Yesterday I did a deep dive into the 1970s gossip surrounding The Act, a Kander-Ebb musical starring Liza whose pre-Broadway run generated as much gossip as Funny Girl does today.
She had just come off of a series of film box office flops, including New York New York. Marvin Hamlish had written a musical about a cabaret star returning to Las Vegas after a failed film career. Liza wanted it, so out went Marvin, and in came Kander & Ebb. They de-aged the character because Liza was only 36 at the time. Then, she recruited Martin Scorsese to direct and they began an affair. Not only had Scorsese never directed a stage musical, but he was also finishing the edit of New York New York and filming the documentary The Last Waltz at the same time. She was married to Jack Haley Jr, (but they were "more friends than lovers) and Martin was married to Julia Cameron (sister of Avatar director James Cameron). Julia later wrote a memoir and recalled that her drug use gave Marty and Liza a perfect excuse to have an affair. Also, ironically, one of the most memorable songs is about a depressed married woman who finds excitement by having an illicit romance with "Arthur in the Afternoon."
The tryout period included two changes of titles and they threw out all of the original costumes by Theadora VanRunkle after the first week. Halston was brought in to make two sequenced pantsuits for Liza, and seven versions of the same suit in different colors for the chorus for a price of $100,000.00, plus personal fees. Scorsese was deemed "too distracted" and at the last minute, Gower Champion was given a lot of money to clean up the play, without being given any credit. The oddest quote was from an unnamed source who told Scorsese, "Marty, a wise man once said that if Hitler were alive today, they wished he were out of town the director of a musical"
In hindsight, the most amusing factoid was that the Washington Post and the New York Times were aghast that the Saturday night performance tickets were being sold for the outrageous price of $25.00!