1995: Glenn Close's scathing letter to Andrew Lloyd Webber

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STFU, Glenn.

ALW is known to be petty and vindictive...but he was no match for the OG.

I remember reading about this incident in Sam Staggs’ book about Sunset and I was utterly fascinated. I’d love to see the full letter.

I didn't know G could read OR write.

[quote]"I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that my performance turned 'Sunset Blvd.' around. I made it a hit. It existed on my shoulders

Patti LuPone must have been furious reading this, even though every word of it was true. Glenn did save the show after Patti's flop turn as Desmond.

ALW likes to needle his leading ladies. He tortured Glenn, Patti and Faye Dunaway in SB. He played Streisand's recordings from the show over the phone when people called the London box-office for tickets. Patti never got over him allowing Streisand to debut the songs on her Back to Broadway album. She even called Barbra "that bitch" in an interview in USA Today before the show opened. He begged Streisand to star in the film version, but she declined several times, which infuriated Glenn.

Webber also told Betty Buckley that Streisand's version of Memory was the definitive one and could never be topped.

Diahann Carroll starred in the Toronto production of "Sunset Boulevard" and she says ALW treated her horribly.

R7 Are there any sources where she’s gone in-depth about that? All I remember reading in one of her books was that she and the Toronto company were very excited about ALW attending a performance and were anxiously awaiting his feedback, but all they received was a brief “Thanks for a fine show” message over the intercom. He never even came back to see them in person and they were all naturally disappointed.

[quote] I made it a hit. It existed on my shoulders, and yet a representative went out of their way and lied to try and make the public believe that my contribution to this show is nothing, that Karen's performance is equal to mine, and that my absence had absolutely no effect whatsoever on all the thousands of dollars that supposedly kept pouring into the box office. It sickens me to be treated with such disregard. If I could leave the show in May, when my contract says I can, believe me I would.

MARY!!!

It’s so fun to read that except in G’s Cruella DeVil voice.

Girls, girls...

Atta girl!

Such a shame that the trembling rage, being real (if immoderate), cannot be considered "acting."

Otherwise that could have been one case to record, alas.

GC appears to be a dominant female and alw has many stories about how hung he apparently is. He’s got BDF and a lot of people have mentioned it. I saw cats in nyc broadway in 1996. The music was amazing, but the people running up and down the aisle wearing body stockings were annoying

[quote] that Karen's performance is equal to mine,

referencing her understudy is the only misfire in that letter. She would acquit herself better if she left Karen's name out of it or acknowledged Karen's contribution to the show while she was out.

Unusually bad form for the usually gracoius Glenn Close.

Poor Karen Mason getting stuck in the middle of that catfight. I saw her. She was excellent and sang the score beautifully. I remember thinking at the time that she was very much like Gloria Swanson in the movie.

ALW is the queeniest queen that ever queened and a turbocunt.

He's also responsible for a lot of terrible content.

Here she is boys.

Glenn may have thought she was all that, but the woman can't sing to save her life.

Then why isn't she dead?

She was full on channelling her character from the show. It existed on my shoulders...I AM BIG...ITS THE BOX OFFICE THAT GOT SMALL...

Isn't she?

So much drama

[quote]It’s so fun to read that except in G’s Cruella DeVil voice.

Or her Alex Forrest voice...

Carroll always said ALW did not like her, and she couldn't figure out exactly why (though she heavily hinted towards 'racism' in her memoir and in interviews). She said he passed on her to replace Close in LA back in 1994 (which ended up getting her the role in Canada, as the LA musical director recommended her) , and when ALW was looking to replace Buckley on Broadway in September, 1996, she asked him to be the replacement - it would be her 'return' to B'way in a musical, and she guaranteed him she could sell tickets, after the rave reviews she received in Canada. She said he wouldn't even entertain the idea, and dismissed her quickly. In a few interviews she gave years later, she kept saying, "I guess he couldn't see a black actress playing a silent screen star on Broadway". (However, it was said he offered the role to Jennifer Holiday back then, and she said no).

Bitch, please. I’ll show you what drama is.

I attended a talk Patti gave at some performing arts library back in the mid-late 90s. Her feelings were still raw over the Sunset Boulevard fiasco and she exploded in a tearful rage when the topic came up. She even explicitly referred to Glenn as a cunt. There were only 30 of us or so in the room (not sure if there was any media) but needless to say, we were all stunned into an awkward silence.

^I'd say photos please, but we know how Pats is about cameras.

I meant to add that this was in San Francisco on the eve of concert she gave at Davies Symphony Hall.

[quote]”…yet a representative went out of their way and lied to try and make the public believe that my contribution to this show is nothing, that Karen's performance is equal to mine…”

This is embarrassing.

“[Patti] even explicitly referred to Glenn as a cunt.”

In my defense, I refer to everyone as a cunt, explicitly and implicitly.

We had faces then...

She morphed into Helen Lawson

Well i am surprised that GC is that petty and insecure to write such a defensive letter about herself and her value in that role. She deserves never having won the Oscar. She’s imo the most unattractive leading lady in Hollywood.

R27 did anyone giggle?

Jennifer Holliday as Norma Desmond is as messy as Faye Dunaway!

[quote]that Karen's performance is equal to mine

In order to make that statement, she would have had to have seen at least one of Karen’s performances. Did she? I doubt it.

She indirectly criticized Karen’s performance when she really meant that Karen didn’t have the star power that she had.

I saw Karen in Sunset Boulevard and she sang the score better than Glenn did. And Karen wasn’t as batshit crazy as Glenn, which made for a more human performance. I felt sorry for Karen’s Norma because you saw her decline. Glenn was like watching two hours of a patient in a mental institution.

I believe during Karen’s run, the box office donated a lot of tickets to high schools to help fill the audience. And I remember there being a brouhaha about people expecting it to be on TKTS and it wasn’t.

[quote] “Patti even explicitly referred to Glenn as a cunt.”

Thus spoketh the cunt.

R15 the only misfire? Usually gracious? I think that whole letter proves she’s a narcissistic monster? Who would write a letter like that?

Considering how much "face" Jennifer Holliday gives you during a performance, she would've been perfect as a silent film star.

[quote]I think that whole letter proves she’s a narcissistic monster?

I don.t know, r39, do you? Because if you do, you're an idiot.

R41 that comment doesn’t even make sense.

Glenn later admitted she should’ve slept on it. “I wrote a very angry letter that I stupidly faxed.”

People do things in the heat of the moment. Just look at Patti demolishing her dressing room.

Betty was better than Glenn...

All of these old women, fighting for crumbs.

I guess they can't all be Academy Award winners, like me.

Pity.

That Karen Mason vid is a throughly mediocre understudy performance.

[quote] She even explicitly referred to Glenn as a cunt. . . but needless to say, we were all stunned into an awkward silence

Buncha pussies.

I should point out that although Carroll was convinced there was some 'racism' going on with ALW, and that is why he didn't cast her in the role of a silent screen star, she's had forgotten (or completely ignored) the fact that ALW had originally wanted Diana Ross to open the LA production in 1993 - long before he chose Close. He and Ross couldn't come to terms for an agreement, so then he turned to Close.

When Close left the production in 1994, he asked her again to do the LA production, but again - no agreement was reached. And when Close left the Broadway production, he tried convincing Ross one more time - but they couldn't come to terms.

I saw Carroll twice. She was adequate.

Of all the 'Normas' it seemed like Carroll got the best reviews from both critics and fans alike (on many 'Sunset' forums). Buckley comes in a close second. I have listened to the Carroll cast album many times and it puts me to sleep. It's just not 'lively'.

Did Diahann’s Norma have the biggest tits?

G destroyed my closet-sized, shared dressing alcove.

I can’t believe Diana Ross could sing the Sunset Boulevard score. Diana isn’t a belter.

How the fuck are the idiotic AI pictures relevant to this thread in any way?

Just to add a bit of levity, r54, you humorless sourpuss.

Then you failed, because they're stupid.

R53 Yes but is Glenn Close a belter ? Is Diahann Carroll a belter ? If they could sing it. Ross could.

Could Jennifer Hudson play Norma Desmond?

She's a belter.

I was watching an old Joan Rivers show on youtube with Patti. Joan asks if she liked playing Evita. Patti responds that she loved it.

She only started hating Evita after the Sunset firing. If she really hated ALW so much why did she pursue the part in Sunset so vehemently?

[quote] Then you failed, because they're stupid.

Hear hear, I applaud this justified cunting.

R18 shows a vapid, merely adequate aping of Glenn's performance.

If I'd seen that in Kansas City, I would have asked for my money back at intermission, much less on Broadway.

R59, she didn't pursue the Sunset part. She was brought in as it was developed, and sang it in the original workshop at ALW's country estate. The deal was she'd open London and New York. What she pursued was revenge after she was fired, because she's Patti LuPone. In fairness, she was kind of a sacrificial lamb - the show was constantly being changed after it opened because it jus wasn't working, so it got a kind of a reputation as a clunker (and lots of people still hate it but lots think it was ultimately one of his best works.) Then the Close version opened in LA and even though she couldn't sing it well, she was a movie star and did deliver the Carol Burnett Norma most people wanted to see, so LuPone got the chop. They had a massive investment to recoup. In the end, the Broadway production closed after two or so years and it still lost the investors' money. They needed bums in seats, so they started stunt casting people like Petula Clark, who was so wrong for the part. I mean, they wanted renowned singer Faye Dunaway for God's sake. LuPone was probably the least guilty party in the whole mess. ALW does manage to stir up the drama.

Two FWIWs. I saw Carroll sing Norma. She was nothing special. Her voice was thin and raspy and she was unable to belt sounds you especially wanted to listen to. LuPone and Buckley... the could diva belt that shit out of the park and it sounded like music. Not everybody can. Carroll couldn't, but was fine.

Second, I saw the version coming to New York from London. It's a powerhouse. I went in thinking it would be awful - no sets to speak of, no staircase, no monkey, no turbans. What was left. Turns out, it's a great four hand show (Max doesn't add up to much in my view.) But the intimacy between the principal characters reveals a much better, more moving story than the Titanic size of the original version, which dominated the performers. The set was big and the actors got small. It is not a perfect show but it's the best version of it I've seen. It's more akin to an opera than a Broadway musical - it's an unusual subject for a musical and the approach they've taken gets it right for the nature of the material.

Karen Mason, Close, Luponetta -

None worth a dime. None of them, including the Toad that wrote it. The character of Norma as portrayed in the musical is a failure. If you don't use the Swanson model you lose the show. Buckley, maybe....

I attended a talk Patti gave at some performing arts library back in the mid-late 90s. Her feelings were still raw over the Sunset Boulevard fiasco and she exploded in a tearful rage when the topic came up. She even explicitly referred to Glenn as a cunt. There were only 30 of us or so in the room (not sure if there was any media) but needless to say, we were all stunned into an awkward silence.

^Oops.

I’ll be curious to see what Sarah Brightman does with the part, and how operatic she makes it.

Did ALW ever try to court Bernadette Peters for Norma back in the 90s? She’d have had no problems with the score and would have actually been entirely believable as a one-time Lillian Gish-type silent movie star.

Karen Mason...a blast from the past. Have never seen her in person but she certainly had a cult following.

Kristen Chenoweth would be the best choice for a revival. She looks like a silent film actress and has the soprano voice that would have been appropriate for that era. Patti and Glenn's voices were too deep and took you out of the story.

Kristen C. is too tiny and pixie-ish to pull off Norma Desmond.

She doesn't have that "Grand Dame" intimidating aura about her.

R67 He did - she was one of the many names he courted trying to replace Buckley in the summer of 1996.

The story goes that she saw one of Buckley's performances and went to her dressing room after the show to talk about the role. Buckley warned her of the strenuous performance of climbing up and down 88 stairs a few times in a heavy costume of every performance. Buckley shared with her the daily exercise regine and strict diet she was on to stay in shape for the role. That was a huge turn-off for Peters and she told ALW no.

It's a similar story to why Tyne Daly also said 'no' to ALW, after speaking with Buckley. (Diahann Carroll had said she sprained her knee during her run, and never ever fully recovered from that).

You said so in R27

Not Buckley. Her machine-gun vibrato is too hard to take.

Are we calling it vibrato now? I saw her as Dolly Levi in Chicago, and I was appalled by her shaky old-lady voice.

Buckley sang Norma 25 years before she sang Dolly. There's no comparison. She sang Norma beautifully.

Ann-Margret would have been sublime as Norma, but I don't know if she could have sung the score.

It's such an odd show. The part of Norma is really one of the greatest ever written for a Broadway star (thanks more to Billy Wilder's original screenplay than anything else), but the show's score and especially the lyrics are so wildly uneven.

It’s not written for her voice type at all and it’s far too low for her R66. She struggled with Aspects Of Love and that’s exactly how this will play out.

Patti at R2, as classy as ever.

Thank you, r79, I try.

You haven’t tried since Anything Goes in 88, Patti.

Why didn't Karen Mason break through to the next level?

Anyone know her?

I don’t know her.

R83 I’m sorry I’m dense who is MC

I think Mariah.

I saw Petula Clark in the show. She was totally – Meh!

[quote]Why didn't Karen Mason break through to the next level?

Not everybody does, r82. I think it comes down to star quality...and in musicals -- a *sound*. She's proven to be a good U/S/replacement. She was fine in Jerome Robbins' Broadway, but I would have rather seen Debbie. Maybe Rebecca could have done it for her...maybe not.

R82 - Everybody thought they were getting Marsha Mason.

Letter was a bit thin skinned.

Petula Clark was just awful. I saw her during the second US national tour (1998-2001) when she came through my city, and she was a disaster. She sang off-key for most of the songs, and couldn't remember her lines in some scenes. I thought she had an 'off night' (after reading rave reviews about her during her London run) but not at all - even the local critics gave this production and Clark scathing reviews. The audience applause at the end was tepid, at best.

Carol Burnett's Norma is an embarrassment. It's supposed to be funny but all she's doing is a bad imitation of a drag queen. Loved Burnett as a kid but now I find her unwatchable. And except for a couple of beautiful songs Sunset the musical is a snore. Buckley though singing As If We Never Said Goodbye was certainly a high point in my theatergoing experience.

I don't know why I can't sing

A line without a warble

r62 she actively sought out the role and debuting it at ALW's house. She was upset even then because Meryl Streep came to the workshop and she thought Streep was after her part.

Streep went to Close's invited dress rehearsal in LA too according to Michael Riedel's last book. They had already shut the doors and Streep came knocking on them asking to be let in.

Two veteran theatre artists were brought into the mix as co-lyricist/book writers, Christopher (Les Liaison Dangereuses) Hampton and Don (Tell Me On a Sunday) Black. Together the three (Webber, Black and Hampton) reworked the material and staged another workshop at Sydmonton. [italic]For this workshop, held in September 1992, Patti LuPone and Kevin Anderson were invited to portray the lead roles of Norma Desmond and Joe Gillis[/italic], although neither was assured the lead in the world premiere production in London that was to follow.

Let us not forget that back in 1991, ALW said he was negotiating with Angela Lansbury to open the London production, and Shirley MacLaine to open the Broadway production - both at the same time. Both actresses said 'no'. It would've been incredible to see either actress in the role - he set his sights rather high.

[quote]Carol Burnett's Norma is an embarrassment. It's supposed to be funny but all she's doing is a bad imitation of a drag queen.

And yet when she appeared in the Carol Burnett Show parody of "Airport 1975," all had to be forgiven because it was such a brilliant idea of the writer to bring her in (since Carol had already regularly imitated her). See 2:48 and following.

Shirley would have been horribly miscast.

Someone on the theatre threads a long time ago said it was Glenn who vetoed Carol doing her Norma at the Tonys when it was in the same theatre as Sunset. After reading the letter, that seems likely to be true.

the kernel of Glenn's rage and discontent was most likely very simple: She heard Karen Mason sung it better, and her performance had greater depth and an arc that didn't exist in the writing.

A weird tension can develop between two actors in the standby/star constellation and when an actor gets wind of how good their understudy is or, more to the point, overhears someone say the understudy is better.... feelings emerge that are primal and childish and need a target that won't reveal their hand.

I suspect this was case here. Close may have had all the anger in the world at ALW but the real anger was at the feedback she heard about Karen Mason doing so well in the role. My guess is that if Karen had been just serviceable and everyone was saying they can't wait for Glenn to get back etc. ... the letter never would have been written or sent.

It’s weird that 5 time Oscar nominee (at that time) Glenn Close would be jealous of one time Drama Desk nominee (at that time) Karen Mason…but whatever!

Mr Sheffield wouldn'a dissed Glenn.

[quote] Kristen C. is too tiny and pixie-ish to pull off Norma Desmond. She doesn't have that "Grand Dame" intimidating aura about her.

R70 Kristen CAN sell anything, honey!

Sally in Follies would be a much better “crazy has been” part for Chenoweth.

[quote]Kristen C. is too tiny and pixie-ish to pull off Norma Desmond. She doesn't have that "Grand Dame" intimidating aura about her.

Gloria Swanson, Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish were as tiny and pixie-ish as Kristen Chenoweth. Kristen is actually the most historically accurate person to play Norma, both in physical appearance and vocally.

I think Kristen would be chilling as an aging former pixie trying to hold on to her former fame, in a Baby Jane kind of way.

Yes, the tall and willowy Elaine Paige was all wrong for it.

[quote] It’s weird that 5 time Oscar nominee (at that time) Glenn Close would be jealous of one time Drama Desk nominee (at that time) Karen Mason…but whatever!

The more beauty pageants you win, the more likely you are to look over your shoulder for the next girl.

R7 she claims everyone treats her horribly

Maybe Glenn shouldn't have taken a 2 week vacation three months after the opening knowing the box office would be affected. But the producers were dumb not to send tickets over to tkts because they would have been snatched up quickly by people who wanted to see the show with or without Glenn.

It will be interesting to see how the 2024 version holds out with all the leads making their Broadway debut.

R72 Weird as I didn't post at R66 or R67

R105 Did she sing "and the earNME morning madness" at 2:40 ?

Good god, the ego of performers

[quote] Jennifer Holliday as Norma Desmond is as messy as Faye Dunaway!

A 34 year old Norma?! That story doesn't sound plausible.

R113 to be fair, Jennifer looked 40 during Dreamgirls…so….

Patti Lu is the only Norma that sang “With One Look” in its original key and arrangement.

Is Ben Sprecher still producing? Or is he a pariah?

r99 Reminds me of the story about Sarah Brightman getting pissed off about something during Phantom in London, and coming down with an "illness". Claire Moore went on in her place and get spectacular reviews - and wouldn't you know it, Brightman's mystery illness cleared up and she was back in the very next day!

There are clever lyrics from Sunset Boulevard:

"Cut to the moment

When they open the envelope,

Pass the statuette to Bob Hope,

And it's my name you hear!"

But they are immediately followed by absolutely awful lyrics:

"We'll be down on our knees

Outside Grauman's Chinese!

Palm prints there on the street...

Immortality's neat!"

Betty Lynn was crazy enough to be a believable Norma.

[quote]A weird tension can develop between two actors in the standby/star constellation and when an actor gets wind of how good their understudy is or, more to the point, overhears someone say the understudy is better.... feelings emerge that are primal and childish and need a target that won't reveal their hand.

Preach it, sister! Finally someone gives voice to the relationship between me and Barbra Streisand!