Life Is Not a Stage by Florence Henderson (big screen ebook reader .TXT) 📕

side. But I loved the challenge and the freedom to be totally in charge of my own material. And I was finally ready to take that big step to go out there by myself and see if I could hold an audience and excite them. The good thing, too, is that you find out immediately if you’ve succeeded or failed. One of the first times I tried out the act was at an exclusive country club in Westchester. Performing for a wealthy and sophisticated audience would be a fair challenge, I thought. It reminded me of John Lennon’s famous call-out to a royal benefit concert audience, “People in the cheaper seats, just clap your hands. The rest of you…just rattle your jewelry.” I was relieved. The reaction was tremendous, and I thought, “Wow, this is fun.”

One of the major reasons why I didn’t do it earlier was that I had a legitimate concern that it might endanger my marriage and my family. The club lifestyle was not one that you clocked into and out of like a day job. The environment of Broadway theater was more protected—you sign in, prepare, interact with the other cast members and crew, do the performance, then go home to your husband and kids. The experience with the audience doing clubs was more intense and raw. You had to be good and on top of your game. It also meant being away from home for weeks. The pressure was far more intense on so many fronts. But freed from so much of the obligation and responsibility that had repressed me, I was ready to take it on. Standing there on the club stage was a form of freedom that I had never had before in my life—just to go out there and be my unadulterated self!

The act officially debuted at the Empire Room of the Waldorf-Astoria on February 28, 1967, for a three-week engagement. As people munched on their turbot mousse with lobster and truffle sauce and prime beef with sautéed endive, I ran through a set mixing Broadway and popular tunes, including “My Favorite Things,” “I Know a Place,” “Gotta Travel On,” “Impossible Dream,” “Tonight,” “Who Can I Turn To,” and a Sound of Music medley, among several more. There was quite a buzz in the newspaper columns the following day reporting on Mayor John Lindsay’s very public “congratulatory” kiss at the reception following the performance (that’s a scene in the coming attractions, stay tuned). Otherwise, the evening was a great success and an auspicious beginning. Rave reviews and great crowds at the Empire Room got the buzz going along the club circuit, so the bookings grew. From there I went on to play an engagement at the Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C., and continued on to similar venues.

One of the funniest and strangest compliments I ever received happened during this period. I was playing the Concord, the Borscht Belt resort in the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York. “You’re a no door act,” said Philly Greenwald, the manager of the club at the resort and brother of famed choreographer Michael Kidd. I had absolutely no clue what he meant by that. “There are very few of you,” he explained. “Lena Horne is one of them, and so are you.” He went on to tell me that the audience had a way to show their appreciation to the artist besides the Concord tradition of banging wooden knockers on the tables in lieu of clapping. (Maybe it was a one-handed way to applaud without having to put down your fork or spoon.) This was a discriminating audience when it came to supper club performance. A “no door act” meant that nobody got up in the middle of the performance to go to the bathroom. They had seen it all, he told me, so it wasn’t a big deal for them to suddenly get up if nature called. So I learned that if people went so far as to hold their bladder for you, it was biological proof that you had to have been good.

The Concord unfortunately was the casualty of the ultimate knocker—the wrecking ball. No longer appealing to the younger generations, the hotel went into decline and stood shuttered and abandoned by the late 1990s and was ultimately leveled to the ground in 2008.

As mentioned before, playing clubs was hardly a sheltered environment, and interaction with the audience could be interesting and sometimes intense. One major factor was the booze. I observed quickly into the process how males and females behave differently when they’ve had a little too much. For the most part, the men became better behaved up to a certain blood alcohol level, more appreciative and definitely more responsive freed of their usual inhibitions. The women, on the other hand, had the tendency to forget their manners and lose sight of the fact that a performer was up there entertaining them. They would turn to their companion and chat away, sometimes with more than enough volume to compete with the singer.

I don’t know about other performers, but when I’m on the stage, my senses are heightened. I hear everything and see everything. At a performance with David Brenner in a big tent near Atlantic City, I was singing “Send in the Clowns” when I heard the audience tittering. I immediately checked myself to make sure nothing was falling off of me. I then turned around and saw that there was a big dog just sitting there on the stage and looking at me. Of course, the audience loved it. I stopped everything and engaged the dog in a conversation. “Are you enjoying the show? If you like it, you can stay.” When I started again, the dog looked up at me, thought about it for a second, and gave me his answer by promptly walking down the aisle and out the nearest exit. The audience and I had a great laugh.

During this same engagement, there was a terrible rainstorm with thunder and