Tommy TUNE on InnerVIEWS with Ernie Manouse

he's a dancer actor choreographer and director and the proud winner of nine Tony Awards he has graced the stage and such shows as seesaw and my one and only and made his film debut in Hello Dolly but his biggest mark was made as a director and choreographer of such classics as best of all whorehouse in Texas nine Grand Hotel and the Will Rogers Follies hello i'm ernie manouse coming up on interviews our conversation with the larger-than-life song and dance man Tommy tune when you're standing on a stage looking out at that audience what is that feeling like it's always different because it's always a different group of people so it never feels the same it never feels the same never and and the first few beats in front of the audience like what I'm gonna do tonight because I start the show you just have every every fiber of your being every cell cell is going where are you what are you what are who are we why are we there you know and it's like that it's very very exciting and unnerving and you never get used to it because it's always different is it addictive yes I think it's the but I think I think the performing thing performing for a live audience is an addictive thing I do it's the best kind of addiction when did you first get picked by that bug I think I was always my parents said that I danced before I walked the minute that I would crawl through the living room the music would come on the radio I get up and dance and then they would clap for me well I mean this sound is a very addictive sound yeah and so I think that was the beginning of it but I'm incredibly shy and my theatre career has really helped me overcome that why do you think that is often times we come across people who say the same thing it's you got to do something to get out of your shell and performing really you know it's flying without a net from looking at your career from following what you do do people know you though is that who you are or not what I do yeah no that's not who I am that's what I do there's a persona there and they're all so it's a very confusing thing for people with my career because the sort of thing that I direct is not the sort of thing that I perform in I have my limitations as a performer and I work in kind of a not very broad thing so I can fulfill it fulfill my thing but when I direct I go a whole other way it's like one of my paintings I don't think you would think that I would paint what I paint so I'm I'm an I'm a dichotomy are you really that what what how would you describe yourself I don't know I just go about living for a moment-to-moment the best way that I know how and I want to be try to be kind and and I know that you don't win popularity contests you if you're gonna be an artist you have to take some stances in order to do things and I always hear certain things that people think about me and things that come back and I go golly I don't think that's what I am at all but that's who I am to them yeah so you know you talk about being shy and I would think just from your height alone you commanded attention well this the height my height is what made me shy because when you first get this tall and I'm just over six six you don't know it and then you bump your head and you nothing fits and people look at you and you walk into a room and you create a thing when you walk in but it's not I had to I had to grow into my height I had to get my persona my person to kind of match match it I didn't I never slumped I didn't try to be short like this because that's ridiculous because I had been ballet trained so I had good posture I think but there were times I just didn't want to walk in a room because it was it was a major I you know I make a major entrance whether I want to or not uh-huh there's a story that you tell I can't remember what show it's from where you had to cross underneath the stage between and during a show to get from one side of the st. James and maybe you're hitting your head on the pipes and stuff so you can run around out front the theater yeah what show is that that was that was my one and only at the st. James theatre and it was under and you know really low with the pipes but on good nights I could - out the stage door a run under the marquee and come back in yeah people must have seen that what's going on I think how unprofessional he's out there in his costume but it did help you know I didn't have to worry about bumping my head true or false your first day in New York first audition you were in I did that's the truth I I got to New York on a st. Patrick's Day and I think it was 1962 and there was an audition I saw it in the in the backstage and I went to it and I got it didn't that amazing yeah and that that that was my dream my dream was to dance in the chorus of a Broadway show that was my dream and it came true my first day New York's of everything else you know it sort of been has come from that do you ever wonder had it not been in a sense that easy how different your career might have been well I've been through really hard patches right but they are these do that's the spice you got to have it wonderful and you got to have it low and I you know after a high you really have a low I get a low every time I finish a painting every time I get a show open it's like I think what women have postpartum depression yeah after you give birth because it's the way guys give birth is this I would think do you ever think that's it you're never gonna work again it's not gonna help always yeah that always well that's it I'll never work again really at this point because it gets harder and harder these days to get a show on it's so hard to get a show on because it's so many millions you know when I first got to New York you could get a fabulous Broadway show on for three hundred and fifty thousand dollars and to give reference to everyone how much would that cost today seven million at least amazing bit but we have 14 million dollar shows I did a show in Vegas that I started for two and a half years at the MGM Grand and that was a ninety million dollar show that was a 90 million dollars for a show and it was a lot of show yeah effects and you know there's a cast of a hundred but 90 million dollars yeah so does that help when you see a show that costs that much money does that make for better art do you think we have we lost something I don't think so I don't think so I'm very suspect with these very expensive shows I think let a plank and a passion let's make the show better and make what the actors the story that they move through and and the the levels that they're able to present and how much can they pull you in and how much can they have that activate the imagination of the audience I don't really need to have the chandeliers and them I don't know what to do with that I've tried to once all of the the helicopters and all of that stuff came in I a wicked is all that wicked is totally that and I really made a concerted effort to go that way and it's just against my nature I'm or in a way Shakespearean because you know he didn't have the Shakespeare didn't even of lighting effects the Sun you know and here we are here we are in sunny Spain you know I don't know I don't it's not my nature I liked to activate the imagination of the audience and I like it when I go to the theater I like it when I'm sitting on the edge of my seat listening and when it blasts me and I'm back here it's a whole other experience but that is that is the audience that's the nature of the beast now I believe but I still believe deep in my heart that you can speak to the child within the audience and pull them in on this magic journey that you're going to take them on without blasting them I really believe that I read somewhere that you had said that 1:9 when you first were presented with 9 to actually do that show on Broadway that you were so won over by the score of it you hadn't realized how thin the story was there's no story there's no story that bad play that play doesn't have a plot but then why does it work or work for you I don't know it's a feeling it was the mohrís music of course and my love and respect for Fellini and his his because it's basic his movies don't have much plot they're like dreams they just caught a wander around it's now they all add up so there's something that you feel so then what do you need for a success on Broadway do you think well I think a distinction plot is great I don't think I've ever had one they're very hard to come by what's out there right now that you think really fits that anything I saw something off off Broadway that was an amazing concept that really moved me it was called the audience and when you come into the theater there's a whole audience on stage and and so you're looking at yourself but you've just seen the theater and then the audience comes ready to see the show and it's a musical and they're watching a musical but they're really watching you the audience it's the damnedest thing it was so amazing it really spun my head around and I was totally fascinated with it yeah and they were singing their thoughts you know like when is she gonna get off I'm not interested in this character that reminds me what's on my laundry list I've got to remember to do this and this and this before I go home all of that going on and and yet it's all one group of people experience something together it was fascinating so I like that I don't know take me back a little bit very curious Hello Dolly Hello Dolly the the stage the stage version the movie Oh will the movie yeah well that came later and I was in that right yeah that's what I hired for the course of Hello Dolly I didn't get it and then you got the movie part yeah part not the car obviously I was too good for the core yeah that was really nice I was dancing in the course of a Broadway show called how now Dow Jones it wasn't a success but it ran for Ana season and they spotted me and they flew me out to California and I screened tested for Gene Kelly who directed the movie fellow dolly and I got the part that was a unbelievable moment in my life yeah can you audition comfortably or is that nerve wracking I'm not a good audition er I'm not you have to be aware of people that audition too well when you're on this side of the footlights and I'm casting if people there I've I've been dazzled by a person's audition that was so great and it never moved one higher step that was it they hit their level at the audition so how do you learn that how do you know that's gonna happen I guess practice instinct experience intuition and you know you get better the longer you live you get better what you need to get better you get worse there's no standing still so hopefully you know I get better I'm more intuitive I I can peer deeper auditioning though in front of Gene Kelly though oh well that's just great he was just so wonderful he was just he was so Gene Kelly yeah but he did give me the best direction I ever got this is once I had the part we were shooting on the in the dancing number and he came up to me between takes and he said Tommy dance better so what do you do with the direction like that well when Gene Kelly says it it's all who's who says it I knew what he meant I knew that I could dance better and he told me to dance but just tell me to dance better and I will dance better I take great direction because I know how hard it is to direct yeah these actors that want to fight with the director in merriment it's so ridiculous it's so counterproductive do what the guy needs he's the one in charge do everything you can to make his show work because then you'll be great the show will be great and everybody works but they're hiring you for something and when they hire a Tommy tune yeah and then a director comes and says but I want you to do this than that isn't there something you to the image of Tommy - oh no I think that gets in the way you you owe it to the show you owe it to the show to do fulfill your part within the show yeah and of course that you you know you're always seeking to stretch yourself if you've got a director that can pull colors out of you that you didn't know you had wow how great now the record though being as gifted of directors you are then to work with someone else who might not be as good a director does that ever and how can I take off my director hat when I am a performer and just I try to leave that behind of course it passes through it passes through and I of course I say oh I see what's wrong with this scene if they don't only get and then I stop myself and say but you are not directing the show Tommy tune you were performing in the show do it and let him find his way really I don't think that would be one of the hardest things to do not really because when you're directing you can see it and when you're up in it you can't see it you see there's this magic thing between being on stage and the footlights and being out there in the audience it's a it's an ethereal nether rethink that you pass through it's like going through the looking glass Alice Through the Looking Glass because I can when I when I the times that I've had to direct myself and I only do it under duress but I don't like to star in a show and direct it's very hard it's no and I'm not air I never get to be any good till six months to be on the pike because I got to take care of everybody else but I'll be up there sorting it out on stage with me in a scene and then I'll get it my stand-in to do it and I'll go out there and it'll be awful then I'll fix it then I'll step into it and it'll feel so weird yeah it doesn't feel right but it's right for this the director sign so that's why you have to trust in the director what do you like doing better performing whichever I'm doing at the moment whatever I'm doing at the moment I'm so fickle as long as I'm into it at the moment that's all I can ask for in life like this interview we are so into it it's really great now that you mentioned I remember there are cameras here no but that's that's it that's the secret to living that's it I'm sure of it and of course when you're in a show you're performing in a show every moment you're it's to the nth degree this feeling what does it take to get you to sign to something what are you looking for when a project comes to you be it directing or performing I don't know if it activates my imagination if I start seeing it because I read lots and lots of scripts and there's really a lot of tripe out there but every once in a while I picked up a script and I'll start to read it and I read really slowly when I read a script because I gotta imagine it as it's happening or I'm not giving it a fair shake so it's a drain when someone says I've written the script would you read it yes but it's such a commitment but when you start in like in in in five lines you find yourself going what's gonna happen next well it's the most wonderful thing in the world you go oh oh oh wow this is something this is something and then I start saying yeah this could happen like this in this game you know it's thrilling but it doesn't happen much yeah Grand Hotel is I understand it up until just before you open there was a lot of work on that show oh yeah but I seem to have difficult but with all my shows you know my one and only was just awful out of town yeah and and everybody's always so amazed nowadays because you can go on the internet and find out how a show did and it's out-of-town tryout they're always bad at least my shows are always bad Grand Hotel it was just awful seesaw was just a mess my one and only was shambles shambles and nine I didn't get an out-of-town tryout yeah so but it was never as good as the workshop so explain list though what is it then you get it all mounted you're doing it you're performing on these out-of-town tryouts and you're seeing what isn't working why didn't you see that before and I don't know because you go in thinking that you've got it great you have to or you can't start rehearsal you go in with that script and went this is it I've got it down it's right I never say well we'll fix that once we get in there oh no I've got it and you put it all together and bit by bit it seems to be working and you put it all together and you run it and you go oh my god now what do I do you know Grand Hotel you had a song put in right before you open - correct with the barrel yeah I had it I had to get a lot of work done on that show so then what drew you to it initially why what was it that spoke to you tell you one there he cuz some have some have not why that the haves and the have-nots in this world it it I was interested because they put it like that some have some have not why and what's the answer that you've come up with I don't know but it sure was good plummeting yeah the question how much of your life have you given up sacrificed for the theater I think too much probably but I don't I don't know how to work any other way do you know I haven't taken time to smell the roses and I didn't make a family and those are things that at this age I think about it but I think it's never too late you can stop and smell the roses and I have a godchild that I'm just besotted with I love this child and and I Chris we christened him last Sunday and I was the Godfather so I held him and his mother dressed him we'd read these she dressed she got a suit just like my suit for him I mean we were a trip and I you know I just love this child and he's 20 months old now and to watch him grow and I just want to stick around and watch how Luca grows that's fascinates me you know so those things I missed out on but I haven't missed out on him because I'm doing him now yeah is there something you wish you'd done career-wise that you didn't do no no I have no regrets really have no regrets it's interesting though how things have changed like this thing about being gay it was absolutely stuffed and if you wanted to have a career in the theatre you could not let anybody know anything about your personal life and you had to live another thing and then when it came out I lost a very important movie role because there is a prejudiced against gay male gay actors in Hollywood there is they can they don't you and play in a part but if you're supposed to be a leading man and you're there there's something that happens but that's fine because I didn't like making movies anyway I like the idea of starring in a movie I like the idea of it that was my ego but I really don't like making movies I think it's boring I like being on the stage with an audience there's a story about when you first one your first Tony Award - that you had brought your male companion as your date and that they seated you with a pole between the two of you and they did show you thanks so much I mean first of all the word gay didn't exist it didn't exist when I was growing up because we've changed it's changed a lot it really has does I know as to grind about it does it surprise you that there was a prejudice in the theatre of all places well there wasn't really in the theatre I'm in Hollywood television theater not really no I don't think so I haven't run into it yeah which is another part of the I guess well another reason for I loved it I feel accepted do you know how early did you know Oh Jung ah well see I lived I lived a very sheltered life I didn't know how babies were made like I was 17 and I didn't know how babies were made and I kissed the girl across the street and I was worried that she was gonna get pregnant that was then I mean now everything's turn on the TV reality yeah I mean you know it's it's just it's a different time I love it I love that everything but we've lost something - we've lost some nuance and that's what I think the theatre has lost with with the advent of sound that you can turn it up and everybody can have a steroid voice and they do it with knobs right everybody I think we've lost nuance and I think that's what I have to bring and I have brought in my shows and why I why I loved working with Twiggy because she's not a yah she-she-she gives a nuanced performance because she's a very three-dimensional woman and it's fascinating what challenges you in your personal life to this day one of the challenges that you want to conquer well the physical challenge of dancing at this age I face every day and I work very hard every day I do something that challenges me physically so I will be able to sing and dance and act on the stage and and that doesn't get easier with age but I get better yeah I reign in I was all over the place I was six foot six of blob and now I keep raining it in and it's it's better it's more controlled it's it's finessed and so I'm always working on that but you have to do a lot of a lot of being on stage is the tip of the iceberg and all of this under is your life preparing for that little bit above the water do you get to the point where you say enough already I've done all of this little part up here I don't need to keep doing that I think I thought that this morning when I woke up but they had to get on the plane at some ungodly hour to get here for this performance tonight and I hadn't really slept because the night before you travel you don't really sleep you know because I'm conscientious you know I'm never late all of that so this morning I thought oh and then you know I'm here and we're rehearsing and all these people are here and it's gonna be a show and there's gonna be people there and it's one night only you know and I'm gonna be nervous at least until I get on well yeah yeah always I think if I didn't then I should stop because you have to care that much yeah am I gonna get it right tonight am I gonna do the best that I yes come on do it do it and you know you never do it's always there's always a hangnail somewhere but you know you get the Clippers out for the next performance yeah now you have quite a few Tony Awards well-known for your Tony win there are people in Houston Texas who are thrilled because they have Tommy to Oh Tommy I know isn't that cool does that mean you oh it's just so sweet when when Frank from theater under stars called and said we figured this out Broadway has it's Tony's and we would like Houston to have its Tommy's oh I was so flattered and that it's high school because that's when it all started for me and it's awards to excellence in high school and musical theater in the musical theater I love it I'm so proud I'm so proud of that now what is your record with Tony's it just got tied though actually write in it for four nine four different categories something like I'm in four different categories I won nine Tony's and I won two Tony's back-to-back years directing choreographing for Grand Hotel and directing and choreographing for the Will Rogers Follies okay silly question did you win the recognition and the awards for the right shows in your career do you think oh how interesting I keep talking about the one that got away or something these well I think the best work that I ever did was not eligible for a Tony but it won the the Obie the off-broadway Oscar and that was cloud9 that was the best piece of material that I ever had and of course the better material you have the better tailor you become well so that was really original thought and I've never had that quality in the musical I've had great music yeah well Tommy tune we're out of time it happens that way see how fast like those yeah thank you so much for taking the time to sit down and talk with us it's my pleasure Tommy to to order a transcript call eight six six six five two three three seven eight or sudden $6.95 to the address on your screen please include the name of the guests

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Keywords: tommy, tune, on, innerviews, with, ernie, manouse, interview, hello, dolly, nine, grand, hotel, will, rogers, follies, time, tony, award, winner, the, best, little, whorehouse, in, texas, broadway, houston, pbs, channel

Id: zCGtB9J4hUg

Length: 27min 0sec (1620 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 07 2011