Question about CATS and the song Memory

[VeraCharles3]

Posted: 7/12/13 at 8:56am

Apologies in advance, this is a tad long winded and some may think I should be using the “West End” board but I prefer this board, hope that’s ok.

When I was a young, I loved the sitcom Fresh Fields, starring Julia McKenzie. There was a guest star in several episodes called Geraldine Gardner. She was a regular guest on lots of shows here in the UK, including Are You Being Served and Benny Hill.
Anyway, I always liked her – the way you just like an actress from the off.
Recently I bought the DVDs of Fresh Fields and there she was and it all came back to me.
Looking on the web, I noticed she had a stage career as well, that I knew nothing about but I could find out very little else about her. I did see she died in 1987, aged 36. She died of hypothermia having committed suicide, from what I have read, she stripped off, walked into the sea in winter, came back out and lay down on the beach and froze to death. She was suffering from depression at the time– it was a horrible way to die.

Okay, finally the question, Geraldine Gardner was the original Sheila in the West End production of A Chorus Line and the original Bombalurina in CATS. I read that while Judi Dench was still involved in CATS, Bombalurina sang Memory. When Judi got injured, and Elaine Paige got brought in, they gave Memory to her to build up the role.
Does anyone know if this is correct? I just wonder how different Geraldine’s career would have been had she sang Memory. Judi would never have managed to sing Memory but until I read this I had never given it a second thought. The role of Grizabella would surely be tiny without the song – just Judi wandering around in a fur coat.
Sorry for the ramble, but if Memory hadn’t been sung by Elaine then Betty Buckley would never have sang the role either. I just find it strange how one thing can affect so many other things. God, I really am rambling now. And to top it all, I don’t even like CATS the musical, just the song Memory!!

[nealb1]

Posted: 7/12/13 at 10:42am

Bombalurina has always sung a very small part of "Memory" in the show. It's just a few lines.

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/12/13 at 10:48am

The role of Grizabella would surely be tiny without the song – just Judi wandering around in a fur coat.

The role would be nonexistent without Memory. It was Grizabella's song. Bombaliurina sings a small bit of it as a gesture of empathy and support for the downtrodden cat. It gives Grizabella the strength and confidence she needs to finish her song (and her point), knowing at least somebody is there, trying to understand.

At least that's how I see it.

It would have been a different song had Judi Dench sung it. Not the "power ballad" we know today. More of a torch song sung by a weary cabaret performer instead. Think "Edith Piaf" or "Marlene Dietrich."

Updated On: 7/12/13 at 10:48 AM

[nealb1]

Posted: 7/12/13 at 10:52am

Perfectly said, Best12Bars!

[JohnyBroadway]

Posted: 7/12/13 at 11:28am

I've always felt that Memory reprise was one of the more beautiful parts in the show.

[ABitOnTheSide]

Posted: 7/12/13 at 12:22pm

Wait, so Memory wasn't Grizabella's song until Elaine Paige stepped in? So what exactly was the point of casting Judi Dench in CATS at all? Best12Bars, I'm confused - are you saying you think Memory was always Grizabella's song and it just would have sounded different?

[nealb1]

Posted: 7/12/13 at 12:50pm

Yes, "Memory" was always Grizabella's song. Had Judi Dench been able to go on and perform and record the song, it would have been a completely different song, and probably not as well known as it is today.

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/12/13 at 1:03pm

The way I understand it, and it's been a LONG time now, is that the song was one of the last, if not THE last songs to be written for the show.

It was "in development" for Grizabella and Bombaliurina to sing it, but when Elaine Paige says she heard it just days before previews started, the song was still incomplete. So perhaps the truth is nobody was singing yet. Or only pieces of it. She loved it so much, she called Andrew Lloyd Webber and told him she wanted to record it.

One day later (according to her) he called her back, told her of Dench's accident, and offered her the role in the show. She went into it not knowing the lyrics. She said they were being rewritten all through previews. Perhaps during that time, they gave her more of the song to sing, I don't know.

I do know that Dench would never have accepted a part with just 4 lines of singing and pretty much nothing else in the entire show. They were developing "Memory" when she had her accident. And they continued to develop it after Paige stepped in. Had Dench stayed with the show, they would have continued to develop it for her.

EDIT: From an Andrew Lloyd Webber interview:

Who knows indeed? As Lloyd Webber muses, what would have happened if Judi Dench hadn't had an accident just before the opening of Cats, leaving Elaine Paige to step in to sing Memory? "Would it have been a hit? You just don't know. That's the thing about musicals. Everything is a strange throw of the dice in this game."


LINK

Updated On: 7/12/13 at 01:03 PM

[VeraCharles3]

Posted: 7/12/13 at 1:17pm

Thank you all for replying. Much appreciated.
I was only going on what I could read about the original Bombbalurina, I didn't realise she even sang a part of Memory.
Best12bars - I like ur idea of an aging world weary type performance of Memory and I found it hard to believe that JudI would have taken such a small role - without the song - hence the question.
I do find it all interesting how songs and ideas develop as a show is written.

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/12/13 at 1:17pm

Here's a little more clarity from an interview with Elaine Paige, who also says the (unfinished) song was Grizabella's. But she says it was Cameron McIntosh who called her and offered her the role before she even had a chance to phone Webber about recording the song.

I began to think I was never going to work again, when I was driving home one night, and heard a melody on the radio. It had no lyric to it, but it was by Andrew Lloyd Webber. As I went to open the door of my house, a bedraggled old cat was in my path, and I hoped it would cross my way, because it's good luck. It did, and I dashed into my house, and the cat followed me and stayed the night. A driving passion which was completely illogical took me over. I wanted to record that song, and I was going to ask Andrew if I could. But I didn't have to ring him, because the next morning Cameron Mackintosh rang: Judi Dench had injured herself, and would I be interested in taking over? It was a very small role--a cameo really--but it had one great song, 'Memory.' That was the song I'd heard on the radio! The cat appearing on my doorstep was another sign. People probably think 'not another Shirley MacLaine,' but it was a bit bizarre. And that's also what I mean about timing: The show saved me in some respects. It helped consolidate what I'd achieved in Evita. And it gave me another opportunity to work with Andrew."


LINK

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/12/13 at 1:23pm

I do know that one of the last things they discovered was the unpublished poem of Grizabella the Glamour Cat. Elliott decided it was "too sad" to include in his book, but when Webber became aware of it, he knew he could turn it into something.

That's when they added the character of Grizabella and started developing the song about her (Grizabella the Glamour Cat) and the song for her (Memory), which was being written with an old melody thrown out of Evita and bits of Elliott poetry mixed with all-new lyrics.

That's the reason for the "lateness," and it also explains why Paige heard the unfinished song, because the melody had already been written previously for Evita, and had been selected as the "song" for Grizabella ... yet unfinished.

[Wildcard]

Posted: 7/12/13 at 1:28pm

I sometimes feel that little bit of Memory not sung by Grizabella allows the actress to change keys so she can reach the higher parts in the end.

[misto625]

Posted: 7/12/13 at 2:16pm

I'm a bit confused. Bombalurina sings part of "Grizabella the Glamour Cat", but does not sing any part of "Memory". Jemima (Sillabub in the United States) is the character who sings part of the "Memory" reprise

[nealb1]

Posted: 7/12/13 at 3:41pm

My mistake that I confused another character's name with the one who sings parts of "Memory" with Grizabella.

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/12/13 at 3:42pm

I forgot Webber gave those lines in Memory to Sarah Brightman (Jemima) in the London production! And switched them to Silabub (Whitney Kershaw) in the Broadway production.

I forget the supporting kitties, but Jemima WAS the future "Mrs. Lloyd Webber," so there you have it.

Bombaliurina shared the Grizabella Glamour Cat song with Demeter (just as they did with Macavity).

(I had to look all of this up.)

[ILLUSIONIST2]

Posted: 9/10/15 at 10:35am

I was close to Geraldine Gardner at the time the CATS job came up, She said at the time she'd been offered a role a sort of human cat...little was released in advance but she was also given the 'book' the libretto and she had 2 numbers Macavity and Memory. The music ie the 'dots' were hand written.Geraldine had just come out of Chorus Line (Sheila) in London. She lived in a smart apartment in St Peter Street , Westminster with her Cat...... Whilst the Cats rehearsals were getting underway she was travelling daily between rehearsal rooms in Chiswick London and Bristol where she was nightly  in Pantomime as Aladdin for the winter season with Danny La Rue A punishing schedule. She was still worried about the role as under the heavy makeup you'd not actually see her, the make up has  got a lot lighter in the last few years. Director of the Bristol Panto Dougie Squires  ( BBC The Young Generation, ITV The second generation dance troupe)  had a long talk with Geraldine, and at point she threw herself into the CATS Bombalurina role. She was the following year  to marry, it wasn't good by all accounts,  and unexpectly had twin boys. She could see her acting career grinding to a halt. A bout of serious post natal depression she stripped off at night on a beach in the middle of winter in England near freezing, and calmly walked into the sea....

In addition to stage work she was also orginally cast as Purdey in the TV series The Avengers (see her In the first episode) The Eagles Nest as a german femme fatale Gerda  only to be ousted by Joanna Lumley.

She can also be seen in Are you being served, Danger UXB, and several others .

 

 

 

[devonian.t]

Posted: 9/10/15 at 11:45am

Thank you for that insight.  A performer's life can be tough.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 9/10/15 at 12:38pm

The only worthwhile song in the entire show.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 9/10/15 at 1:57pm

There is a bit of misinformation in this thread as far as the story I know. Judi Dench was originally going to play Grizabella and the Gumbie Cat so she would have had more to do than just the Grizabella track had she been able to stay in the show and she actually injured herself while rehearsing the Gumbie Cat number. It was decided early on that Grizabella needed a song of her own it just didn't really all come together until previews. At one point her song was called "Good Times" with lyrics by Tim Rice and I think even a completely different melody. Webber came in one day with the "Memory" melody first before there was a lyric and it even got radio play as the "theme from Cats" prior to the premiere. Eventually the memory idea came about based on lines from Eliot's "Rhapsody on a Windy Night" and Trevor Nunn finally rearranged some lines from that poem and wrote some of his own to give us the "Memory" lyric we know today.

[broadwayguy2]

Posted: 9/10/15 at 2:33pm

Re: Jemima and Sillabub.

Webber did not "take" part of the song from Jemima and give them to Sillabub. In the "original" staging, they are the same cat, identified by different names - as were several other ensemble cats. It was felt that "Jemima" has unpleasant racial connotation in the US, so the name was changed to Sillabub. One or two later European productions (Germany, I believe...) decided to establish them as separate characters and use both when featuring larger casts.

[Scripps2]

Posted: 9/10/15 at 3:24pm

I too am pretty sure that Judi Dench was also scheduled to play the Gumbie Cat as well as Grizabella.

 

I had no idea about Geraldine Gardner's tragic and untimely end; I had just assumed she was one of those amazing performers who disappeared from public view. I can remember seeing her as Sheila in A Chorus Line as a child and my father was keen to see her in anything after that. I'm pretty sure there's some video footage around of her as Dick Whittington in the forgotten and vastly under-rated Poppy; how different would her career have been if the planned Broadway transfer had taken place, although wasn't she replaced by Antonia Ellis before the scheduled transfer could take place?

Updated On: 9/10/15 at 03:24 PM

[devonian.t]

Posted: 9/11/15 at 6:57am

Hey Scripps- I haven't forgotten Poppy!

 

And I've been trying to cast Antonia Ellis for 2 years now and can't find her anywhere- I'm 90% certain she's still alive...

[sbflyfan]

Posted: 9/11/15 at 10:59am

I'm assuming the makeup design hadn't been finished yet.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 9/11/15 at 11:10am

Wow! I've actually never seen that!

[Auggie27]

Posted: 9/11/15 at 12:19pm

To throw something else in the mix: wasn't the melody for "Memory" in trunk edition of "Sunset" before Lloyd Webber wrote the version of that show that we know?  I'd heard it was a song called "One Star" or something close, for Max to sing (to, about, of) Norma. 

I've no doubt the song would've worked with Dench, too.  I don't agree that it would not have been a hit.  It would've been done very differently, but Dench can sing on key, just not like Paige. No, it wouldn't be a power ballad, but they were always shaping it for Dench to sing, or Paige couldn't have heard it and been so besotted.  I saw Paige, very early in the run, about 6 weeks in, and she still remains my favorite. It was the eyes.  And her size.  

 

 

Updated On: 9/11/15 at 12:19 PM