Why Must the Show Go On?: A View from the Wings and Under the Shadows

By ENY and Charli Eaton

Everyone has had a buddy they could not forget. Neither time, nor death, nor distance can diminish some friendships, some connections. Ted Norman was already a middle aged man and ENY was in his twenties when they met. ENY was a "roadie" for a fairly well-known rock band, while Norman was a concert promoter for some of the great female divas of years, now pretty much, gone by.

WHY MUST THE SHOW GO ON? written by ENY is an entertainingly, theatrical semi-historical memoir from quite literally the wings of the backstage, studio and sound recording booths, world tours and rehearsals that makes Ted Norman's audience a witness to the stark realities behind the headlines. It asks the burning question from his point of view and this book of memories as written by ENY, his close friend and confidant answers it as only a show business insider of long standing can possibly do. The time sequences in this memoir may be cloudy from time-worn memory, but it is all the way Norman remembered it as closely and accurately as possible.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 7, 2013
• ISBN: 9781477153130

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Copyright © 2013 by ENY.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2012913864

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4771-5312-3

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4771-5311-6

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4771-5313-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 08/05/2013

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Contents

Prelude

The Author’s Opening Act

ACT ONE

Scene One:       BaltiMOREorLESS

Scene Two:       Send in the Clowns

Scene Three:       Summer Stock

Scene Four:       Frances Ethel Gumm

Scene Five:       Mr. Showmanship

ACT TWO

Scene One:       The President’s Theatre

Scene Two:       Wolf Trap-Filene Center

Scene Three:       America’s Theatre

Scene Four:       Westbury Mill’s Theatre

Scene Five:       Sofia Tarabaldi

Scene Six:       Joan Rivers

ACT THREE

Scene One:       Deauville Theatre

Scene Two:       Rockville

Scene Three:       Diane Warrick

Scene Four:       On the Road Again (For the First Time)

Scene Five:       Fruit of the Room

Intermission

ACT FOUR

Scene One:       Marvelous Marvin

Scene Two:       One Final Renovation

Scene Three:       Diamond Dust and Red Ribbons

Scene Four:       One Asshole Is Enough, Two Is Too Much

Scene Five:       The Bubba Days

Scene Six:       Elaine Biatch

THE GRAND FINALE

The Finale

The Encore

A Little Bit More of That BMore Action: Part I

What the Hell Are They Saying?

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Many of the names, places, or dates have been changed to protect the guilty and fainthearted. Perhaps Ted’s memories are not theirs, but they don’t have to be. He marched to his own drummer all of his life, and this book is simply a reflection of that unique beat he claimed as his own. This book is ultimately dedicated to him and his memory, without which, not one page would have been possible. It is not meant to upset or offend anyone, and if it does, as Ted would say, get the hell over it or quit reading. Get comfortable, take a deep breath, the show is about to go on…

To My family

Olga Edna

Petrone Krause

Richard Lee

Marvin Frederick

Prelude

If you have ever sat in an audience and wondered what the view was like from backstage, off stage, or huddled in the wings, you are in good company. Audience curiosity has sold millions of books, made tabloid owners rich, and given the paparazzi a calling second only to the pope. After all, inquiring minds want to know, boasts the tagline of a notorious such ragmag that has sold hotly for decades.

Ted Norman’s entertainingly theatrical semihistorical memoir from quite literally the wings of backstage, studio and sound recording booths, world tours and rehearsals makes his audience a witness to the stark realities behind the headlines. If you were to take a generous helping of the power of the press, a scoop of national politics, a mad dash of passion, a sprinkling of the Mob and toss them together with a half century of the legendary names of show business, you might have the first course in a riveting buffet that is so shocking you can’t make it up.

The names on the place cards read like a Sunday edition of the Washington Post: Nixon, Ford, Bush, Reagan, Clinton, and their White House cronies; the tragedies that stunned a nation such as the brutal rape of a diva who is a national treasure, the untimely overdose of a legendary singer, the sexual peccadilloes Hollywood has only whispered about, the sad vulnerability of performers on stages the world over; and all of it, drenched in money and excess that ordinary mortals cannot begin to envision.

Such is the stuff upon which Ted Norman’s life was made. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, in the late 1940s, pigeon-toed as a child, marching to his own drummer, he was not a heterosexual, not gay, but a truly homosexual man who knew he was destined for more than a stunted life near Chesapeake Bay. Like other young men of his era, he entertained the thought of running away to join the circus, but never could he have imagined in those youthful days the REAL show business circus, multiple rings and all, that he would eventually be an integral part of. Young, film-star handsome, besotted with the history and romance of the theatre, and a dynamic perfectionist, Ted knew he was in the right place at the right time. He also knew that timing is everything in the world of show business.

Reporters in Baltimore called him barefoot and brilliant. He was arguably the youngest person ever to manage a theatre, much less the likes of the venerable President’s Theatre to name only one of the major venues he took charge of. When most kids his age were going to the prom, he was keeping the secrets of world-class divas, setting up the first fully computerized remote box office Ticketmaster-Ticketron outlets, and generating hundreds of thousands of dollars in show revenues. Why Must the Show Go On? asks the burning question from Ted’s point of view, and his book of memories, as written by his closest friend and confidant, answers it as only a show business insider of long standing can possibly do. The time sequences may be cloudy from time-worn memory, but it is all the way Ted remembered it as closely and accurately as possible. Full of creative magic, steamy sex, drugs, ghostly hauntings, show business legends, theatre lore, stage traditions, iconic innovations, and salacious scandals—Ted takes no prisoners. This was his life and his passion for well over half a century. The word in the industry was that he could create absolutely anything except excuses. His creative imagination had no mortal limits.

There are those who have said, The show must go on. Otherwise, we’ll have to give them their money back. Ted Norman, with all that he saw and heard all those years, was not inclined to agree. He would say it goes much deeper than mere money, and he will answer that question in the pages of this book. His unique view of the entertainment industry and its periphery, from the wings and from under the shadows deep in the underworld of life, both on and off stage, will leave you deeply touched, shocked, stunned, and breathless with laughter, as well as tears.

So what are you waiting for? Grab a box of tissue and READ!

The Author’s Opening Act

We have all had a buddy we could not forget. Neither time, nor distance, nor death can diminish some friendships, some connections. You might be as different as night and day, as Ted and I were, or you might be peas in a pod. No matter. Kindred spirits happen, if we are lucky, maybe two or three times over a long lifetime. He was already middle aged and I in my twenties when we met. I was a roadie for a fairly well-known rock band, and he was a concert promoter for some of the great female divas of years, now pretty much, gone by.

The first time I saw him, he was reading the riot act to some stage manager that had made a hell of a mess of a set, by miscommunication apparently, about two hours before some big name he was representing was scheduled for a rehearsal. I never dreamed we would be friends that day. For one thing, he had a cigarette in his hand, and I hate smoke. He was cussing a blue streak too, and I felt sorry for the poor dude who was the target of his ire that night.

The age difference was also obvious. I was still a cocky young know-it-all, full of myself, and knew I was God’s gift to women, most of whom I used and abused. He was already pushing fifty, and I was sure he had never been as great looking as I was, even in his youth. I would have been wrong, only I didn’t know it then. But the biggest difference was one I had yet to discover—he was homosexual, and I never fraternized with the gay help or the gay celebrities if I could help it.

It was Ted that taught me how to get past the superficial part of life in which I had become so immersed. It was from him I learned that gender is only a socially constructed concept and that some people, whether they are male or female, are just wonderful human beings that transcend that entire BS. Yeah, he taught me a hell of a lot. He used to kid me about writing a book one day about all the stuff we had seen, but, hey, I told him I am no writer, and it was all too crazy for anyone to ever believe anyway.

Then I lost him. After all those years of late-night bar hopping, long distance calls from parts unknown, all the laughs, all the sorrows, he got old on me, not all at once, but gradually. Until one day, I felt a stab of panic when I looked at his face, and I knew he was tired of living. His partner of forty years had passed away the year before, and after that, he was never the same. The doctor said he had a myocardial something or other, but I knew he died of a broken heart.

He had so much wisdom and so many great stories. He had a great life—full of insanity, pain, laughter, and success. He taught me how to man up and quit acting like a jerk. He taught me how to find my heart when I didn’t even think I had one. We were friends for twenty-five years, and we saw it all. He was the Dad I never knew, the brother I never had, and the friend I wish for all of you. This, then, is his story the best way I can tell it.

—ENY

ACT ONE: Scene One

BaltiMOREorLESS

When you think of Baltimore, you probably ponder orioles, steamed crabs, Babe Ruth, Chesapeake Bay, and summers from hell. Ted Norman’s hometown in Maryland was and is all of those things and a whole lot more. It may even be a whole lot less of some things too. Maybe that accounts for Ted feeling as though he had lost a contest every time he went home for a visit, infrequent though that became as he grew older. The memory lingered on like a hot sultry BMore summer night with a one-night stand you thought was gorgeous after a couple of cocktails. Ahhh, home sweet home!

So what were the things that mixed and blended and whizzed and whirled to turn out the unique Ted Norman from a city like old BMore? Well, Ted’s opinion was that they were a diverse mix of the list you will find in this chapter. A bit too many to list here, and anyway, I have quite a story to tell and need to get on with it. I included a good sampling of the Merlin Dialect, which may be enjoyed in the A Little Bit More of That BMore Action section at the back of the book.

Ted would have wanted you to know about Baltimore so that you can appreciate how he became who he was. The 1950s were a great time in the USA. The war was over, peace reigned supreme, and all was well in small-town (and big-town) America. Ted was born and bred of a certain work ethic, salt of the earth people who believed in doing the right thing by friends and family. He did all the things that most kids do, except that Ted also did a lot of things that most people never do—like getting hugged and kissed by Marilyn Monroe in your Dr. Denton’s, like waking up a hung-over Judy Garland and accompanying her to court while still in high school, like launching the first state-of-the-art computerized ticketing system for the entertainment industry, and like managing a world-famous theatre before he was old enough to order a drink in a bar. Ted did all that and a whole lot more. He took a lot of secrets to the grave, but the ones he shared with me, I am about to share with you. He told me a great many things about where he grew up.

Upon entering the fair city of Baltimore (from most any direction), founded August 8, 1729, one encounters the Bromo Seltzer Tower built in 1911 (the hangover remedy of a bygone era). A tall structure that once boasted a large illuminated blue bottle revolving around a castlelike tower, far more suited for Rapunzel than the local bar patrons. It is a landmark that the locals like to term that monument to human misery. Rumor has it that the now absent fifty-one-foot-high blue bottle is tucked away safely at city hall—but hey, it’s only a rumor.

Most appropriately given its hangover connection, the tower has four huge clock faces on the fifteenth floor, facing all directions, none of which quite agree as to the correct time. Apparently, no one knows how to fix the thing. All that is cool and funky about Baltimore is defined by that tower which is now home to the local Bohemian artists, thanks to some clever real estate visionaries.

It has been rumored that during the years that the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus (the greatest show on earth) boycotted Baltimore City, Kenny Feld rudely remarked that the city did not need two circuses at one time, a poorly veiled jab and a clear reference to the New Inner Harbor Rouse Development being a circus in and of itself. In the midst of the redevelopment excitement, the city decided to build a convention center. This, mind you, is in the midst of demolishing their existing stadium used for both baseball and football seasons.

The city does have its charm, as the Domino Sugar neon sign reflects beautifully on the waters of the Chesapeake Bay Harbor. It may not be the left bank of the Seine, but it works in Baltimore. Located in the now-fashionable condo area called Tide Point, water taxis stop at the pier there on their way to and from Fort McHenry.

Ted’s Baltimore was an odd town where odd things were likely to happen. Most recently, with the renovation of the Penn Station, a new man/woman Colossus of Rhodes-sized statue appeared, called by most a monstrosity, and thoroughly detested by two-thirds of Baltimore. It was actually a modern fifty-one-foot tall male/female piece by Jonathan Borofsky.

So what were the things that mixed and blended and whizzed and whirled to turn out the unique Ted Norman from a city like old BMore? Well, Ted’s opinion was that they were the diverse mix of John Waters, Francis Scott Key, and H. L. Mencken; The Baltimore Mud Machine (the world’s first dredger); Thurgood Marshall; first synthetic sweetening agent Saccharine (developed by Johns Hopkins University); Edgar Allen Poe; duckpin bowling; Venetian blinds; white marble steps; formstone row houses; Eubie Blake; painted window screens; Samuel Kirk (silversmith) Company; Babe Ruth; Johnny Unitas; Polock Johnny’s; and The FlowerMart; Sen. Barbara Mikulski (who holds the world’s record as the biggest spender in Congress); the City Fair; the Inner Harbor; Fort McHenry; Pigtown; Little Italy; Jewtown (a.k.a. Corned Beef Row); Hollins Market; Belair Market; Lexington Market…

Take a deep breath here, it gets even better . . . Roland Park; McCormick Spice Tower; Towson; Homeland; Federal Hill; Pikesville; Edmondson Village; the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen; Enoch Pratt; Hutzler’s; Hochschild Kohn’s; Stewart’s; Mayfair Theatre; Strand Theatre; Century Theatre; Valencia Theatre; Hippodrome Theatre; the New Theatre; Ford’s Theatre; Centerstage; Morris A. Mechanic Theatre; MeJungLo’s; Martick’s; Hampden; Hamilton and Hartford Roads; A-Rabs with their horse-drawn carts selling anything and everything: pots, pans, veggies, eggs, and fruit, up and down the back alleys of Baltimore City known as Abbers; pigeons and street cars and street car tracks; seagulls hovering over Inner Harbor; boats selling seafood and watermelons, Oyster and Bull Roasts—these sights, smells, and experiences helped form Ted Norman as a man, as a personality, and as a human being.

Everyone seems to have forgotten that one early morning in 1984, Baltimore City woke up to find the Baltimore Colts had packed up in a caravan of big rigs and left town bound for Indiana in the middle of the night, leaving only the hapless cheerleaders and the Colts’ band behind, stranded, and now, unemployed. Imagine the state of Maryland without a professional football team after thirty-one years, gone and without an apology yet! Go figure! The Colts’ band plays on today at a great many local events and often plays with the Ravens’ band.

The National Aquarium, another great new Baltimore attraction, managed to kill several fish and a few water mammals before and after its much-delayed grand opening on August 8, 1981. The well-ballyhooed Mayor Schaefer promised he would jump into the seal tank if it was delayed, and he did, dressed by his cadre of aides in a striped Gay ’90s suit, with a bowler hat, and carried an inflated rubber ducky. The photo taken that day is iconic and frequently seen around Baltimore, even now.

Who knows why, but Baltimore boasts that the body of John Wilkes Booth rests there at Green Mount Cemetery, Buffalo Bill Cody’s relatives still call it home (in fact, they are distant relatives of Ted’s on the Norman side), Silence of the Lambs was set there, and of course, Baltimore is one of the cities in which Edgar Allen Poe had a home and H. L. Sage of Baltimore Mencken claims roots there too. Wallis Warfield Simpson was born and raised there, long before she took the King of England off his throne; and after which, she rarely, if ever, returned. However, she did maintain two burial plots for her and her husband at Green Mount Cemetery, until the royal family, at long last, relented and said they could be buried together at Frogmore. Ted always claimed BMore was a town so done you could stick a fork in it, but opinions vary.

Ted’s parents met at the Camden train station in Baltimore, his dad in full military drag as the army sergeant he was. His mother thought it was love at first sight but would later comment to Ted, over and over, that she fell in love with the love letters and not his father. This resulted in a rocky marriage, with both at fault. Lack of education was the worst villain, probably more than anything else. His mother and father only ever reached fifth and eighth grades respectively, born during the Great Depression, you know, when bread was only a nickel a loaf and everyone walked to school three miles in the snow.

His family started out as three primary units: mother, father, and maternal grandmother, an immigrant from Lithuania. Ted, as the firstborn, fervently believed he had a divine right to be spoiled by all the females of the household, as well as by his babysitters. However, his father and his father’s father, brother, and sister were cut from a different cloth. Their ancestry had been long established in America, hailing as it did from a combination of Irish, English, and German cultures reaching back for generations; a strict work ethic and code of behavior was solidly in place. One side spoke Lithuanian and English (not to be confused with the Queen’s English), while the Norman side of the family only spoke English. There was great disdain for Ted learning to speak, read, and write Lithuanian. The familiar refrain went, We are in America. He should only know, learn, and speak English. This led to a family feud, not unlike the Hatfields and the McCoys.

The patriarch of the family, Grandfather Norman, tried to rule his family’s roost with an iron hand, imposing his righteous indignation on all of his spawn and their families. The women meant nothing to him, as he still carried the old country ways. That didn’t work well at all for the Normans, Ted’s other side family, as his mother refused to meet, greet, or be a part of this man’s rants and raves. Of the annual family gatherings, only Christmas dinner was held at his grandfather’s, but in the basement recreation room, where the tribe would gather to eat, then open presents, and exit, and God forbid that anyone with shoes on walk across their Oriental rugs while in the house.

Ted Norman’s mother, resentful that her father-in-law objected to any foreign language anywhere (which his father dutifully tried to project on Ted’s mom), was the salt in the wound. His mother referred to Grandpa Norman as that beady-eyed son of a bitch until and even after he had died. What a nice family, just full of love-NOT! Ted Norman proceeded to be a sponge when in the forced company of his grandfather and step-grandmother each and every Sunday without fail, and after church, his father faithfully took Ted to grandpa’s house for a visit.

There came a time when Ted, at the ripe old age of four or five, was diagnosed as severely pigeon-toed and was forced to wear orthopedic shoes. These were heavy reinforced shoes that offended Grandfather Norman and Stepmother Norman’s sensibilities and who then insisted that Ted remove those heavy shoes while in the house, even when they could see that he was in the process of doing so. The pricey shoes never worked anyway. Ted was not fond (but more so than his mother) of that side of the family.

The grandfather, who never drank, was a liquor board inspector. Nevertheless, he suffered from a form of liver disease that was much like cirrhosis. His illness, however, did not stop him from accepting hundreds of bottles of booze and storing them in his attic. Payoffs and graft were always suspected or, at least, hinted at; but that is another story. Grandfather Norman was proud of all his children (two sons and one daughter), but Ted’s dad seemed to be the proverbial favorite son. It may have been that he was the only one to pay homage to Grandfather Norman. Each and every Sunday, rain, snow, sleet, blistering heat, freezing temperatures, nothing would or could stop his dad from the torture of being there with his dad, a small Ted in tow.

Five years later, after Ted’s sister was born, she would also be dragged along on the weekly pilgrimages to Grandpa Norman’s house. To Ted, the visits, in a nutshell, consisted of Grandpa Norman regaling them all with stories of the past, such as his pride at killed a nigger with a brick and never got caught. Grandfather Norman died at eighty in the late 1960s and Step-grandma Norman lived to be 104, passing on in early 2000. These facts give new meaning to the words/lyrics of Only the Good Die Young, as Ted would say.

On the other side of the tracks (this is when Baltimore had street cars followed by trolley cars and ending with paving of cobble stones), Ted’s family lived in an all-brick with white trim corner-row house. Purchased for $7,500 in 1949, his parents busied themselves creating a comfortable home. His mother planted flowers, and his father planted cherry trees, one flowered and the other tree produced actual cherries to be picked. It didn’t stop there. Ted’s father also planted an apple tree and about seven plum trees to the side of the house.

Ted was not interested in the flowers, as he knew he’d be the one to weed them, nor the fruit trees, again because he would have to pick the fruit. In order to pick the fruit, you have to go out on a limb. (Thankyouverymuch, Shirley MacLaine).

Cutting the grass and shoveling snow was nothing compared to house and porch painting. This happened every summer and spring (house cleaning), as Ted’s mother changed the colors of the living room walls at least once a year. By the time Ted left home to live alone, there were at least forty-two coats of paint on the walls and porches. Well… he wasn’t going to miss that chore, that’s for sure.

Shunning flora growing up, Ted got into fauna—box turtles, rabbits, Easter chicks. There was one live turkey his dad won at a Bull Roast (or was that Oyster Roast?). The turkey lived for about four or five days. The day before Thanksgiving, Ted’s father lopped off the head of the turkey, spewing blood everywhere. Ted, his mother, and little sister were in charge of tackling the bird, but to no avail. His dad made a running jump, skidded on the blood, and somehow managed to get up with the turkey’s head in one hand and its body in the other. His mother was given both remains to cook for the next day’s dinner. His father was heard boasting, This is the freshest turkey we have ever had. He had a flair for the obvious, Ted would say. There were a lot of leftovers that year, mainly turkey.

Nannie, Ted’s maternal grandmother (she escaped Lithuania right before the Russian invasion or so she said), was Ted’s other mother. Small but apple-shaped and comfortably rotund, she lived with the family as long as he could recall. She spoke Lithuanian most of time, especially with his mother, and broken English to the rest of the family and at work. Nannie, however, understood English when spoken to. She never became a U.S. citizen, worked almost up until her death, and spoiled Ted something rotten. He was the apple of her eye, and he so loved her back. There was nothing she would not do for him, nothing.

The pesky fact that he had a little sister only surfaced from time to time, as his sister was a daddy’s little girl. His mother gave equal attention to both of her children. Nannie and Ted marched to a different drummer. They both knew it, and it only strengthened their bond.

At the tender age of five years old, Ted had developed a crush on Marilyn Monroe. Her most recent film Bus Stop had opened in a downtown Baltimore movie theatre and was playing on a day his parents asked Nannie to stay home and baby sit Ted. As his parents were pulling out of the driveway at the back of the house, Nannie and Ted were exiting the house from the front, walking to a bus stop, and about to take a twenty-minute ride into town. Holding Ted’s hand the whole way, Nannie and Ted enjoyed the joint conspiracy to see Marilyn’s new film, unapproved by Ted’s parents. Nannie paid for the tickets, and into the theatre, they both scooted.

Promptly, when the film had ended, they reversed their steps and barely made it home before both parents arrived in the driveway. Ted’s mother, sniffing suspiciously in the air, decreed that Ted smelled of popcorn. Nannie made some excuse in her native language, and the topic was dropped. Nannie knew how to be a bridge over troubled water in any language.

Other fun and brief escapades followed throughout Ted’s life with his Nannie, but none was more fun than being awakened one night around 11:00 p.m. At age seven, he was still wearing his Dr. Denton’s pajamas when he was wrapped in an adult bathrobe and carried to his father’s car. His mother and Nannie followed close behind. Then they were off to Little Italy.

It seems Nannie had a girlfriend who comanaged a small restaurant there. As they all arrived, the doors swung open, and at a distance, little seven-year-old Ted could see a vision of a lady in white. Sitting at a booth at the end of the dining room, she held her arms open, welcoming Ted. He was off like a bullet to be hugged and kissed on his forehead, as he lay his head on the bosom of the lovely lady in white. That was the first and only time Ted got to meet Marilyn Monroe. It turned out that Nannie’s friend had called her, telling her that Ms. Monroe, accompanied by then husband Joe DiMaggio, was there having a late night meal because of a train delay. They had asked the permission of Ms. Monroe before extending the