The Lima News, Lima, Ohio Wed. 05/19/1971
Buoyant 'No-No Nanette' Star
After 23 Years, Bobby Attains Success
By Rebecca Morehouse
New York (NANA)

"I always wanted to be a hit in a hit Broadway show," says Bobby Van. He was 23 years on the way -- from the age of 16 to his present 39 --- but Bobby is up there at last. He's a certified hit in "No, No Nanette," the biggest musical hit New York has seen in years.

Before "Nanette" came along, he was seriously thinking of giving up performing.

Now his life is like this: Rudolf Nureyev, high-leaping idol of the ballet world, sees the show and calls at his dressing rom to say, "Mr. Van, you were magnificent." Sir John Gielgud stops him on 45th Street and says, "I saw you in 'No, No Nanette' and you were brilliant."

"I just stared at Nureyev," Bobby said. "It's a very nice thing for an artist of his caliber to say he enjoys you. What do you say to him or John Gielgud? You can't. These people are like gods to me.

"I've never been happier in my life," he added. "I'm really enjoying it, I don't mind saying so. I'm like a kid."

Buoyant Bobby was a three-pack-a-day smoker until success overtook him.

"A couple of days before we opened in New York I stopped in a church near the hotel to pray. I made a promise that if we were a hit I'd stop smoking. I haven't had a cigarette since opening night, and you know something? I don't miss it a bit."

He's been on Broadway before, and he deftly danced his way through a dozen or so screen musicals, among them "Kiss Me, Kate." But if his name sounds faintly familiar it does not resoundingly ring a bell.

I asked what he was doing when he was tapped for "Nanette." And, wih the simplicity that makes him so attractive, he said:

"I was living in Los Angeles and I wasn't doing anything. It was very slow, business has been dreadful in California. I'd continued to do concerts and nightclubs and TV guest appearances, but when I got the call for 'Nanette" I was just sitting around. Seven months ago, I was going to chuck performing to direct and produce. My wife asked what I'd like to do more than anything and I said, 'a Broadway show."

"The Harry Rigby, one of the producers of 'Nanette,' came out there to see Ruby Keeler, Patsy Kelly and myself. These were the three people he had in mind for the show. From the moment Rigby told me about it, I thought it would be a smash hit.

"The whole idea of it was appealing. Nobody has tried to do a 1925 musical and not spoof it, do it for real. Nobody's done it with 40 dancers and beautiful sets. Our decor is very 'in' now; the men's clothing, the women's clothing, it's all 'in' now."

"Getting Ruby was the coup; she was the ingredient the show needed. I still don't know how they got her -- she'd been out of the business for 30 years. I stand backstage every night and watch Ruby's 'I Want To Be Happy' number and there's not a night I don't get excited.

"Ruby is the most unaffected lady I ever worked with. She's a lovely human being, very sweet and kind. She acts no more like a star than that wiater over there. Her dressing room is always open and everybody tramps in and out of there. She's doing the show for therapy reasons -- her husband died, a year or two ago -- and I don't think she'll ever do another show, but she's having a good time now.

"She has five of the loveliest kids you ever met. they reflect the lovely home they grew up in. they're ladies and gentlemen."

Question: "When did you know the show was a hit?"

Answer: "At the first preview in Boston when the whole audience of 1,800 people stood up and applauded for two minutes. The producers were just stunned, they couldn't believe it. We'd had a terrible dress rehearsal the day before and Burt Shevelove (the adapter and director) was very dejected. He said, 'Well, we'll do it tomorrow afternoon for an audience and see what we've got.'

"Everybody in the show has worked hard, so hard. I never worked so hard at anything -- I've lost 15 pounds. Helen Gallagher (who plays his wife) and I rehearsed like fiends. She's a marvelous dancer, a marvelous performer and we get along super. We only fight over dance steps."Ruby was so frightened at the beginning. I don't think she thought anybody remembered her. But after I saw her tap number, I said to her, 'they're going to tear the seats out when you start to dance.'"

They didn't actually rip out the seats at the 46th Street theater when Miss Keeler went into her tap dance opening night, Jan. 19; they merely cheered and kept on cheering. And, at the end, a standing ovation.

But while nostalgia (arounsed also by Patsy Kelly and the vincent Youman melodies) raised the audience temperature, the cool-handed critics reserved their warmest praise for Bobby Van and Helen Gallagher.

From Time: "the top professional honors of the evening go to Bobby Van, who dances like an Anglo-Saxon Zorba, and Helen Gallagher, the girl who plays his wife." From Clive Barnes of The New York Times: "For my money, the best performances came from obby Van as the suave, debonair dancing lawyer, and the adorable Helen Gallagher." From Cue: "Bobby Van is fantastic."

Bobby says he never had a dancing leson. Yet he performs the most intricate steops with deceptive case.

"Audiences don't like to see you breathe hard," he says. "It makes them feel uncomfortable and they like to be comfortable. Donlad Saddler was our choreographer. Buz (Busby Berkely) didn't have too much to do; mostly he suggested things, but one suggestion from him is better than 10,000 choreographers.

"I think this show is going to start a trend, absolutely. the country is in the same mood today that it was in the '30s. People want to laugh and be entertained by something that makes them forget their troubles. this show is entertaining. You don't see pot-smoking, you don't see nudity and you don't miss it. You don't go out depressed; you go out happy.

"People talke to you from the audience; it's like a cabaret. They say, 'Go get 'em, Patsy, ruby, That's it, Bobby boy.' They get so involved in this thing they're part of the show."

Bobby was born in the Bronx to parents who were vaudeville performers.

"I grew up backstage," he said. "When I was a couple of months old, I slept in the drawer of the H&M trunk. They're living in California now and they're coming here in April to see the show. Of all of us, I think my dad is the ahppiest about the success of the show.

"All of my life I've wondered if I really had it. I'd check it out with people, I'd ask my dad: 'Am I really good? Should I stay with it?' My wife (Elaine Joyce) encouraged me to stay with performing. She thought I was talented and you start to believe it. She co-stars on the Don Knotts TV show and she'll have her own show, 'The Blonde,' next year.

"I haven't done a Broadway show for 17 years, since 'On Your Toes,' in 1954. Nobody asked me. Before that, I did 'Alive and Kicking' on Broadway. I've made my home in California since MGM put me under contract in 1952.

"But boy, it's great to be back in New York! I feel alive again; there's a vitality here you don't feel in California. I've worked very hard in my life. The first thing I wanted was for this show to be a success. The second thing I wished for was to have a success for myself."

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