Gwen Verdon as Charity Hope Valentine in Sweet Charity. Photo by Ralph Morse for LIFE Magazine. Gwen Verdon All Aglow from LIFE Magazine, March 25, 1966 "Though the very look of it is rosy-hued sin, the lady is dreaming of the suburban world of kids, station wagons and PTA. She is Gwen Verdon, starring as Chair in the new Broadway musical Sweet Charity, in which she is anything but the devil’s helpmate she portrayed in Damn Yankees. She is a dime-a-dance girl who is the soul

Gwen Verdon as Charity singing "If My Friends Could See Me Now" Photo by Friedman-Abeles. Library of Congress Unfortunately there is no stage footage of Gwen in the original 1966 Broadway production of Sweet Charity. We do have two numbers that were recorded on the Ed Sullivan show on March 5, 1966: "If My Friends Could See Me Now" and "I'm a Brass Band." Sets, costumes and staging are not 100% accurate to the stage version due to the constrains of television studios. Below

Excerpts from an opening night review by Stanley Kauffman in the New York Times,  1966. "Mr. Fosse’s staging of numbers is often superb. ‘Big Spender,’ in which the hostesses line up at a railing that has arisen just behind the footlights, is a splendid mobile frieze of floozies. ‘Rich Man’s Frug’ and ‘Rhythm of Life,’ the ‘religious’ beatnik  number with a sharp vocal arrangement, are electric uses of jazz. Mr. Fosse also employs nice silent-movie touches—subtitles flashed o

Whatever Verdon Sings… excerpted from a New York Times article written by John S. Wilson, 1966 "The mere presence of Gwen Verdon in the original cast recording of Sweet Charity, gives this musical an advantage over most of those that have been served up to us this season. As a dance hall hostess of unquenchable romantic optimism, Miss Verdon works wonders with her oddly charming voice— a voice that is slightly nasal, slightly raspy, slightly sibilant but always touched with

The original Broadway production of Sweet Charity, composed by Cy Coleman with lyrics by Dorothy Fields and book by Neil Simon, opened on J anuary 29, 1966, at the Palace Theatre . The production played 10 previews and 608 performances before closing July 15, 1967, earning nine Tony Awards  with Bob Fosse winning Best Choreography . Based on the screenplay Nights of Cabiria  by Federico Fellini, Sweet Charity follows the adventures of a New York taxi dancer with an open-heart

Photo by Ralph Morse for LIFE Magazine, 1966 From Life Magazine, March 25, 1966  by Thomas Thompson: "Last year, Gwen decided she wanted to return to the stage [after a 5 year retirement], and Fosse started searching for an idea. One day they went to see a Fellini movie called Nights of Canaria. One their way home afterward, Gwen said: ‘It didn’t do a thing for me.’ But it did something for Bob. He stayed up all night working out a musical treatment for the plot. Fellini’s he

At the 1987 Tony Awards Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon present the awards for Best Choreography and Best Director. Before announcing the winners, Bob took a moment to acknowledge that his success as a choreographer was due to the inspiration and partnership he found in Gwen Verdon. A beautiful acknowledgment of the vast body of work they created together including musicals, films, and their daughter Nicole. Despite separating in 1971, they remained close collaborators until Fosse'

Liza in "Nowadays" “When you love people, I think you help out, if you can.” — Liza on joining “Chicago” Just two months after Chicago opened in June of 1975, Gwen lost her voice. Marsha Bagwell relates the story that she took Gwen to her own renowned ENT where he recommended surgery to explore the issue. During surgery, the ENT found a single piece of confetti that had landed on her vocal chord and adhered to it, causing a blister. Marsha explained that during the finale whe

Hirschfeld made the drawing while Bob Fosse's show was still out of town in Philadelphia. It was published in the  Times  on June 8, 1975 after the Broadway opening. The Hirschfeld illustration has seven Ninas. Illustration of Gwen in her Roxie costume by Mark Cote. (left) Lenora Nemetz as Velma Kelly by Hirschfeld. (right) Illustration by Mark Cote of Fosse's shows. Top left illustration shows Gwen, Jerry and Chita.

Bob and Gwen on opening night. Photos by Martha Swope. Of opening night: “The audience adored it—they even applauded when the lights first went down—and there are things, very very positive things, for everyone to adore, not least the performers. Both the girls dance their hearts out, together, singly, or leading the splendid band of gypsies who make up most of the rest of the cast. Miss Verdon’s voice, all candy innocence and yet somehow naughtily suggestive of untold viciou

"Bobby had the audacity to present us as 'poetry in motion, two moving as one.' Each of our movements was perfectly matched to the microsecond. We went all-out on 'Hot Honey Rag,' as the emcee announced: 'Okay, let's pick up the pace, let's shake the blues away, let's make the party longer, the skirts shorter and shorter, let's make the music hotter. Let's all go to town in a fast car and keep it hot!' "And we did, changing into fringed skirts that whipped around in time to t

Chita and Gwen perform the new finale: Nowadays Chita: "Bobby and Freddy had always struggled with how to end Chicago. After Roxie is acquitted in her trial and Velma in hers (offstage), they put together a vaudeville act to take advantage of their notoriety. When Velma suggests the merger, Roxie has a ready answer: 'You're forgetting one thing. We hate each other.' Velma replies, 'Yeah, but there's only one business where that doesn't matter.' True. Like I said, Bobby was so

Original finale of Chicago Chita: "Bobby [Fosse] and Freddy [Ebb] had always struggled with how to end Chicago. After Roxie is acquitted in her trial and Velma in hers (offstage), they put together a vaudeville act to take advantage of their notoriety. When Velma suggests the merger, Roxie has a ready answer: 'You're forgetting one thing. We hate each other.' Velma replies, 'Yeah, but there's only one business where that doesn't matter.' True. Like I said, Bobby was so good a

Mary McCarty and Chita Rivera. Kander: Writing “Class” was fun in that way where we were able to just let go. Ebb: That was a duet for Velma and the prison matron. After we had written it, I remember having serious second thoughts about the number. Ebb: I almost talked myself out of that one. Funny songs actually terrify me. I'm at a loss there because very seldom do I think what I've written is funny. I would have cut "Class" in two minutes from my own fear of it before I

KANDER: I remember when we wrote "Razzle Dazzle," before we took it in and played it for Bob, you said with absolute confidence, "Try adding a couple of finger snaps to it. Bobby will love that." We added them, and then we took it in and played it for Bob, and as soon as he heard the finger snaps, he loved the song. -- Colored Lights: Forty Years of Words and Music, Show Biz, Collaboration, and All That Jazz by John Kander Fred Ebb, Greg Lawrence Jerry Orbach: "In Razzle Da

“‘When Velma Takes the Stand’ and the entire courtroom scene is an imitation of the many courtroom comedy sketches, a staple of vaudeville and burlesque. ‘When Velma Takes the Stand’ is also modeled on the many vaudeville acts that showcased the latest dance crazes, in this case, the Charleston. Denounced by moralists as the devil’s dance, the dance from hell, and other similar names, the Charleston found its roots in African dance and became popular in the American South aro

Barney Martin as Amos Hart on Broadway. Photo by Martha Swope, 1975. Did you know, “Mr. Cellophane” in Bob Fosse’s Chicago  was based performances by Bert Williams?  Williams was the first modern Black entertainment star: the first Black recording artist, one of the earliest Black leading men on film, and the first Black performer to star in a major Broadway production (Ziegfeld Follies) with white actors. His signature song, “Nobody,”  a hauntingly comic lament about being u

The first version of this number featured Gwen doing an Eddie Cantor--style number with the ensemble of men dressed as giant babies dancing behind her. In a conversation I had with Candy Brown, Michon Peacock, Lenora Nemetz, and Pamela Sousa, they said that Gwen hated that number (and they even felt they could see her discomfort in these pictures). What replaced it was "The Strut" which cut the ensemble down to two men dressed in suits and bowler hats dancing behind her. This

The first version of this number featured Gwen doing an Eddie Cantor--style number with the ensemble of men dressed as giant babies dancing behind her. In a conversation I had with Candy Brown, Michon Peacock, Lenora Nemetz, and Pamela Sousa, they said that Gwen hated that number (and they even felt they could see her discomfort in these pictures). What replaced it was "The Strut" which cut the ensemble down to two men dressed in suits and bowler hats dancing behind her. This

Photo by Martha Swope, 1975 “My Own Best Friend” was originally intended to be a solo for Gwen, but Gwen, being a dancer first, didn’t feel her voice had the strength to sustain the audience’s attention with a vocal solo at the end of Act 1, so she requested that it be a duet for her and Chita. When Liza stepped into the role of Roxie while Gwen was out with vocal problems, the number was turned back into a solo for Liza who had a stronger voice, and who the audience wanted t