GROVER DALE: A MAN LIKE THAT By Peter Filichia
Although he didn’t sing “A Boy Like That” in WEST SIDE STORY, Grover Dale still chose it as the title of his memoir.
He does, after all, have a connection to that landmark musical that opened at the Winter Garden 68 years ago this week. While Chita Rivera was singing “A Boy Like That” to Carol Lawrence, Dale was also on the premises, preparing for the scene where he (as Snowboy) and the other Jets would witness yet another senseless killing.
How glad was Dale to get the job? “I was the first dancer to show up at Jerome Robbins’ rehearsal,” he wrote. If that sounds like a young, stars-in-his-eyes kid who’s thrilled to get his first Broadway assignment, that wasn’t the case with Dale. He’d been gainfully employed as a dancer in LI’L ABNER for four months and could have kept the job for what would be another 16 months.
And to be frank, leaving a big hit (LI’L ABNER would close as one of Broadway’s 20 longest-running book musicals) was daring. WEST SIDE was a musical tragedy that would demand its singers to dance and its dancers to sing – as opposed to the then-standard singing chorus and dancing chorus.
Working for Jerome Robbins would be risky, too. By then, all of Broadway knew that Robbins often picked a whipping boy (or girl) that he’d constantly criticize and/or humiliate in front of the others; for all Dale knew, he could be the one.
Not at all, for the oddest thing endeared him to Robbins. One day in the rehearsal room, Dale drew a picture of a shark shedding blood. Given that Robbins insisted that the Jets distance themselves from the Sharks – “Stick to your own kind,” he said citing a lyric from the show – this was in tune with his notion to separate the cast members into gangs during rehearsals, so they’d bring all that antagonism onto the stage.
(But as Dale points out, that didn’t stop Shark girl Chita Rivera from becoming engaged to Jet Tony Mordente during the first week of the Washington tryout.)
As nice as Robbins was to him, Dale did spend some dressing room time teaching his dog to run over and use both paws to slam the door shut. All Dale had to do was yell, “Here comes Jerry Robbins!”
One day when Robbins was coming into the dressing room, Dale cued the dog. Robbins enjoyed the joke and soon was caressing the dog in his arms.
(But then again, some people are nicer to animals than to human beings…)
Robbins certainly didn’t hold a grudge, for when he decided that he could use a co-director on JEROME ROBBINS’ BROADWAY, he chose Dale to help maneuver the 60 dancers during nine months of rehearsals.
When Dale showed Robbins what he’d done in staging “You Gotta Have a Gimmick,” he had to hear that Robbins deemed it “vulgar.” After Dale removed the offending passages, the next time Robbins saw the number, he put back what Dale had done – and in a way that suggested it was his idea all the time.
Dale remembered the words of Howard Jeffrey, the choreographer who was inspiration for Harold in The Boys in the Band: “A man who rarely approves of himself is incapable of approving of anyone else.”
That’s just one of many Dale’s tales. He validates what Rivera insisted was true during her 2005 on-stage retrospective: Peter Gennaro, not Robbins, choreographed “America” … Larry Kert injured himself while ice skating, but later pretended that the injury occurred at the Winter Garden for insurance purposes … Eddie Roll, who played Action, had a physical therapist named Joseph Pilates – yes, the one who initiated that famous program now followed by millions … David Winters made a few extra bucks selling marijuana, which you might not expect from a guy who was cast as Baby John … and speaking of drugs, Carol Lawrence seemed to have no problem crying at Tony’s death, so Dale, Roll and Winters decided to raid her medicine chest to see what drugs she was taking to spur those tears. They found none.
Later, when Dale joined a WEST SIDE STORY European tour, he received a proposition from another dancer. Dale was 25, his admirer admitted to 16. When Dale demurred for reasons of statutory rape (among others), the kid said that European laws weren’t as strict.
He was Michael Bennett.
Dale also tells how much he enjoyed doing the showstopping “Money to Burn” in HALF A SIXPENCE. Perhaps that’s why, despite the front cover’s picture of the external fire escapes that homage WEST SIDE STORY’S film logo, there’s a photograph of Dale in his HALF A SIXPENCE outfit.
It’s just one of dozens upon dozens of photographs. If a picture is worth 1,000 words, you get an extra 180,000 here. There’s one of Robbins, Dale and Sondheim observing a rehearsal of JEROME ROBBINS’ BROADWAY. Dale doesn’t say why they’re both broadly smiling and he is not.
Dale wouldn’t smile when the Tony nominating committee wouldn’t acknowledge him as JEROME ROBBINS’ BROADWAY’s co-director. Well, the credits did oxymoronically say “Entire Production Choreographed and Directed by Jerome Robbins.” Well, at least he could look forward to Robbins’ thanking him when he won the Best Director of a Musical Tony.
Except that Robbins forgot to do that.
Legendary producer Manny Azenberg didn’t forget: he had a Tony made for Dale.
One of the most refreshing parts of the book is how matter-of-fact Dale is about his bisexuality. Sure, he was thrilled when Anthony Perkins became his partner, but a couple of years after they had parted, Dale fell in love and married Anita Morris.
She’s probably the most remembered of the 21 women who appeared in NINE; her neck-to-toe semi-see-through netted outfit is part of the reason, but her delivery and Maury Yeston’s song “A Call from the Vatican” were bigger parts.
Dale stayed devoted to her during their 21 years of marriage, right until her death in 1994 when she was merely a dozen days away from 51. Since 2002, he’s been with Marc Elliott; they became husbands once California legalized gay marriage.
So, here’s a fine example of the adage, “If you love the person and the personality, you love the body.”
And that’s a man like that.
Peter Filichia can be heard most weeks of the year on www.broadwayradio.com. His calendar – A SHOW TUNE FOR TODAY: 366 Songs to Brighten Your Year – is now available on Amazon.
