Exclusive Interview

By Brantley Bardin

An exclusive INterview with legendary composer Jerry Herman, who discusses the L.A. premiere of his revamped The Grand Tour, his unparalleled career, and living with HIV.

"Un-de-tect-a-ble," Jerry Herman intones, savoring each syllable like a bon bon from God. "Un-de-tect-a-ble," repeats the man who is musical comedy ever since his one-two-punch mega-phenomenons, 1964's Hello, Dolly and 1966's Mame, transformed a promising, Jersey City-bred, 31-year-old, composer/lyricist into the internationally celebrated, pop-cultural theater titan he remains to this day. "Un-de-tect-a-ble," he repeats once more, this time very nearly-orgasmically, "It's become my favorite word -- I mean, really, I could write the most beautiful song I've ever written with that title."

Seeing as how Herman has penned some of the most deliriously beautiful, insanely hummable pop standards of the last 41 years [a sampling: Mack and "Mabel's "Time Heals Everything," Mame's "If He Walked Into My Life," Dolly's "Before the Parade Passes By," La Cage aux Folle's "I Am What I Am"], that's saying a quite a lot. But don't dare put it past this unrelentingly enthusiastic musical theater mensch: Diagnosed as HIV+ way back in 1984 when it was, he remembers, "like a death sentence" -- and, inspirationally, very publicly out about the diagnosis ever since -- he calls his 21-year survival of the virus "really miraculous."

He means it: From Mame to Dolly to La Cage, miraculous survival has forever been Herman's personal and musical mojo. Unflappable hope, gorging-up all the life there is to live (Think Mame's credo: "Life is a banquet and most poor sons of bitches are starving to death!"), and marching unstoppably onward no matter what the staggering odds against you may be have never stopped being Herman's message even in his darker, less-successful cult shows like Dear World and Mack and Mabel.

And that giddy optimism is front and center in The Grand Tour, too -- the 1979 Joel Grey-headlining, Broadway commercial failure about a young Jew named S.L. Jacobowsky who's fleeing for his life from the Nazis. "It's a real change for me," Herman readily confesses. But despite its subject matter, Tour is still an insanely tuneful, Herman musical -- most of today's young Broadway composers can only dream of writing such a delightful score -- but Jerry is the first to admit that it remains his "unknown show." But that's about to change. With the Colony Theatre's new, retooled version of the opus -- which includes one of Herman's most rapturous ballads ever, "Marianne" -- the aim is to give the show a life it's never had. "Grand Tour is very appropriate today," says Herman, "because today is about survival. I mean, you can't turn on the TV without hearing about survivors of the earthquake, the fires, the floods, the hurricanes. And that's really what The Grand Tour is about: It tells you that, ultimately, you can survive, you can be here tomorrow." Herman feels so strongly about that trademark, rose-colored statement that's he's, in effect, been reviving the show for years by adopting one of its songs, "I'll Still Be Here" ("I'll be here tomorrow/Alive and well and thriving/I'll be here tomorrow/My talent is surviving") as his official theme song in the many live appearances he makes in university performances of his ever-touring show, Hello, Jerry.

To discuss the revival which stars Jason Graae (who's traveled the country with Herman for the last three years in Hello, Jerry), Tami Tappan Damiano, and hunkalicious, John Gannon -- not to mention, the rest of his phenomenal, multi-Tony-Award-studded career -- we said hello to Jerry in his memorabilia-filled Beverly Hills apartment (a super-luxe, sleekly minimalist Architectural-Digest-photo-ready crib he shares with his partner of six years, realtor, Terry Marler). And what did we find? A 71-year-old American institution so eternally boyish, enthusiastic, funny, warm, and astonishingly un-jaded that, frankly, we're still reeling. You want a real, live, celebrity gay role model? You got one.

So, Mr. Show Tune, are you feeling good about The Grand Tour's rebirth?

I'm more excited than I can tell you -- I fell in love with it all over again. And that's what I want to do with these years: I want to make healthy children out of the shows that didn't become, you know ... maniacally successful. (laughs) They're like little orphans and I want to say to them, "Come here, honey, you have a place in my heart, too." Because [when Tour failed] I had just said, "OK, it didn't work. You can't win 'em all." I mean, I was nominated for a Tony Award for it. I got gorgeous reviews. What more can you ask for?

A hit.

You can ask for a hit! (laughs) And I promise you The Grand Tour is going to have a life now because of this production.

So how much do you relate to Jacobowsky, its lead character?

So much that it makes me giggle at rehearsals.

And why's that, Jer?

(grins) Because he's sweet and small, and in Jason Graae, whom I adore -- I see a younger version of myself: a romantic who's an optimist with a good sense of humor.

And who's also kinda hot, doncha think?

Yeah. (laughs)

In fact, I gotta tell you that my mother once tried to fix me up with Mr. Graae when we saw him a few years back in a Rogers and Hart revue he was doing in New York with Elaine Stritch. Mother fell madly in love with him, got his number and then demanded me to "call him!"

Now that's the kind of mother to have. I love it! (laughs) But, yeah, with Tami, John, and Jason I have three real hot leads, lemme tell ya.

I'll say. I mean, John Gannon is the only body builder musical comedy performer I've ever had the pleasure to ogle.

He's just stunning, yes. And he's a good actor, too, who's got a powerful, fabulous voice. And Tami is a class act, too.

You've stated that you're most inclined to writing larger-than-life women like Mame, Dolly and La Cage's Albin, because "A man in a brown suit is not as exciting to watch as a woman in a gown." But, hey, Grand Tour is really about, that, well, "Man in a brown suit"...

It's true. I mean, yes, I love glamour, color, excitement -- I love that -- but this "man in the brown suit" becomes as sparkly and as over-sized as Miss Channing and Miss Lansbury, because of all the glamour and excitement and humor he has inside.

You're a true believer in musical comedy and I am, too. I mean, if you ask me, Jerry Orbach was Moses himself when he proclaimed in 42nd Street, "musical comedy -- the two most glorious words..."

In the English language!" (laughs) They is! And that's what the purpose of [touring universities] with Hello, Jerry is -- to keep the art form alive. Our cast is made up of five people who madly believe that it is our birthright to keep it alive. And when we leave each city we're very convinced that we've made 2,000 new friends for the musical theater

Why do you love it so?

When I was about 15 my parents took me to Annie Get Your Gun and I sat and watched this lady [Ethel Merman] stand on that stage and belt out songs that I ... well, I became a sponge to those songs and was able to come home and go to my mother's piano and play all of "I Got Lost in His Arms." I thought, "This is some gift that I'm receiving tonight." It just electrified me. And I became what you are now: Musical comedy took over my life. Because I was able to escape into it -- and escape is very important.

And at a mere 31, with Hello, Dolly's insane success, you escaped into the ultimate musical comedy dream by becoming its undisputed boy wonder.

I lived my own dream -- it's crazy, can you believe it?! And at 31 I looked 25 and so here's this kid ... I mean, I would get up and look in my shaving mirror and say, (awestruck) "Do you know what's happened to you?!" I mean, the world was open to me. (chuckles) And San Francisco was open to me. I took advantage of it all.

Yes, my darling, I've heard tell of that. But, listen: you've written scores of hit songs, but which do you wish had had more of a life?

You always wish that. But I'm so blessed with so many songs that I didn't think would become popular. Like "Hello, Dolly." I mean, I wrote a song that began "Hello, Harry." Well, Harry was my father. Then it goes, "Well, hello, Louis." Well, Louis was my uncle. So I never dreamed anybody would use that song the way Louis Armstrong did [and, in doing so, knocked the Beatles themselves from their #1 Billboard position]. And I didn't think "If He Walked Into My Life" would have the life it did, because, for Mame, I wrote it as an aunt singing to a child. "Did I overstep my plan?/Did I stress the man and forget the child?" That's not a torch song. But I had a place at Fire Island all my life and that summer it was on the jukebox at the Botel and was played, literally, every 10 minutes until I wanted to go home! I thought, "Oh, my God, there it goes again!" (laughs) And "Time Heals Everything" has become the cabaret classic of all time. I mean I've often been the last to know.

Speaking of that song, it's Bernadette Peters' signature number. We're all devastated for her and the recent loss of her husband in a helicopter accident. How's she doing?

She's OK. I've talked to her and, uh, well, she's sort of stunned still. But she's a strong lady and I think she'll get through it. I just feel so sad about it -- I'm gonna have a good, long talk with her this week.

Please send her all of our love. Okay, La Cage: When it arrived in '83 it was said by some to be "not hard-hitting enough," but I think --

Me and Harvey [Fierstein, the show's librettist] and I didn't sit down to do a militant musical, but we sent people out, anyway, with changed views about gays. I mean, do you know how many came to that show expecting to be offended? But you can't be with those two men, Albin and Georges. It's a gay Mame. Think about the parallels.

That year it was in a dead heat at the Tony Awards with Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George for best score. You won, and there's always been a media-created "feud" between you two. What --

Oh, it's ridiculous! There's never been a feud. If there's anybody I can't be compared with it's Sondheim -- we come from different places, we aim at different targets. I laugh about it and so does he. Once, I even said to him, "Hey, let's stage a fistfight for the media!"

Having spent the last hour with you I know that such an admittedly amusing brawl would be impossible with a sweetie like you. So, last question: having spent 41 years with Dolly Levi, what has the old girl taught you?

I've learned that the lyric of "Before the Parade Passes By" is what everyone who has the good fortune to become an older person should live by: That you grab life before that last breath, you grasp it before the last majorette gets out of view. (grins like Carol Channing taking a curtain call) And, boy, I live that.

The Grand Tour opens Nov. 5 and runs through Dec. 4 at The Colony Theatre, 555 N. Third St., Burbank. For more information and tickets, call (818) 558-7000, or visit www.colonytheatre.org.