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  At that point I wasn’t sure I was interested in either.

  After Wildcat ended, I continued studying with Mary Tarcai and auditioning all over town. At one interview I was asked to read a scene with myself. I did it by speaking the lines of one character and then facing the other way and speaking as the other character. Talk about dumb—dumb for the casting person to suggest this asinine direction, and dumb for me to follow through with it.

  Luckily, I could rely on being cast in the Milliken show every year. And when Michael Kidd invited me to dance in a Broadway show he was directing called Subways Are for Sleeping, I jumped at the chance. The show was produced by David Merrick and starred Carol Lawrence, Sydney Chaplin (Charlie’s son!), Phyllis Newman, and Orson Bean.

  Subways was about homeless folks surviving in New York City—however, in 1961 homelessness was not as widely understood as it is today, and Subways was not a very successful show. The out-of-town reviews were tepid. In order to bring the show to Broadway, David Merrick pulled one of the most questionable publicity stunts of all time. He knew that the critics were going to savage Subways, so he found seven New Yorkers with the same names as the seven most well-known theater critics—Howard Taubman, Walter Kerr, John Chapman, John McClain, Richard Watts, Jr., Norman Nadel, and Robert Coleman. He treated them to a free performance and asked permission to use their names and photographs in an advertisement alongside hyperbolic quotes such as “One of the great musical comedies of the last thirty years.” He ran the ad underneath the headline: “7 Out of 7 Are Ecstatically Unanimous About Subways Are for Sleeping.” When the newspapers found out they’d been bamboozled, all but one of them pulled the ad. Still, the stunt extended our run.

  There was a young dancer in the chorus of Subways named Michael Bennett. Michael was eighteen years old, fresh off the bus from Buffalo, with energy to burn. During the show’s run, Michael would ask me and Iva to meet him at the Variety Arts Studios on West Forty-sixth Street. The place was a real hub of show business activity. I’d done so many auditions there that the walls knew my name. There was a marvelously dingy coffee shop next door where dancers, singers, choreographers, actors, directors, producers, and musicians ran in and out to get Danish and coffee to take into rehearsals and auditions. The whole place screamed, “I’m in show business.”

  Michael rented studio space in Variety Arts to practice being a choreographer with Iva and me as his dancers. One night after Subways let out, Michael asked me, “So Valerie, what do you want to do?”

  I wasn’t sure what he was asking. After I moment I replied, “I want to act.”

  “Then go for it,” Michael said.

  “What about you?” I asked. “What do you want to do?”

  “I want to be a choreographer,” Michael said. Who knew that this starry-eyed eighteen-year-old would go on to choreograph A Chorus Line, one of the most perfect representations of the struggles and the joys of being a Broadway dancer.

  After Subways Are for Sleeping closed, I was offered a new Michael Kidd show called Here’s Love. But I didn’t want to keep on dancing in the chorus of show after show. If I wanted to act, I decided, I should go for it. Thanks for the great advice, Michael Bennett!

  chapter

  THREE

  I agonized about whether or not to join the Here’s Love company. I had a strong work ethic, and I knew that turning down a job was not an entirely rational decision. Most of all, I did not want to seem ungrateful to Michael Kidd for his unending support. At the same time, I sensed that now was a moment to take a chance. Under Mary Tarcai’s tutelage, I had grown to love acting. So I turned down the show, which was one of the toughest decisions I ever made.

  My roommate Arlene was a tireless champion of my acting career. The summer after Subways closed, I was cast in a summer stock production of Neil Simon’s Come Blow Your Horn—as Connie, the same role Arlene had played on Broadway. (Significantly, it was during that Broadway run that Arlene introduced Iva to her future husband, Ron Rifkin, an extraordinary actor to whom Iva is still married.) Generous with her time and energy, Arlene coached me for my summer stock debut.

  In addition to her Broadway career, Arlene had become involved with Second City, the famous improv troupe from Chicago directed by the brilliant Paul Sills. Improvisation performed for an audience was a new and exciting evolution in the theater, and Paul and his group were at the forefront. Using Theater Games and acting exercises developed by Sills’s mother, Viola Spolin, Second City became the nation’s leading improvisational theater company. Viola’s pioneering book Improvisation for the Theater provided the foundation for Paul’s work and the art of improvisation in general. Second City’s shows included rehearsed scenes and complete improvisation based on suggestions from the audience, usually laced with political and social satire.

  After roaring success in Chicago, Paul Sills brought a core group of Second City players from Chicago to New York and took up residence in Greenwich Village at a cabaret theater called the Square East (where a young folksinger named Bob Dylan took the stage on their night off). Arlene was performing with the troupe at the time and insisted that I come to one of their shows. At first I thought she was trying to get me involved in the group, but I soon discovered that she had an ulterior motive. She wanted to introduce me to someone.

  I was still dating Sam. But after two years, we had fallen into a rut. He didn’t want to get married, that much was clear, though he also wasn’t interested in breaking up. I was content enough with the relationship that I wasn’t rocking the boat.

  Yes, I had been head over heels in love with him, but I was even more in love with the whole concept of being in love. I must have been an impulsive, needy, overly dramatic young woman. Poor calm, quiet Sam! Arlene was doing him a favor.

  Arlene, good friend that she was to me, worried that Sam and I were wasting time. When she invited me to the Square East, she told me to keep an eye out for her cast mate Dick Schaal during the show. From Arlene’s description of him, I knew immediately when Dick came onstage. I was in awe. He was an inspired performer, so free, energetic, and funny. He was a real genius when it came to improv, a master of space work—making an invisible object appear. A lot of people can get out onstage and tell jokes, but Dick could conjure a setting with the way he used his body. He could lean on a lamppost that wasn’t there and a park appeared, or sidle up to an invisible bar and there he was in a smokey nightclub. He was a magician, and I was entranced.

  In the following weeks, Sam and I decided, in the immortal words of parting, “to take a break.” As painful as it was, we both realized that if we weren’t getting married, it was time to move on. With Sam out of the picture, Arlene kept pushing Dick on me. “Oh, Dick’s joining us for coffee,” she said innocently one day. But I should have recognized the twinkle in her eye.

  Dick had been a carpenter in Chicago when he discovered Second City. He immediately knew that he needed to switch professions, so he got into Viola Spolin’s workshop and left woodworking behind. Dick was quite tall, with a wonderful boyish quality. He had gorgeous thick hair and very dark brown eyes. He was innately humorous both on- and offstage. Best of all, he loved spending time with me. Dick invited me to be a part of his entire world, and immediately our relationship took off.

  I started attending the improv workshops Dick taught. He was a sensational teacher. From Mary Tarcai I had learned how to work with what was on the page—how to internalize it and find my own unique way into scripted material. From Dick I learned how to live in the moment onstage, how to allow the moment I was performing to be spontaneous. Using Theater Games, he coached his students to let go of thinking and be open to the next moment. “Get out of your head!” he’d plead.

  Dick and I spent a tremendous amount of time together. Although I wasn’t officially in Second City, I was very much of it. In 1964, two months after Dick and I started dating, the company got an offer to trade theaters with the Committee, a San Francisco-based improv troupe. This trip wa
s exciting for three reasons: I got to travel with Dick, to study in his improv workshop, and to introduce him to my family. Mom had moved to San Francisco where Leah and her husband, Connie, were living with their four-year-old son, Victor, their one-year-old, Anton, and their brand-new daughter, Tanya.

  We stayed in San Francisco for three glorious, romantic months. I continued taking Dick’s workshop and took sessions with Viola herself, hoping to one day perform with Second City. At night I would go to the theater to watch Dick and the company. When we had a free evening we’d go to the Purple Onion to see a new young comic named Bill Cosby and hang out after the show at trendy Enrico’s coffeehouse with Bill and his beautiful wife, Camille. This trip also allowed me to spend a lot of time with my mother, who, to my delight, greatly approved of Dick. Leah did as well and, for some reason, dubbed him “Little Richie.”

  Dick and I rented a darling apartment up an extraordinarily steep flight of stone steps high on a hill in the North Beach section of the city. Our landlords had a giant turtle named Giovanni whom we looked after. The weather was warm, the city was beautiful, Dick and I were in love. After only five months together, he started asking if I’d marry him.

  “Probably,” I said.

  “Well, that’s better than no,” Dick replied.

  I quickly changed my mind, though. Yes, I wanted to marry Dick. Badly.

  Toward the end of Second City’s San Francisco run, a Broadway producer called Dick asking him to play Jesse James in a new show called Kelly, about Hop Kelly, who famously jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge and survived. Dick and I hurried to New York and moved into the Wellington Hotel on Seventh Avenue and Fifty-fifth Street so he could begin rehearsals. I called home and breathlessly told Angela and Dad that Dick and I wanted to get married before Kelly started out-of-town previews in Philadelphia. My father liked Dick but asked me, “Why an actor? Why not marry a lawyer, doctor, or a merchant?”

  “A merchant?” I enquired. “You mean someone with a camel loaded with spices from the Orient?!”

  Then we both laughed and he gave me his blessing.

  Of course, when Angela heard that Dick and I were thinking of going to the courthouse, she immediately flew into high gear planning my wedding, which she insisted take place at the family home. She put the entire event together in three weeks. We were in such a rush that we didn’t have enough time to have invitations printed. So everyone was invited by phone.

  I desperately wanted my mother to come from San Francisco, and I kept pushing her to do so even though I heard the reluctance in her voice. My brother, Don, flew in from Palm Desert, California, where he lived with his wife, Diane, repairing and racing cars. Leah was the matron of honor, and Victor was our adorable ring bearer. My sister, Ginger (Angela and my father’s daughter), almost three, was the sweetest flower girl ever. My Jersey City friends and my best Broadway pals came—Iva, Arlene, and the now married mothers Penny and Nicole among them, as well as a host of male dancers. Outside of a casting call for La Cage aux Folles, there have never been so many gay men in one room! Dick’s Second City friends also turned out in force.

  Way past the time for me to walk down the staircase into the living room for the ceremony, my mother still hadn’t arrived. Don had driven through the snow to the airport to pick her up and hadn’t come back. Because he was a professional driver (of logging trucks and race cars), Don could handle driving in inclement weather, so I had insisted that he be the one to go to the airport. Big mistake. Mom’s flight had been diverted to Pittsburgh due to heavy snow. I was in the grip of the “bridal crazies” and refused to make my grand entrance without my mother and brother present.

  Finally, my father came into the bedroom where I was hiding. “Val, the minister has another wedding. If you don’t come down, he’s leaving. Now let’s get you married.”

  Don missed the nuptials but got back in time for the party.

  Even with my mother missing, I had a wonderful day. We had a buffet of Chinese food, a phenomenal cake (thank you, Angela), and laughed and sang and danced wildly until it was time to return to New York. All the guests said it was one of the best weddings they’d ever attended. We had a one-night honeymoon at the Plaza Hotel, and then we returned to the affordable Wellington, as Dick was in the thick of rehearsals for Kelly.

  We relocated to Philadelphia with the company and had a sweet, snowy first Christmas in our hotel room. First thing in the New Year, Dick was written out of the show. I guess they didn’t need the outlaw Jesse James after all. When Dick’s mother found out, she called Dick. “Oh,” she said in her midwestern accent, “so you have no job, and now you’re married!” But we weren’t worried about the future. We were in love. We were going to be actors together, embracing the highs and lows as a team. By the way, Kelly ran for a single night on Broadway before closing—one of the biggest disasters in Broadway history.

  Dick and I found a quaint apartment with two fireplaces on the corner of Bleecker and Perry in the West Village, for which we paid $190 a month. Dick built bookcases and a small kitchen banquette and Gene Varrone helped us decorate. It was sometimes a struggle to rustle up our rent, but we managed. I performed in industrial and trade shows for companies such as General Electric, Nabisco, and Ford. Dick signed with the William Morris Agency and worked steadily in commercials and voice-overs. He also resumed teaching his workshop.

  Dick also did an off-Broadway play by Ronald Ribman called Harry, Noon and Night with a young actor named Dustin Hoffman. Onstage, Dustin wore a flowered silk kimono, spoke with a German accent, and walked with a pronouced limp that changed from one leg to the other. If that wasn’t bad enough, he had to cut the head off a dead fish every night. I attended every performance, but I never sat up front. The smell! That’s the price we actors pay for a chance at being discovered. I must say, young Dustin was absolutely intriguing in every way.

  In 1965, after Dick and I had been living in the Village for two years, Wendy, Dick’s daughter from his first marriage, came to live with us. Wendy’s mother had two younger sons from a second marriage that had broken up. She felt that since she was a struggling single mom, it would be best for Wendy to live with her dad, and my view was, if you have as great a dad as Dick, you should be with him. Nevertheless, I was nervous.

  Before Wendy arrived, I had expected a wild child or at least someone who would disrupt the rhythm of our lives. But then in walked this thirteen-year-old angel—sweet, a bit shy, with an innate elegance—who immediately enriched our home. I had to learn how to be an appropriate mother to a teenager, and quickly. Thankfully, Angela had set a sterling example for me as a stepmother. From the start, Wendy seemed to love living in New York with me and her dad. But in order to accommodate her, we needed to find a larger apartment.

  Back in the 1960s, it was amazing what an extra twenty dollars a month could get you if you left the Village. For only $210 we upgraded to a penthouse with a long, narrow terrace on Ninety-fourth and Broadway. You gave up chic for space. As usual, Dick put his carpentry skills to use and built us all sorts of louvered cabinets and room dividers. Again my friend Gene—who, in addition to being a terrific singer, was a wonderful interior designer—worked his decorating magic.

  As much as we would have loved to send Wendy to private school, we simply couldn’t afford it. So I found a public school called Joan of Arc, near our apartment. I was terrified when Wendy set off for school. This extremely pretty little California girl walking around the Upper West Side of New York was suddenly my responsibility. I was certain she’d be waylaid by juvenile delinquents on motorcycles. I would follow her to school, ducking into doorways, so she wouldn’t see me. Later she told me she thought I was being pretty lame but funny, too.

  Although a lot of my time was devoted to helping Wendy get acclimated, I continued trying to find acting jobs. Dick and I developed a comedy act together, laughing and arguing all the way. We improvised scenes in our living room, which we developed into short sketches that we performed at
established downtown clubs such as the Bitter End and the Village Vanguard. We were part of a showcase with other performers, such as Linda Ronstadt and Jerry Jeff Walker, who wrote “Mr. Bojangles.” The idea of the show was to draw in casting agents who would put us up for roles, or directors or producers who would say, “These two are dazzling. I must have them.” As a result of the showcase, Dick and I were asked to improvise radio commercials and hired for a daily talk show on television called The New Yorkers in which we did comedy sketches and interviews. I loved the steadiness of this job, which lasted for months—five days a week, regular salary, not to mention Oscar’s, a great seafood restaurant around the corner. Penny’s brother, Jeremy Stevens, wrote for the show; later, he went on to write and produce nine seasons of Everybody Loves Raymond with its brilliant creator, Phil Rosenthal.

  As a result of working so closely with Dick onstage, I was ready to join the Second City Company. My first major performance with the troupe was at the Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto. The theater was a gem, and the audiences were eager to laugh. In one sketch I faced one of the biggest onstage challenges ever: I played a little old lady in a talent show who performs a catatonic fit that becomes real. She actually freezes. I had to stay frozen while the scene went on and the audiences laughed wildly. To keep frozen and not burst out laughing was an excruciating task. We got invited on yachts and to country clubs and met many polite and welcoming Canadians. Our show may have sparked the great Canadian Second City tradition.

  I continued taking class or attending improvisation workshops and traveled for some industrial shows. I was hired to do a show for the Norge appliance company in Caracas, Venezuela. The salesmen who sold the most refrigerators for the company won the trip to South America. During the evening, I had to do a little nightclub routine, welcoming the men and their wives by singing “Hello, Norge” to the tune of “Hello, Dolly,” not a good musical fit. In the mornings, we performed the actual show, which extolled the virtues of Norge appliances within a supposedly comedic musical parody of James Bond. I played Tushy Mucho, an ersatz Pussy Galore. Let’s just say it wasn’t my finest work. But I did bring home a fantastic leather tote from a Caracas street market.