SUSAN WATSON

The premiere of the original Kean, with Alfred Drake in the title role, occurred just less than a month after Susan Watson had played her 607th and final performance as ingenue Kim McAfee in Bye Bye Birdie, which marked her Broadway debut. "I stayed for the entire run," recalls Watson, speaking from the Sherman Oaks, California, home that she shares with her husband of 36 years, producer Norton Wright. The Wrights are parents of two sons, Robert and Doug, and recently became proud grandparents.

A native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Watson was initially inspired to follow a stage career when, as a youngster, she saw a production of the Rodgers & Hammerstein Oklahoma! Years later, she was asked to play the female lead in a 1965 New York City Center revival of the classic musical. "Richard Rodgers came backstage one night [at Lincoln Center, where Watson was playing Carrie in a production of Carousel] and said, 'How would you like to do Laurey?' I'd come full-circle. And here was Mister Rodgers asking me to do it!"

The daughter of Robert and Gretchen (Warren) Watson, Susan is one of five children; she has a sister and three brothers. "My father was a geologist and geophysicist for Carter Oil, and he played organ and piano. At home, there was always music. He loved Gilbert and Sullivan, and Rodgers and Hammerstein. My mother taught dance."

It was a dance teacher who suggested that the teenaged Susan try out for summer stock, and Susan's first stage experience took place at Kansas City's Starlight Theatre, where "they did twelve musicals over the summer, and I got a speaking part in By the Beautiful Sea. Lillian Roth played my mother."

Accepted by Juilliard, Susan then came to Manhattan, and the next summer found herself doing stock in Beverly, Massachusetts. "I went from the dancing chorus [during her first stock stint] to the singing chorus [in Massachusetts]."

Returning to New York, she successfully auditioned for the London company of West Side Story, playing Velma and understudying Maria. "My parents were a little disappointed about [her leaving] Juilliard, but I tried to explain to my father that you couldn't get better training anywhere than to have Hal Prince as your producer, Stephen Sondheim as your lyricist, and Jerry Robbins as your director. On opening night [in London], Leonard Bernstein conducted!"

Having made her West End debut prior to playing on Broadway, Watson came back to the U.S., via Paris. Future husband Norton Wright suggested that Susan contact his sister, Ellie, in Paris, and it was her future sister-in-law that advised Susan to contact Tom Jones (whom Ellie later married) upon returning to New York.

Indeed, Watson copped the female lead, Luisa, in a Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones one-act musical entitled The Fantasticks, which played a week's engagement at Barnard College's Minor Latham Theatre. While money was being raised for an off-Broadway production of the show, Watson did two other revues, a revival of Lend an Ear ("I did the Gladiola Girl role that Carol Channing had done [in the original]") and Follies of 1910. That was a bomberoo, but Marge and Gower Champion came to see it," and that led to Gower casting her in Bye Bye Birdie.

As Broadway beckoned, the backing fell into place for The Fantasticks. "I said, 'What am I going to do?' Harvey Schmidt told me, 'Don't be silly. Do the Broadway show.' [There was no way of telling how long the other musical might run.] I later did productions of it - one with Howard Keel - and I did the TV version. [Presented on NBC's "The Hallmark Hall of Fame," 10/18/64, it also starred Bert Lahr, Stanley Holloway, Ricardo Montalban, and John Davidson.] I could have invested in The Fantasticks, but I didn't have the money." (Susan's sister, Janet, a choreographer, is now Mrs. Tom Jones.)

Birdie, by Charles Strouse, Lee Adams, and Michael Stewart, was a happy experience, and it reunited Watson with one of the West Side Story leads, Chita Rivera ("She's such a dear"). Recalls Watson, "'Put On a Happy Face' was originally [meant] for Chita, but it never seemed to fit [in the show]. Out of town, Gower decided to have Dick Van Dyke do it, and it became his big number." Although she tested for the film version, Watson's role went to newcomer Ann-Margret, who became the focus of the picture. "Everyone who loves the movie," says Susan, "never saw the show."

Next up: the national tour of Carnival, the Bob Merrill-Michael Stewart musical based on the jewel-box of a movie, Lili, which starred Leslie Caron. It was Gower Champion's follow-up success to Birdie and marked the Broadway debut of Anna Maria Alberghetti. The only problem was that Champion didn't see Watson as right for the role (because of her success as Kim McAfee). "I had to convince him that I could do it. I had been an opera student at Juilliard, and I auditioned [for Carnival] with 'Glitter and Be Gay,' and similar numbers." She toured as Lili, and since it had been agreed "that Anna Maria would play Los Angeles, I [then] switched places with her" and joined the Broadway company.

Watson has great praise for Robert Preston, opposite whom she played on Broadway in Ben Franklin in Paris, the 1964 Sidney Michaels-Mark Sandrich, Jr. musical. At Lincoln Center, she played Carrie in Carousel, starring John Raitt, "twenty years after he originated [Billy Bigelow]. Jerry Orbach played Jigger, and Reid Shelton was a wonderful Mister Snow." Oklahoma reunited Watson with John Davidson, with whom she'd later appear in The Music Man.

In 1966, Watson returned to the New York City Center to play Amy in Where's Charley?, starring Darryl Hickman, and that December she was back on Broadway in A Joyful Noise, starring John Raitt. The Oscar Brand-Paul Nassau-Edward Padula musical lasted only a dozen performances, but earned Watson a Tony Award nomination as Best Featured Actress. (She lost to Peg Murray for Cabaret.) "It was Michael Bennett's first Broadway show [as choreographer/musical stager], and Tommy Tune was in the chorus."

Last October, Watson again appeared with John Raitt at a theatre named for him in California. "On Fridays evenings, he sang songs from different shows, and I did the Oklahoma!/Carousel evening with him. He's still in fine form."

She was reunited with Schmidt and Jones for Celebration. "By then, they had started the Portfolio Workshop, on West 48th Street. It was an early version of what almost everyone does now [to workshop shows]." At Lincoln Center, Watson played Beggar on Horseback in repertory, and then was called in to take over the title role in the Broadway-bound No, No, Nanette. "There have been books written about that experience," says Watson. "I was recently reading the back of the booklet on the CD, and things just don't jibe. There was a lot of Sturm und Drang between the two producers, Harry Rigby and Cyma Rubin.

"Harry was the one I knew, and the one who asked me to do the show. By the time it opened, Harry was no longer a producer. There were lawsuits, but I'm the type of person who doesn't like conflict. I did my job, and tried to stay out of it. On the back of the CD booklet, it makes it sound like Harry had nothing to do with the final production. It was just the opposite. It was Harry's idea to have the beach-ball number; he had seen it years before - as a young boy - at the Roxy. He got Ruby Keeler to do the show; it was Harry who got Helen Gallagher and Bobby Van."

Watson's numerous credits include My Fair Lady, Funny Face, Tintypes, Into the Woods, Colette/Collage, I Remember Mama, Nine, and The Grass Harp. She's also directed productions of The Fantasticks and Carnival. As part of the Musical Theatre Guild, a group of professionals who present one-night performances of musicals at the Pasadena Playhouse, Watson notes, "We just did Take Me Along, and Bobby Morse was our narrator. His daughter Allyn made her debut in the show. Next, we're doing The Baker's Wife, with Terri Ralston directing, and there are plans to do A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Rags.

Meanwhile, Susan Watson would love to return to Broadway, and Broadway would be very lucky to have her.

7 March 2000
© Michael Buckley 2000

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