When Stro called Nathan I put my ear next to the phone, praying that Nathan would say yes. I grew desperate when I heard Nathan say, “No, not in a million years. I need a break from Max Bialystock. I can no longer do that part.”
I didn’t know what to do; I was panicking. Then it came to me and I whispered in Stro’s ear: “Cry.”
She held her hand over the phone and said to me, “What?”
I said, “Start crying! He’s a softie! He won’t turn you down.”
She said, “I can’t.”
I said, “You must! Cry, cry!”
So Stro said in a tearful voice, “All right, Nathan, I understand. I don’t blame you. I still love you.” Her cries growing with each word.
There was a long pause on the phone. And then finally I heard Nathan angrily shout, “All right, dammit. I’ll be there on the weekend.”
Stro said a brief thank you and hung up and then Tom, Stro, and I held one another and both laughed and cried joyously. Nathan was coming to save the show!
And boy, save the show he did! The Producers opening night at the Drury Lane on November 9, 2004, was a triumph for the ages. A lot of the audience were standing on their seats and screaming bravos to the rafters. We all had to make speeches, and I got a big laugh when I said, “So much for British reserve!”
If possible, the London notices for The Producers were even better than the New York ones. The Independent called it “an epidemic of bliss” and The Guardian said, “What is its secret? At its simplest, it puts the comedy back into musical comedy.”
So in the end, it was worth it for Nathan to come over to London. He not only got standing ovations every night and great reviews, but he went on to win the coveted Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical and our show was honored as the Best New Musical of the year.
Stro and me, showing off two of the twelve Tonys that The Producers won that night—the most Tony Awards ever won by a musical in Broadway history.
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Another truly memorable production of The Producers was at the world-famous Hollywood Bowl. It was the biggest theater that we had ever played, and I knew that we needed one of the biggest Max Bialystocks who ever played the part in order to have an actor who could reach the back row. There was only one name on my list—the multitalented, hilarious, and very loud Richard Kind. And what a great job he did! The Hollywood Bowl was packed for three nights under the stars with, believe it or not, seventeen thousand people in the audience. The laughs were so tremendous that they actually shook the stage. What an event! After the curtain call, I came up onstage to take a bow and say a few words. I got a standing ovation topped by a roar of approval from all seventeen thousand people. I secretly said to myself, “Maybe I should run for president? Seventeen thousand votes! That’s a good beginning.”
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The Producers was the most wonderful and at the same time the most challenging thing that ever happened to me. It reached such great heights that it would seem impossible to write anything else that would ever come near it—but eventually I tried. It happened just after I lost Anne. She had struggled with cancer for several years, but in 2005 she lost her battle. For a long time, I was inconsolable. It was hard to wake up and live through the day.
Tom Meehan and Susan Stroman pulled me out of my depression with the same advice I had given to Stro when her husband, Mike, passed away.
Stro said, “Remember, the only way to climb out of grief is to work.”
So Stro and Tom pulled me out of my abyss of despair, and we went to work on our next musical together. But what would it be? It came about when Tom said that just the other night he had been watching Young Frankenstein on TV. Frau Blücher’s hilarious line, “He vas my boyfriend!” stuck in his head.
He said, “That’s not just a funny line—that could be a whole funny song.”
I said, “You’re right. I can already hear it in my head…”
That was the beginning of another wonderful Broadway adventure with Tom and Stro, and many of the other talents from our great Producers team. Young Frankenstein the musical got standing ovations all through its previews in New York, so I foolishly thought we had another big hit. But I was treated to a rude awakening, and the mixed reviews proved me wrong. I then began to realize that the wild success of The Producers was much too big to duplicate. Although audiences were laughing and applauding, we couldn’t match the incredible phenomenon that The Producers had created. By no means was Young Frankenstein a failure, it was a successful show, but it never could reach the impossible heights of its forerunner.