Laurents vs. LuPone - does Sondheim have a say?- Page 5

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 10/25/06 at 5:13pm

I don't think LuPone begging Laurents to play Rose in his revival of GYPSY in 1989 was the source of their fued: she would probably have been considered too young for it at the time anyway and lots of directors say "no" to actors without it errupting into a fued.

For all we know they were friendly at the time, he said no to her doing GYPSY (Tyne Daly was a pretty big name in 1989 anyway)and he later asked her to do JOLSON - she agreed - refused to continue with it - and he became embittered by it and refused for her to be considered with any of his future projects (which naturally would include any major revival of GYPSY).

[Gypsy9]

Posted: 10/26/06 at 12:22pm

I have heard so many negative things about Laurents that they must be true. I only have one disagreement with an earlier post, describing the dinner with Linda Lavin and Laurents. I saw Tyne Daly 4 times in GYPSY and Linda Lavin on New Year's Eve of that year and there was just no good comparison--Daly was in my opinion superb and had tremendous stage presence, whereas Lavin was just OK, nothing more. She may have wanted to mop the floor with Daly but she sure didn't succeed. She lacked the power to bring off that role.Lavin was the weakest of all the Broadway Mama Roses, and I have seen them all, beginning with Merman.

Updated On: 10/26/06 at 12:22 PM