Remembering BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY's 50 Years Later

PHANTOM is nearing its 30th year at the Majestic, but 50 years ago this week BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY's played 4 preview performances before being closed down by David Merrick.

The show seemed a recipe for success, featuring a score by hitmaker Bob Merrill and TV stars Richard Chamberlain and Mary Tyler Moore in the lead roles, as well as being based on the same source material as the popular Blake Edwards film. Developmental problems (including three book writers) plagued the show, the leading lady was maligned by all the critics and Bob Merrill's score while tuneful was unsuitable for the material. The cast album was to be recorded by RCA Victor but after it shuttered obviously was dropped. Original Cast Records released an all-star studio cast recording in 2001.

Did anyone see it way back when? Does anyone think it will be ever staged again?

Rehearsal shots (the dances were by Michael Kidd)









Production Photos (from all 3 versions)











































Color production footage from Philadelphia

I saw it in Philadelphia, when it was called Holly Golightly. The show has the reputation of being the worst flop of all time simply because it was so prominent, so anticipated, and then was shut down when still in previews. But it actually wasn't that bad. The problem was that its spirit and style didn't suit the Capote original at all: it had been turned into a conventional musical comedy with a dark side, when it needed to be as unusual and flavorsome as a Sondheim-Prince kind of show.

In other words, the same creative team might have come up with a perfectly acceptable piece using completely different material. Instead, they chose this all but untranslatable story without thinking how best to musicalize it on its own terms. Further, neither of the two leads had anything substantial to play, and the support was all over the place. I remember a party scene in which the chorus guys glared at each other and sang about "dirty old men" as if Bob Merrill were a child who had just discovered a naughty term and was using it to shock the grownups. In the same scene, Holly and Mag Wildwood sang a duet vcalled "The Home For Wayward Girls" that had nothing to do with the action.

The whole evening was like that--snippets of things that never cohered. But it wasn't boring. It was the sort of show that you could enjoy even while you knew it was terrible.

Ethan Mordden's book on sixties musicals, whose title I forget, has several pages on it. Ken Mandelbaum talks about, too, in Not Since Carrie.

By the way, Breakfast at Tiffany's played only three previews in New York. The Wednesday matinee was cancelled.

Thanks again for these wonderful, anniversary gifts. This is one show I wish I had seen. When I was a kid the two leads were favorites of mine, so I had a kind of fanatic interest in the show. Interesting is the picture of Chamberlain with a beard. Is it from a different show, or did he have to grow it for the absurdist Edward Albee version that ran in previews at the Majestic? (Now that version is the one to revive! Incidentally, about three or four years ago, the musical was revived using the original Abe Burrows' book in London, as part of a "Lost Musicals" concert series. They used the title Holly Golightly, if I recall.)

I've often wondered if anything could be made of this show with a new book and maybe just a handful of songs from the score. Maybe it would be better to just start from scratch though. How was Greenberg's play received on Broadway? I confess to not really keeping tabs on it at the time. Weren't there even songs in it?

For anyone interested, here are the liner notes from the studio cast album. They include background info by Ken Mandelbaum (a rehash/extension of his thoughts from Not Since Carrie) as well as synopses of two of the three versions of the show.

I also think it's more a legendary flop because of the way David Merrick printed that infamous exit announcement basically saying he was sparing the public of a piece of ****. It just seemed an unnecessary and gratuitous way to humiliate the cast and crew.