Famed Broadway Director Tom O'Horgan Sells His 70 Years of Instruments & Memoribilia, To Fund His Alzheimer's Care

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 11/1/07 at 3:05am

The New York Times, November 1, 2007

Last week Tom O’Horgan did something he never thought he’d do. He left New York.

This is the city, after all, where Mr. O’Horgan, the director, became, as one critic called him, the Busby Berkeley of the acid set, a La MaMa veteran of the 1960s who publicly bemoaned the “blue-haired audience” of Broadway, but who in 1971 had four Broadway shows running simultaneously: “Hair,” “Jesus Christ Superstar,” “Lenny” and “Inner City.” For a brief moment Mr. O’Horgan stood astride this city’s theater scene, suede boots planted uptown and downtown.

But last Sunday he left his apartment at 840 Broadway, on 13th Street — a 2,600-square-foot loft crammed with musical instruments of every conceivable kind, the site of parties, salons and visits by Leonard Bernstein, Norman Mailer, Beverly Sills and Gore Vidal — and took a plane to Sarasota, Fla. There a condo was waiting, a few blocks from the beach.

And this Saturday, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., the loft on 13th Street will be opened to the public and everything in it put up for sale.

Mr. O’Horgan, 83, was hard pressed to explain.

“I’m thinking, ‘Why am I doing this?’” he said, sitting on a park bench in Union Square the day before he left town. “It’s not good.”

Money is why, said Marc Cohen, who has known Mr. O’Horgan for years, found the apartment in the early 1970s and lived there on and off, as a lover, then as a friend and recently as a nearly full-time caretaker.

Mr. O’Horgan’s income, primarily from author royalties his agent negotiated on “Superstar” (he received a “conceived by” credit), has not been substantial for years. But five years ago he was found to have Alzheimer’s, and he now needs round-the-clock care. All of this has drained the bank dry.

“Even after the sale there won’t be much left, because there are a lot of debts,” Mr. Cohen said, referring mostly to a mortgage taken out a few years ago to keep Mr. O’Horgan afloat.

More At Link:
For Sale: Odds and Ends of a Life in the Theater

Updated On: 11/1/07 at 03:05 AM

[mallardo]

Posted: 11/1/07 at 3:47am

What a sad situation. Good luck to him.

And welcome to Health Care in America!

[best12bars]

Posted: 11/1/07 at 8:44am

Very sad. Welcome to health care for the aged in America.

It's pretty frightening.

They will take care of you... and they will take everything you have in order to do it.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 11/1/07 at 9:09am

How incredibly awful. Good luck to him and lets hope this article opens a few eyes and hearts.

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 11/1/07 at 2:13pm

I'm going to try to go to the sale this weekend. I don't think I'll be able to afford anything, but the $25 admission fee will go to a good cause.

[Ed_Mottershead]

Posted: 11/1/07 at 3:38pm

Having worked in American healthcare-related industries for years, I can say with confidence that in the USA, it STINKS. If this country can't have enough pride and care for one of the significant cultural figures of the 20th century, think how awful it must be for those who don't even have a "name." The whole thing is an absolute DISGRACE. Of course, if you even mention the word socialism to our beloved president and his co-horts, you're going to be accused of being anti-American. Heaven forbid that the people who've had to support this government should look to it for assistance when they are in true need. This S---s!!!!!

[GoSmileLaughCryClap]

Posted: 11/1/07 at 9:42pm

O'Horgan, if he wasn't exploited, could make a stunning example of the failure of our country to care for its people. If he and his friends were willing, a short documentary about his plight would be very powrful. To see a great and successful commercial artist being bankrupt and forced to leave his home might help get the message out that the healthcare and insurance industries are a house of cards waiting to collapse.




Updated On: 11/1/07 at 09:42 PM

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 11/1/07 at 10:31pm

That is so sad

God im glad im in the UK and we have the NHS so don't have to pay for health care

its idiotic your health care system

[Alphadog2]

Posted: 11/2/07 at 12:06am

Wait a sec. Our health care system does in many ways suck but don't go saying that you don't have to pay for your health care in the UK or in any other gov't run health system. You pay for your health care in the form of taxes.

I'm not a big fan of our system - we DESPERATELY need government-mandated catastrophic health coverage for all our citizens - but it's disingenuous to say you have free health care in the UK..

[colored by esteem]

Posted: 11/4/07 at 12:54am

Did anyone go to the sale?!
And?
Updated On: 11/6/07 at 12:54 AM

[colored by esteem]

Posted: 11/6/07 at 1:14am

Bump

Did anyone at all from the BWW community attend?
Can somebody report on the proceedings?
Updated On: 11/6/07 at 01:14 AM