| No, it doesn't say that | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 08:06 pm EST 12/07/24 | |
| In reply to: According to Wikipedia... - sc2 12:26 pm EST 12/07/24 | |
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| I have never read that Julie Andrews was considered for the role of Sally Bowles in Cabaret, and while wikipedia is full of misinformation, in this case it can't be blamed because, at least on the page for Cabaret, it doesn't say what you stated it says. Here is what it says: "In early 1963, producer David Black commissioned English composer and lyricist Sandy Wilson to undertake a musical adaptation of Van Druten's 1951 play I Am a Camera. Black hoped that singer Julie Andrews would agree to star in the adaptation, but Andrews' manager refused to allow her to accept the role of Sally Bowles due to the character's immorality. By the time Wilson completed his work, however, Black's option on both the 1951 Van Druten play and its source material by Isherwood had lapsed and been acquired by rival Broadway producer Harold Prince. Prince wished to create a gritty adaptation of Isherwood's stories that drew parallels between the spiritual bankruptcy of Germany in the 1920s and contemporary social problems in the United States at a time 'when the struggle for civil rights for black Americans was heating up as a result of nonviolent but bold demonstrations being held in the Deep South.'" The version Wilson wrote had the tentative title Goodbye to Berlin. Wilson was invited to play his score for Prince and Joe Masteroff, whom Prince had engaged to write the book. Neither Prince nor Masteroff thought Wilson's score was at all right for the show they envisioned. According to Masteroff, Prince told him that Wilson wanted to Julie Andrews to play Sally Bowles in Wilson's version, but Andrews thought the book needed work. Sandy Wilson said that Andrews never said that because her manager refused to consider the project and so she never read or heard his version. I'm not sure I buy this because, after all, Wilson must have known her, even though he was essentially locked out of the New York production of The Boy Friend. But I have to think that if Wilson wanted Andrews to consider the role, he could have contacted her. At the time all of this was going on, she hadn't yet become a huge movie star. wikipedia's source for its statement that "Andrews' manager refused to allow her to accept the role of Sally Bowles due to the character's immorality" is Keith Garebian's book on Cabaret. The excerpts I have read of Garebian's several books on the creation of individual musicals have convinced me that none of his books would be worth reading complete. His work is shoddy. In any case, I think it's pretty clearly inaccurate to say that Julie Andrews was considered for the role of Sally Bowles in Cabaret. Hal Prince put together Cabaret, he got the rights and he hired the writers, and nowhere have I read or heard that he tried to interest Julie Andrews in playing Sally. Unless some reliable source says that he approached her to play the role, and you're not even saying that such a source exists (and, again, wikipedia makes no such claim), we have no reason to believe that happened. Prince had offered her the role of Amalia in She Loves Me not too long before he got the rights to the Cabaret source matieral (and the book for She Loves Me was by Masteroff), and she wanted to do it, but at the time she was making The Americanization of Emily, and asked Prince to wait six months for her. Prince decided he didn't want to wait, and so went ahead without her. So Prince knew her and had been in contact with her. If he had wanted her to play Sally, he could have contacted her. By the time they were getting around to casting Cabaret, he probably wouldn't have bothered contacting her even if he thought she was right for the role because by that time she was a huge movie star with projects lined up, and he knew she wouldn't be available. And it seems clear that Prince did not want a huge star for the role. |
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