Gary told the best stories. I have hundreds, (literally) but one of my favorites is the time Hal Prince called Gary in a panic. The national tour of Side By Side By Sondheim was opening in LA, and Larry Kert couldn't go on. Could Gary fly out to LA and learn the role in twelve hours?! Yes, yes he could. They shoved him onstage in a tux, and of course, he slayed.
Gary loved show business, and he loved talking about show business. It was his life for sixty years. His first professional contract was at Stratford in 1960, and the next year he was playing in the famous Michael Langham directed, Love's Labour's Lost. He didn't return to university, because he had too many gigs! Bussing across Canada with the Canadian Players, the inaugural season of Neptune Theatre, Ding Dong at the Dell with Tom Kneebone! And he kept all those contracts, he showed them to me last week!!
Once Gary got to NYC, there was no stopping him. He spent one summer playing Matt in the Fantasticks Off-broadway--($100 a week) meeting a young Liza Minelli who was rehearsing the tour, so they went out to lunch. There is a beautiful picture in Life Magazine of Gary in this show, it's the first thing you saw when you walked into his apartment. Gary starred in two infamous Broadway flops where he played the male juvenile lead (his words). He loved telling me about Pousse Cafe which closed after three performances. ("What a mess!") And he had great George Abbott stories from The Education of HYMAN KAPLAN. His New York exploits have no rival. Gary was young and beautiful and he LIVED. And he knew absolutely everyone. Picture it, Gary floating in a pool at someone's Hampton's summer home with Kander and Ebb. They are dishing about their next project, Cabaret. Fred Ebb wrote his outgoing answering machine message. He LIVED!
Of all his accomplishments, Gary was most proud of his association with Sondheim. He was Bobby in the national tour of Company, and he played opposite Elaine Stritch for most of that run. So many stories. So many martinis. He kept a recording of his final performance of Being Alive and The Kennedy Center, and it was glorious. He played it for me, and I could see him wistfully remembering those days.
Zorba, Joseph, Phantom, Cabaret, On the Twentieth Century, Guys and Dolls, Jacques Brel--- the list goes on and on and on.
Gary was a storyteller and a raconteur, and when he retired, he started writing his own cabaret shows, and he still sounded fabulous.
I loved Gary very much. He was funny, and generous to a fault, and irascible, and loving. I was with him at the hospital last night, I couldn't enter the room because of the world we live in, but I brought him his iPad, and I told that him Shiloh was looking forward to seeing him, which made him smile. And I told him that I loved him. And I'm so glad that I did. I feel so lucky to have known him, I loved listening to his stories. I will miss him so much.
