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Past Articles What's New on the Rialto Yankee Doodle Dandy: George M. Cohan and the Broadway Stage
by Elizabeth T. Craft Book Review by Rob Lester
In her introduction, Ms. Craft proactively states that her project "is not a biography, nor does it make any attempt to be comprehensive in its coverage of Cohan's work for and on the stage." As the title suggests, Yankee Doodle Dandy: George M. Cohan and the Broadway Stage focuses on the multi-tasker's professional pursuits as of 1901 when he made his Main Stem debut as writer and cast member with The Governor's Son at age 22. Also having roles were Ethel Levey, whom he'd married two years earlier, as well as his mother, father and sister. Sharing stages with his family was nothing new for the young man, as he'd been doing that all around the country in vaudeville and minstrel shows. He started as a violinist at the age of eight and later had played the title role in Peck's Bad Boy. By giving short shrift to his growing up and his family, a reader doesn't fully get to appreciate what motivated, inspired and shaped him or what gave him his work ethic as a precocious kid who paid his dues performing, and later writing, longing for the "big time." Thus, a reader won't sympathetically relate to his long-brewing determination, dreams and pride, a major takeaway in reading John McCabe's biography George M. Cohan: The Man Who Owned Broadway (1973). Although Cohan had a taste for satire, he put emphasis on the "fun" aspect of "poking fun"; his priority was to entertain, with lighthearted playfulness in his plays. However, the author/researcher, who is an assistant professor of music, mostly takes a quite serious, scholarly approach to this history. This results in a rather dry tone in describing silly plots, breezy dialog, and witty lyrics. She analyzes things that may seem incidental to others and is quick to point out parallels and patterns among projects. Pages with excerpts from scripts and lyrics let us form our own opinions and we're guided to a companion website with audio and video clips. A reader may wonder how much pure pleasure she takes in clever Cohan creations and where on the reaction scale she sits: between mega-admiration and begrudging respect. We are also presented with numerous excerpts of newspaper reviews by dismissive critics carping about Cohan being corny or crass and hauling out the same old/same old tricks. Meanwhile, the public, we're told, was often easier to please. The subject of the tome is also painted as being less than cooperative when acting in productions he did not write. But he's also shown to be remarkably fast and efficient when penning his own projects or doctoring the work of others. And while this is not a fast-moving page-turner, it's by and large immensely informative. The author explores, examines, reports on and reflects on Cohan's professional life and work, in the context of the times and trends of the first few decades of the 20th century in America and in show business. With a thesis that his theatre reflected the country and the times, there are many parallels to attitudes about social change, ethnic groups and immigrants, assimilation, class, both world wars, and the policies of both presidents named Roosevelt. Although he wrote a song about Franklin D. Roosevelt, and portrayed him in Rodgers & Hart's I'd Rather Be Right, Cohan didn't always think FDR was "right" about things and he delayed that president's presentation of the Congressional Medal of Honor to him for his patriotic songs. A choice made about structure has its pluses and minuses. Each of the several sections zeroes in on one major facet of the legend, rather than taking a chronological approach. Separate chapters paint pictures of the most favored genres and subject matter of plots and songs, while others profile hardworking George as a performer or businessman or all-around celebrity. While allowing for some concentrated focus and highlighting habits and entrenched preferences, the format results in (sometimes necessarily) cross-referencing some facts as we criss-cross through the decades. The further we get in the book, the more the overlaps tend to over-emphasize what already got much mention and attention. The longer chapters might offer too much dwelling on details and microscope-gazing for some. The final part (called an epilogue), titled "Cohan's Legacies," is just a bit over six pages in length, sadly skimpy for a book that might have made more of a case for (and evidence of) his memory and works not fading away in the eight decades since he died. Granted, the broad, stylized shows with then-topical humor and stereotypes of ethnic groups don't age well, so few have been dusted off. The epilogue does include the history that jockey Little Johnny Jones rode back into the theatre world to be mounted for a summer run in 1980, but opened and closed on the same night in its Broadway run in 1982 at the Alvin Theatre, after 29 previews. The 1968 Broadway entry starring Joel Grey as George M!, recycling Cohan songs for a bio-musical gets about a page, with some of that reserved for recounting negative reactions (the positive is there, too). But there's no acknowledgment that it spurred tours, later regional productions, some with Grey repeating his role, as he also did for a TV version. And, speaking of TV, there are no mentions of the television airings in the late 1950s of Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway with Tammy Grimes and Larry Blyden, co-directed by Gower Champion, or Mr. Broadway with Mickey Rooney as Cohan, directed by Sidney Lumet. Both resulted in the release of companion record albums. (Rooney also stepped into the Cohan dancing shoes for a 1969 summer production of George M!). Television certainly gave exposure to the man's songs during and after his lifetime. Cohan himself sang his hits on "The Ed Sullivan Show" as did his son George Jr., whose own records of his dad's songs aren't heralded in these pages. The one-man musical George M. Cohan Tonight! is granted less than a full sentence, noting only one of its productions (Off-Broadway, 2006) and not naming its star, Jon Peterson. Also absent is the name of its playwright/director, Chip Deffaa and the fact that he's also responsible for six other Cohan-centric produced and published stage pieces (plays and revues) and several related CDs. One chapter harps on Cohan's trademark of patriotism on stage, praising the American values and way of life, marching about with the country's flag unfurled and waved, with zeal, whenever possible. Another chapter chronicles the many musicals singing the praises of down-to-earth, admirable people with Irish roots (like his own). Reading in isolation of the many projects by the prolific playwright and tunesmith, it could feel like each show that came down the pike was not much more than a two-trick pony's long parade of increasingly uninspired, tiresome excuses to wave the flag and brag about Americans or champion the Irish, while other ethnic groups are presented with less flattering stereotypes. Other styles dipped into regularly were rags-to-riches plots with more sympathy for the working class than the stuffy rich and–with quotes from scripts and stage directions to illustrate how it worked–metatheatrical plays (wherein the actors winkingly acknowledge they're in a play). What becomes irksome, however, is the resulting repetition of facts when these shows are referenced in the other chapters. While some reiteration of facts can be helpful, especially for readers who dip into the book over many spread-out sittings, how much is too much? And how soon is too soon? On two consecutive pages, we're told that "John" is the name of the father character in Little Nellie Kelly and that he's a policeman. Identifying dates reappear. Before we even get very far into info in the first chapter, we've already read some of it (and points about the book's structure) in the foreword by the publishing company's senior editor and the author's 14-page introduction, not to mention the front flap of the book cover which we expect to be the first place where basic bits are there to appetize and summarize. Ms. Craft sometimes drops a name or fact and announces that she will be going into detail later or "reminds" us that she covered it in an earlier section. She keeps coming back to the 1904 musical Little Johnny Jones, saying it was his breakthrough hit. Its score introduced "Give My Regards to Broadway" and "The Yankee Doodle Boy" (whose chorus begins with the line "I'm a Yankee Doodle dandy..."). The titular character who sings the latter claims that he was "born on the Fourth of July," the same Independence Day-coinciding birthday the patriotism-conscious/publicity-savvy Cohan claimed as his own. The author, pointing to documentation of a baptism certificate dated July 3, sides with other researchers and dubious folks against the Cohans and other reports. The biographical film starring James Cagney, Yankee Doodle Dandy, that introduced later generations to Cohan and released just months before his death, gets its own interesting chapter. Cohan had input and didn't put in some of his history, like having children and two different wives or that his sister Josie was older, not younger. Yankee Doodle Dandy: George M. Cohan and the Broadway Stage has captioned black-and-white photos and related material, plus cover pages from sheet music, seven of them repeated in full color on glossy pages. The index isn't thorough, as you won't see some names that appear in the text. I question some of what she states as definitive, and wonder about how firm she is in some beliefs and theories, when Ms. Craft uses phrases such as "It appears that..." or "It seems..." A second printing might fix a few typos and inconsistencies, such as slight variations in exact song titles ("That Haunting Melody" or "That Haunted Melody"; "Mary's a Grand Old Name" or "Mary Is a Grand Old Name"; "The American Ragtime" or "The American Rag Time"; or inconsistent capitalization of words when the same song is brought up on close-together pages). But she has dutifully dug into a wealth of material; the list of consulted sources in what's called a "selected" bibliography takes up 12 pages and she specifies her sources via footnotes, often with additional tidbits explained beside the attributions. Rather than put the footnotes on the bottom of pages as things are cited, the footnotes are collected in an appendix that takes up a whopping 52 pages. Elizabeth T. Craft's Yankee Doodle Dandy... will be a revelation for the Cohan-curious with only a passing familiarity of George Michael Cohan's work (there are hundreds of songs beyond the rousers "Over Here," "You're a Grand Old Flag," and those named above) and his influence (his plays' songs were more integrated with the plot than others in his time). We admirers of well-built, rhyme-filled catchy musical theatre songs who admit to being Cohan junkies are glad to welcome anything new that's in this book and to welcome the Cohan-curious co-readers new to the fan club for the grandfather of Broadway.
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Yankee Doodle Dandy: George M. Cohan and the Broadway Stage