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During the Golden Age of the Broadway musical, few director-choreographers could infuse a new musical with dance and movement in quite the way Gower Champion could. From his earliest Broadway success with Bye Bye Birdie to his triumphant and bittersweet valedictory, 42nd Street, musicals directed by Champion filled the proscenium with life. At their best, they touched the heart and stirred the soul with a skillful blend of elegance and American showmanship.
He began his career as one-half of "America's Youngest Dance Team" with Jeanne Tyler and later teamed with his wife, dance partner, and longtime collaborator, Marge Champion. This romantic ballroom duo danced across America in the smartest clubs and onto the television screen, performing story dances that captivated the country. They ultimately took their talent to Hollywood, where they starred in the 1951 remake of Show Boat, Lovely to Look At, and other films. But Broadway always called to Champion, and in 1959 he was tapped to direct Bye Bye Birdie. The rest is history.
In shows like Birdie, Carnival, Hello, Dolly!, I Do! I Do!, Sugar, and 42nd Street, luminaries such as Chita Rivera, Dick Van Dyke, Carol Channing, Mary Martin, Robert Preston, Tony Roberts, Robert Morse, Tammy Grimes, and Jerry Orbach brought Champion's creative vision to life. Working with composers and writers like Jerry Herman, Michael Stewart, Charles Strouse, Lee Adams, and Bob Merrill, he streamlined the musical making it flow effortlessly with song and dance from start to finish.
John Gilvey has spoken with many of the people who worked with Champion, and in Before the Parade Passes By he tells the life story of this most American of Broadway musical director-choreographers from his early days dancing with Marge to his final days spent meticulously honing the visual magic of 42nd Street. Before the Parade Passes By is the life story of one man who personified the glory of the Broadway musical right up until the moment of his untimely death. When the curtain fell to thunderous applause on the opening night of 42nd Street, August 25, 1980, legendary impresario David Merrick came forward, silenced the audience, and announced that Champion had died that morning. As eminent theatre critic Ethan Mordden has firmly put it, "the Golden Age was over."
Though the Golden Age of the Broadway musical is over, John Gilvey brings it to life again by telling the story of Gower Champion, one of its most passionate and creative legends.
- Sales Rank: #1297705 in Books
- Published on: 2005-11-01
- Released on: 2005-10-20
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.66" h x 1.35" w x 6.36" l,
- Binding: Hardcover
- 384 pages
From Publishers Weekly
When Gower Champion died in 1980 at age 59, the lights on Broadway dimmed. It was a fitting tribute to the visionary director/choreographer responsible for Mame; Bye, Bye, Birdie; and 42nd Street. Enrolled in dance classes as a child, Champion turned pro as a teen and by age 27 had teamed with wife Marge to great acclaim. Champion's distinctive style used "story dances," or narratives told through dance and pantomime. Smart and stylish, they became the trademark of the team's nightclub and film work in the 1940s and '50s. When Champion's dancing career ended, he expanded his repertoire as a director and choreographer. His specialty was "two- and three-dimensional choreographic movements" that integrated song, dance, theme and props to dazzling effect. Though Champion directed early TV specials and did innovative work for MGM, his biggest coup was electrifying Broadway. Hypersensitive to criticism, he found his defeats, such as Prettybelle, crushing, but his successes were legendary. (Hello, Dolly! was the first Broadway musical to receive 10 Tony Awards.) Gilvey, a theater professor at St. Joseph's College, has written an exhaustive biography. Though the book suffers occasionally from detail overkill (there's too much information on failed musicals), it reveals the grit behind Broadway's glamour. Photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"Packed with detail, anecdotes and insight, this look at director-choreographer Champion's work leaves no step unturned.In case anyone wonders, Gilvey (Theater/St. Joseph's College) makes clear that Gower Champion ranks next to giants Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse, Agnes DeMille, et al., as one of the great talents of Broadway's golden age. And in case anyone forgets, or wasn't on the scene, Gilvey's vivid descriptions recall the look and sound of a Champion show taking off. The author begins with Champion's early dance work in clubs with partner Jeanne Tyler, later replaced by Marge Belcher, whom he partnered in marriage and movies (notably 1951's Show Boat). From the start, Gilvey shows, Champion's dances always made a point--told a story, illuminated a character, celebrated a moment. Eventually, the choreographer aimed to direct on Broadway. He hit with Bye Bye Birdie, topping that with Carnival! and then Hello, Dolly! Gilvey provides a full, illuminating account of how Champion turned Dolly from an initially unfocused, battle-scarred show into one of Broadway's most critically acclaimed, longest-running musicals. The second act of Champion's career was less successful. I Do! I Do! did well, but The Happy Time wasn't, and Rockabye Hamlet, his attempt to wed the Bard and rock music, flopped, as did Prettybelle and Mack and Mabel. Tastes and styles were changing, and, Gilvey suggests, Champion's problems with drugs, affairs and divorce marred his work. About to hang it up, Champion returned to Broadway with 42nd Street, an all-out dance musical that summed up and topped off career. In one of the most dramatic finales in Broadway history, Champion, 61, died the day the show opened.Gilvey reaches the top shelf of high-kicking Broadway biographies."--Kirkus Reviews, STARRED Review "A vivid portrait of a wildly talented and wildly complicated man."
---John Kander
"John Gilvey's god-given talent for accuracy, sensitivity, tireless research, and objectivity over the past 13 years has surely filled a serious gap in the musical theater libraries of the world. I offer him a profound bow of thanks to the tune of my favorite song we danced to, 'They'll Never Believe Me.'"---Marge Champion
"Before the Parade Passes By is a meticulously researched, well written account of the life and, more important, the work of dancer-choreographer Gower Champion. Its detailed chronicling of the gestation of Champion's Broadway hits and flops makes it a must for anyone interested in learning about how a Broadway musical is made and sometimes unmade. Lovers of backstage gossip will relish the saga of the clash of control freaks Champion and producer David Merrick. Everyone interested in the American musical will enjoy and learn from this fine book."---John Clum, Duke University, author of Something for the Boys: Musical Theatre and Gay Culture
"Gower Champion's Broadway musicals make us smile, tap our feet and dance in our heads. Gilvey's "Parade" of Gower's life and work mesmerizes, as sure as, 'house to half,' the opening notes of Hello, Dolly's overture give us goose bumps."---David Hartman
"John Gilvey's insightful biography gave me a detailed glimpse of the workings of a great theatrical mind. Reading it brought back so many memories of these fantastic shows that I first saw from Broadway balconies."--- Charles Busch
"Before the Parade Passes By is fascinating. At last the many mysteries and questions concerning a major director/choreographer, Gower Champion, can be answered. At his best, beautiful successful musicals emerged. When his demons took over, look out! Enjoy reading about the glamour of Broadway in its Golden Age and the insight which John Gilvey has given us."---Don Pippin
About the Author
John Anthony Gilvey is a graduate of New York University’s doctoral program in educational theatre and is a professor of theatre and speech at St. Joseph’s College in New York.
Most helpful customer reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful.
A Song-and-Dance-Man Occasionally Shuts Down
By krebsman
Gower Champion had one of the more interesting careers in Broadway history. After minor stage work and major Hollywood and TV work, he wowed Broadway with his production of BYE BYE BIRDIE, following that success with three other big hits, CARNIVAL, HELLO DOLLY! And I DO, I DO. He then had a long series of flops and misfires before going out on a blaze of glory with his production of 42ND STREET. He died on the day of the show's opening but the news was kept a secret until after 42ND STREET'S triumphant opening night curtain call. BEFORE THE PARADE PASSES BY is a much-needed critical re-assessment of the work of Gower Champion. As John Anthony Gilvey points out in the final chapter, he is usually excluded from mention with the other great director/choreographers of the period, Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse and Michael Bennett. Gilvey pleads a good case for including Champion in that pantheon. What's best about the book are his descriptions of how the individual shows were put together and how the musical numbers were staged. What's disappointing about the book are the parts dealing with the director's personal life. Some major bombshells are dropped but then not elaborated upon like this quote from Alexander Cohen: "He was a dictator and a fascist...and he had strange sexual alliances. First Marge, then a girl in the show, then a guy in the show." There are illusions to his buying a house in Topanga Canyon and living a bohemian life of drugs and sexual experimentation. No details are provided. Perhaps Gilvey is reluctant to go into the unsavory elements because he is a Catholic priest, although this is not revealed in the author's bio and his picture doesn't show him in his priest's clothes. It's not a very gossipy book, but it does reveal a lot of hitherto unknown tidbits connected with every show. Some of it is rather amusing. Debbie Reynolds comes off as quite a character.
I don't know how much interest this book would hold for the general reader, but musical comedy fans will find it very much worth reading and will not want to miss it. Four stars.
10 of 16 people found the following review helpful.
OH, WELL
By A. Film Lover
I'm glad these other "reviewers" liked this book, because I sure thought it was a sloppy affair. Professor Gilvey doesn't have a great command of language, he frequently gets the simplest of facts wrong (Tommy Valando is not "the guy who does all those record albums" he's a music publisher - Don Walker is an orchestrator not an arranger - nitpicking, yes, but, really, it's not brain surgery to find this stuff out, and the book is riddled with such things) - but, more often than not, each chapter is exactly the same as the previous chapter - just change the name of the show. Gower's the greatest, Gower's a genius, the show's not working, the show's working, blah, blah, blah.
It's great to have a book about the complicated person who was Gower Champion - I only wish it weren't THIS book, as its subject deserves better. A disappointment.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
"Mack and Maybe"
By Kevin Killian
Gower Champion! Forgotten name as the parade passes by. His greatest achievements on the stage failed to make it onto the screen, though shreds of his glory can perhaps be glimpsed through George Sidney's sensible restaging in his film of BYE BYE BIRDIE. And something of his flagwaving spirit makes it through Gene Kelly's otherwise terrible treatment of HELLO DOLLY. But alas, MGM never did make CARNIVAL the way Champion envisioned it. And actually, who would really want to see a movie of I DO, I DO, or SUGAR? (I would have enjoyed, however, seeing the film he planned of THE FANTASTICKS.) He threw away a lot of his pearls in front of a lot of swine. And Gilvey was there for all of it, or so it seems. Could he have been? He doesn't seem that old in the jacket photo.
You wind up not really liking Champion very much. His sense of self makes even Michael Bennett, Bob Fosse and George Balanchine seem well-adjusted socially, even a bit on the wallflower side. After reading this book, I admire Marge Champion more and am eager to seek out some of the work she did with Gower in the derided MGM musicals they danced in.
His career seems like an odd amalgam of hard work, talent, and a hell of a lot of luck. The appearance on Ed Sullivan--a whole Ed Sullivan show devoted to the Champions, just when MGM had dropped them and they were really facing Hasbeen House--seems nothing short of a miracle.
The book gets repetitive and it always takes Gower's side, but the amount of research is prodigious and even a seasoned theatergoer will find something of interest on nearly every page. It's a book of monsters, but fascinating monsters at that.
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