The Brutal Gay Torture Murder of Hello Dolly’s "Barnaby" Danny Lockin

Very sad. I knew he was murdered, but I didn't know the horrific details. He's one of my favorite things about the film version.

I live in Southern California and when I'm on the Garden Grove freeway and drive past that area I think of poor Danny. It's just unacceptable that guy just got sentenced to a few years for such a horrendous torture and murder. I always wondered how Danny's son turned out.

I have no words for this. I knew about his death, not of the details..... wow.....

Horrendous. What a loss. I never knew.

His thoughts on Ethel Merman are fascinating too. Almost exactly how I feel about Bette:

“She wasn’t Dolly up there, she was Ethel Merman in Dolly clothes. … The audiences came, of course; they came to see the Ethel Merman version. But it wasn’t Hello, Dolly! any more, it was her show. … Channing or Streisand, they were part of a cast, trying to act out a character. But with Ethel Merman—and not just her fault, with the audience, she was such an institution—the rest of us felt like just her chorus boys or her chorus line."

The original Barnaby--whom Lockin replaced--was Jerry Dodge, who committed suicide in 1974 while employed in the short run of MACK AND MABEL. Dodge's replacement in M&M, Jess Richards, died of AIDS in 1994.

Plenty of heartbreak to go around...

(ETA I apologize. It just occurred to me that my last line above might seem to diminish the horrific death of Mr. Lockin. That isn't what I meant at all. I just find it eerily coincidental that these three young men, connected by the roles they played, all died far too young.)

Updated On: 7/9/17 at 10:48 PM

Danny was a friend of some friends of mine while I was at University in Orange County. I never met him but with my friends we watched the whole ugly legal story unfold. The sentence was a shocker - not that dissimilar to the Dan White (Harvey Milk murder) verdict a couple of years later.

I remember them telling me that Danny was often recognized, but the first question asked was never about his career, but always "What's it like to work with Barbra Streisand?" He would politely decline to talk, mostly because I think he saw how many people wanted a piece of her and he just wanted to be professional. I often wondered if that made him feel invisible and like his accomplishments didn't matter.

He was in the process of transitioning from performer to choreographer when he died. I would have liked to have seen his future work. I worked with several of his students and they adored him - they said he gave them so much more than "steps".

How awful So sad.

Danny Lockin was born 74 years ago today: July 13, 1943.

Besides working with Gene Kelly and Barbra Streisand on ''Hello, Dolly!,'' he toured with the show, opposite Betty Grable, Ginger Rogers and Eve Arden. And he would play Barnaby on Broadway with Ethel Merman and Phyllis Diller. Plus, he was an uncredited ''Yonkers Farm Boy'' in ''Gypsy'' (1962), starring Rosalind Russell.

For much more info, there's a loving website devoted to him: dannylockin.com. It offers fascinating stories about his life, onstage and off (he was married to a dancer, Cathy Haas, and they had a son), and more about his brutal death (''A travesty of justice'' ).

http://www.dannylockin.com/

Updated On: 7/13/17 at 05:14 PM

What a sad story.

I watched the Barbra Streisand Hello, Dolly! movie on Netflix a couple of months ago before I saw the Midler production, just to get a feel for the show and its score. I thought the film's cast was sensational, and right after, began to read everybody's Wikipedia pages. I'll never forget how horrible and horrifying it felt to read what happened to Danny, just a few minutes after watching his joyous performance as Barnaby.

Beyond tragic, beyond unjust. Rest in peace.

Here's his screen test for the film adaptation of HELLO, DOLLY!

Danny Lockin's HELLO, DOLLY! screen test

Theres other things that are a little bizarre connected with Dolly. One of them being the whole NYC set that was built on the 20th century studios lot burned down.



http://www.seeing-stars.com/ImagePages/FoxStudiosHelloDollySet3.shtml

Updated On: 7/15/17 at 12:10 PM