I caught up with Rick McKay, the man responsible for practically everything to do with creating the amazing documentary Broadway: The Golden Age as he was just stepping off a plane in the Denver International Airport terminal. The openly gay McKay, 44, had just made a stop to promote the film and was on his way to another that evening. We talked about the film that has taken up seven years of his life as he headed to the baggage claim area, hopped into a cab, checked into his hotel and headed to his room for a quick nap. The term 'labor of love' was invented for this man and this project—and his enthusiasm was still apparent after spending a year on the road supporting the movie. The results will be on display for one week only beginning this Friday, Sept. 17 at the Landmark Century Cinema. McKay will also be around until Saturday night after the screenings for Q&A's with audience members. See www.landmarktheatres.com for further information on the screenings, or see www.broadwaythemovie.com for info on the film [see review this issue].
WCT: When I read up on your background I thought to myself, 'This guy is my soul brother … .' I saw the film last night and it's wonderful.
RM: Thank you, Richard—coming from my soul brother that means a lot (chuckles).
WCT: First of all, why did you want to make this film?
RM: I kind of slipped into it. I think that being completely naïve and not knowing what I was getting into helped me. I never sat down on paper and said, 'I want to interview 140 people' which is what I ended up with, and go to 14 cities, take five years and then a year and a half promoting the film. I started to make this piece about this theater mural in Times Square for this arts program I worked on for public television in New York. When that piece fell through a friend of mine said, 'Why don't you interview some of the stars in the mural?' and once I started I kept thinking to myself, 'Why has nobody done this before?'
WCT: It is pretty amazing that nothing like this has ever been documented. So you started in 1997 with Patricia Morrison from Kiss Me Kate and Barbara Cook who I adore and interviewed years ago.
RM: Barbara's been a big help. She just got Hugh Jackman for me for the sequel.
WCT: You got to Barbara Cook through your friend, her musical director, Wally Harper, right?
RM: Yes, Barbara I had known through Wally and Joan Kobin, who's in the film. She's the last of the great singing teachers and through her I got to Farley Granger who told me that the only reason that he did Around The World In 80 Days is because Mike Todd the producer lied and told him he had all the other people which he didn't. That inspired me to send everyone letters and mention all the people that were doing the film. I would make up people and mention people that I didn't think they would know and hope it wouldn't get back to them.
WCT: Wasn't Angela Lansbury someone who initially turned you down?
RM: Oh yes. I said at the end of the interview, 'I'm so grateful to you for doing this' and she said, 'I would never have missed it. If I had seen this in a movie theater it would have broken my heart if I hadn't been here. I'm ashamed of myself, but I think I turned this down once, didn't I?' and I said, 'No, Miss Lansbury, you did not—you turned it down four times.'
WCT: Tell me about filming Bea Arthur.
RM: Well, I arrived at her house and she's in the bathroom getting made up and she said, 'Figure out where you want to shoot' so I settled on the livingroom and she said, 'Oh great, well I didn't hear the film crew, did you let them in?' and I said, 'Well, there is no crew' and she said, 'Well is this an interview for a magazine or something? Why am I doing hair and make-up?' and I said, 'No, it's a movie' and she said, 'Well, where are all the people?' and I said, 'It's just me' and she said, 'I'm not doing this without lights.' 'Well, I brought lights,' I said and she said, 'Is there a sound man?' 'I'm doing the sound' and her eyes narrowed, 'Who's running the camera?' 'I'm running the camera—I'm the cinematographer, too' and she said, 'I shudder to ask who is interviewing me?' and I raised my hand and said, 'I'm doing that also.' I'll never forget this. She looked over her shoulder up at the make-up lady and said, 'What the fuck did I get into?' and I reassured her it would be fine. An hour later she had ended up having a great time. She went from almost not doing the interview to helping me out.
WCT: And she wasn't the only one like that, right?
RM: Oh there were many who were hesitant at first. I found out later that when I arrived alone to interview Carol Burnett the publicist went upstairs to Carol's room and said, 'Carol, I screwed up, this guy that wrote you this letter sweet talked me … there's no movie crew, it's just a guy with a movie camera alone.' Carol said, 'Oh my God, the letter was so good'—this was after she'd turned me down three times. So the make-up girl came downstairs and asked me all these questions about my equipment because by that time I'd built a monitor on a gooseneck arm and I had a remote control I'd taken apart with a screw driver and taped it back together on the handle of the tripod so I could really do everything without ever taking my eyes off the interview subject. I explained this to her and I thought, 'Oh, how cute, she wants to learn how to work all this stuff.' Little did I know that she went back upstairs and said, 'Carol, you'd better do this interview—this guy is the future of film—this is where it's going.' So she did it—intending to give me five minutes—and ended up giving me more than an hour.
WCT: You've obviously got a ton of material that didn't make it into the movie—will that show up on a DVD?
RM: Well I do have a lot of wonderful stuff. The DVD people are interested in a sequel for next year. There will be 20 minutes on this DVD from Broadway: The Next Generation with Jason Alexander, Patti LuPone, Audra McDonald, Daisy Eagen, and Betty Buckley talking about fighting for the job in Cats. After five auditions she said, 'Listen, Mr. MacIntosh, I know there are many people who can do this job as well as I can in this city but NOBODY can do it better.'
WCT: What was different about Broadway shows back then?
RM: I think Pajama Game represents in a weird way what the film is about because it's a show that was about something so contemporary at the time. It wasn't supposed to last 20 years. The shows were meant to run that year and make everyone some money; they didn't have to be something so generic that they ran forever and could play in every country. If I was producing I'd try to get writers to do something topical about reality shows where six people from different parts of the country are all obsessed with getting on this reality show in the first act and the second act is having to compete in this thing. It could run a year and be gone.
WCT: 'The Apprentice: The Musical.'
RM: (laughs) Can you imagine going to see a Broadway show that was about something that was on the news that day?
WCT: It would be very interesting.
RM: Well, that's the way it was. People went to the theater to find out what they were supposed to wear. Women onstage had on the newest fashions and the music was what you were hearing on the radio. They were creating the pop music for the whole world.
WCT: Which your film reminds us of, the cultural impact of Broadway. Did anyone talk about Our People? The gay and lesbian hangouts?
RM: No! I used to beat myself up about that and think, 'Why do I not have any gay angle in this?' and the bottom line, oddly enough, is that it wasn't a gay industry. There were a lot of gay guys dancing in the chorus and I suppose some gay leading men but the audience was not—there weren't show tune queens any more than there weren't movie queens—because old movies weren't old movies yet. As the world began to change in the late 1960s that kind of nostalgia started where people would quote Bette Davis movies and sing show tunes. In the DVD I do have Tommy Walsh talking about the tremendous effect AIDS had on theater. He says, 'Think about if Michael Bennett were here he'd be doing something better than A Chorus Line.'
WCT: Well, in some ways that 'But Alive' number in the gay bar from Applause must have been shocking in 1970 and broken down a few barriers.
RM: It's a fascinating subject. I did talk to someone who's not in the film about this. The chorus boys had to talk some of the girls into going out with them to the bars afterward because if there wasn't one girl for every two guys in the bar the vice squad could shut it down as a gay bar. That's how closeted they had to be—they even had to bring women to their own gay bars! It was very much a closeted world. I just found some rare footage that is backstage at Funny Girl that hints at that.
WCT: Sign me up for that!
RM: It's someone's birthday and Barbra's at the party and she's got her little poodle and her Twiggy hairdo and she's in her turtleneck. You can see right away who the Friends of Dorothy are in the cast. There's something timeless about the way they look at the camera with this knowing smirk, this total attitude and one guy is shown all the time and then you realize that it had to be shot by his boyfriend or something. That to me is a crack in the wall of history where you can peek in and see that this is a story. In fact, I think I've figured out who the guy is and I'm going to try and track him down.
WCT: That sounds like a terrific idea for your next documentary. People must be coming out of the woodwork after seeing the film.
RM: The e-mail is unbelievable. One guy wrote me and said, 'I can't tell you the effect your movie had on me. I was Young Patrick's best friend in the original company of Mame and I would love to tell you about opening night. It could only happen in a theater. The applause was so powerful that you could feel the wind blowing us backwards on the stage and I'm not exaggerating. It was that physically powerful.'
WCT: So this has got to be just amazing validation for you—this reaction to the film.
RM: Well, part of me feels like the last vaudevillian—like Archie Rice in The Entertainer. While other filmmakers are having a normal life, making deals for their next movie, I feel so passionate about this one I have to try to help it. I'm going to have to take a job soon to keep eating, but it won't have the same affect as this.
