TAKING A TAXI! My article about Mickey Rooney from the NY TIMES!

ArtsBeat - New York Times Blog SEARCH ‘Taking a Taxi’: Remembering Mickey Rooney on Broadway By GLEN ROVEN APRIL 8, 2014, 12:25 PM 11 Comments E-MAIL FACEBOOK TWITTER SAVE MORE Mickey Rooney in "Sugar Babies" at London's Savoy Theater in 1988. Express Newspapers, via Associated Press Mickey Rooney in “Sugar Babies” at London’s Savoy Theater in 1988. Glen Roven, the original musical director of “Sugar Babies,” shared this reminiscence of working with Mickey Rooney on Broadway in what became the actor’s late-in-life comeback triumph. Mr. Rooney died on Sunday at 93. After bumpy tryouts in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago and Philadelphia,“Sugar Babies” opened on Broadway on Oct. 8, 1979. The show — a celebration of burlesque starring Mickey Rooney and Ann Miller — finally settled down for nice, comfortable long run. Except with Mickey it was always a roller coaster. As the person who conducted the show every night, I was along for the ride for almost three memorable years. I remember meeting him for the first time. I was taller, but not by much, and we could look each other in the eye. I was 19; I said I hoped that my being young didn’t bother him. “Kid, when I was 16 I was the biggest box office star in the world,” he said. “You’ll do fine.” Our rapport continued during the run. When the spotlight first hit Mickey during each performance at the Mark Hellinger Theater, if he didn’t get the gigantic ovation he had gotten used to, he looked at me and would whisper, “Taking a taxi tonight, Glen.” That meant he would take all the numbers at a breakneck speed no matter what. He would still give a brilliant performance, just faster than usual. A lot faster. I was able to keep up with him, barely. But I enjoyed the challenge. Things would be fine in the solo numbers, but in the duet with Ann, it was a bit trickier. He would be “taking a taxi” and Ann would do it at the exact same tempo every night. Conducting a duet at two different tempos was something I never learned in school. One night, I remember, there was a particular sporting event that Mickey wanted to watch on pay per view. But the show was 10 minutes too long and he wouldn’t make it home in time for the start. We had a juggler in the show and he was doing so well that the producers gave him two spots. Mickey offered him $10,000 to cut 10 minutes off his routines — a thousand for every minute cut. Mickey saw the beginning of the game. I once got a page on the intercom during intermission. “Mr. Roven to Mr. Rooney’s dressing room.” I panicked, quickly running through the first act in my head. Did I do something wrong? Was a tempo too fast, too slow, did I miss a cue? I gently knocked on his dressing-room door. There was Mick (as he liked to be called) in his underwear, jumping around. “Glen, I just thought of this great movie. I want to do it for you.” And Mickey Rooney then proceeded to act out this entire movie musical in his dressing room — all the parts, all the songs, all the choreography. I was 19 and there was Mickey, performing just for me in his underwear. My favorite bit of his in the show was the end of the first act when he was in drag playing Francine. (“Someone just asked me if that was Hortense? I said, ‘Why no. She looks perfectly relaxed to me.’”) Mickey knew I loved it, so he would do anything to crack me up, and of course the funnier he was the more the audience laughed. One inspired evening Francine, completely out of the blue, took an improvised world tour, announcing she had gotten a group rate from the Hadassah girls. I nearly fell off the podium. I remember the night after the Oscars, the year he was nominated for “The Black Stallion.” We had canceled a performance so he could attend. After so many decades in show business, he was the favorite, but he ended up losing to Melvyn Douglas for “Being There.” The night he returned, when the spotlight found him as usual, he received the biggest ovation ever, bigger than the first preview in San Francisco, bigger than opening night in New York. It simply wouldn’t stop. He tried to start the show but the audience wouldn’t let him. Finally as the applause begin to die down, one woman shouted out, “You should have won!” And the applause started up again. Mickey start to tear up. I started to cry. I saw the entire company crying. That’s the performance I will always remember.