#1
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
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
"Winning a Tony this year is like winning Best Attendance in third grade: no one will care but the winner and their mom."
-Kad
"I have also met him in person, and I find him to be quite funny actually. Arrogant and often misinformed, but still funny."
-bjh2114 (on Michael Riedel)
-Kad
"I have also met him in person, and I find him to be quite funny actually. Arrogant and often misinformed, but still funny."
-bjh2114 (on Michael Riedel)
Updated On: 11/1/07 at 03:05 AM
