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[0:05] Blake Ross: If the saga of Rebecca has wetted your appetite for more true crime stories with the drama of Broadway, then this episode is for you.

[0:15] Blake Ross: I am thrilled to welcome back my former colleague and current friend, Robert Viagas.

[0:21] Robert Viagas: Hello, Miss Ross.

[0:22] Blake Ross: How are you?

[0:23] Robert Viagas: How are you doing?

[0:24] Blake Ross: I'm doing great.

[0:25] Robert Viagas: Doing great, having fun as editor of Encore Monthly.

[0:29] Blake Ross: Yes, for all of you theater lovers out there, if you haven't already, subscribe to Encore, a new very flashy glossy from Robert Viagas.

[0:37] Robert Viagas: Woohoo!

[0:38] Blake Ross: It's really is a beautiful magazine.

[0:40] Robert Viagas: Thank you for bringing it into the world during COVID after all of that.

[0:43] Blake Ross: COVID.

[0:44] Robert Viagas: COVID was the best time.

[0:46] Blake Ross: It was.

[0:47] Robert Viagas: They had people had no Broadway, and this was their way to stay connected with Broadway.

[0:51] Blake Ross: Well, thank you for bringing us Encore.

[0:53] Robert Viagas: And thank you for putting my event with Bernadette Peters on the inaugural cover.

[0:58] Blake Ross: Um it was a wonderful event.

[1:00] Robert Viagas: It was in the darkest moments of this whole thing.

[1:03] Blake Ross: You guys organized big stars, incredibly talented people to stand in Times Square and sing show tunes.

[1:11] Robert Viagas: And you know, it just doesn't get any better than that.

[1:14] Blake Ross: I was proud to put that on the cover.

[1:16] Robert Viagas: Well, thank you for having us, and thank you for coming on to my little old podcast.

[1:23] Blake Ross: Um, one of my favorite things about Mr. Viagas here is that um he's a great theater historian, a wonderful journalist, and a big ol' gossip.

[1:32] Blake Ross: And so if you ever want to know anything of what's going on, really know behind the scenes.

[1:38] Robert Viagas: Um sit beside me.

[1:40] Blake Ross: Exactly.

[1:40] Robert Viagas: Come sit beside Viagas.

[1:42] Blake Ross: So I knew that when I wanted to do an episode all about the crazy ass shit that has gone on throughout the years on Broadway, I knew exactly who to call.

[1:52] Blake Ross: And so I'm very thrilled to have you on, Viagas.

[1:55] Robert Viagas: I'm happy to be here, and I love talking about all the things that go on on uh the amazing Broadway, especially when times when there's as much drama backstage as there is on the stage.

[2:07] Blake Ross: Exactly. All right, so let's get started. My first story that I have selected is the notorious producer Garth Drabinsky.

[2:18] Blake Ross: So if you were a fan of the, or even around in the theaters in the late 90s, early 2000s, you knew about mega producer Garth Drabinsky.

[2:28] Robert Viagas: He won three Tonys for shows like Kiss of the Spider Woman, Showboat, Fossey.

[2:34] Blake Ross: He also was the guy behind the amazing revival of ragtime with Brian Stokes.

[2:39] Robert Viagas: Well, the original the original ragtime.

[2:41] Blake Ross: Sorry, excuse me. The original ragtime with Brian Stokes, Mitchell, Lodge McDonald, Marin Maisie.

[2:47] Robert Viagas: He was a big shot on Broadway.

[2:49] Blake Ross: Tell me a little bit about Drabinsky.

[2:52] Robert Viagas: When it came on the scene, Drabinsky had been in movies. He got involved with the uh Cineplex Odeon sort of scandal.

[3:01] Robert Viagas: Um, and then he decided that he didn't want to uh that he wanted to work in the theater.

[3:06] Robert Viagas: And you know something? I I have a little bit of sympathy for him because his dreams were always so much bigger than his pocketbook.

[3:14] Robert Viagas: Um he had these ideas of these these big shows. I mean, look at look at ragtime he got.

[3:19] Robert Viagas: All he did was he just put together all the most talented people in front of the stage, behind the scenes, and he just put together this thing that was incredible to look at, incredibly inspiring.

[3:31] Robert Viagas: And there is just no way that show could ever have really turned a profit.

[3:37] Robert Viagas: It really needed to be in a much bigger theater, of which there was none.

[3:41] Robert Viagas: Um, and uh it needed to run for 25 years, which it just wound up not doing.

[3:46] Robert Viagas: Unfortunately, it opened opposite the Lion King, and Lion King scooped up a lot of awards that I know they were kind of hoping to get for themselves.

[3:55] Blake Ross: Um, but it was an incredible show.

[3:57] Robert Viagas: And by the way, we mentioned the theater. He actually was responsible for getting the taking two of the old Broadway theaters and putting the money out there to come to essentially tear them down.

[4:09] Robert Viagas: They just kept part of the facade. Built a gorgeous new theater, one of the biggest on Broadway, found a sponsor, Ford, the Ford Automobiles, and it became the Ford Center.

[4:20] Robert Viagas: And it was he he created uh a new Broadway theater, and he's he was one of the people who is not Disney who was able to uh get a theater that was revived on 42nd Street at a time when all those that that area was so run down.

[4:35] Blake Ross: So, you know, give him props for that.

[4:37] Robert Viagas: It was only one little problem.

[4:38] Blake Ross: He just didn't have the money.

[4:40] Robert Viagas: Well, just a little bit of a problem of just not having money.

[4:44] Robert Viagas: A little bit of a problem of forgery.

[4:47] Blake Ross: That's right.

[4:48] Robert Viagas: Um to the tune now, he's Canadian, and so he was convicted in a Canadian court of defrauding a forgery and defrauding shareholders of about 500 million Canadian dollars.

[4:59] Robert Viagas: Now, the Canadian dollars is not quite up to snuff with the US dollars. However, that's still a large amount of money, Via Guess.

[5:07] Blake Ross: Yes.

[5:08] Robert Viagas: He wasn't, he wasn't exactly uh just uh a little guy with big dreams.

[5:13] Blake Ross: Well, no, he was a big guy with with way too big dreams, unfortunately.

[5:18] Robert Viagas: And and it was like a classic uh classic Ponzi scheme.

[5:22] Robert Viagas: I think at some point he thought um, you know, constantly borrowing from Peter to pay Paul that eventually Peter wouldn't notice it, but eventually Peter did.

[5:32] Blake Ross: But wasn't he also cooking the books? Like they were two.

[5:34] Robert Viagas: He had two completely separate sets of yes, he did.

[5:38] Robert Viagas: He had one that he would show people and the and then the actual one.

[5:41] Robert Viagas: And he and you know, people suspected something was was going on.

[5:45] Robert Viagas: When they did that big revival of Candide, uh, which opened at the um uh what's the what's now the Gershwin Theater, um there was just nobody in that theater.

[5:56] Blake Ross: That the you know, there were sagebrushes were rolling down the aisles in that theater.

[6:01] Robert Viagas: And he kept saying, No, no, it's great, it's doing great, it's doing great.

[6:05] Robert Viagas: And we just think they must be losing a bomb of money on this show.

[6:08] Robert Viagas: That show, unfortunately, is one of those shows that just never really made money.

[6:13] Blake Ross: Um, but no, he would insist.

[6:15] Robert Viagas: And if you if you even questioned, uh, as we did many times, uh, well, where's all the money coming from?

[6:22] Robert Viagas: Man, he would get angry.

[6:23] Robert Viagas: He bang on the desk.

[6:24] Robert Viagas: He would really, he did not like to be questioned.

[6:27] Robert Viagas: And he would call, he'd get like two or three calls in the course of an afternoon because he'd get mad, he'd call and yell, and then he'd calm down, and then he'd get mad again, and then he'd call and yell again.

[6:37] Blake Ross: Um but in the end, he he was spent time in jail.

[6:40] Robert Viagas: There I was gonna say, so in 2009, he was sentenced to seven years.

[6:45] Blake Ross: And again, this was in Canada.

[6:47] Robert Viagas: Yeah, he was also charged with something in the US, but he never came back to the United States, so he was a fugitive from the US while he was in prison, right?

[6:57] Robert Viagas: That's correct.

[6:59] Blake Ross: What's crazy to me, is so in 2009 he gets sentenced to seven years in Canada.

[7:04] Blake Ross: He gets out of jail, and he's still and he starts producing again.

[7:09] Robert Viagas: Uh, I hate to tell you, he has a show that he's putting up now.

[7:13] Blake Ross: I know.

[7:13] Robert Viagas: So, but the so before the show he's putting up now, which is going to Broadway, which is wild to me.

[7:19] Robert Viagas: Paradise Square.

[7:20] Blake Ross: It's going to be.

[7:21] Robert Viagas: Yes.

[7:21] Robert Viagas: He has this show Paradise Square that's coming, that's that has oh, really, it's Mois S. Kaufman is directing it.

[7:27] Robert Viagas: Bill T. Jones is the choreographer.

[7:30] Blake Ross: It's about the uh it's about the draft riot, the the it's this it's setting before the draft riots in the early um the the late 1800s, right?

[7:41] Robert Viagas: Mm-hmm.

[7:41] Robert Viagas: That's right.

[7:42] Robert Viagas: And the it's uh a New York, something that happened in New York.

[7:44] Robert Viagas: It's based on a historical New York uh um a thing that happened here.

[7:49] Blake Ross: So he is he's allowed to produce that and he is it coming to the US.

[7:54] Robert Viagas: It's it was it's it was produced at Berkeley, and then it's supposed to be coming to Broadway because the US charges of which he was a he was uh he was um on the lamb for were subsequently dropped after 10 years.

[8:09] Robert Viagas: But even when he was still on the lamb after he got out of jail, he produced a show.

[8:09] Robert Viagas: He produced a show with Vicky Clark.

[8:16] Blake Ross: You know, it reminds me of the scene at the very end of the movie of the producers, where even though they've been sent to jail for ripping people off, they're in jail and they're putting together a musical called Prisoners of Love, and once again they're trying to they're trying to defraud people out of money.

[8:33] Robert Viagas: Well, um I guess, you know, as as Berkeley Berkeley rep, which put on Paradise Square, um, you know, the organizers there believe that everybody deserves a second chance and that you know he served his time, and so we'll see if that if that makes a big Broadway comeback.

[8:49] Blake Ross: But wow, wouldn't that be something if he actually had a hit after all that Michigas?

[8:55] Robert Viagas: Well, you know, um, he I'm you know, I was I was comparing it to Prisoners of Love. He's not in jail now.

[9:02] Robert Viagas: And in fact, um, the show is gonna try out in uh Chicago at the Niederlander Theater there.

[9:08] Robert Viagas: And I'm sure the Nederlanders, after all they've been through and all he's been through, I'm sure that they have checked those books seven ways to Sunday.

[9:16] Robert Viagas: I'm sure they are being very, very careful.

[9:19] Blake Ross: Wow. Well, we'll see what what comes of that.

[9:21] Blake Ross: But that that was one of the more interesting uh uh white collar crimes of Broadway.

[9:28] Blake Ross: My next big Broadway drama is probably one of my favorite because it's just so silly.

[9:34] Blake Ross: Um, well, it's not silly to the people it happened to, but in hindsight, it is quite silly.

[9:39] Blake Ross: And that is Jeremy Piven and Sushi Gate.

[9:44] Blake Ross: Now, the setting of this one is in 2008, Jeremy Piven is a really big star.

[9:51] Blake Ross: He stars in the HBO show Entourage, and he is then cast for his broad, I think it's his Broadway debut, even though he comes from a long line of theater, um, a theater family, but I think it's his Broadway debut.

[10:04] Blake Ross: He's in a big revival of Speed the Plow, uh, which became famous uh as Madonna's one and only Broadway credit.

[10:14] Blake Ross: But he's cast in the revival opposite Raul Esparza and Elizabeth Moss from Mad Men.

[10:20] Blake Ross: So this is a big ritzy, limited revival that's coming back to Broadway in 2008.

[10:27] Blake Ross: Soon into their rehearsals, Piven starts citing some health concerns as to why he is missing some rehearsals and and ultimately previews and things like that, because um of a myriad of different illnesses, uh, one of which includes mercury poisoning from eating too much sushi.

[10:50] Blake Ross: He says he ate too much sushi and got mercury poisoning.

[10:54] Robert Viagas: You have to eat a lot of sushi to get mercury poisoning.

[10:58] Blake Ross: But uh of all the reasons that he could have given, that was the reason that he gave.

[11:02] Blake Ross: And that's why he said, I just I can't, I've been missing performances, I just can't go on with this show.

[11:08] Robert Viagas: Yes.

[11:09] Blake Ross: And then he ultimately drops out of the show.

[11:11] Blake Ross: Now, the person he goes up against in this battle is the producer Jeffrey Richards.

[11:47] Robert Viagas: And Jeffrey Richards is a few.

[11:47] Blake Ross: He's a good guy, Jeff Richards.

[11:47] Robert Viagas: Are you being facetious?

[11:47] Blake Ross: No, I'm not.

[11:47] Robert Viagas: He put on, he puts on a lot of wonderful revival.

[11:47] Robert Viagas: He does, but he's a tough cookie.

[11:47] Blake Ross: Oh, he's a tough cookie, no question.

[11:47] Robert Viagas: He's a very, very tough cookie and a peculiar one at that.

[11:47] Blake Ross: And so Jeffrey Richards is no wilting wallflower, not somebody I would want to go up against in any in any uh argument, because he's a very tough cookie.

[11:47] Robert Viagas: So Jeffrey Richards, who as you know puts up a lot of wonderful shows and is a premier producer of lots of mammoth shows, whether or not you like Mammoth is neither here nor there, but Jeffrey Richards is a big champion of him.

[11:59] Robert Viagas: He and uh Neil Pepe, who is the director, they go to to uh seek some sort of arbitration with actor's equity after uh after Piven drops out because of mercury poisoning.

[12:16] Blake Ross: What comes out of that disagreement is a whole lot of mudslinging. He says, I was on death's door, I was at the hospital, I have been eating fish twice a day for 20 years, so I'm exhausted. I have mercury poisoning. I also have Epstein Bar, which I think is also uh Epstein Bar is um uh what's it called? The kissing disease. Do you know what I'm talking about? Mono, mono. Mono nucleosis. It's mono. That's what everybody got in college and had to sit out a couple of weeks of college from. So he says, I have mono, and I have uh mercury poisoning from eating twit fish twice a day, and I'm at death's door. To which they reply, nah, you were at Britney Spears' birthday party living it up, you were at cocktail parties, you've been out partying all the live long day, and they went into arbitration because of this.

[12:45] Robert Viagas: Do you know what the can you tell me what the outcome was after all this in fighting due to a role?

[13:28] Blake Ross: They just replaced him, but and now he's been now he's uh involved with a me too uh issue.

[13:35] Robert Viagas: Oh, is he?

[13:36] Blake Ross: I didn't realize that.

[13:37] Robert Viagas: Yes, what kind of me too issue?

[13:39] Blake Ross: Um, a woman um on the set of entourage says that he groped her breasts and buttocks, and he's denying it.

[13:47] Robert Viagas: Hmm. Well, it's funny because well, it's not funny, but it's interesting. After all of this, he drops out of the show. I think William H. Macy replaced him, which who I saw was actually an excellent production. Bill Macy was amazing in it.

[14:01] Blake Ross: He's always great.

[14:02] Robert Viagas: Yeah. They took a step up, I have to say.

[14:05] Blake Ross: Yes. Well, did you see Piven in it?

[14:07] Robert Viagas: I I saw I saw Macy in it, not Viv.

[14:09] Blake Ross: Okay. So he drops out and never to return. The show still recoups, and Bill Macy is great in it. But Piven kind of became the butt of a lot of jokes because of this. And he after Entourage, he it he hasn't really had, he had that Miss Pepper, I think it was called on um that TV show on uh on PBS, and now he's doing stand-up, stand-up comedy, but I don't really I don't know that he really made any sort of big huge career moves after that.

[14:43] Robert Viagas: Well, you know, it's it's there's so many actors out there, so many people working hard and competing with each other. You really don't want to have any kind of a black mark next to your name, no matter how talented you are. I mean, you and I could sit here and we could mention a number of actresses and actors who um they've just gotten a b a bad rep. They that they're people who was they may have uh pushed somebody around, something got into the newspapers, and now these people have a difficult time getting work. That's people just don't want to don't want to work with them. They want to, they appreciate their talent, but they don't want to have to go through the tsurus of of dealing with these people on a on a day-after-day basis. And there's a lot of people in the industry you can put in that category.

[15:28] Blake Ross: Yeah, who were in the industry. We won't we won't mention names, uh we won't mention too many names. Um, but I will say that actors after going through arbitration with actors equity, they actually ended up um coming down on the side of Piven after all this, that he was ill and that um he didn't hold any um any fault in the matter.

[15:54] Robert Viagas: Do you remember what was said at arbitration?

[15:56] Blake Ross: I do not. What did they say?

[15:58] Robert Viagas: Um they basically said that um they had given that he had said, please have your doctor check me out to the production, and that the doctors didn't end up checking him out, and um, you know, all of the all of the uh the examples of him going out and partying were few and far between, and it wasn't him going out and partying every single night, but it was just a couple of blowing off steam moments here or there. I mean, if I was invited to Britney Spears' birthday party, I'd go to it, no matter how much sushi I'd eaten the night before.

[16:33] Blake Ross: But actor's equity did did uh did come down on his side. He exited uh not so gracefully. William H. Macy um ended up taking over for him. The show did quite well, and Piven never worked on Broadway again. So I guess TBD as to whether or not anyone will ever take him on again.

[16:52] Robert Viagas: But that was a good one.

[16:52] Blake Ross: Well, I mean, he he did do he did do that HBO series Entourage. That was a pretty big deal for him.

[16:56] Robert Viagas: Uh that was not but that was before all this.

[17:02] Blake Ross: Well, no, it had this this kind of happened uh after this. I mean, he was he was work, he was appearing on the show at the time of the um the arbitration when he was quote unquote completely exonerated. Uh but I think some of the damage was uh was still.

[17:17] Robert Viagas: Well, entourage was before, that's why he was so famous.

[17:20] Blake Ross: Entourage was before the show. He was famous, then he was in Spread the Plow. But then ever since then, nothing really came up. Like I said, he was in that Mrs. Pepper Jiz, I don't know how it said, uh PBS show after that, but never came back, never came back to Broadway. So I guess TBD as to whether or not anybody else will take him on.

[17:37] Robert Viagas: Yeah. So you know, you have to be careful, you know, you have to you have to tread carefully, and something like that after. If the even though he was uh you know if he was found the the in arbitration he was found to have been justified I a lot of the damage was already done.

[17:54] Blake Ross: Yeah that's for sure. That's for sure. Like you said I don't know that anybody would necessarily want to take on undergo that liability after all of that craziness comes out after it. But anyway okay on to our next scandal this one is also very interesting and probably not very well known to uh people who weren't alive or around in the 1970s and that is of probably one of the biggest white collar criminals to be associated with with the stage uh Miss Adela Holzer Adela Adela is Adela is cool she did so she she came from Spain first of all she was an immigrant and she got involved in all sorts of businesses food importing and all sorts of things but she had an eye on Broadway and I have to say even with all her crimes for which she did serve time a lot of them were not specifically related to Broadway.

She wasn't trying to um steal money from Broadway investors or defraud people. She defrauded other people to get money to get money for Broadway. So this is her hobby. So she in the 70s she's the well she's the wife of I believe her of a shipping magnate she has numerous degrees or at least that's what she says. A lot of what she says to the press can't necessarily be verified. So everything she's a big take it with a grain of salt, but she's a wife of a shipping magnate. She has numerous degrees. She's living in a Ritzy townhouse on the Upper East Side, and she's one of the few women that's able to play in the big leagues of theater producing in the 70s. She starts her career off investing in hair.

Right. So she's she goes, she's produces a show with Dustin Hoffman. She produces the original writs. Terence McNally's The Ritz. So she's a bona fide big deal on Broadway in the 70s. Terence McNally, who wrote the book to Ragtime. So he's is on the periphery of all these these scams. He was a great guy, but he was on the periphery of these scams.

[20:00] Robert Viagas: Yes, yeah. So in 79, Adela is indicted for running a Ponzi scheme on a Toyota dealership in Indonesia. And her lawyer is Roy Cohn.

[20:16] Blake Ross: So Roy Cohn is one of her lawyers. In that first Ponzi scheme that she's indicted in, one of the investors in that scheme was a man named Jeffrey Pickower, who then was later implicated in the Bernie Madoff scam. So this she has lots of interesting characters all around her throughout her life. So she serves two years in prison. She gets out of prison, and then this is my favorite part. She produces a show about Joseph McCarthy called Senator Joe.

[20:51] Robert Viagas: Did you know?

[20:52] Blake Ross: A musical.

[20:53] Robert Viagas: Yes, a musical.

[20:54] Blake Ross: A musical, Senator Joe. So of course, Roy Cohn was.

[20:59] Robert Viagas: Yes, Roy Cohn's nemesis, or Roy Cohn was his nemesis.

[21:03] Blake Ross: Well, no, it wasn't. No, no, no. No, I'm sorry, no, they were, I'm sorry. They were on the same side.

[21:07] Robert Viagas: Yes, yes, yes. Cohn, famously, of uh lots of things, including Donald Trump's lawyer lawyer and very depicted in Angels in America, was Joe McCarthy's hatchet man pursuing communists in the United States. She gets out of jail after being represented by Roy Cohn and then makes a musical about Joe McCarthy McCarthy. Crazy.

[21:32] Robert Viagas: Did you see it?

[21:34] Blake Ross: No, I haven't seen it. Have you seen it?

[21:36] Robert Viagas: I saw it twice.

[21:37] Blake Ross: Oh god. It tried out at Westport Country Playhouse, and I got to see it when it was up there, and then I saw it when it was on Broadway.

[21:44] Robert Viagas: Was it any good?

[21:46] Blake Ross: There were, you know, people talk about Carrie and like these moments, these sort of uh springtime for Hitler moments in Carrie. There were plenty of them in Senator Joe. Plenty. There was a number where they had all these dancing.

[22:02] Robert Viagas: Wait, like real springtime for Hitler moments?

[22:05] Blake Ross: No, like the numbers would end and people wouldn't applaud or boo. They would just be stunned into silence.

[22:12] Robert Viagas: Okay, so it was great.

[22:13] Blake Ross: There should be a revival really quick, huh?

[22:15] Robert Viagas: Mm-hmm.

[22:16] Blake Ross: Okay. I like I like the dancing blood corpuscle scene. There was one scene that took place, I believe, in his liver or something, and um the uh the blood corpuscles were were uh dancing and singing. It was very peculiar.

[22:31] Robert Viagas: Huh. Interesting.

[22:33] Blake Ross: So Dear Adela is then arrested again after she produces a show. She ends up, all in all, I I don't know how many times she was arrested, but she ends up spending 14 years of her life behind bars um for all different types of schemes. One scheme involves her having an imaginary marriage to David Rockefeller.

[22:57] Robert Viagas: Yes, she claimed to be his secret wife.

[23:00] Blake Ross: Yes. And people, and that's bad, but people believed it and gave her money.

[23:06] Robert Viagas: Yes, people believe she didn't know. Somebody who's married to Rockefeller needs money.

[23:11] Blake Ross: But she would use it to raise money.

[23:13] Robert Viagas: Yes.

[23:13] Blake Ross: And she bolstered the lie with a fake marriage license and a framed photo of him at her bedside that was clipped out of a magazine. And then when the detectives approached her on East 43rd Street to make her arrest, she ran and was pinned to the hood of a car and handcuffs, and she said, I ran away because I thought you were muggers.

[23:41] Robert Viagas: This is a fantastic story. I think this needs to be a play.

[23:44] Blake Ross: She's a musical.

[23:48] Robert Viagas: Then she's not done yet.

[23:51] Blake Ross: Oh no. Then she's in her 70s. In 2001, she has another scheme. This time she has and another relationship, another fake relationship. This time, did you hear the next fake relationship that she was in?

[24:05] Robert Viagas: Go ahead.

[24:07] Blake Ross: Strom Thurman.

[24:09] Robert Viagas: The senator.

[24:23] Robert Viagas: She was jailed with Gene Harris, who was the woman who was convicted in the murder of the Flower Madam.

[24:30] Blake Ross: The Scarsdale Diet.

[24:32] Robert Viagas: Scarsdale Diet Doctor, right?

[24:33] Blake Ross: Yes.

[24:34] Robert Viagas: So she serves us as her like publicist behind bars. So she's a very she's a fascinating woman. Anyway, like I said, she goes to jail for 14 years and ends up getting out, released in prison in 2010 in her 80s.

[24:49] Blake Ross: And she just died last year.

[24:52] Robert Viagas: 2019, she died.

[24:54] Blake Ross: I think it was 2020.

[24:56] Robert Viagas: September 2020 was when her obit ran in the New York Times. Either way, she just died, I think. And my the funniest part of the obituary was they didn't really know her age. Because she was told so many lies. They said she could be anywhere in her 90s. They didn't know her exact age.

[25:11] Blake Ross: That's right. Actually, as we're talking, I just looked this up. She died September 1st, 2019.

[25:17] Robert Viagas: Okay.

[25:17] Blake Ross: And her birth, it says circa December 14th, 1928.

[25:23] Robert Viagas: Even they weren't sure. Fascinating.

[25:25] Blake Ross: What a fascinating document. By the way, I'm sorry, I called her Mayflower Madam before. That was completely wrong. Scarsdale Diet. Scarsdale Diet Doctor. I knew it was one of those tabloid-y names, but I just want to correct that very quickly.

[25:38] Robert Viagas: Yes.

[25:38] Blake Ross: Either way, fascinating lady.

[25:41] Robert Viagas: Yes. Well, you know, she came to America and she just decided to pursue her dream. And uh, and you know, she had she didn't really have um, you know, guidelines. She just was like, I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna get what I want, and if I need to make up some things, everybody makes up things, so I'm gonna make things up too.

[26:04] Blake Ross: If you're gonna make up somebody to get married to, probably not Strom Thurman.

[26:09] Robert Viagas: Oh, all the people.

[26:11] Blake Ross: Okay. Also, not a very popular senator.

[26:15] Robert Viagas: Yeah, it's such a very bizarre.

[26:18] Blake Ross: Oh, wow, how bizarre. You never, this was before your this is before your time. You never met her or really came into contact with her.

[26:24] Robert Viagas: I met her a couple of times. No, I did. I was introduced to her. She was also a big party girl. She used to go out to discos and things.

[26:31] Blake Ross: Oh wow.

[26:32] Robert Viagas: Um when I was very, very young. I I did uh and when I was hanging around with the chorus line people because of my uh working on that book about them. Um we we we crossed paths with her a couple of times.

[26:45] Blake Ross: Anything memorable about your encounters with her?

[26:48] Robert Viagas: Her hair. She had, you know, in a time, this was now the early 80s, I would say, early mid-80s, in a decade that was devoted to big hair, she had amazing hair. She had a um it was it was a helmet. It was in it was incredible. It was power hair. No question about it.

[27:07] Blake Ross: Interesting. Well, she I think I still think there may be a musical here about her.

[27:12] Robert Viagas: How interesting. Okay, well, our our next, I think this is probably gonna be our last one because we've had uh there's there's certainly a lot more, Via, because we might have to do episode two, but this next one, boy, this is a doozy. So this one is about James Barber, which came a little bit later um in Broadway history.

[27:34] Blake Ross: So in 2006, James Barber, who was the star of Beauty and the Beast, Jane Eyre.

[27:46] Robert Viagas: Um, he was charged with committing five felony counts of criminal sexual acts and sexual abuse against a 15-year-old girl.

[27:46] Blake Ross: Ugh.

[27:58] Robert Viagas: So the story is is that in 2001, when he was in Jane Eyre, this girl who was 15 uh goes to the show with her parents. She goes backstage alone into his dressing room where she says that she is sexually abused. And then he then takes them out. He then takes the girl and her parents out to dinner and continuous continues to sexually touch her under the table throughout the meal. That is what prosecutors said upon his arrest in 2006.

[28:37] Blake Ross: Oh boy.

[28:38] Robert Viagas: Yes. And then on top of that, they had another encounter the month following to go see a friend of his perform in a show, and then he took her back to his apartment on the upper west side, where again, prosecu prosecutors claimed that they engaged in oral sex. So this is a very, very heavy charge and was a very big story back in 2006 when all this happened. I remember, you know, it was the cover of the post many times about him because he was the beast. I think he was the beast at the time, right? Or he had just come off that run. Do you remember?

[29:19] Blake Ross: I do not remember exactly what the timing was there.

[29:22] Robert Viagas: But it was a lot about him having been the beast on Broadway, and now these beasts.

[29:27] Blake Ross: And now he's a beast, right?

[29:28] Robert Viagas: Yeah. The girl was 15 years old at the and then when when she brought these allegations against him, she was 20. At the time, his attorneys claim that she was doing this just because, you know, the the um statute of limitations were about to expire. Um but sh he ends up a year later in twin in 2007 pleading not guilty no sorry excuse pleading guilty. Yes, he pleaded guilty several charges. Sorry, he in 2008 he ended up pleading guilty to lesser charges of endangering a minor, right? Um and he ends up spending, I think between 30 to 60. 36 days he spent Riker's IAC at Rikers. But he also had to go public with it, and he had to admit it, and he had to, you know, but it was a misdemeanor, so he didn't have to plead, he did not have to register as a sex offender.

I think that was the big uh deal that they cut. But um, my goodness, this was um a very, very yucky thing. The woman who we will not um name here, but the woman who was a girl then, she was is wasn't act is an actress and is a fairly well-known actress. Um but he ended up, I don't know if this would have happened now. I um I would think that things would be a lot different for Barbara, but he ends up going on to to booking a lot of shows, one of which is Rebecca.

[31:06] Blake Ross: Rebecca, that's right. He was supposed to be leading man in Rebecca.

[31:10] Robert Viagas: So wow. This is a he is a talented guy, and um uh I think there are some people, you know, and certainly before um the Me Too movement, a lot of there was a lot of this attitude of boys will be boys, and you know, he said he's sorry and he paid his debt to society, and I think a lot of those things don't fly anymore.

[31:36] Blake Ross: Oh, thank God.

[31:37] Robert Viagas: Especially when there's a pattern.

[31:39] Blake Ross: Especially when there's a pattern like this.

[31:41] Robert Viagas: Yes, and there seem to have been a couple of allegations, although none of them substantiated against Barber. But this girl was 15 years old, which is absolutely disgusting. And somehow has also been part of the Rebecca story as well is sexual abuse against minors. So this one, um, boy, but then it was really flabbergasted then and still am now about it. I don't know how Barber still gets cast and things, but he was recently, I mean, a couple of years ago, he was the Phantom for a long time, for like three years or something. And these these crimes resurfaced, and there was a big hubbub about it, but he still went on as the phantom.

[32:25] Blake Ross: Do you remember that?

[32:26] Robert Viagas: Very, very well. I was surprised. And it just shows that that there are he must have had uh friends in the business who wanted to make sure he continued to get employment. And he was a talented performer. Um, but I if you're going to protect your female employees of all ages, you know, you you have to consider that. You have to consider that strongly. One of the I feel sorry for the women who had to work with him, knowing what they knew.

[32:55] Blake Ross: Oh, yes, I do too. But he keeps on working, although never really, you know, became a huge superstar, but had very, you know, fairly big roles on Broadway. Um, one of my favorite odd factoids about him was then he also became a big headliner for Scientology events. I don't know if he ended up being a Scientologist himself or what it is, but he he headlined a number of different paid appearances for for David Miscavige and the folks, the dear and wonderful folks over at Scientology.

[33:29] Robert Viagas: That's right. And he's he has obviously he has a group of people who protect him. Um and some people who feel that uh that he he's wronged by some of these things, even though he's pleaded guilty. You know, it's one thing, and it's one thing if I know there's a lot of argument. People say, well, um, he's innocent until proven guilty. Uh and I but in this particular case, not only was he proven guilty, he he's he admitted guilt. He admitted that he did it. So uh it's it's uh a mystery to me how some of these when there's so many other people who who tow the line and who are careful and who are respectful um are total creeps, gross and who care and who care about the the women that they they work with as professionals.

[34:21] Blake Ross: That's the thing. Thinking of women as your playthings. What about that song in um succeed in business?

[34:28] Robert Viagas: Women these weren't women, they were girls.

[34:30] Blake Ross: Right, that's right. For me, this holds uh he's it's gross. I don't know how anybody employs him.

[34:35] Robert Viagas: Absolutely disgusting vile. But again, some people get their due, and then others somehow just float through it. I mean, he was in Rikers, but my goodness, it's get then getting cast in the lead role of one of the biggest shows on Broadway. That doesn't really seem like someone who seems like someone got got away with a little bit too much if you ask my opinion.

[34:59] Blake Ross: He was also in Tale of Two Cities. Remember, he was in Tale of Two Cities.

[35:01] Robert Viagas: Yes, I do remember he was in Tale of Two Cities because I do remember meeting him when I was a publicist, uh, and he came to me uh for some publicity of advice, of which I gave him none because gross.

[35:15] Blake Ross: So in any event.

[35:18] Robert Viagas: Good for you.

[35:19] Blake Ross: Well, ugh. How could you do good publicity for somebody with I mean, molesting children is is a bit a bridge too far. This isn't just, you know, uh, oops, some bad TikTok video. I mean, it that's a very big, very big and bad, horrible thing. So in any event, those were our scandals for today. If you would like us to talk about more scandals, of which there are many, many, many in this brand old show, Biz. Uh please let me know. I'm on Instagram at Blake Ross N Y. Let me know what scandals are your favorite, and then I'll bring it back my pal, Viagas, and we'll talk about some more scandals in Broadway.

[36:00] Robert Viagas: What do you think about that, Viaggis?

[36:01] Blake Ross: Oh, I'd love to. I'd love to. I mean, there's some of these scandals are percolating right now.

[36:06] Robert Viagas: Exactly.

[36:07] Blake Ross: Oh, geez. More to come. Thank you for joining us, Viagas.

[36:11] Robert Viagas: My pleasure.

[36:12] Blake Ross: Thank you, Blake.

[36:18] Robert Viagas: For sources and more information on the Rebecca scandal, visit bpn.fm slash Bert.