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BASED ON THE BARRY KROST SAMUEL BERNSTEIN DAVID SNYDER |
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NEW MUSICAL SIZZLES: Fast, fluid and sexy—yet never dirty. A touch of burlesque mixed with the modern joy and peril of idol worship. It’s a giddy, vibrant story set in New York and Hollywood at their most glamorous and dangerous. But look beyond the tabloid scandals, beneath the whipped cream and diamonds, and you find something truly shocking: Heart, family, and innocence. Go figure. ROBERT HARRISON, the man who publishes Confidential Magazine, as well as the girlie publications that precede it, is obsessed with his creations. They take him inside a dream world where fantasies come true—where he is the essence of Café Society and can live out his Man-About-Town desires. Yet he is also a deeply generous spirit, who rarely understands that his actions can have disastrous consequences. Big Bob's dazzling rise, desperate fall, and spectacular comeback take him to triumph beyond even his own imagination, as Confidential Magazine becomes the top newsstand seller in America, with over 5 million copies of each issue flying off the shelves. Celebrity scandal is the goose that lays the golden egg. But it soon grows into a veritable dragon that doesn’t just bite Bob in the ass—it swallows him whole. In the end he must choose between fantasy and reality; family and infamy; legacy and longing. His choice? Family and hope. The kicker? The world quite erroneously will believe him to be a suicidal murderer until the day he dies. The tabloid world Bob spawned will make sure of it. Luckily Bob can take a joke. Even when it’s at his own expense. And don’t talk to him about the dark side of celebrity. No matter how the story ends, Harrison will always be the first to shout, “Hooray for Hollywood.” ACT I Then w e’re in Bob's Manhattan pad in the middle of a photo shoot for his girlie mag called Titter, where Harrison happily uses himself as a model for the spread, “Gals Like It Rough.” and Harrison spanking a woman, his girlfriend JEANNIE, who is wearing the skimpiest of lingerie. The only problem is, he can’t for the life of him figure out why anyone would want to spank a girl, when you could take her out to dinner and buy her diamonds instead. There’s a set, a crew, and sexy models everywhere, but Harrison is also surrounded by family—two doting older sisters, EDITH and HELEN, and Edith’s two children, MICHAEL and MARJORIE (later to be called Confidential’s “Duchess of Dirt” and the “Flame Haired Femme Fatale”). They’re a loving, old-fashioned Jewish family, who think nothing of Harrison peddling off-color magazines. The sexiness of the shoot is totally offset by Harrison’s sisters who make sure the girls are warm, eating enough, that Bob doesn’t have a cold… Bob just wants to get finished so he can go out on a date. Then the set morphs to the swankest nightclub around and Bob is with a caravan of girls, relatives, employees, and other hangers-on–all happily celebrating night on the town with Big Bob. All of the elements of Bob’s life come together with musical style and verve. Yet we get indications that all is not necessarily easy in his girlie mag empire: He’s fighting with the Postmaster General in court all the time (supported by the ACLU no less), and they have had to water down the contents. In the middle of a big dance number his accountant comes in with the news that despite appearances, Bob is broke. Sales of the cleaner mags have gone into the toilet. Bob quips: “If It’s Mailable It Ain’t Salable.” Harrison needs to pull a rabbit from his hat or his expensive new life will come crashing down around his ears. He’s desperate for a new idea. In a nightclub he thinks everyone is gossiping about his fall from grace, but when he listens closer, he realizes that everyone is actually enthralled with gossip about people they don't even know; celebs, the rich, politicians, etc. And he gets the idea for Cofidential Magazine. He's gonna “Tell the Facts and Names the Names: Psst! It’s Confidential” Harrison’s vision springs to life in front of him as his magazine, its headlines, and the stars of its stories to come dance around, dazzling him. Back to the family. More loans. More high hopes. Harrison also has an ace up his sleeve. He befriends out of work writer/editor HOWARD RUSHMORE, a sour guy whose anti-Communist rants are so vitriolic, no one can stand him—except, for some reason, WALTER WINCHELL, a man who just happens to be the most powerful media maven in the world. Winchell broadcasts to a world-wide audience of OVER 50 MILLION PEOPLE. “Sure I got friends. Fifty million of ‘em!” Bob launches Confidential Magazine and Winchell promotes the magazine endlessly. Suddenly Harrison is living his dreams with a vengeance—and his visionary creative juices go wild. When he can’t think of a euphemism for “lesbian” in a story about Marlene Dietrich’s past, she shimmers in, tousles his hair, and says, “Call me a Baritone Babe.” As the Hollywood stories prove more and more popular, Marjorie is sent to the West Coast by Uncle Bob to oversee research. The magazine always has two signed affidavits backing up each story and Harrison cunningly holds back some of the worst stuff in case of lawsuits, threatening to reveal the whole sordid tale if someone files suit. Case in point: In “The Nude Who Came to Dinner” Confidential printed the story of how Bob Mitchum showed up drunk at a costume party, stripped naked, smeared ketchup on his chest, and said, “Look I’m a hamburger!” The truth they held back was that it was a party of mostly gay guys, the ketchup was on Mitchum’s penis, and what he actually bellowed out was “Which one of you fags wants a hotdog?!” Bob Mitchum could file a lawsuit but then the whole tale would be a matter of public record. “Confidentially Speaking: Sue Me. I Like It” Harrison grows happily lost in his self-created world of flash and sizzle. Like a drug addict, he needs larger and larger fixes. Jeannie gets a little lost in the shuffle, and she struggles to remain a part of his life. Marjorie comes into her own as a smart business woman rubbing shoulders with everyone who’s anyone—developing a taste for power. And Howard Rushmore hates them both. Harrison has pulled his unpopular Commie articles from the magazine. Then in short order, Howard Rushmore gets kidnapped with an avalanche of publicity following. Then Bob tops him by getting shot in the jungle in a spectacular love triangle involving Jeannie and a millionaire playboy aviator. He's missing! |
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ACT 2 A growing rift between Bob and his family spreads. They don't know how he could have made them worry that he was dead in the jungles of the Dominican Republic. His siters are furious. Marjorie takes it in stride. She is growing distant from Edith and Helen as well. They think she might be doing something shady: Bribery? Kickbacks? They don't know. They try to approach her about it but she blows up at them. She swears innocense but tells them to butt out. Meanwhile Bob's relationship with Howard Rushmore is also deteriorating. Rushmore's stories are increasingly bitter, badly sourced, and unpopular with readers. Soon Rushmore's position at the magazine is kaput. Then is short order Bob and Marjorie are indicted by the State of California on multiple counts of Conspiracy to Commit Libel and for the distribution of Obscenity. The Trial of a 100, then 200 Stars captivates the entire world. It's a circus sideshow. One witness commits suicide. Another is murdered. The jury gets into a brawl. Prostitutes put out. The magazine is accused of being responsible for no less than death and the wanton destruction of Hollywood careers. Everything is fluid, musical, and fun. “Who Died?” Bob wonders. “Whose Career Is Ruined?” He makes mincemeat of the prosecution arguments, crowing that the stars in his magazine have only gotten more famous, more successful. “What’s the Big Deal?” “Where’s the Fire?” The trials many twists and turns build musically to the centerpiece moment of betrayal: Howard Rushmore testifies for the prosecution against Harrison. He’s boozy, hopped up on goofballs, clearly headed for the skids, and out for blood. Rushmore spins his own tune, about payoffs, dirty tricks, and even falsely accusing Marjorie of blackmail. Marjorie faints—garnering yet more headlines, as she portrays herself as in innocent wife and mother in homemeade shirtwiast dresses with Peter Pan collars. The buzz and excitement builds, with music and dancing taking us to the inevitable moment of revealing the verdict. The excitement grows into a kind of dizzying hysteria: The jury sings about how they know something is rotten, they hate the magazine, they want to punish someone—but they simply can’t decide! It’s a hung jury. Harrison has to make a choice: He can go to trial again, where he knows he has a fair chance of winning, or he can take a settlement offer from the prosecution that will effectively pull the plug on his baby. He desperately wants Confidential to live on. The musical fugues of his imagination surround him; all the fabulous stories, the stars, the headlines… And then there's Jeannie. Belying her gold digger/partygirl image, she actually loves him. Can't he choose her over the madness of the magazine? The Partyboy Publisher chooses love and family over his creation, and he sells the magazine, and signs agreements in Los Angeles with the prosecutors. It’s all over. He hates the publicity about it, wrestling with regrets—a totally new experience for him. “Is This How Regular Joes Feel All The Time? It’s Not For Me.” Howard Rushmore takes evil glee in Harrison’s fall, proclaiming that he has the last laugh at last. Unfortunately this takes place during a drunken, drug-addled brawl with his estranged wife, and it ends in the only real tragedy of the entire piece: Rushmore shoots his wife dead in the back of a taxi cab and then shoots himself. The headlines read: “Confidential Publisher Shoots Wife and Self” The whole world thinks it was Bob, not Rushmore who did the deed. Harrison sings that maybe Rushmore has had the last laugh after all… But who cares if the celebrity world of scandal he has created has just eaten him alive—he has loved every minute of it, and wouldn’t change anything for the world. His family, his soon-to-be wife Jeannie, the girls, and everyone else in his vivid, colorful world of self-invention join him in celebration of that it is indeed Harrison who has had the last laugh. He’s rich, surrounded by the people who love him, and totally and completely alive. Plus: Only a fool would believe that Big Bob won't be back. And big as Rockefeller. So, look out! |
