Birds, Bees, Finns, Eels... and Eartha

This gem recently popped up on my feed over at the FaceBooks, and not having seen it previously, I was even more than usually transported than I generally am by the insinuating charms of Miss Eartha Kitt.

Evolving and Shifting, and Moving and Drifting

As is generally the case, Miss Kitt gives us a little home truth.

When Ladies Meet

Nineteen years ago today - and in a vanished universe - the divine Miss Kitt (looking distinctly less irritable than when last sighted in the fading throes of her disco-diva phase, over at the charnel house of talent that is The Redundant Variety Hour) appears deee-lited to be introduced to the pneumatic Miss Lady Miss Kier (I mean that literally - I think there's every possibility that this is in fact not the one-time downtown sensation, but rather an inflatable version).  It's just another New York night at that New Yorkiest of places, the Café Carlyle; one wonders what on earth they talked about.

Birthday Roll Call: Goddesses and More

It's a banner day on the birthday front, starting with the remarkable fact that sharing the day are ultrastars Dalida (shown here effortlessly demonstrating her fabulousness) and the still much-missed Eartha Kitt.

Those two alone would be more than enough to brighten up your average January Sunday, but there is, it turns out, so much more: demurely foul-mouthed TV survivor Betty White, iron-armed White House tenant Michelle Obama, redheaded Red Shoes wearer Moira Shearer, Lambchop-wielder Shari Lewis, second-tier Blonde Bombshell Sheree North, and Gallic yé-yé songbird Françoise Hardy, for example. That's not to mention, on the distaff side, arch novelist Sir Compton Mackenzie and his camp coeval, Ronald Firbank, pugilistic poetaster Muhammed Ali, the stentorian James Earl Jones, and hairburner extraordinaire Vidal Sassoon.

Altogether, that's enough natal glamour to offset the presence of the last and least Mr. Elizabeth Taylor, Larry Fortensky, and talk-show dullard Maury Povich. It seems presumputous of them to have chosen Dalida's day, but such is her magnaminity that I'm sure she would have risen about it all. And I can't help thinking that she and Eartha are having a hoot, possibly in tandem with Mr. Firbank...

Eartha Cutie

Do you believe it's been a year already? When the sad news that Eartha had gone on before came, I wrote, "How characteristic of her, to slip away on Christmas day, guaranteeing that we would as much celebrate as mourn her. Certainly, it's just as she would have had it, for few entertainers were such thorough celebrators as Miss Kitt: of sex, of life, of love, of all the pleasures of the flesh and spirit."

And, of course, of the virtues of deeds, sables, '54 convertibles (light blue), a duplex, checks, and the occasional this and that bought at Tiffany. At least an approximation of which, from your own list, I hope appears under your Christmas tree.

We're Still Here

The Original, and Still C(h)ampion

Better get comfortable, carissimi, because today finds me in Marathon Mood, and this is going to be rather long.

Our recent rejoicing in the deep cleverness of brilliant Café regular Bill, combined with the genius that is Dame Edna, set me off thinking how interesting it would be to look at as many available versions as possible of that warhorse of divas d'un certain age everywhere, Mr. Sondheim's funny, haunting, triumphant "I'm Still Here", from his equally all three Follies. I hope you agree, because here we go:

Here, despite the louche talkshow setting and a flub or two, Miss De Carlo proves that, having introduced the song and the character of Carlotta Campion, she owns the song.

Dolores Gray brings a bemused/jaded, world-weary tolerance to her interpretation...

Eartha Kitt's Carlotta is characteristically funny, fierce, and just a tad scary (but more of that to come)...

There is something simultaneously wonderful and heartbreaking about Ann Miller's rendition; perhaps it's the sense that Carlotta, like much of Follies, is only going to get harder to cast as we lose performers who bring their own backstories to the role.

Karen Morrow makes it brassy and raucous - which only highlights the pathos when she takes it down a notch. She's a less glamourous Carlotta, but perhaps the most convincing of all with argot like "stinko".

While age, experience, and name-recognition do add a certain something, it's not an absolute necessity (although Stritchie raves against anyone much younger than her daring to assay the number). Here, cabaret illusionist Randy Roberts, visually channelling Ann Margret but singing in his own voice, makes a quite respectable case for the more unorthodox performer.

Adaptations of the song, however, (in addition to the daunting prospect of incurring its creator's wrath) can be jarring.

Before she became a textbook (and text-faithful) Carlotta in London, Miss Eartha pulled the song to shreds in her club act; it kind of works, but more because it's Eartha than because it's Sondheim.

Shirley MacLaine's customized turn in Postcards from the Edge features a new lyric by the Master, but it's all pretty far away from Follies.

Many, many others have sung the song, of course: I'm not terribly fond of Miss Burnett's, from the New York concert version (it's a song that just shouldn't be sung in a cocktail dress; I'm sorry, but there we are), and there's no good quality video I could find of Christine Baranski's take. Bill says his favorite is Nancy Walker (with legions of Sondheim fans apparently agreeing), but she too is elusive, although I'd love to hear it. Dame Shirley Bassey includes it in her act, and if she could be induced to act it rather than sock it over the bleachers, she might do quite well. Personally, I'd like to see Bette Midler try it on. If she could rein in the bathos, she could kill.

Why does the song work? Of itself, it's in some ways the culmination of several threads in musical theatre: the Big Lady number, the 11:00 O'Clock Song, even, in a way, with its references to stars, fads, and markers of time (Windsor and Wally! Brenda Frazier! Religion!) the Cole Porteresque list number. It certainly gives an actual Survivor Star a lot to work with, but at the same time I think it reaches something in the audience; we love to see someone like Carlotta stake her claim on being heard, because if we recognize what she's been through, and know she's still here - so are we.

The Sweet and Simple Kind

Who better than dear Miss Kitt to remind us of the really important things in life? This snippet finds her in Fragonard Mood and superb voice. How much we do miss her...

A Galaxy of Birthdays

If you feel a little something special in the air today, perhaps it's a result of the extraordinary energy generated by the fabulous creatures celebrating their birthdays.

The glorious Dalida, international sensation and tragic muse;

Miss Sheree North, who made it through a rocky start as a Marilyn-wannabe to become a genuinely interesting character actress and Hollywood survivor;

Betty White. Sigh. I just adore her, and her little dog, too.

One of Britain's great contributions to the world of camp divas, ballerina/actress Moira Shearer;

And, last but hardly least, the sadly missed Eartha Kitt, seen here back where it all began, in New Faces of 1952.

It's a testament to the grandeur and force of character of these ladies that they effortlessly defeat all the bad karma generated by today's birthday boys, who include such lamentable creatures as Kid Rock, Maury Povich, Al Capone, Andy Kaufman, and Larry Fortensky.

The Good Eartha

A sad day, darlings; we're all writing about her, and well we ought to be. The one and only Eartha has gone and left us.

How characteristic of her, too, to slip away on Christmas day, guaranteeing that we would as much celebrate as mourn her. Certainly, it's just as she would have had it, for few entertainers were such thorough celebrators as Miss Kitt: of sex, of life, of love, of all the pleasures of the flesh and spirit.

She had, onstage, the kind of matchless self-confidence that comes with being known as "the most exciting woman in the world." She could, with a glance, a gesture, a shrug, be the most bewitching creature you ever beheld, whether in sequins and feathers or reclining in a hotel armchair.

But she could also kick it up with the best of them, high-spirited and feisty and probably, at the occasional moment now and then, a little tempestuous. Poor Lady Bird Johnson found her so, but Jo Ann Worley would seem to have been a kindred spirit.

And through it all, from little clubs to New Faces of 1952 to Hollywood to television to exile to Broadway to discos to cabaret and even, however unlikely, to a new incarnation as a Disney villainess, she worked. I feel so lucky to have seen her in several of these guises, most often at the wonderful Café Carlyle.

She ruled that place, flirting and purring and whispering and shouting, singing songs old and new, seemingly as the mood struck but clearly with an enormous amount of dedication and preparation.

I don't really believe I won't see her there again and have the chance to hear what for a while was her closing number, a song she sung in such a way that it was autobiography: hers, yes, but somehow of everyone lucky enough to be her audience:

Here’s To Life
(Lyrics - Phyllis Molinary, Music - Artie Butler)

No complaints and no regrets;
I still believe in chasing dreams and placing bets.
And I have learned that all you give is all you get,
So give it all you've got.

I had my share, I drank my fill,
And even though I'm satisfied, I'm hungry still -
To see what's down another road, beyond a hill,
And do it all again

So here's to life!
And every joy it brings...
Here's to life!
To dreamers and their dreams...

Funny how the time just flies,
How love can go from warm hellos to sad goodbyes -
And leave you with the memories you've memorized,
To keep your winters warm.

But there's no yes in yesterday -
And who knows what tomorrow brings, or takes away;
As long as I'm still in the game, I want to play
For laughs, for life, for love.

So here's to life!
And every joy it brings...
Here's to life!
To dreamers and their dreams -
May all your storms be weathered;
And all that's good get better;

Here's to life -
Here's to love -
And here's to you...

She meant every word of it, and had 81 astonishing years to show for it. Here's to the old trouper, and let's hope she's raising hell in some celestial supper club even now, making balding, middle-aged business seraphim sitting ringside blush to "Just an Old Fashioned Girl" just like she did at the Carlye.

Queens of Cabaret

Back in my Manhattan years, I was a big old Cabaret Addict. And, I think, very, very lucky - for I happened to be there, in the late 80s and through the 90s, at a remarkable and rather sad time, one that saw something like the end of the traditional cabaret scene.

The big rooms are pretty much gone like the dodo: the Ballroom, where once I saw British oddity Julian Clary literally cause people to fall over laughing; the Rainbow Room, most fabulous of them all, where one night I was there for the last time that Carol Lawrence and Larry Kert, West Side Story's first Maria and Tony, sang together.

The Café Carlyle hangs on, in a way, even without Bobby Short as its presiding genius, as does the Algonquin's Oak Room, and Michael Feinstein does seem to have found a way to make his club work, although it also doubles as a hotel breakfast room.

The smaller spaces and piano bars we haunted seem as far off as speakeasies or Vaudeville: The Five Oaks, home to 30s survivor Marie Blake, who made a rollicking blues out of Blondie's "Rapture"; 88s, where Karen Miller and Rochelle Seldin created a kind of cabaret salon for musical-theatre queens; Danny's Skylight Room, Rose's Turn, on an on.

One old hangout, Don't Tell Mama, hangs on. One real dive, Marie's Crisis, seems indestructible; I wonder if Sam is still playing the piano there, singing "Blue Champagne."

Luckily, some of the great ladies are still performing. In my time, my favorites included the timelessly elegant Julie Wilson:

Musical archaeologist Andrea Marcovicci, whose innate glamour is enhanced by her warmth and intelligence:

Regally sly Karen Akers; anyone who's heard her live (especially her song about a lovelorn Statue of Liberty - "who wants a date, with a large, green lady?") knows that no one more effectively combines fire and ice than she:

And, of course, Miss Eartha Kitt, about whom no more need be said than that she is Perfection:

Some of the other Grand Old Gals still make occasional appearances - Barbara Cook remains a phenomenon, and Maureen McGovern, Blossom Dearie and Barbara Carroll all come to mind, while Elaine Stritch has only gotten more and more active in recent years. Margaret Whiting is alive, but seems to have retired, and it's been many years since Lena Horne last sang.

So many, though, have gone on that big lounge in the sky; just from my memories of who used to come in for annual seasons or who were local fixtures, I can think of Dorothy Loudon, Peggy Lee, Sylvia Syms, Nancy Lamotte, Hildegarde, Jo Stafford.

Oh, dear. Too much nostalgia. Thankfully, there are some wonderful new voices out there; you likely have your favorites (do tell!), and here are two of mine:

Patricia Barber is as much as jazz star as a cabaret lady, but I'm very fond of her smoky, lazy vocals, which her deft piano playing complements just about ideally.

And then there's rising Canadian thrush Chantal Chamberland, a reflective, moody singer who turns the Eurhythmics' "Here Comes the Rain Again" into a saga of erotic longing.

And that's not to mention Madeline Peyroux, Jane Monheit, KT Sullivan, Mary Cleere Harran... But are they, any of them, really cabaret? I suppose I'll have to spend some time back in New York some day and find out.