Anna Marie Alberghetti question

[Blue-Eyed Wonder]

Posted: 1/13/08 at 2:24am

Does anyone know anything about the rumors that Anna Marie Alberghetti had a big falling out with David Merrick during her run in Carnival? I've heard that she had some fight with him and she wouldn't show up for performances and he threatened to sue, but I can't find any details on the story. Anyone know anything?

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 1/13/08 at 8:38am

From a TIME magazine article comes this:

Anna Maria Alberghetti, who said she was too sick to appear in CARNIVAL and dragged herself off to the hospital. Merrick sent the lady a bouquet of plastic roses and demanded a lie-detector test.

Here's a link to the entire article, which also mentions TONS of good and juicy info on his many spats with other actors, from Carol Channing to Jackie Gleason.

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,842541,00.html


Anna Maria in CARNIVAL:

[WOSQ]

Posted: 1/14/08 at 10:34am

In a mid-70s interview published in People, Merrick was asked what he thought was his greatest achievement.

His reply - "Making sure that Anna Maria Alberghetti never worked on Broadway again."

I'd call that a 'falling out'.

[PS - She has never worked on Broadway since she left Carnival in 1962.]

[RetroBoy]

Posted: 1/14/08 at 2:32pm

The poor thing was relegated to Good Seasons salad dressing commercials.

[theaterkid1015]

Posted: 5/16/08 at 9:04pm

Does anyone know why the decision was made for her to wear a body mic? Wasn't she supposed to be some baby opera prodigy or something?

[BNN]

Posted: 5/16/08 at 9:28pm

If I recall correcly, Anna Marie stole some sort of plaque of Merrick's from Sardi's or somewhere and hung it above her toilet in response to the roses.

[roquat]

Posted: 5/16/08 at 9:34pm

Merrick was reportedly furious when Barbra Streisand did her famous "gum chewing" audition for his I CAN GET IT FOR YOU WHOLESALE and charmed the creative team into giving her the part of Miss Marmelstein. He said to the casting director, "I told you I don't want ugly girls in my shows--we already had this out on CARNIVAL!"

It sounds like Alberghetti couldn't have done anything to please him--he just made up his mind they'd be enemies from the start, because he was coerced into casting her against his will.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 5/16/08 at 9:36pm

Body mics weren't used at the time of CARNIVAL! Instead, therre were mics along the foot of the stage, causing the audience to hear lots of footsteps. The mics were shut off during dance numbers.

[theaterkid1015]

Posted: 5/16/08 at 9:40pm

But, I thought Alberghetti alone had a body mike in the show?

[Dollypop]

Posted: 5/16/08 at 9:50pm

Body mics weren't used until the era of APPLAUSE. And they weren't perfected. I remember seeing a matinee of APPLAUSE and hearing Lauren Bacall's lunch repeat on her throughout the performance.

Even the original JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR used mics with cords.

Updated On: 5/16/08 at 09:50 PM

[Dollypop]

Posted: 5/16/08 at 9:52pm

BTW:: According to reports, Anna Maria Alberghetti wasn't an easy person to work with.

Posted: 5/17/08 at 12:01am

They get into it in "Abomnible Showman." She missed performances, she said she was sick, he went to the press. He was photographed heading to her hospital room with a lie detector and she went to equity.

He was famous for that sort of thing. There are more people who didn't get along with him than did.

[JohnBoy2]

Posted: 5/17/08 at 12:25am

Jerry Herman found his experience on Hello, Dolly!, very unpleasant, because of Merrick. All I know is, Miss Alberghetti was superb in Carnival!.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 5/17/08 at 2:11am

David Merrick was a very sick, very sad, very angry man who made life a living hell for many of the people who worked for him. He was also a great and gutsy producer who kept hundreds of people employed and entertained millions. Sadly, I can tell you the two often go hand-in-hand.

I usually tell people that the stories they hear about Hollywood producers are all crap. Many are MUCH worse.

I suppose Broadway has its share of subhuman impresarios as well.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 5/17/08 at 2:13am

And I'll bet AMA just stood up for herself, which would have resulted in being labeled "difficult" back in the chauvinistic sixties.

[Gypsy9]

Posted: 5/17/08 at 9:00am

Alberghetti had a magnificent singing voice. Her rendition of "I come from the town of Mira" was exquisite, with the most memorable pianissimo ending I have ever heard in a theatre. Merrick may well have ruined her Broadway career after the hugely loved CARNIVAL.

[roquat]

Posted: 5/17/08 at 9:19pm

CARNIVAL may have been a huge hit in its day, but it's unrevivable--the treacly, dated book and lyrics can't be salvaged, and the puppet antics would have been groaned off an episode of "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood."

[WOSQ]

Posted: 5/19/08 at 10:39am

Miss Alberghetti arrived with the temperment of an opera singer and the work habits of one. She was used to singing 2-3 times per week instead of 8 for starters and expected the management to accomodate her after the show had settled in. She alienated a lot of people.

Look at her post-Carnival career. It really doesn't exist except for some stock tours and being the Good Seasons Salad Dressing spokeswoman for a series of campaigns which probably paid the bills and then some. I can't remember seeing her name anywhere since the 70s.

Merrick believed in publicity and if showing up at a hospital put the title Carnival in the papers, it was good.

Alberghetti's replacements were Anita Gillette and Susan Watson who were not exactly chopped liver, and could do 8 a week.

Merrick oddly was very shy. Also, his GM, Jack Schlissel, was the true henchman in the office and the notoriously nasty negotiator. Of course everything he did was okayed by Merrick.

An old friend worked for Merrick 1960-64 and she got along with him very well, but as she said, "I wasn't afraid of him and he respected that." When she left his employ he said to her that if she needed him for anything to call. She knew not to waste an offer like that and only took him up on it once.

She was the unsung person who actually called the people with the same names as the critics for the classic Subways Are For Sleeping stunt.

[puppetman2]

Posted: 5/19/08 at 1:20pm

A friend was in the cast of the original CARNIVAL and said Miss Alberghetti was a --tchy prima donne and horrible to work with. Everyone was really happy when she left the show.

For the poster who says CARRNIVAL can not be revived, it had a successful Enchores run, was a hit in DC and is done by many theaters outside NYC. The puppet sequences are charming and are not supposed to be high tech over the top sequences.

[Demitri2]

Posted: 5/19/08 at 2:56pm

Then that story Merv Griffin loved to share about Alberghetti wearing a body mike during "Carnival" and forgetting to turn it off while using the toilet offstage is false? Aaaaaw. I did see her once in stock doing "West Side Story" and what I remember most is she didn't take the time to wash her hair that morning. Where her pictures posted outside the theatre showed long full shoulder length hair what we got that matinee was a greasy mop with her hair pulled back in a pony tail. She looked like she needed a shower.

[nobodyhome]

Posted: 5/20/08 at 5:10am

Yes, Alberghetti is supposed to have worn a body mike in Carnival! She may have been the first person on Broadway to have used one, but that's not certain.

And all the Broadway Dollys, with the possible exception of Merman, wore body mikes. At the time Merman was playing it, I remember reading an article saying she was the only Broadway Dolly not to wear one. And when I saw her in it, it seemed very clear when she was on the runway that she wasn't wearing one. There was a distinct difference in the sound when she was on the runway, she sounded completely unamplified. (There were no floor mikes on the runway.) But Brian Kellow's Merman bio says she did wear a body mike.

Streisand is supposed to have used one in Funny Girl as well.

To return to Alberghetti, yes, she'd been something of a prodigy (as you can see and hear in the Frank Capra movie Here Comes the Bride, where she plays a blind orphan with an extraordinary singing voice in a scene near the beginning). But for whatever reason, she didn't go on to have an opera career, and I'm guessing she probably couldn't have. Updated On: 5/20/08 at 05:10 AM

[philcrosby]

Posted: 5/20/08 at 9:02am

Kennedy Center's CARNIVAL last year proved that the show is wonderfully revivable when in the right hands.

Of course, that is true of almost every show someone calls "dated" or "unrevivable" --- like, um SOUTH PACIFIC.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 5/20/08 at 9:06am

Difficult, temperamental actress, aloof, passive -aggressive producer with Iago-like hitman flunky.

Another day at the office for me.

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 5/20/08 at 9:28am

I wish I had a nickel for every actor ever mentioned in a "mic still on in the john" story.
Actually it did happen to me once in Texas.
Everyone loves toilet humor.

[Gypsy9]

Posted: 5/20/08 at 9:28am

Allofmylife, that is a very succinct and clever take on Alberghetti, Merrick and Schlissel.