Word: gwen
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Redhead (book by Herbert and Dorothy Fields, Sidney Sheldon and David Shaw; music by Albert Hague; lyrics by Miss Fields) puts musicomedy's million-dollar baby Gwen Verdon in a five-and-ten-cent storehouse of old theatrical gewgaws. The proof of her impishly awesome talent is not that she stops the show, which she does, but that she starts it-and sometimes startles it-into an amusing show of life...
Redhead, a musical now being tuned up in Philadelphia for high-kicking Dancer Gwen (Damn Yankees) Verdon, is described by Lyricist Dorothy Fields: "This is a happy show. It does absolutely nothing for the theater." Translation: a likely Broadway hit (opening Feb. 5), with advance sales already past $1,000,000. The story: something about a dreamy London chick (Verdon), working in a turn-of-the-century waxworks, who gets tied up with a U.S. vaudeville strong man. In Washington, the Daily News's Critic Tom Donnelly called Redhead "a mad blend of Agatha Christie and Mack Sennett...
...Washington, high society is not what it used to be. For one thing, the President has cut down on big social doings since his heart attack and stroke (only five White House dinners this season). For another, the Washington social set, symbolized by such flamboyant party givers as Gwen Cafritz and Perle Mesta, seems to wilt in a Republican administration. The social glamour has now been taken over by the diplomats, who see parties principally as an excellent means of scouting international business. So crowded are the big diplomatic functions that it is sometimes easier to recognize a fellow diplomat...
With the frazzled stare of a gal who wants to wash that fiber right out of her hair, svelte Capital Hostess Gwen Cafritz unwoolled herself after posing implausibly as Santa at a benefit. Supposedly a surprise to the guests, Gwen's gambit had been detected by ear-to-the-martini-tray Columnist George Dixon, who ungallantly told all in the Washington Post and Times Herald the day before...
Damn Yankees. The year's best musical-though certainly not a great one; directed by George Abbott and Stanley Donen, starring Gwen Verdon (TIME, Sept...