This is a weekly feature on BroadwayLiving.com.
It’s just like the game “Six Degrees of
Kevin Bacon”. You know how it goes…someone
throws out an actor’s name and you have to try
to connect them to Kevin Bacon in six steps or less.
I thought it might be fun to do the same thing with
the theater’s luminaries. I will be trying to
connect them to the longest running show in Broadway
history, The Phantom of the Opera and its very first “Phantom”,
Michael Crawford.
Next week the country will celebrate another Independence
Day. So who better to highlight in this feature than
the original “Yankee Doodle Boy”, the legendary
George M. Cohan.
Cohan was a self professed “real live nephew
of my Uncle Sam, born on the Fourth of July”.
Although records indicate that he was actually born
on July 3, 1878 in Providence, RI, the family vaudeville
act known as The Four Cohens probably couldn’t
resist the marketing value of having one of their own
share a birthday with the country, and so they continually
insisted that George had been born on the fourth.
Jerry, Nellie, Josephine and George Cohan played the
vaudeville circuits for many years. George eventually
began to write all of the material for the family’s
act. With Cohan’s songs, skits and shrewd management
the Four Cohans soon gained wide recognition. It was
around this time that Cohan began using his trademark
sign-off to appreciative audiences: “Ladies and
gentleman, my mother thanks you, my father thanks you,
my sister thanks you and I thank you!”
After a falling out with B.F. Keith, the man who controlled
most of the bookings for vaudeville houses around the
country, George declared that no Cohan would ever work
for Keith again and so he made his move to the legitimate
stage. He expanded one of the family’s sketches
into a full length musical and in 1901 the Cohans made
their Broadway debut in The Govenor’s Son with
music, lyrics and a book by George M. Cohan. The show
was a flop on Broadway but enjoyed financial success
on the road.
Soon after, Cohan met gambler and boxing promoter,
Sam Harris. The two formed a producing partnership
that is now legendary. Harris produced Cohan’s
first hit, Little Johnny Jones (1904). This is the
show for which George penned “Yankee Doodle Boy”,
as well as “Give My Regards to Broadway”.
He continued to express his patriotic flair when he
wrote “You’re a Grand Old Flag” for
the musical George Washington, Jr.(1904). The inspiration
for the song came from an encounter George had with
a Civil War veteran who had fought at the battle of
Gettysburg. The vet held a tattered flag and Cohan
overheard him say, “She’s a grand old rag.” The
sentiment became the first line of his new song until
critics complained of his referring to the Stars and
Stripes as a “rag”. Not wanting to offend,
he changed the lyric to “flag”.
When World War I broke out in 1917, Cohan once again
tapped into the nation’s sentiments when he composed “Over
There”. The song earned him a Congressional Medal
of Honor which was presented to him in 1940 by President
Franklin Roosevelt. To this day, he is the only American
composer ever to receive the distinction.
In the early 1960’s a statue of Cohan was erected
in the center of Times Square. The man who once “owned
Broadway” now stands at the intersection of Broadway
and 46th Street. He was a successful actor, singer,
dancer, composer, playwright, director, producer and
theater owner. George M. Cohan is a Broadway legend
and an American icon.
1) George M. Cohan played President FDR in I’d
Rather Be Right with Joseph Macauley
2) Joseph Macauley appeared in Funny Girl with Lainie
Kazan
3) Lainie Kazan was in My Favorite Year with Bruce
Winant
4) Bruce Winant did Ragtime with Judy Kaye.
5) Judy Kaye was the original “Carlotta” in
The Phantom of the Opera with Michael Crawford.
You’re a grand old flag,
You’re a high flying flag
And forever in peace my you wave.
George Belgrave in George Washington, Jr. (1906)
So that’s the game. Join me each week as I try to come up with new ways
of connecting Michael Crawford to the entire theater community.
