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[0:00] Michael Riedel: Here, and welcome to my podcast, Singular Sensation, the triumph of Broadway, based on my book that pulls the curtain up on all the great and juicy gossip from Broadway in the 1990s.

[0:23] Michael Riedel: When I was going back and thinking about Sunset Boulevard because I spent a lot of time with those chapters in the book, Singular Sensation, and spent a fair amount of time talking about it with not only Patti and Andrew, but Chris Hampton and Don Black and a number of people involved in it. I found my old Sunset Boulevard mug that I think I got on opening night Broadway that I went to, and I've been alternating between my Phantom of the Opera mug and my Sunset Boulevard mug. And just before I was about to do this podcast, I was drinking out of my Sunset Boulevard mug and I was going to put it in the dishwasher and I dropped it and it broke. And I thought, wow, if that's not a metaphor for what ultimately happened to Sunset Boulevard, I don't know what is.

We'll be back with more Sunset Boulevard after this break. Sunset Boulevard came into New York with a great deal of drama because Andrew Lloyd Webber had hired Patti LuPone, who was Evita in the original production of Broadway, to play Norma Desmond. Frank Rich, who was then the most powerful drama critic in the world, he was the drama critic for the New York Times. Frank Rich went to see Sunset Boulevard when it opened in London. And if you go back, as I did, and look at the review, the review is not terrible for the show. He actually has some nice things to say about Andrew's score, which Frank usually slagged off on Andrew many, many times. But the stake in Patti LuPone's heart was Frank's review, because he said that she was miscast.

She was too young for the role. And as I delved into the story of Sunset Boulevard, I discovered that there were already problems behind the scenes with Patti and her relationship with Andrew Lloyd Webber. And the rest, as we know, is history because Patti LuPone got fired and she got a lot of money and she bought a pool up in Connecticut, which she always called the Andrew Lloyd Webber Memorial Pool. And here's the story of how Patti got her pool.

[2:39] Michael Riedel: So Patti LuPone is made of cast iron, but even cast iron has its weaknesses. And her firing from Sunset Boulevard and the publicity that surrounded it really, it really did hurt her. It really wounded her. And it took her a long time to recover from it. And I also discovered in the course of interviewing people for this book, it also hurt Andrew Lloyd Webber in a way, too, because they had been you have to understand this. Andrew and Patti had been they'd been great friends. Evita was a big hit for the two of them. And there was a longstanding relationship there that was completely torn asunder by Andrew's decision to jettison Patti for Glenn Close. And with Sunset Boulevard, Andrew, who was always around and deeply involved in the shows, he was he was remote during this time and there was not a lot of artistic conversation, artistic conversations going on between Trevor, the director and Andrew, the composer and the set designers.

And I believe that Patti felt that she was adrift. She was at sea with no with no with no captain on the ship. And so now here is Patti. I met her backstage at Warpaint. She was starring in that show on Broadway at the time. And I spent a as I think you'll see, a delicious and very juicy hour and a half with Patti LuPone backstage at Warpaint. Was it always a circus from the moment you started?

[4:22] Patti LuPone: No. So it started out? Okay. Well, because rehearsals didn't have Andrew in them. You know, it's when we got on the set. But I mean, I don't remember him. I remember we rehearsed in Hammersmith. And it was Bob, Avian, Trevor Nunn, and we rehearsed. And I don't remember Andrew being there that much, but that's just me. He could have been, but I mean, that's a question for Bob Avian, but I don't remember him being there. But when we got on the stage, and when the technicals began, that's when the shit started to hit the fan.

[5:04] Michael Riedel: Right, because it was a nightmare, wasn't it?

[5:11] Patti LuPone: The house, the house, the house was all of the, I don't know what you call it. Is it automation? All the stuff that when the house lowered or when the house, you know, tracked forward, there was a glitch, and the house would maybe not descend, or would not descend all the way, or when it hit the deck, it would jerk forward four feet. It was a little scary. But there was no patience to sort it out. There was just lawsuits. I think that Patti LuPone, when I spoke to her, she had a sense that things were not going all that well with the show, because there were some big technical issues. And she had frustrations from the technical standpoint, because I think she said that sometimes the taxi cab dispatchers could move the house around on the set of Sunset Boulevard, and you didn't know if you could live or die right then.

The thing weighs two tons, and you're dancing under it, and if it falls, that's the end of you. And I think she had some frustrations artistically, because she was not getting the help she felt she needed from Trevor Nunn, the director, and indeed from Andrew. So the frustrations were building before she got fired.

[6:19] Patti LuPone: We were all fine. And then if Andrew came in in a fit of whatever, then it affected the entire company. But in rehearsals and in technicals, etc., everything, I mean, I had worked with Trevor in Les Mis, and it was the same way. I mean, he directed and dealt with the actors the same way he dealt with them in Les Mis. There was no, as I can recall, there was no tension until... His lordship. I guess he was a knight then, not a lord yet. Who knows? Until the reviews came out, and he didn't get what he wanted. Well, you know, everybody said, why are you inviting the New York Times to the first performance of a brand new musical? But I think, I don't know what, I can only speculate that Andrew thought he had a great show, and he was told otherwise, and it angered him.

And then he started to delineate blame, I think. Do you know what I mean? And now he says he didn't handle it right. He certainly didn't. It was a very happy company. It went south in December. I mean, when did we open? September? I think it went south after the reviews came out, and we all went, we were across the street from this old actor's private club called The Green Room, where we got passes, lifetime passes for 10 pounds, because nobody went to it. So we'd all go to The Green Room. And I remember Andrew coming over after the reviews, before he left for LA, and was very angry with Frank Rich, but didn't intimate anything to me about my performance or my reviews, nothing. And we proceeded after they all left for California. And, you know, the house and the sets got worked out, and we were a very happy company, very happy company. It only started to go bad when, isn't it Peter Brown?

[8:33] Patti LuPone: Peter Brown, yeah. Yeah, everybody attributed, I didn't know where it was coming from, but everybody attributed my bad press in the States to Peter Brown, Andrew's...

[8:38] Michael Riedel: And who lived here, who lived here in New York, and he's been Andrew's closest friend forever.

[8:42] Patti LuPone: Well, everybody attributed my bad press in the States to him. Nothing was going on like that in London.

[8:48] Michael Riedel: Really? So you were being crucified over here, but not there?

[8:53] Patti LuPone: No, no, because I was turning in a performance that would get standing ovations, excuse me. I never saw it there, but I just thought you were great on the album, so I never understood what the problem was. The best recording of it is your recording of it. It was a difficult time for Andrew, because his company had gotten so big with the success of Cats and Phantom of the Opera. He had so many people running this empire, and he was a mogul himself, but at the end of the day, Andrew was fundamentally an artist and a composer, and he's happiest at the piano. He felt though that his company was just sprawling, and he was not on top of things the way he should be. Patti probably experienced that, because back in the days when she was doing Evita, you were dealing with Andrew, Tim, and Hal Prince. That was it. They were the three people running the show, and all of a sudden, Patti is dealing with layers upon layers of executives and managers, and Andrew, I would say,

[9:50] Patti LuPone: I think Andrew would agree was remote back in those days. The office was in chaos because they actually continued to pay me my per diem of a thousand pounds a week, ten weeks after I left the show. And the lawyer said, don't tell him. It's in your bank. And it was. And he also shipped home antiques that he had no idea he shipped home. They did not. They were in chaos. What do you mean antiques? I bought some stuff in the house I was in. He shipped them home.

[10:19] Michael Riedel: To you?

[10:20] Patti LuPone: Yeah, because my contract said ship all personal belongings. So I said, well, take that French baker shelf and a baker table and that'll go too. And he had no idea because I believe that the office, I mean, yeah, the office was in chaos. Well, I interviewed Bill Taylor, who was the CFO then. And he said, you know, Michael, we thought the money would never end. You know, the money coming from Phantom and Cats. And he said, we would sit in boardrooms and Lawrence and Lady so-and-so would be on the board. How much is the bank account now? And then they would open champagne. That's what the board games were like. And, you know, Edward Mitts now, he said there was, I ostensibly as the producer, he said, but I wasn't my right in mind to produce anything back then.

So technical problems, but also financial problems because the show was getting more and more and more expensive, especially in L.A. and then New York and those decisions. That's the other thing, you know, he really had nobody to, I guess, you know, the word protect, let's give him, let's give him a little bit of slack. The fact that they complained that the set was in technicolor, California sunshine, he immediately made the set black and white, which turned gray. And it was ugly. Our set was gorgeous. John Napier is brilliant. And I can't remember who did the lights. Was it David Hersey? It might have been David Hersey. It was a gorgeous set. It looked like California sunshine. Yeah, it was beautiful.

But the minute he got a bad notice and he took somebody else's advice, he took a critic's advice and it became gray. And I remember I was wanting my masterclass. I was invited to the closing night. I went, you have got to be kidding me.

[11:51] Michael Riedel: We'll be back with Patti LuPone. Fasten your seatbelts after this break.

[11:55] Patti LuPone: We're back with more of the juicy story behind the scenes of Sunset Boulevard. So Sunset Boulevard opens in London. And at that time, of course, Frank Rich, the drama critic for The New York Times, all powerful, probably the most powerful critic in the world back in those days, he went to see the new Andrew Lloyd Webber show in London. And he was a big admirer and a big fan of Patti LuPone, who isn't. But his review was not kind to her. And I think when that review came out, that was the beginning of the end of Patti's tenure in Sunset Boulevard. It was, as somebody once told me, it was the nail in Patti's coffin. It's interesting when you get fired from any job and how that firing comes about.

Sometimes they call you into the office and they say, look, it's not working out. See you. When you're a star at Patti LuPone's level, you find out you've been fired by reading Liz Smith, the gossip columnist. So Liz gave Patti her walking papers and then Patti gets a call from her agent, Bob Duva. I was at my dressing table when he called me and told me that Glenn Close, that Liz Smith had announced Glenn Close. And because there's some other weird story that's going on. I was getting made up for a performance when he called and said, are you sitting down? And I said, yes. He said that they announced Glenn Close for New York. And I was in my dressing room getting ready for the performance and I started screaming.

I couldn't believe it. It was just it was like they don't even talk. They don't even talk to me about it. They just announced it. The Smith announces it. And I had batting practice in my dressing room. Richard Oriel, this wonderful company manager, heard me screaming and he opened the door and he said, I've been fired. He didn't know what the hell I was talking about. I said, I've been fired. I said, I'm leaving. I'm going. And my friends had just come, landed. And I said, get in the car. We're going to the U of T re-in. And we did. We went to the U of T re-in for, I don't know, maybe three days.

[13:56] Michael Riedel: Did you go on that night when you found out?

[13:59] Patti LuPone: No. So you just walked up and left?

[13:59] Patti LuPone: Walked up and I just left. The floor lamp on the ground in Maiden Lane. After I did batting practice with the floor lamp, I threw it out the window.

[14:17] Michael Riedel: But then you decided to come back.

[14:18] Patti LuPone: You know, I can't answer why I do those things. I had an obligation. I had a contract. You know, Brolio told me to stay on stage too. He said, you know, you want to have your, you want to fulfill your contract and you want to, you have a contract for, they tried, they tried to force me. They will deny this till they die, but they did everything they could to have me quit. So they wouldn't have to, I'm presuming, honor their New York contract and salary. You were so wounded by the thing, but you were amazing that you just, you know, you did every performance. You would not, you were not going to quit. You were going to run out through the contract. Why did you, when it all came down that, you know, that they were not going to bring you to New York, why did you just pack up and leave then?

[15:03] Patti LuPone: Why don't I walk off the stage now with it? It's not what I do. Obviously it's not what I do. I wanted to, but it's not what I do. And I don't think people could face me. I just don't think that they have the guts to face me. Or maybe they thought I did stink. Don Black has a memory of you calling him right when you, soon after you found out about saying, he's firing me. And Don said, I don't know what you're talking about. Check him with Andrew. And he called the next day and found out, yeah, she's not going to New York. They didn't, he claims they didn't tell him until you called.

[15:34] Patti LuPone: Well, I'm surprised. I'm not surprised that they didn't tell anybody, but it was then in the paper. It was big news in the paper. So they would have known, and they all liked me. Do you know what I mean? I wasn't a problem child. They all liked me. We all got along. You would think out of support. They would just, they would call and go, are you okay? Nobody except for Anthony, the only guy. And Bob, but he's a very close friend, but you know, these guys were collaborators or, you know, whatever they didn't, they didn't bother. And that was like disheartening.

[16:10] Michael Riedel: I would say in Patti's defense, and she's right about this. And you can tell, I think in this podcast, how wounded, how angry she was that nobody had the guts to go to her directly and say, it's not working out, Patti, you're gone. They all disappeared. Nobody would talk to her. Once it was announced in Liz Smith's column that she'd been fired from Sunset Boulevard and Broadway. And here was the interesting thing. And I give Patti a lot of credit for this. She had good advisors. She was so upset. She was going to quit the show, but she didn't. And by finishing out her contract in London, it made her a very rich woman. We'll be back with more Sunset Boulevard after this break.

[16:49] Michael Riedel: We're back with more of the juicy story behind the scenes of Sunset Boulevard. Over the years, has Andrew ever tried to have a rapprochement with you?

[16:59] Patti LuPone: Apparently, yes, apparently, because they wanted me to make up with Andrew. And I went, it's never going to happen, but why now? And of course it was publicity for Sunset Boulevard. And, but I was told that he really wants to put it behind him. And then Mick Mark Platt said that Andrew asked him. And I went, oh, that'll never happen. That will never happen. It's more fun to have to make up with him. So much more fun. No, you know, my husband wouldn't have it. People say, what would you do if you ever saw Andrew Lloyd Webber? And I always say, it's not what I would do. It's what my husband would do. He would flatten him.

[17:44] Michael Riedel: So Patti was deeply humiliated, embarrassed and wounded by her firing from Sunset Boulevard. Although as we know, she got quite a bit of money out of it. And she and Andrew did not speak for many, many years. And then the Grammys came around 2019, if I'm not mistaken, pre-COVID. And there was a salute to Andrew Lloyd Webber on the Grammys. And Patti was asked to sing Don't Cry For Me Argentina. And they were rehearsing it in New York. And I haven't noticed because I saw Andrew just a few hours before he went over to the rehearsal studio to see Patti, which was a bit nerve wracking even for Andrew Lloyd Webber, because one does not want to be on the wrong side of Patti LuPone for 30 years. And he walked into the rehearsal studio and Patti looked at Andrew and said, hello, Andrew. And then she turned to everybody else in the room and she said, this is detente. And that was their somewhat of a reconciliation.

[19:00] Michael Riedel: All right, that does it for us here on the podcast of Singular Sensation, the Triumph of Broadway. But you want to listen to the next episode to find out what Patti LuPone said about Glenn Close. Thank you for listening to Singular Sensation. I'm your host, Michael Riedel. To find out more about Singular Sensation, the book and the podcast, visit bpn.fm/singularsensation. This episode was edited by Sarah Goodman and produced by Dori Berenstein, Kimberly Garris and Alan Seales for the Broadway Podcast Network. Special thanks to Liz Armstrong and the entire BPN team.