Becoming a Broadway star - Tommy Tune: excerpted from 'Footnotes'

Dance Magazine, Nov, 1997 by Tommy Tune

I never had a grandfather; one was crushed in a coal mine collapse when Mom was four, and the other, after "another hopeless day on the farm," killed all his hired hands, shot Grandma, and then himself. She lived, he died. So I was left with two grandmothers--one was a witch and one was a bitch. I loved the witch.

People from miles around would come in horse-drawn buckboards to collect her and her divining rod, driving her off to their Oklahoma pastures, and she'd tell them where to drill the well. She was a "water witch" with 99 percent accuracy. She also had the county's only "madstone," so if your child "got bit" by a rabid dog, bring the little fella to Old Miz Tune. She'd draw the madstone out of the butter-milk in which it always soaked and, with strips of cloth, bind it to the bite. Poison sucked out; child lives; madstone back in the buttermilk. But enough of this background stuff, let's talk about Broadway!

It was St. Patrick's Day 1960-something when I arrived in Manhattan, driven up from Texas by the guy who probably loves me and show business more than any guy I've ever known: Philip Oesterman. Philip said, "In Houston if you dance, are talented, and extremely unusual they call you a sissy or a weirdo. In New York they call you a star. You're comin' with me." And off he drove with me in his Ford Fairlane to New York City.

Stopping on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 50th Street on that warm day in March he said, "See that newsstand, Tune? Buy yourself a copy of Back Stage and a copy of Show Business and see what's auditioning." Well, among others, there was an audition for Irma La Douce to star Genevieve. I loved Genevieve. I'd watched her on the Jack Paar show, which was the talk show of that era. Between him and Steve Allen, the talk show medium was born--God help us--and in those days talk shows were really good--and if not good they were at least brand new. Famous stars and eccentric talkers would guest with Jack Paar, and the conversations were hilarious and compelling. Genevieve was my favorite guest and I always read up on TV Guide so that I never missed an appearance. Apparently she was a poor little Parisienne who had a tiny one-room cafe on the Left Bank wherein she cooked, served, and entertained. What an adorable young woman she was, with her sexy accent and her pixie hairdo. One night she gave herself a haircut right on the show! Well, come on, what do you want? I knew what I wanted. I wanted to marry Genevieve.

So, the audition for Irma La Douce was at 2:00 P.M., Showcase Studios, Seventh Avenue and 56th Street. First New York audition; first day in the big city; I got the job! Now, that's a success story, all right, and except for one week spent as a concept coder for Young & Rubicam, I've been able to support myself in my chosen field ever since. I've danced in the chorus, I've danced in front of the chorus, I've choreographed Broadway shows, and I've directed Broadway shows. I've had a career in the theater, and I've always paid my bills. I'm so lucky.

I started in a class with all boys. Thirty minutes of tap, thirty minutes of tumbling. I was so skinny that Mom sewed little pillows inside my dance clothes so the tumbling wouldn't bruise my bones. In my first appearance onstage I was one of sixteen dormice (tumbling) and one of sixteen candy canes (tapping). I was the littlest one in class, so I was on the end of the line. For the tap number we wore white tailcoats with red-and-white striped linings. On our long flap-ball-change exit, the little boy in front of me was such a slowpoke I wanted to give him a shot of ginger in his butt. I pushed him instead and the audience laughed and clapped.

I didn't realize it was me they were reacting to till Mom told me afterward. She was laughing and saying that she would have done the same thing to give him a little "gumption." "Honey, he was slowin' up the works. Everybody clapped for you 'cause you took up the slack." I guess I've been trying to take up the slack onstage ever since.

That was on the stage of the Music Hall in Houston, Texas. It was the spring recital of the Emmamae Horn School of Dance. She was my first dancing teacher, and she had great taste and a fertile imagination and remains a huge inspiration. In fact, those "dogies" in the opening number of The Will Rogers Follies were a steal from Emmamae's spring recital of 1947. Her routine was set to "The Cow Cow Boogie," and the costumes, faux cowhide body-quits with long horns and rope tails, are almost identical to our Broadway versions. In New York at the Follies I was vilified by the feminists for those costumes. ("Women as meat? Mr. Tune, how could you?") It's all a little Texas dancing teacher's fault for inspiring me to make fun shows. Thank you, Emmamae Horn.

Emmamae and her husband, Jesse, lived a block away from our house. I was simply in love with her, and I'd hide behind the bushes to watch her do her gardening--in pink ballet slippers with pink ribbons cries-crossed around her ankles. She knew how to put on a show, and when dancing school shut down for those long, hot Houston summers I'd get the neighborhood kids together and direct miniversions of her recitals that we performed in the backyard. We charged two cents, but the lemonade was free. I didn't know about concessions then.