When DAVID MERRICK stepped on stage to drop his bombshell about the death of GOWER CHAMPION on the opening night of 42ND STREET. 1,500 clapping hands were left stranded in mid-air, and the cast, exuberant until then, was as shocked as the audience.
A friend and myself were in doubt as to whether we should venture backstage to congratulate TAMMY GRIMES, who is one of the stars of the show. We wondered what one could say at such a moment. Would people really go to a party at the Waldorf-Astoria Starlight Rood and dance? An Irish wake? Evidently, yes, as numerous photographs in the next day's papers attest. Tammy dancing with Merrick. MARY TYLER MOORE talking to JOSH LOGAN, BOB FOSSE and NEIL SIMON conversing earnestly. ETHEL MERMAN glittery as usual. On our way up the steep steps backstage, we are passed by a semi-hysterical WANDA RICHERT, the 23-year old "chorine who becomes a star in the show." She had been Gower Champion's "special" friend and nearly collapsed on stage when she heard the unexpected news. Now, as she rushed by she is concerned with other matters. "Where is my dress for opening night- this is very important." we hear her call.
For Tammy, the hit '42nd Street' [Merrick is already trying to negotiate block ticket sales for several years ahead] is another success among many. It was at the Winter Garden, where '42nd Street' is housed, that she first became a star in the musical and dramatic, in film and in television, her breathy Bostonian voice serves as her trademark.
Late one night after Tammy returns home [an old-fashioned brownstone in the East 60s] from her performance, we talk of her marriages, life and career. Tammy, decontractee in a loose caftan, feet up, is feminine and pretty without makeup. We munch caviar [still Iranian pearl grey and excellent], there is also a bottle of good champagne on the table- gifts from the tumultuous opening night.
She grew up in Boston's better suburbs [her father managed the famous Parker House and Somerset Hotels] and is an aggresive combatant in the world of Showbiz. Is Tammy style or content? Protecting whatever passions or disappoinments come her way by her cool reserve, by shading her personality as the moment requires, she acts as thugh life were a part in a play in which she typically gives a good performance. She seems to be saying, "Look, you can be a 'proper' lady at all times." as though life were not what you do, but how you do it.

INA GINSBURG: Tammy, why do you wear a wig in 42nd Street?
TAMMY GRIMES: Because it pleased Gower and Michael Stewart. They seemed to think it's much grander that way. It does give me a totally different syle. Much tighter.
INA: I was just curious how you felt about it.
TAMMY: You get used to it. It never does quite feel the same as one's own hair , though I think that the wig works out. We decided on it at the last moment.
INA: Was Gower still married when 42nd Street rehearsals began?
TAMMY: Yes, he ws. He told me early in rehearsal at some point, that, I think, he was separated, but I know that the last week before Gower died, his wife Carla was at the theater. Marge [his first wife and famous dancing partner] was also at the theater. I think that they were very good friends- Marge and Gower. Then Marge divorced him and he married Carla. My feeling was that they were very close. I never saw Carla with Gower but my feeling was that it was friendly.
INA: The gossip in Washington was that Wanda decided that she was going to befriend him and she obviously succeeded- I don't blame her; he was a very attractive man.
TAMMY: I think he must have been very happy about that decision, too.
INA: It must have been very helpful to her since this was her first starring role anywhere.
TAMMY: He did help her a lot. In the beginning, when we started rehearsing, the part she had had to be gone into and stretched. There had to be a blossoming of this girl as a character. And Gower worked very hard in doing this- because without that, where would Jerry [Orbach] and I be? Where would the book be? Because it isn't a musical about my character. It's a musical about this young girl.
INA: When wre you aware of the fact that he really wasn't well?
TAMMY: The first time was when we were called into rehearsal and he wasn't there. An we heard that it was flu or a virus and then he was gone for two or three days, as far as I remember. Forgive me is I'm not totally accurate about this. He had a very, very bad cold that he couldn't seem to shake early on in rehearsal and he took the weekend off- which is a highly unlikely thing to do under such an intensive and concentrated rehearsal schedule, particularly because we had started late too. And there was so much work for Gower to do, so to take the weekend off because of a cold seemed strange. When he came back he still had the cold and still couldn't shake it. He mentioned something very casually one day, saying there is something in my system and it drives me mad that I can't get rid of these damn colds when I get them. as it turned out that something in his system was this blood disease. He knew about it and told me about it after he came out of the hospital the second time, after his blood tranfusion in Washington. Then he came into my dressing room one night and talked about it, but nothing in his conversation or the way he spoke made me think, I must run out of here and find out what this blood disease is because I fear for my director's life.
INA: He was perfectly capable of carrying on the work?
TAMMY: Yes, but he had to take it easy. He didn't move as much and he told the cast that he wouldn't.
INA: Didn't you think of getting involved with him yourself since he was so attractive?
TAMMY: It did cross my mind, certainly more than once in rehearsal. And, I thought, Oh no, this would be very bad- the director and an actor. No, no, that would be very, very bad. It would be as difficult to fall in love with the director as it would be with an actor. Quite easy, actually, to fall in love with either. Or it's something in me, I find men that I work with in the theater very, very attractive and very easy to be captivated by. Well, you walk in and start kissing them,- that's in the script- on the second day of rehearsal or something. So you get to know each other very closely, and you're talking about emotions and feelings all the time and you have this great common bond within you, which is the work.
INA: did you often actually fall in love with an actor who was on stage with you?
TAMMY: Many times, but not for long.
INA: You think it goes after a while?
TAMMY: Yes. It has something to do with the work. There's so much to talk about when work is there and after, there isn't.
INA: Do you think it could last throughout the run?
TAMMY: Yes, although it depends on how long the run is.
INA: I remember you became literally a star overnight in the musical "Molly Brown" That's an experience that not many people have.
TAMMY: Well, I'd done other things before, some Noel Coward and I'd been singing in a cabaret called Upstairs at the Downstairs. i was waiting to do it , and before we knew that Janie was going to get it, Julius Monk asked me to sing at this little night club off Fifth Avenue called Upstairs at the Downstairs. On opening night Noel Coward came and asked me to play Lulu in Look After Lulu which was a French farce by Feydeau that he had translated.
INA: How did Noel Coward happen to come to your opening?
TAMMY: he had asked Roddy McDowall to be in this piece and Roddy and I lived very close to each other on 61st Street and we met each other just the night before. Roddy though that I would be quite perfect for Lulu so he persuaded Noel to come.
INA: You seem to be one of those actresses who are always working.
TAMMY: Yes, I did a showcase at the Neighborhood Playhouse- an original musical. Anita Loos came to it. This was during my second year, at the Playhouse. She offered me the starring role in a musical she had written called The Amazing Adele. Then I left and knowing that I was going to do this new Loos musical, I went out and did my first musical in summer stock. And then went into rehearsal for The Amazing Adele. And we closed in boston.
INA: When did you decide that that's what you wanted to do?
TAMMY: I think I was about ten. We lived on this lovely farm in Chester, New Hampshire. I used to put on these plays in the barn which really wre nothing more than jumping out of the haylof and getting dressed up in all these old clothes that we'd find in people's attics. I got all the kids in this little town. I had this kind of passion for getting dressed up in costumes and pretending I was somebody else. When I was thirteen was the first time I was really on the stage at Beaver Country Day School. I was a lady in waiting in Victoria Regina. I remember curtseying to my queen...thinking this was the best place I've ever been in my life.
INA: What is the first offer you had after you graduated from the Neighborhood Playhouse?
TAMMY: I started working professionally in 1954 or whenever I did graduate from the Playhouse. 'Molly Brown' started rehearsal in 1960. In between there was a time when I felt I had to go out and really prove myself that I was an actress. So I went on the road in The Lark. Christopher Plummer, to who I was then married, was up in Stratford working on Henry V.
INA: Do you think it's a good idea for theater people to be married to each other?
TAMMY: It's very difficult. Business is so erratic and you have to be very secure yourself. I don't know; I think there are a few people who can, certainly. I think Robert and Lola Redford, although I don't know, seem to have a very good marriage. I do know Paul and Joanne Newman and I think they have a very good marriage. But they come few and far between, I think, for the woman to be more successful is very difficult for the man. I would feel badly if I were more successful than my husband in the same profession.
INA: Why wouldn't he feel as badly if he were more successful?
TAMMY: It has to do with some conditioning. I think in the past the man was supposed to be the successful one. It is not a matter of feeling less; he could be incredibly talented and still not work. It's difficult, if you're called 'Tammy Grimes' and your husband has another name and he's known as Mr. Grimes or they have a great deal of trouble remembering what his name is. It's so easy to remember the public name. My first husband, Christopher Plummer, was a star. It was very easy to remember his name. And when I was married to Christopher I liked very much kind of walking in the shadow of his greatness. I loved being called 'Mrs. Christopher Plummer' and I was very ambitious and I did want to become a star and to be famous and to be well-respected by my fellow actors. I think that I married Christopher because I fell in love with his talent. First I fell in love with his talent, and that was the strongest feeling I had.
INA: How did you meet?
TAMMY: I met his when he was doing The Darkest Night, a Christopher Frye play with Katherine Cornell.
INA: He was established and you were not?
TAMMY: Right, although he was just beginning. And I had not done anything. I graduated from the Playhouse, and I met Christopher about that time. Then he did the Lark and he became a very hot property. We were going together. We lived together for two years and were married for three years after that.
INA: You discovered his talent wasn't enough to make you happy?
TAMMY: I don't think either of us were really ready to get married. It was all very romantic. Our daughter was three when we split up. No regrets whatsoever. I had no regrets because I felt that at that point I was very much in love with him for what I knew what falling in love was. I still find him extremely attractive. And then he was really like this knight in shining armor or some Svengali.
INA: Would you look at his the same way now?
TAMMY: For a minute I did. I remember after his last Christmas visit as he got up to leave he said goodnight and I looked up and I thought, Oh, my god, what a handsome man. Now, why did I divorce him? You see, I have this terrible fear of drinking and this doesn't mean that Chris was an alcoholic because he wasn't. But he was a big drinker and enjoyed drinking and enjoyed hanging out at P. J. Clarke's on the corner up at Lexington. And it just frightened me, because to me, there is no logic to it. I don't find any joy in drinking. I can't drink. My system won't put up with it, see? So I have two glasses of wine or something and I'm high or happy and don't want anymore. So being married to this man, who I mean, drinking was a big part of his life, the way he relaxed and he enjoyed that. This was it. This was why I couldn't. I don't think he ever thought it was such a big problem.
INA: Do you feel that this career has kept all the promises that it had then?
TAMMY: He carried the promise of a great classical actor. He did play most of the major roles. I think that what he has done with his career is what he wanted to do. I think that Christopher could have probably done whatever he wanted.
INA: Have your expectations been fulfilled?
TAMMY: I think that I regret not having followed a more classical route. My great succcess came with musicals and I love to sing. If before I had decide that I really wanted to become a serious actress and not this wonderful personality or simply a star. I think that if I had trusted my talent more, who knows? Then I really thought that I was a comedienne and what I think now is that I am a comedienne, too. But I wouldn't have said at that point that I could do Chekhov beautifully.
INA: Tammy, were you married a second time?
TAMMY: Yes, I was married to an actor called Jeremy Slate. Very briefly. This was after High Spirits, about 1966. We were married in California when I was doing a television show called The Tammy Grimes Show. A series, it didn't last. We had about four shots up there and they shot us down.
INA: Was he in the show?
TAMMY: Yes.
INA: Who was he? What attracted you?
TAMMY: Jeremy was very good-looking, very sensual, kind of in line with Tom Sawyer. I don't know why I would find that attractive. You know, very American, and talented - a good writer and good actor.
INA: Did you actually fall in love with him?
TAMMY: Not really. I think I was tired of being single. It lasted about a year. Didn't work at all. It was a big mistake; it was a fiasco.
INA: Did you remain friends?
TAMMY: Eventually.
INA: Do you think it is better to remain single than to have a bad marriage?
TAMMY: Oh yes, much better. I think it is a most miserable state, being unhappily married. Much better to be miserable alone than to be miserable together.
INA: Do you think you might try it again?
TAMMY: I believe in it. For a woman that's only been married six years out of her entire life. I don't think I have any great credentials for saying that, but I think that marriage for me is the only way to go and I really do believe in the tradition of marriage. I think it's like being half a woman... not like being half a woman because I think at some point you have to be kind of a whole woman before you can go into a marriage or a relationship but there is something missing certainly in my life, without a man.
INA: Do you think it's the companionship?
TAMMY: Yes. I think that if you fall in love and you think that your life would be better sharing, better with that person, then it's right for you. It's so easy to fall in love with talent, like I did with Plummer. But you don't live with talent, day after day...though some people do. I think perhaps they may have very successful marriages. I couldn't live with just talent.
INA: Did you ever fall in love with someone who wasn't talented?
TAMMY: No. I've never been attracted to any one who wasn't talented, which is not to say that I couldn't. I've been very attracted to writers...they don't have to be actors. They could be composers.
INA: Incidentally, what happened to the romance in Paris?
TAMMY: You don't forget anything. Well, we'll find out about that pretty soon. I didn't expect to be in touch with him until he came to this country which should be soon.
INA: You feel that when there isn't a man in one's life, that life is sort of not complete. Have you ever thought of living with someone without being married?
TAMMY: Yes. I think I could now. Perhaps not need to get married, you know. Though I used to be very old-fashioned that way. I was brought up in a time and place where one as a young girl, it was the rule to get married. I remember thinking that if I'm not married and have children- I always wanted to have four- by the time I'm 21, it's going to be all too late.
INA: When you lived with someone, it bothered you that you weren't married?
TAMMY: Well, the first time I ever looked at Christopher Plummer I made up my mind I was going to marry him. Since the second marriage I haven't lived with a man.
INA: You have not had one "great love of your life" until now?
TAMMY: No. It's worth it to me not to have that. One great love would be not a complete life. To recognize it is one thing. It's also not to be afraid, once you have recognized it. Because when one apparently is as I am, prizing one's freedom and independence to such a degree, I don't even think about a great love. I'm easily threatened, and the minute that I feel pressure or a feeling that I'm needed by someone, I tend to kind of back away. I get skittish. Because there's a part of me that says, how can I give you everything, you know, when my life is so full in itself? I think that I have the people that I meet and the work that I do and the people that I work with . An the friends that I have. All of this means a great deal to me.
INA: Is there any room for someone?
TAMMY: Yes. I think I need a lot of space, though. I would need my own private space. This has nothing to do with separate bedrooms. I think that a child should have its own private special place, that is only his. And that everybody in a house should have this place of their own.
INA: How does one feel aobut becoming a star and then not having any starring roles for a long time?
TAMMY: What happens is that you really start thinking about acting and whether this is what you really want to do. That is, you don't stay on the same level as you began with The Unsinkable Molly Brown. You go down; you go up...your television series fails. You're out in summer stock doing some light entertaining play, all of this accumulate as an actor, so hopefully you're getting better and better while you're doing these things that you really don't want to do. But you keep on acting because yuou don't know what else, you never stop to think long enough to say to yourself, maybe I don't want ot do this. When I didn though, I though, no, there's nothing I want to do more than this. It would be very nice to have some more children, but...
INA: Are you happy that your daughter Amanda is going into the acting professions?
TAMMY: If it makes her happy, yes, and so far it does. She may take a more classical route than I did, more like her father.
INA: Do you have a good relationship with her?
TAMMY: Very good. We had such fun being in a Turgenev play together (A Day in the Country)- mother and daughter. One of the most exciting times I know I'll ever have. She's a marvelous daughter. And a marvelous young lady. She called late and she said, "You've got to read Chekhov's The Seagull, It is..." and she went on for 25 minutes, talking about The Seagull. Today we went off to see the Picasso exhibition which was exhilarating and exhausting.
INA: Since you easily fall in love with your co-stars, is there anyone in 42nd Street?
TAMMY: no. NO. I enjoy Jerry Orbach very much on stage and off. He's a wonderful man. But he is happily married and it would be very, very naughty...I mean for me to fall in love with another actor again...although I do find him very attractive, but I think those days are gone forever.
INA: Tammy, I have seen you when you are a size six or eight and shopping madly. How do you cope with weight on and off?
TAMMY: I start a diet tomorrow. Every day I start a diet tomorrow. I like being thin because I like clothes so much. I am a compulsive eater, there's no question about it. I know I gain weight, and it seems impossible to get it off. Every morning I say- today...today. And tomorrow is the day. It's strange because yuou know what makes you happy, and one of the things that makes me happy is being thin. But I love to eat. It's a constant problem. I was very plump as a child. Then I had rheumatic fever when I was about 13 and I became thinner- but not that thin. Then, when I started working and I was married, I was quite thin. I go up, it's like 20 pounds, and then down.
INA: What is your contract with 42nd Street? It's going to run forever, setting a new record.
TAMMY: I wouldn't mind staying with it for a year. I've signed for six months. We never talk about contracts. It was something the way the negociations were going, between money and time. We'll see what happens in six months. I haven't read the review. There will be a packet coming pretty soon from the publicity department. You do hear the reaction automatically when you're on the street.
INA: You and Jerry Orbach are the stars. Will the show remain tight though Gower isn't here anymore to check on it?
TAMMY: I think in a way almost everybody up there is a star. I really feel that way about this company. I think those dancers are incredible. I think Wanda is very good. The stage manager and the two dance captains are running the show since Champion's death. There are a lot of fine editing eyes out there, looking at us every night. I talked with the dance captain tonight, talked with the stage manager, talked with the conductor, talked with the assistant director. It's very important. I think we all feel an added responsibility because of Gower. Because he's gone...and it's different now. We have to keep it the best way it can be done. Which is not to say we son't grow from the time he left us and find new things but the basic strength and the basic structure and the basic concept of this was all Gower's.
INA: Why does David Merrick, the producer, have such a reputation of being difficult?
TAMMY: I don't think he does for the people that have worked with him. Or the people in the business. It's strange: you hear actors talk in negative terms about him and then I say, but have you ever done a play with him and they say, no. I say, then what are you tlaking about? This is the third time I've worked for Merric and I think he's a great producer.
INA: Do you agree with what he did? I mean, making the announcement on stage there? It certainly was a dramatic moment.
TAMMY: I think we wre all in the same position as David, that evening. There would have been two choices. i don't know which one would have been best. But I'll stand by the one that was taken. Well, I think perhaps because we had shared the whole thing together, the audience and the cast, that David felt we should share this moment of tragedy togeher also. We had the moment of joy together. we were all going to find out anyway. You, all of you in the audience, were going to walk out of there and find out. There were lots of people who knew outside. That's why David had to tell us on the stage. Because he didn't want anyone else to tell us.
INA: Who else was really important in your life?
TAMMY: I started going with Rex Harrison after Christopher Plummer and I stopped living together. Rex was two years older than my father was, actually. Such a very attractive man. I don't think I had just a crush on him. I think that love Rex very much still. I don't know about in love but I loved him. It lasted about a year and a half. It began after Kay Kendall died, to whom hed had been married. I think that I wanted very much to have a career and I think that there came a time when we were talking about marriage and for one reason or another I got frightened and that was the end of it. Love is one of the most difficult things you know, people have been trying to define it and talk about it forever.