It went like this:
Heil Myself
Heil to Me
I’m the Kraut who’s out to change our history
Heil Myself
Raise your hand
There’s no greater Dictator in the Land
Everything I do, I do for you
If you’re looking for a war, here’s World War Two!
In the second chorus I wrote this lyric:
Heil Myself
Watch my show
I’m the German Ethel Merman
Dontcha know
That was a little salute from me to Ethel Merman, who starred in the first musical I’d ever seen—Cole Porter’s Anything Goes.
Another big step we took for the musical was the addition of a new love story we didn’t have in the movie between Bloom and our beautiful Swedish secretary who introduces herself as Ulla Inga Hansen Bensen Yonsen Tallen-Hallen Svaden-Svanson—but we just called her Ulla.
Tom said, “You can’t do a musical on Broadway without a love song.”
And he was right. I wrote “That Face” to celebrate the love that Ulla inspired in Leo Bloom.
LEO BLOOM:
That face, that face
That dangerous face
I mustn’t be unwise
Those lips, that nose, those eyes
Could lead to my demise
That face, that face
That marvelous face
I never should begin
Those cheeks, that neck, that chin
Will surely do me in
I must be smart
And hide my heart
If she’s within a mile
If I don’t duck
I’m out of luck
She’d kill me with her smile
To play that tall blond statuesque beauty with the killer smile we just had to look back at our cast from the backers’ audition. The magnificent Cady Huffman really knocked ’em dead.
I’ll never forget after the backers’ audition my cousin and close friend Howard Kaminsky, who was well known in publishing circles for then being the president of the prestigious Random House, who was always a wonderfully witty guy and even shorter than me, said, “Mel, first thing tomorrow morning I’m going to Abercrombie and Fitch and buying a pickax, pitons, and a thousand feet of very strong rope.”
“Whatever for?” I said.
He said, “I’m going to climb Cady Huffman.”
As I said before, every important character in the show needs an introductory song, and I wrote a real knockout for Ulla. It was called “When You Got It, Flaunt It.”
ULLA:
When you got it, flaunt it
Step right up and strut your stuff
People tell you modesty’s a virtue
But in the theater modesty can hurt you
When you got it, flaunt it
Show your assets, let them know you’re proud
Your goodies you must push
Stick out your chest, shake your tush
When you got it, shout it out loud
[spoken] Now Ulla dance!
And with Stro’s magical choreography she moved her tall, beautiful body in a way that absolutely hypnotized Max and Leo—and not to mention later the entire audience at the St. James Theatre. Talk about talent! We were so lucky to get Cady; she was a real find.
But Cady Huffman wasn’t the only great find from our reading, Stro had previously worked with Gary Beach and told us how he was not only flat-out funny, but he could also thrill the audience with his amazing voice. She wasn’t wrong, at the backers’ audition his performances as the colorfully theatrical Roger De Bris and then later as Roger De Bris playing Adolf Hitler were both just sensational. Later on in previews when he made his entrance wearing an evening gown that looked not unlike the Chrysler Building he got a roaring ovation.
The person we cast to play De Bris’s comedy partner, his “roommate” Carmen Ghia, actually didn’t originally audition for that role. Roger Bart originally auditioned for Franz Liebkind, the crazy Nazi playwright. To put it succinctly, he was utterly wrong for the part. He was physically too small to be the menacing crazy Nazi hulk that we needed to scare Bialystock and Bloom.
But Stro, who had asked him to audition, said, “He’s so talented. I’m so disappointed…” Then she stopped short and said, “Wait! I have an idea!”
Roger had already left but she ran after him. She came back and explained to Tom and myself that she had given him the lines in the script for him to come back in and read for Carmen Ghia, Roger De Bris’s over-the-top common-law boyfriend. So an hour later Roger Bart came back to the audition room and flattened us all with his incredibly on-the-nose perfect rendition of Carmen Ghia. Stro was so happy that her faith in Roger wasn’t misplaced.
We still needed a Franz Liebkind, our crazy Nazi playwright. We found him in Ron Orbach, who I had seen playing…me! He was in Neil Simon’s Laughter on the 23rd Floor, a salute to Sid Caesar’s writers, and Ron’s character was based on me. And I thought he did me just fine! （As a matter of fact, a little better than I could do me myself!） Anyway, Ron was a wonderful Franz Liebkind—big, Teutonic, nutsy, and scary. Unfortunately, he never made it to Broadway because in out-of-town rehearsals he injured his knee. He valiantly went onstage for a few performances, but the knee wouldn’t let him continue.