day, she was the last dancer still dancing. The applause was for real.

“I remember the first time I saw her, in ‘Can-Can,’ ” Fosse said quietly. “People ask if I created Gwen, and I say, ‘She was hot when I met her.’ That alabaster skin, those eyes, that bantam rooster walk. Her in the leotard I will never forget. The day we first met was on ‘Damn Yankees,’ and I was so nervous I did the whole ‘Lola’ dance for her myself. Marilyn Monroe wanted the part, but I wanted Gwen so badly. . . .If we were still working together, rehearsing together, dancing--we’d still be married.”

So why not?

“You believe in happy endings.”