Word: gower
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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42ND STREET Directed and Choreographed by Gower Champion Songs by Harry Warren and Al Dubin...
42nd Street will be remembered as the last work of Gower Champion, 59, an encapsulation of much that he did best. As a director, he had a jet pilot's sense of speed and angle of ascent. Fond memories of his Bye Bye Birdie offer abundant evidence of that. His choreography could turn from the gliding thunder of tap to the vaulting grace of a waltz without missing a step. The vitality of such 42nd Street numbers as The Shadow Waltz-done just with work lights-Lullaby of Broadway and We're in the Money ensures that this...
Producer David Merrick waited until the cast of 42nd Street had grinned, waved and danced through almost a dozen curtain calls on opening night at the Winter Garden Theater before coming onstage and making an announcement to them and to the audience: "This is tragic. Gower Champion died this afternoon...
...feels the show is ready. I am waiting for the courier to arrive." There was also much talk about friction between Merrick and Champion. Yet one first-nighter said, "People around the show wanted Merrick to replace Champion. They felt, without knowing how sick he really was, that Gower was just not up to it. But Merrick stuck...
Anne Tyler has filled her splendid new novel Morgan's Passing with this same hostility to analysis. Morgan Gower, her protagonist, defies analysis or explanation. He acts with a breathtaking lack of reason, and his thoughts and feelings spin in a jumble of delusion, nostalgia, and impulsiveness. He still perplexes his wife Bonnie after 20 years. He confuses and embarrasses his daughters by wearing funny hats and keeping a pet goat in his Victorian mansion. Even Morgan doesn't understand himself. He revels in the total absurdity of everything he does...