An accomplished and versatile actress/singer/dancer, the legendary Chita Rivera has won two Tony Awards as Best Leading Actress in a Musical and received seven additional Tony nominations. In addition to her critically-acclaimed theatre and concert performances, Chita has been seen regularly on television, with appearances on every major show from New York including Dinah Shore, Garry Moore, Judy Garland, Carol Burnett and Ed Sullivan. Other television credits include Will & Grace, Pippin(Showtime), Kennedy Center Tonight, Broadway Plays Washington, her own Chita Plus Three(HBO), The New Dick Van Dyke Show and Live From Wolftrap.

 www.ChitaRivera.com

Rick McKay is back from Wellington, New Zealand where he has been editing and in post-production at Park Road Post Production for his new film, FAY WRAY, a documentary about the life and career of Wray and her unlikely friendship and adventures with the half-century-younger McKay as they travel from New York to as diverse spots from Hollywood, San Francisco, Paris, Venice, London, Vienna to Pine Bluff, Arkansas and Tamworth, New Hampshire. A combination biography and road movie, the film stars Wray, McKay, Naomi Watts, Peter Jackson, Leonard Maltin, Wray's children Vicki Riskin-Rintels, Bob Riskin, Jr., Susan Riskin and many more.

October, 2007 - Rick McKay and Barbara Cook backstage after Barbara's triumphant, sold-out 80th Birthday Celebration with the New York Philharmonic on November 18th, 2007

 Rick McKay & Barbara Cook  (Photo Credit Georgia Otterson)

Rick McKay and Barbara Cook with their favorite "Nutritionist to the Stars" Susan Cukiernik, who keeps McKay madly making movies and BC singing like a dream at 80 years of age! Contact Susan at scukiernik@earthlink.net
(Photo Credit: Georgia Otterson)

August 8th, 2007 - Rick McKay & Laura Savigni on Public Television with BGA in August 2007
LIVE Pledge Drive Raises over $10,000 in one showing for Long Island PBS station!

WLIW vice president Laura Savigni with BGA director Rick McKay during ON AIR Pledge

 
                Rick McKay & Laura Savigni                
 
                BGA Director Rick McKay

Photographs by Genevieve Rafter Keddy for BroadwayWorld.com

August, 2007 - "BROADWAY" is BACK on PUBLIC TELEVISION for AUGUST!

The August dates for Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, DC, Baltimore, Pittsburgh and other cites are below but check your local listings as well. Call your local public television channel and request the film if you don't see it listed!

July 9th, 2007 - Barbara Cook & Rick McKay Huge Hit at Barnes & Noble!

Rick McKay and Barbara Cook, and (right) with legendary nutritionist-to-the-stars Susan Cukiernik

See Broadway World for more Celia Castevens photos from this event!

Barbara Cook and Rick McKay LIVE at Barnes & Noble NYC

 
Barbara Cook will be appearing in conversation with filmmaker Rick McKay at Barnes and Noble, 66th and Broadway on July 9th at 6:00 p.m in the third floor event space.

Mr. McKay will be speaking with the musical star about her long career as Broadway star, concert performer and recording artist. Ms. Cook will also accept questions from the audience. After the presentation, Ms. Cook will be signing copies of her newest CD, "No One Is Alone." In addition, Mr. McKay will be signing copies of the Sony/BMG DVD of his film, "Broadway: The Golden Age," which Ms. Cook stars in and which will also be available.

Barbara Cook has achieved legendary status in a near-60 year career. She first established herself as one of Broadway?s greatest leading ladies, renowned for both her pure soprano and her depth of acting, as she created such roles as Cunegonde in ?Candide?, Hilda in ?Plain and Fancy?, Amalia in ?She Loves Me? and Marian Paroo in ?The Music Man?. She then established a second persona as a cabaret/concert performer, interpreting both theater and popular music with great humor and deep understanding. Her most recent CD, ?No One Is Alone?, from DRG, is based on the singer's Carnegie Hall appearance last November, her sixth solo concert at the hall. This fall, Cook will mark her 80th birthday with two celebratory concerts: at the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles on October 27 and on November 19 with a concert with the New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall.

Rick McKay is the award-winning producer/director/writer/cinematographer of the hit film ?Broadway: The Golden Age,? a superb documentary that celebrates the great artists who made New York the center of the theater world in the later part of the 20th Century. Among those featured is Ms. Cook. Two sequels are already in the works. For five seasons Mr. McKay was a segment producer on WNET13?s City Arts, the most honored, locally produced show in television history, which won over 30 Emmy awards. His wealth of experience in film, television, live entertainment and journalism has made Mr. McKay one of the most prolific and well-rounded independent producer/director/writers working in the industry today, as well as a witty story-teller and raconteur.

Check the Broadway: The Golden Age website for news and updates of the release of McKay's two sequels, which will complete his Broadway film trilogy and bring the history up the present day. Also, watch for news on McKay's appearances around the country as well as upcoming Crystal Cruises all over the world. McKay will also be appearing live on WLIW/Channel 21 in the New  York area on August 8th to co-host their premiere of "Broadway: The Golden Age." More details and dates will be at the BGA News Site soon. There will also soon be an announcement of a new internet based TV series, hosted by McKay, and featuring never-before-seen footage from McKay's Broadway trilogy! Stay tuned at http://broadwaythemovie.com/news.htm

Click here to order the DVD of "Broadway: The Golden Age," with over two hours of bonus features and rare footage, as well as the director's cut of the film (30 minutes longer), shown only in theatres and never shown on television!

Golden Age's Rick McKay and Broadway World's Rob Diamond Talk to all the Winners as They Win Big!

Click Here to View!

"Broadway: The Golden Age"
WINS 2007 TELLY AWARD!
Outstanding Television Documentary

AND is Nominated for TELEVISION CRITICS ASSOCIATON AWARD
Outstanding Achievement in News and Information

PBS/American Public Television Renew
"Broadway: The Golden Age"
for Two More Years!

New Air Dates Just in Time for the Tony's

NYC - WNET - Wednesday, June 6th at 10:00 PM

JUST ADDED!  NYC - WNET - Saturday, June 9th at 1:30 PM

NYC - WNET - Sunday, June 10th at 3:00 PM (TONY AWARDS DAY)

LOS ANGELES - KCET - Saturday, June 9th at 2:30 PM

Check back often for more dates and times to follow!

Three More Golden Age Legends Depart

Today, May 27th, word came that  BGA stars Gretchen Wyler and Charles Nelson Reilly have both passed away. Wyler was 75 and Reilly was 76.

Gretchen Wyler in her final film, "Broadway: The Golden Age."

Charles Nelson Reilly at his shoot for "Broadway: The Golden Age."

Gretchen Wyler had recently filmed her new interview for the sequel, "Broadway: Beyond the Golden Age," with Rick McKay. It was the final time she appeared on camera. In the new film Wyler continues the story of her success in "Silk Stockings" and takes the story to Hollywood where she narrowly missed reprising her role with Fred Astaire in the MGM hit musical film when Janis Paige (another BGA/BBGA cast member) got the role. She also shares stories about her experiences "standing by" for Lauren Bacall in "Applause."  Wyler's first Broadway show was "Where's Charley" with Ray Bolger. Wyler recently donated to Rick McKay never-before-seen footage of Bolger in the live Broadway production, which will be seen in "Broadway: Beyond the Golden Age" for the first time ever.

Director Rick McKay and Laura Bell (Legally Blonde) Bundy

Frank (Frost/Nixon) Langella and Rick McKay (photo by Scott Wynn)

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Lamb's Club Salutes Rick McKay and "Broadway: The Golden Age"

Rick McKay was honored at the Lamb's Club by America's oldest acting organization with many stage vets in attendance.

Director Rick McKay (seated) with "Broadway" producing team Richard Weigle, Jamie deRoy and Jack Coco (Anne L. Bernstein, Jane Klain and Albert M. Tapper not present).

See BroadwayWorld.com for extensive photo coverage.

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Rick McKay Supports Fellow-Director Dori Berinstein's "Show Business" at Special Broadway World Screening

Rick McKay and "Broadway: Beyond the Golden Age" star Jane Summerhays

Rick McKay and Broadway World's Robert Diamond

See more photos (Linda Lenzi) from this event on BroadwayWorld.com

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PBS/American Public Television Renew "Broadway: The Golden Age" for Two More Years!

Check back often for updated listings - or check your local PBS listings for June!

----------------------------------------------------------------

* BROADWAY BACK on PBS This Week & Next!

* From BROADWAY to HONG KONG with RICK McKAY & CRYSTAL CRUISES!

* SPRING BREAK with BROADWAY in FORT LAUDERDALE!

* LAMB’S CLUB SALUTES RICK McKAY’S BROADWAY!

2/28 - 3/19: BROADWAY: THE GOLDEN AGE is back on PBS
 
by Popular Demand This Week and Next!
 
With On-Air Special Guests ELIZABETH ASHLEY, BARBARA COOK, ANNE JACKSON, RICK MCKAY , JANE POWELL & ELI WALLACH.
 
 
 http://www.broadwaythemovie.com/pbs.htm
 

 3/11 - 29: Join Rick McKay on a Slow Boat to China!
 
On March 11th, Celebrity Guest Lecturer Rick McKay sails with Crystal Cruises from Los Angeles to Hawaii, arriving in Hong Kong on March 29th. Join Rick for stories of creating “Broadway: The Golden Age,” Adventures of working with Divas and Distributors, and Screenings and Q&A’s.
 
 
 http://crystalcruises.com/cruise_information.aspx?CID=7207

 4/10: Time for SPRING BREAK & BROADWAY in FORT LAUDERDALE!
 
On April 10th, Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival and the WLRN Film and Literary Club presents Rick McKay and “Broadway: The Golden Age” – for an Evening Screening with Q&A and never-before-seen new clips! And watch for new pledge drive breaks that Rick will film at WLR!
 
 
 More info soon at: http://www.fliff.com/schedule.asp

 
 5/14: America’s Oldest Acting Group Salutes Rick McKay’s Broadway!
 
On May 14th in New York City The Lamb’s Club, founded in the 1800’s, celebrates Rick McKay’s “Broadway: The Golden Age” and shows, for the first time in New York City, out-takes from the first film and sneak peeks at clips from the sequel-in-progress!
 

 More info soon at: http://www.broadwaythemovie.com/news.htm
 

 CLICK HERE to Support Rick McKay's BROADWAY TRILOGY!
 

"GOLDEN AGE" BACK ON PUBLIC TELEVISION!

NETC HONORS McKAY & OTHERS!

SPECIAL BWAY GIFTS!

ESCAPE THE WEATHER AND SAIL AWAY WITH RICK!

(Scroll Down for Complete Stories, Details and Links)

"Broadway: The Golden Age" Back on Public Television by Popular Demand!

Tune in or set your DVR, VCR or TIVO tonight at 11:30 PM in NYC <http://www.thirteen.org/watch/program_info.php?program_id=22510&episode_num=0> on WNET13 <http://www.thirteen.org/watch/program_info.php?program_id=22510&episode_num=0> and midnight in Washington for BGA with extra interviews from the studio with Elizabeth Ashley, Barbara Cook, Anne Jackson, Rick McKay and Eli Wallach. Check Local Listings for more dates this week or call your local Public Television station and request air dates!

THEATRE FOLK HONORED!

Rick McKay <http://rickmckay.com/> , Stephen Schwartz <http://stephenschwartz.com/> (Composer: Wicked, Pippin, Godspell), Joanna Gleason <http://joannagleason.com/> (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Into the Woods, Nick and Nora), Gregory Jbara <http://gregoryjbara.com/> (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Chicago) and Jamie McGonnigal <http://www.jamiemcg.com/> were honored with Special Awards at the NETC <http://www.NETConline.org/> ceremony in New Haven, CT.

Support
BROADWAY: BEYOND THE GOLDEN AGE

Get Autographed DVD's, Posters, Film Credit & 100% TAX DEDUCTION! http://broadwaythemovie.com/donate.html <http://broadwaythemovie.com/donate.html>

“Liza with a Z” - Rick McKay and Midge Woolsey co-host the PBS national pledge drive premiere – and watch for Rick’s brand new interviews with the great Liza live in the studio throughout the evening!  In NYC on WNET13 Sunday night, August 6th at 10:30 PM. In San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose on WQED9 on Tuesday, 8/8 at 7:30 PM and Saturday,  8/12 at 10 PM; and in Los Angeles on Saturday 8/12 at 9 PM. For complete list of cities view list below and check local PBS listings for updates!

“Broadway: The Golden Age” reprise in selected cities on PBS by popular demand!  See Broadway nationally in following cities in August. Check back often for new dates - and call your local PBS to request showings or to let them know that you like what we are doing. Thank you, Rick McKay, Director/Producer

"Broadway: The Golden Age" will be widely rebroadcast throughout the coming year, including many new cities and replays for June 2006 Pledge Drive on PBS. For now, here are some new add-on dates for April/May added by popular demand. Check back often for new dates!

UPCOMING APPEARANCES AND SCREENINGS

• NYC – 9/28: RICK MCKAY tells stories of making “Broadway: The Golden Age”

  THE MOTH presents THE SHOW MUST GO ON: Stories about the Biz told by Filmmaker RICK MCKAY and Electronic Muisic Legend MOBY, among others. Hosted by ANDY BOROWITZ of CNN, NPR, The New Yorker and The New York Times.
  WHERE: The Players 16 Gramercy Park South, NYC, NY
  WHEN: Wednesday, September 28th, 2005
  At :7:00 Cocktails - 8:00 Stories begin on stage
  Tickets: available at SmartTix -- www.SmartTix.com or 212 868-4444
  MORE INFO: http://themoth.org/calendar/

• NYC – 9/29: RICK MCKAY Interviews Hollywood Legend JANE POWELL at The Museum of Television & Radio

  WHEN: Thursday, September 29th, 2005
  AT: 6:00 PM special screening of lost film “Ruggles of Red Gap,” followed at 7:30 by on stage interview with Ruggles star Jane Powell, moderated by filmmaker Rick McKay (Broadway: The Golden Age).
  WHERE: Museum of Television & Radio - 25 West 52 Street, New York, NY 10019 | 212.621.6800
  TICKETS: are included in the general admission price and available on a first-come, first-served basis on the day of the event
  MORE INFO: http://mtr.org/

• NEW YORK – 11/05: “Broadway:The Golden Age” plays The Cinema at The Red House in Syracuse, NY every weekend in November.
  MORE INFO SOON: http://www.theredhouse.org/cinema/index.htm

• TAHITI to NEW ZEALAND & AUSTRALIA – 2/06: RICK MCKAY on Crystal World Cruise as Distinguished Guest Lecturer on the subjects of Broadway Theatre and Independent Film.
  
  MORE INFO:
  http://crystalcruises.com/cruise_information.aspx?CID=6305

• In TV GUIDE: “Gilmore Girls” Star LAUREN GRAHAM loves “Broadway: The Golden Age” DVD and talks of how she especially likes watching the alternate endings! Only available on the RCA/BMG DVD. CLICK HERE to buy from Amazon.com.
  
  
• NOW PLAYING ON CANADIAN TV! Check out dates for “Broadway: The Golden Age” on THE MOVIE NETWORK – For more info click here:
  
  
• August 4th, 2005 at 9:30 AM – SAN FRANCISCO: Rick McKay is NBC film critic Jan Wahl’s guest live on San Francisco’s KRON-TV’s morning show on Channel 4.
  
  
• August 4th, 2005 from 6:00 – 7:00 PM - SAN FRANCISCO: Rick McKay is special lecturer at the San Francisco Apple Store at One Stockton Street, San Francisco, CA 94108. For more info: (415) 392-0202 or www.apple.com/retail/sanfrancisco/week/20050731.html
  
  
• August 5th, 2005 at 8:00 PM – NAPA, CA : – Rick McKay does Q&A with audience and DVD signing after special screening of “Broadway: The Golden Age” at the Copia Museum in Napa, CA. For directions, tickets and more info: www.copia.org/pages/films.asp
  
  
• August 9th, 2005 at 8:00 PM – NY and Tri-State area: Rick McKay LIVE guest on WLIW-TV’s Channel 21’s Pledge Event showing of “Broadway’s Lost Treasures III: The Best of the Tony Awards” www.wliw.org
  
  
• September 3rd to 17th: Join Rick McKay on CRYSTAL CRUISES for the annual Film Festival Cruise which follows the Path of the Vikings starting in London and going to Scotland, Iceland, Greenland, Canada and ending up in New York City. Rick will show “Broadway: The Golden Age” and tell inside stories of making the film. For more info on the cruise click here:
  
  
• TOMMY TUNE and Rick McKay on WNYC�s The Leonard Lopate Show. CLICK HERE to hear the whole interview:
  (Scroll down on page to �Rick McKay� and click �Listen�, then click on the downloaded file, which only takes a few seconds)
  
  
• LIVE Australian Radio Interview with Rick McKay with Paul Harris of Australia’s Film Buff’s Forecast.
  Direct link: allmedia.com.au/fbfwmp/rickmckay.asx
  NOTE: If this direct link does not work go to www.filmbuffs.net/interviews.html and scroll down right INTERNATIONAL column for link to Rick’s interview.
  
  
• AUSTRALIA: “Broadway: The Golden Age” is a hit in Australia where it is entering it’s 4th month in theatres. Check local OZ listings for your local theatre!
  
  
• February 15th to March 4th, 2006: Join Rick McKay on CRYSTAL CRUISES or the “World Voyage III: Adventure Down Under” sailing from Tahiti to Rarotonga to New Zealand to Australia and see a sneak peek at the sequels and hear Rick’s stories of making them. For more info on the cruise click here:
  

  NOW PLAYING – AUSTRALIA

• Now Playing at the State Cinema in Hobart: www.statecinema.com.au/
  And at Brisbane’s Balmoral Cinema at 168 Oxford Street:
  www.optus.net/movies/cinemas/225119
  
  
• August 4th, 2005 – PERTH, AUSTRALIA – Broadway: The Golden Age opens at the Astor Cinema – PH: 9370-1770 - www.lunapalace.com.au/Astor.htm

Also:
Gold Coast Arts Centre – June 2
Trak Cinema Adelaide – July 7

Recent Australian reviews:

www.abc.net.au/tasmania/stories/s1399762.htm

smh.com.au/news/Reviews/Broadway-The-Golden-Age/2005/04/06/1112489556146.html?oneclick=true

www.ssonet.com.au/display.asp?ArticleID=4201

www.abc.net.au/atthemovies/txt/s1329344.htm

www.theage.com.au/news/Reviews/Broadway-the-golden-age/2005/04/01/1111862548033.html

Broadway: The Golden Age

Reviewed by Alexa Moses
Sydney Morning Herald - April 7, 2005

BROADWAY: THE GOLDEN AGE, BY THE LEGENDS WHO WERE THERE
Written, directed and edited by Rick McKay
Rated PG
Dendy Opera Quays, Dendy Newtown

A glittering Times Square in the 1940s and 1950s and early 1960s is packed with theatres advertising stage shows.

The names on the marquees include Marlon Brando, John Raitt, Elizabeth Ashley, the shows include Cat On a Hot Tin Roof and Damn Yankees.

A theatre ticket is cheaper than a movie ticket, so almost everyone goes to see the new shows. This is the world filmmaker Rick McKay re-creates in his documentary about the peak of the Broadway stage show.

Broadway: The Golden Age is a nostalgia piece put together with warmth and care. As a kid, McKay was obsessed with Broadway shows such as Silk Stockings and Hello, Dolly!. The question he asks in his documentary is: did a Broadway golden age actually exist and, if so, what happened to it?

Considering we're about to watch two hours of Broadway actors rehashing the good ol' days, McKay's questions seem - and mostly are - rhetorical devices to glue the interviews together.

But it doesn't much matter. McKay spent five years with a digital camera, recording interviews with more than 90 ageing stars, and because of his obvious affection for his topic, the idea of a Broadway golden age takes root.

The bulk of the documentary is given over to the stars talking about their passion for the Broadway stage, which doesn't sound engrossing but is, because they're so passionate. It's a film that comprises the kind of talking heads you're happy to hear talk. Heads include Bea Arthur, Angela Lansbury, Jerry Orbach, Carol Burnett, Ann Miller, Chita Rivera, Patricia Neal, Stephen Sondheim and Shirley MacLaine.

Burnett remembers arriving in New York with a cardboard suitcase and nowhere to go. She went to a posh hotel she couldn't afford and started to cry. Later, she and three other aspiring actresses pitched in to buy a good dress, which they wore in turn to auditions.

Others remember how much they paid to get into Broadway shows - 55 cents, or $1.10, or $3, until it got outrageous in 1968, says Orbach, and rose to $15. All of the stars remember "second acting", in which a poor, ticketless actor snuck into a theatre for the second act of a play. The lucky ones found an empty seat and went unnoticed by the ushers. McKay also retells the story of how MacLaine got her start in the 1954 musical The Pajama Game by filling in for the injured Carol Haney.

Watching tantalising moments of Ethel Merman in Gypsy, hearing the voice of Brando in the stage production of A Streetcar Named Desire, and seeing Ben Gazzara in the original version of Cat On a Hot Tin Roof sent shivers up my spine.

This documentary is for a particular audience, but nonetheless Broadway: The Golden Age will draw more people into that audience. And note that McKay has only scratched the surface - he has not even started on the significant musicians, directors and playwrights of the era.

Sydney Morning Herald - April 8, 2005

Brando, Merman, MacLaine ... Broadway started the careers of many great actors. Bryce Hallett looks at a doco celebrating its golden age.

BROADWAY: THE GOLDEN AGE
Director Rick McKay
Stars Angela Lansbury, Bea Arthur, Carol Burnett, Alec Baldwin, Marlon Brando (archive footage)
Rated PG
Screening Now at Dendy Opera Quays

It's a question writer-filmmaker Rick McKay asks in his encyclopedic and entertaining Broadway: The Golden Age. The low-budget documentary is crammed with interviews - he even manages to pin down the elusive Stephen Sondheim - and archival footage of such legendary shows as Carousel, The Pajama Game, Guys and Dolls, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, West Side Story, Hello, Dolly! and Mame.

McKay is part sleuth, part historian, but mainly an obsessed theatre buff whose passionate quest to unearth an influential cross-section of American theatre in the 1940s, '50s and '60s was prompted by his realization that the Broadway of his boyhood dreams has largely vanished.

Today's scene, he observes, is colourful and buoyant, but more inclined to rock musicals and British imports, a trend mirrored in Australia with its slim revivals and pop catalogue shows. Rarely is it about star-making shows or original dramas that have the capacity to influence audiences and exert change. Mel Brooks's musical comedy The Producers is a notable exception.

"We didn't call it the 'golden age', of course, but now that I look back I do believe it was," says Angela Lansbury, who starred in the musical Mame in 1966.

Carol Burnett describes the era as "a dream come true". Jerry Orbach, the late Law and Order actor who was a Broadway star, says it was hard to believe that South Pacific, Mr Roberts, A Streetcar Named Desire and The Death of a Salesman were playing at the same time a few blocks apart.

McKay's film darts here, there and everywhere and concludes that there was a time in the '40s and '50s when Broadway influenced the world, when great talents emerged in the theatre and "everyone could afford it".

It was also a place where stars were born, including Ethel Merman, Karl Malden, Ben Gazzara, Shirley MacLaine, Brando, Bea Arthur, Robert Goulet and Alec Baldwin.

"It was a time when Hollywood came to Broadway looking for product, not the other way around," observes McKay at the end of the film he started shooting in 1998.

His quest led him to scores of actors, singers, dancers, composers, directors and producers, some of whom weren't eager to take part. It didn't help that McKay didn't have a crew and came wielding a digital camera as though he were nothing but a nosy journo. Joanne Woodward, Paul Newman and Julie Andrews declined his interview requests, but many luminaries took the bait. Brando turned down McKay, but lent his assistance behind the scenes.

"Brando became a champion of the film," McKay says. "He helped find the audio of his performance in the original production of A Streetcar Named Desire. He believed in what I was doing and trusted me. He also thought I was crazy."

McKay insists he never intended to make "a movie with 100 stars", but as the project grew he found the challenge seductive.

"It was like a detective story - one door would open, another would slam," he says.

"Bea Arthur threatened to toss me out of her house because I didn't have a crew, much less a lighting man. She said, 'What the f--- am I doing in hair and make-up if there's no crew? I think you're out of your mind!'

"But she calmed down when she realised I knew my subject and she became my lifesaver by putting me in touch with Angela Lansbury, Carol Burnett and Shirley MacLaine. Then the project took off, but if I'd known how mammoth and time-consuming it would become I wouldn't have done it."

Broadway: The Golden Age reveals the struggle, tribalism and chutzpah of a richly talented pool of artists. No one was on easy street. Before MacLaine made it big she could only afford to eat crackers and peanut butter, while Burnett shared digs with three other struggling performers.

"Four of us bought a dress," Burnett says. "One dress. We each put in $5, so it was a $20 dress at Bloomingdale's, which was expensive. Then if you had an audition you got first claim to it, you got to wear the dress, but then you were responsible for having it cleaned and put back in the closet for the next person."

The doco captures the romance of Times Square and places where rising stars hung out. There's a memorable scene of Leonard Bernstein thumping on the piano alongside Jerome Robbins, Sondheim and director Hal Prince as West Side Story is hatched in 1957.

McKay discovers that the most influential of stars was not Brando or Davis, but the actress Laurette Taylor. Her naturalness and ease were a source of inspiration to many of the greats.

"I saw The Glass Menagerie seven times - seven times," says lyricist Fred Ebb. "Taylor turned around and pulled down her girdle and I have never been that affected by a stage action in my whole life. It made me weep."

(PG) Cinema Nova
* * * 1/2 (out of four)

Broadway nostalgia is usually served with a dollop of cloying schmaltz (listened to Michael Feinstein lately?)

This documentary allows none of that as it relives the golden age of the American stage via the razor-sharp reminiscences of some of its greatest figures.

Director Rick McKay, by his own admission a devotee of the Broadway that was the stomping ground of Tennessee Williams, Elia Kazan, Ethel Waters and Cole Porter, has assembled here a dazzling array of actors, producers, composers and lyricists who, via McKay's brisk editing of interviews and raw, backstage footage, paint a vivid portrait of a bygone era.

The Broadway they recall was certainly a more adventurous, accessible (a theatre ticket cost less than a film ticket in the 1940s) and exciting place than it became with the advent of the musical blockbuster, which the film says started with the rock musical Hair in the late 1960s.

Refreshingly, though, McKay doesn't allow the film to slip into what could easily have been a trite lament for the past.

Nor does he purport to present an "official history".

The film is loosely arranged around broad themes, such as auditions (Carol Burnett recalls how she and three housemates chipped in to buy a dress), influences, scamming to get into the theatre for free, watering holes and that long-gone tradition of touring a show-in-the-making. But it's motivated by the irrepressible performers, who live up to expectations of what everyone once understood an old Broadway trooper to be.

Broadway: The Golden Age

By Tom Ryan
THE SUNDAY AGE - April 3, 2005

Broadway: the Golden Age
***1/2 (out of four)
(PG, 111 minutes)
At the Nova from Thursday

It would be a mistake to describe Rick McKay, the director, writer, cinematographer, editor, producer and narrator of Broadway: The Golden Age, as a one-man band. The credits at the end make this clear (or at least the ones that had rolled before the wretched projectionist at the preview switched them off). Nevertheless, five years in the making, the film is clearly McKay's baby, his labour of love.

With a minimal budget, several sequences of marvellous archival footage and a digital camera, he's been able to recapture something of the world of Broadway theatre between the 1940s and the 1960s. The quality of the image isn't perfect (the projectionist can't be held responsible this time), but it doesn't matter. What's important are the fascinating interviews with those who remember what it was like and the footage of some of the greats who walked the stages of a bygone era.

A star-studded parade passes by, giving testimony to the passion and the pain: Angela Lansbury looking back at her pursuit of the role in Mame; Julie Harris tearfully remembering first seeing black actress Ethel Waters in Mamba's Daughters ("It changed my life"); John Raitt explaining how "Figaro, Figaro, Figaro" laid the foundations for Carousel's Soliloquy (My Boy Bill); Gwen Verdon reflecting on her work with Bob Fosse.

McKay's film isn't exactly a history. Nor is it an examination of the changing face of theatre over the years. Rather, it's an unqualified celebration of what Broadway used to be like and a eulogy to its passing, which it suggests happened somewhere around the time of Hair and Oh, Calcutta!

By "Broadway", it means not just the plays and the performances, but the opening nights and the clubbing after the curtain comes down - at Sardi's in the '40s and '50s and Downey's in the '50s and '60s - the places where the actors used to hang out during the day, such as Ray's Drugstore and Walgreen's (forget "the drugstore thing", says Elaine Stritch, explaining that she always headed straight for the "saloon"). Curiously, there's nothing about the theatres themselves, aside from occasional shots of facades and marquees.

The result is an impression, a glimpse of a culture provided by those who were there. The old footage of places like Times Square adds colour, but it's in the excitement the interviewees bring to their recall that Broadway really comes alive. McKay uses chapter headings ("The journey begins", "Looking for Lancelot") to try to impose a kind of organisation on the material. But since he's not really doing anything more than reminiscing, they're all but useless.

Still, reminiscence can be very revealing and a genuine sense of community emerges from what his subjects have to say. There are anecdotes galore, including some great ones from Carol Burnett, Elizabeth Ashley, Shirley MacLaine and Robert Goulet. And a special highlight is the general assent in response to McKay's question about the greatest performance they've ever seen: Laurette Taylor in The Glass Menagerie.

The actress's name might not be familiar, perhaps because she never worked in film, although McKay has come up with a 1938 screen test she did (in vain) for David O. Selznick. But her peers remember her. "She changed acting . . . I think we've all been striving to be her, one way or the other," says Ben Gazzara. "Mesmerising." (Gena Rowlands). "The greatest performance I've ever seen." (Patricia Neal). "I can't get it out of my head." (Maureen Stapleton).

Whatever else it does, Broadway pays homage to the art of the theatre, to the immediacy of the performances, to the way "you have to do it there, on the spot". Frank Langella speaks for everyone in the film when he says, "You're a living, breathing thing. And you're irreplaceable."

Back story
One of the major hurdles Rick McKay faced in making Broadway: The Golden Age was gaining access to the people he wanted to interview. "I learned quickly that going through agents didn't work," he says. "I had to find a way to get to them directly." In some cases, this was made possible by acquiring the right contacts, actors such as Kaye Ballard and Angela Lansbury using their personal address books to help him out once they'd been convinced of his credentials. Persistence helped too, Stephen Sondheim agreeing to become involved only after McKay contrived a meeting at a party then flooded the composer with follow-up letters. Marlon Brando declined the invitation to appear, but agreed to be interviewed over the phone. However, others McKay wanted he never managed to contact, most shielded by their agents: Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, Julie Andrews, Bernadette Peters, Liza Minnelli, Barbra Streisand. "Since not one of the stars in the film got paid," McKay says with some bitterness, "most agents treated me as 10 per cent of a major waste of time for them". Perhaps he's had more luck with the forthcoming Broadway: The Next Generation, due for release this year in the US.

www.theage.com.au/articles/2005/04/01/1111862548033.html

Legends shine for one last curtain call on Broadway

Author: TIM HUNTER
Date: 04/04/2005
Publication: The Age
Section: Metro

Turning the spotlight the other way is illuminating, writes Tim Hunter.

THERE'S been countless films made about Broadway in the '30s, '40s and '50s - the thrill of the spotlights, the greasepaint, the roar of the crowds, all of that. But as obvious an idea for a film as it may seem, a documentary has never been made about Broadway. Until now.

US Broadway lover and filmmaker Rick McKay has spent six years interviewing more than 140 Broadway stars, ranging from Carol Channing to Shirley Maclaine, Farley Granger and Uta Hagen. Some of them have since died, making the final product, Broadway: The Golden Age, By The Legends Who Were There, all the more important.

It started as a modestly short program for television, but McKay found it hard to sell the idea. "When I brought it to PBS, they said, 'No one's interested in old people; you've got to put young people in the cast'," he explains. "About two days later, Gwen Verdon, Bob Fosse's wife, died, and her last interview was in my film. And I thought, 'It's becoming a responsibility for me to do these interviews, because these people who are older will never get a chance to tell their story again'. I was in the right place right time."

McKay was more than lucky on a number of occasions with the interviewees he managed to secure, and collected many anecdotes about these interviews. "When I finished the interview with Angela Lansbury, she said, 'If I'd seen this in a theatre and I hadn't been included, it would have broken my heart'.

"I told her I couldn't have made the film without her, and she said, 'I'm ashamed of myself, I have to apologise, I turned this film down once'. I said, 'No, Ms Lansbury, you turned it down four times'."

What comes out loud and clear through the film is the passion and love that everyone had for the early years of Broadway.

"There are two audiences: the older audience who nod their heads all the way through; and the young one who shake their heads and their jaws drop. If this film lights a fire under their ass and they want to work in theatre, and do something important, then that's great!"

So, what is it about Broadway that lights McKay's fire? "When you walk into a theatre, you don't have any idea of what's going to happen. It may be a great audience or a bad audience, and that's going to affect the performance that night. It's the interactive nature of theatre that I like, and as an audience member, I'm responsible."

BROADWAY: THE GOLDEN AGE

WHERE Cinema Nova, Carlton

WHEN Opens Thursday

HOW MUCH $13.50/11/9

DETAILS Tel: 9347 5331, 9349 5201; www.cinemanova.com.au,

www.broadwaythemovie.com

ABC NEWS RADIO AUSTRALIA

Broadway: The Golden Age
Review by David Stratton

Did the Golden Age of Broadway really exist? Finding the answer became a magnificent obsession, and more of an adventure than Filmmaker Rick McKay ever imagined.

Margaret: **** (out of 5) David: **** (out of 5)

Another documentary in limited release around the country from tomorrow is ‘Broadway: The Golden Age’, it’s maker, Rick McKay, was fascinated by the richness of the New York theatre scene of the past and set out to discover more about it.

Although he notes, ruefully, that the only surviving Barrymore is Drew, McKay still manages to assemble an extraordinary cast of actors who appeared on the New York stage in the 40s, 50s and 60s.

These immensely talented veterans reminisce about their early experiences in New York, how they lived, how they worked.

Many of them talk about the legendary actress Laurette Taylor, who was by all accounts memorable in Tennessee Williams' ‘The Glass Menagerie’.

Taylor had been in silent films but, sadly, never made a sound film, but clearly she was not forgotten by anyone who saw her.

Anyone who loves the theatre will appreciate Rick McKay's labour of love. It's wonderful to see so many veterans of the stage, several of whom have passed away since McKay interviewed them, talking about their passion for the theatre.

The stories told by Betty Garrett, Ann Miller, Elizabeth Ashley, Betsy Blair, Ben Gazzara, Janis Paige, Gena Rowlands and all the rest are endlessly fascinating.

Shirley MacLaine reminds us that she is the living proof of the truth of the legend of the stand-in who takes over from the star the night a big producer, Hal Prince, is in the audience.

We see black and white footage of John Raitt in ‘Carousel’, and of Ben Gazzara and Barbara Bel Geddes in ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’. And Angela Lansbury's stories about ‘Mame’ are endlessly fascinating.

Like the American cinema, the American theatre is today a pale shadow of what it used to be; this film is a reminder of what we're missing.
Further comments

DAVID: Margaret?

MARGARET: It was so interesting, wasn't it?

DAVID: Isn't it, yeah.

MARGARET: The other great thing is they've got a sound recording of Brando in 'Streetcar' so you just hear him and it's, God, it's fabulous.

DAVID: At least with Brando in 'Streetcar' we do have the 1951 film. It doesn't have Jessica Tandy. But at least we have a record of that.

MARGARET: But, you know, this is when he made a name for himself on the stage. And apparently, along with Laurette Taylor, Marlon Brando was the next thing that made everybody's head turn.

DAVID: The electrifying actor, yeah.

MARGARET: The realism of the performance.

DAVID: Yeah

MARGARET: I loved all the stories about the girls sharing dresses and sharing digs and how they all, It sounded like a real community. You know, a club of out-of-work actors.

DAVID: They met at the same drug store.

MARGARET: And they're really, really charming. But, listen, he spent five years making this.

DAVID: Yeah.

MARGARET: So..

DAVID: Much better effect than making 'DIG!' I must say.

MARGARET: Oh...!

DAVID: So what are you giving it?

MARGARET: 4 stars.

DAVID: Yeah. Me, 4 stars too.

FILM

In with Broadway legends
By Jeanti St Clair

Sydney Star Observer
Issue 759

Published 4/07/2005

RICK MCKAY SPOKE TO 94 SHOWBIZ LEGENDS FROM THE 1930S TO THE 1960S FOR HIS EPIC OPUS

When Ethel Merman sang There’s No Business Like Show Business, film-maker Rick McKay could only agree.

To him, the heart and soul of show business lived under the bright lights of New York’s Broadway.

A former singer and actor, McKay spent his small-town childhood glued to the TV set watching old movies.

He dreamt of making it to Broadway.

When he first saw a live show, it was Lauren Bacall in Applause – the stage musical version of All About Eve – and he was bowled over.

But when he finally moved to New York in 1981 he found Broadway had all but disappeared.

Rock musicals had muscled their way in and the days of 42nd Street and Sweeney Todd were slipping away.

Today, McKay is chirpy on the line from his beloved New York – this is his fourth interview today and there are two more to go.

He obviously loves talking about Broadway: The Golden Age, the “magnificent obsession” that swallowed 10 years of his