Theatermania Interview with Gwen Verdon
Broadway's brightest dancing star, Gwen Verdon, the star of such musicals as "Damn Yankees," "Sweet Charity" and "Chicago," died of a heart attack on October 17, 2000 at the age of 75.
She was considered the grand dame of Broadway for over 20 years, from her 1955 performance as the seductive Lola in "Damn Yankees" to her turn as cynical but sexy Roxie Hart in "Chicago" twenty years later. The petite redhead captivated audiences and critics alike with her taunting yet vulnerable personality and effervescent energy.
Gwyneth Evelyn Verdon was born Jan. 13, 1925, in Culver City, California, where her father worked as a stage electrician for MGM. As a child she was forced to wear corrective boots because of badly bent legs. To help fix the problem, she took dance lessons to strengthen and straighten them.
Her dancing was magnificent, and as a teenager, Verdon found work as a dancer in Los Angeles night clubs. She eventually landed a job assisting dance director Jack Cole. She assisted Cole at various movie studios where they coached such future studio stars as Lana Turner, Betty Grable, Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell.
Verdon made her Broadway debut in 1950 in a short-lived revue called "Alive and Kicking." However, it wasn't until 1953 that theatergoers first noticed her -- in "Can-Can," the Cole Porter musical in which she literally stopped the show. Even though Verdon wasn't the leading star in the play, it was Verdon who got all the reviews for a provocative "Garden of Eden" ballet and an apache dance, both created by choreographer Michael Kidd.
Years later, Verdon would recall her first major success as dancer-singer-actress, saying: "I'd been rushed through three numbers in 'Can-Can' and the audience hadn't had a chance to applaud, so they just stopped the show. They always root for the underdog. Michael Kidd ran to my dressing room and got me." Her eventual reappearance on stage at that moment brought the Shubert Theater audience to its feet.
"Can-Can" brought the performer her first Tony, and before the decade was out she had three others to match it for her roles onstage in "Damn Yankees" (1956), "New Girl in Town" (1958) and "Redhead" (1959), a thriller about Jack the Ripper in which Verdon effectively played one of his potential victims.
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