Our 25th Wedding Anniversary (part 2)

Sharon and I had married 25 years ago while working together on The Trials of Rosie O'Neill. We had begun our romance  on that show's predecessor, Cagney & Lacey. If you are one of those readers who always skips ahead to the sexy parts, I commend you to Chapter 40 in my book, Cagney & Lacey... and Me. The chapter is entitled "If you can paint, I can walk" and if you don't get that reference then you are not nearly as romantic as you may think.

As referenced in the previous blog, Sharon and I had decided to share our 25th anniversary with friends in England. Why not? We hadn't seen most of them since Sharon was over there for her third time on the West End boards with A Round-Heeled Woman and blowing a whole bunch of money at the beautiful Connaught Hotel (plus all those frequent flyer miles for airfare) seemed like a proper way to acknowledge the accomplishment of actually remaining together for a quarter century. Who woulda thunk it? Certainly very few back in tinsel town, USA.

During the week we were in England, Sharon had tea with some of her UK fans (now friends), breakfasted with cagneyandlacey.com's Jacqueline Danson, and dined with playwright Dan Thurman and his American partner Adriann.  Dan had worked with Sharon when she was starring in A Round-Heeled Woman at the Aldwych Theatre and was a great help to me as well during my many visits during that time. 

Sharon and some of her UK fans at afternoon tea in London, May 2016 - L to R Angie, Rosie, Helen, Sharon, Ann and Linda

Photo credit:  Daniel Thurman

© cagneyandlacey.com 2016  - please do not reproduce without written permission

Playwright Daniel Thurman with Barney and Sharon, London, May 2016
Photo credit:  Adriann Ramirez

© cagneyandlacey.com 2016  - please do not reproduce without written permission

Next was a lovely lunch, complete with many laughs with Jane Prowse over the pretentious French menu we were presented at the Connaught.  Jane, who wrote and directed Round-Heeled, could do the same for a comedy based on that lunch. We later dined with Bill Paterson, Sharon's co-star from her West End debut in Stephen King's Misery. Bill's fabulous wife, Hildegard complimented the evening beautifully as always.  Tom and Kara Conti  are another fantastic couple with whom we dined.  Tom Conti starred with Sharon (again in the West End) in Neil Simon's Chapter Two.  

Long time pal, Maureen Lipman regaled us at dinner following her performance in the four generation play My Mother Said I Never Should by giving us our own private  performance of the play's final act which, unfortunately, could not be performed on stage the night we went to the play as an audience member had fallen and could not be moved until an ambulance arrived. Since that took approximately an hour, the remainder of the play was canceled for the night.

This cancelation thing was becoming a pattern for us since the night before, Sharon and I were in the audience of the revival of Funny Girl when, less than 15 minutes in, the fire curtain was rung down with an announcement made that "due to technical difficulties" the show was being terminated for the rest of the performance. 

There is no truth to the rumor that Sharon and I were in the theatre only nights before when Glenn Close had to leave that West End production of Sunset Boulevard in order to be hospitalized for the better part of a week. Too bad, though. We might have set a record... or at least started some serious gossip to the effect that either someone had better quickly cast Sharon in something... anything... before she single-handedly wrecked the entire West End theatrical season.

Back to Funny Girl. I have never been more relieved to prematurely leave a theatre in my life. As stated, it was about 15 minutes into the show when it was brought to a stop. Twelve minutes earlier I leaned over to Sharon and said "this is going to be a very long night." My comment was based on the performance by the "actress" in the lead role of Fanny Brice... one of America's great stars who was made even more famous by an even greater star, Barbra Streisand.  50 years ago, in what I believe was the second or third night after the opening, I sat in a fourth row aisle seat to witness one of the great theatrical events of my lifetime. Did I write "sat"? Mostly I was on my feet, cheering an unbelievable performance by a contemporary of mine who would go on to become one of the great icons of her time.

Half a century later I was now watching, on one of London's most venerable stages, a veritable plethora of bad acting choices, all being made by one individual, whose only connection to Fanny Brice or Barbra Streisand, other than gender, would have to be chutzpah. There have been rumors that "star" (Sheridan Smith) was in one way or another incapacitated by emotional exhaustion, or drink, or ???? I know nothing about that. Drunk or sober, overwrought or just plain tired... none of that was the issue for me. This kewpie doll cutie was making choices... acting choices... that were so off-base, so far from what the Funny Girl complexities call for, that I found it offensive.  Sharon and I were both happy to get out of that theatre early.

For a "relief" we were off to see People, Places and Things with an Olivier winner, Denise Gough in the lead. A pal of ours calls it "People, Places and Shouting" and that is what it basically is. The thing starts out  at a rehab center on such a high intensity note that there is no place to go... nothing to build toward... modulation is not attempted,  nor is it achieved. Broadway... particularly Hamilton... has nothing to fear from these West Enders.

Now, back in the States there is some news of a positive nature... The Trials of Rosie O'Neill is going to be reissued as sort of the caboose being pulled by the very powerful train known as The Good Wife.  In the not so old days, we used to say "Before Thelma & Louise there was Cagney & Lacey and before The Good Wife there was The Trials of Rosie O'Neill." Now the four C&L movies we call The Menopause Years are coming out again along with... for the very first time since the initial exposure in 1990/'91... the highest rated and best reviewed series of that Freshman season... The Trials of Rosie O'Neill. 

It has been too long coming and, if you can stand to watch a show where the lead doesn't grab for a cell phone every few minutes, I promise you will be entertained and happily surprised at just how current it all is. Besides that... my wife looks (and is) brilliant in it.

No apologies.

Barney Rosenzweig

Hillary Clinton fundraiser | Our 25th Wedding Anniversary (part 1)

Never open with an apology. That dictum was pounded into me and my fellow students, both in the public school system of my youth and later, in courses I took at the University of Southern California. Having now begun this treatise with a statement, followed by attendant references,  I feel comfortable with this segue into an apology.

It has been too long since my last blog... you, dear reader, might remember... the one where I promised to blog more frequently? Well, maybe you don't remember. Maybe you are not even out there or maybe you just don't give a damn. It was that sort of thinking that brought me to making  the apology, but then there is the part about an apology which attempts to excuse why you did (or didn't) do the thing that precipitated the apology in the first place ... sort of negating the apology ( a non-apology apology). Have you now re-read this paragraph three times? It may be the only way to even partially understand it. Do not feel poorly about this. It is the fault of the author, and for that I also... you guessed it... apologize.

I am back at the blog thing now mostly because at a recent event... a fund raiser for Hillary Clinton (of which more, later)... I met a woman who told me she enjoyed my blogs. It doesn't take much to encourage me.  This all too singular "blog fan" even complimented me on my book, Cagney & Lacey... and Me.  (For those of you who have somehow let the purchase of this tome slip from the top of your to-do list, we still have some available via the Cagney & Lacey website, complete with a personalized autograph by the author).... I know, I know. Shameless.

The aforementioned Hillary fund raiser was at the spectacular midtown Manhattan penthouse apartment of Paul Boskind, one of Hillary's major supporters who (among other accomplishments) is a Tony Award winning producer  for The Normal Heart.  For this Hillary Do, in the heart of the Broadway theatrical district, Mr. Boskind hosted about 50 folk who came to support the candidacy of the former First Lady/ Senator/ Secretary of State.  

Sharon Gless, Tyne Daly and I were the there-in-person "draw." We sold autographed-on-the-spot Cagney & Lacey box sets for a thousand dollars apiece, dinners with Sharon and Tyne for over triple that amount, and auctioned off some other stuff, making the evening very worthwhile for the campaign, entertaining (I thought) for those gathered, and gratifying to our troika. We took pride in what we did that night and were warmed by the fact that after all these years, there were still people out there whose lives we have touched and who enjoyed spending time in our company. Win-win.

(left to right) Barney, Tyne and Sharon at the Hillary Clinton fund raiser in New York

Photo credit: John V Fahey 

© cagneyandlacey.com 2016  - please do not reproduce without written permission

While on the subject of politics.... yet another apology. In an earlier blog I underestimated Donald Trump's staying power in the race for the Presidency of the United States by forgetting one of the basic beliefs I have about the American electorate. Simply stated... I have often said that "American voters may not be very well informed, or even particularly bright, but they do know how to watch television." Donald Trump is good Television, and I should have given him plenty of points for that. I didn't, and that was "my bad."

Just before the Hillary event in New York, Sharon and I celebrated the 25th anniversary of our marriage by taking a week-long trip to London to visit with old friends. 

Sharon especially wanted to get to England in time to attend the opening night of a new musical based on Travels With My Aunt by Graham Greene. The book for the show was written by pals Ron Cowen & Daniel Lipman, the very same award winning gentlemen who wrote and produced the American version of Queer as Folk, in which Sharon was featured for five years on SHOWTIME.  

The new musical was opening at the theatrical festival in Chichester, some 80 plus miles from London. Heathrow was the nearest airport and there was not a hotel room or even a tiny Inn with a vacancy in the entire community. The Chicester festival, it seems, is a very big deal. Who knew? Our flight from Miami was delayed so we were five hours at the Miami airport before taking off, then the eight hour flight itself, only to be informed that the train to the English countryside was inoperative due to a labor strike.  

To this news we easily adjusted. A cab ride to our London hotel to dump the luggage, a quick shower and we were back in a cab... at rush hour... to travel the (hopefully) two hour slog to Chichester. We arrived seven minutes before curtain time. Settled into our seats and enjoyed the production. At the post party we reveled a bit with Ron and Dan, who seemed delighted that we made the trek, not only from America to England, but also to Chichester. We met all the cast members of the show, and then taxied our way back to London, arriving at our hotel a little over 20 hours from the time we had left our Miami home. We slept well the next day. 

More from England in the very next blog, which will be right along. 

Cheerio.

Barney Rosenzweig