Word: verdon
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...actors I've known who is literate enough to write," said a pressagent last week backstage at New York's 46th Street Theater. He was talking about TIME'S Roger S. Hewlett, who wrote this week's cover story on GWEN VERDON, star of Damn Yankees...
...Lola, in Broadway's smash new musical Damn Yankees, a relative newcomer named Gwen Verdon (rhymes with spurred on) warms to her work like a flash fire in a dry thicket. Breathing a warning ("Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets . . .") that is already familiar to jukebox listeners all over the nation, she lays siege to her innocent quarry in a hectically eclectic attempt at seduction. No woman's wile is too corny or battle-worn for Lola as she romps about the stage to an insistent Latin rhythm, flinging caution and clothing to the winds. Stretched on a locker...
...what Lola wants, the same cannot be said of the audiences who pack the theater eight times weekly to cheer her efforts. As a seductress with a sense of humor, Lola may seriously disappoint her Satanic master in the play, but as the most incendiary star on Broadway, Gwen Verdon does fine by her real-life boss, Director George Abbott, a genius of the darkling hours often credited with a magic as mysterious as Satan...
From that moment, theatergoers became aware of the name Gwen Verdon. But Gwen herself had worked too long and too hard for personal success to let it turn her head. Being in the public eye makes her vaguely uncomfortable and selfconscious, as though she were still a little girl in high corrective boots. She would rather wander through the Fulton fish market than sit signing autographs at Sardi's, and she is probably happiest of all when she is backstage at Yankees, feeling herself a part of the show's color and action. Says Director Abbott...
Friday With Garroway (Fri. 8:30 p.m., NBC). Guests: Ethel Barrymore, Gwen Verdon...