Diane Keaton in Hair- Page 2

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 4/30/13 at 7:06am

@ besty: I don't think Keaton was in the original Off Broadway run of HAIR.

I had to laugh out loud at her when she asked the audience from THE VIEW if they remembered HAIR as if it were some obscure little musical. C'mon Diane, really?


Updated On: 4/30/13 at 07:06 AM

[best12bars]

Posted: 4/30/13 at 8:06am

@ besty: I don't think Keaton did was in the original Off Broadway run of HAIR.

Then her time in HAIR was even briefer than I said.

Less than ten months total with no Off-Broadway precursor. She stepped into the role of Sheila on Broadway three months after it opened in April of 1968, and by February of 1969, she was in Play It Again, Sam.

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 4/30/13 at 2:00pm

Here is Diane (with Barry McGuire and Steve Curry) during her run in HAIR. They were the replacements for original Broadway cast members James Rado, Gerome Ragni and Lynn Kellogg:




Here is Diane's Bio info in the Playbill:

Diane Keaton
Born January 5, 1946 in Santa Ana, California. Neighborhood Playhouse Graduate...U.S.O. Tour of Orient...Hobbies?...Going to the movies, eating!... taking walks, being alive. Why I am what I am? Ask my friends. They would like nothing better than to rap on me! Man, how could I answer that...? My God, that's impossible. I am human being number 927-4610-887. How could I presume to...well...you know...right.

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 4/30/13 at 2:07pm

I'm calling her right now!

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 4/30/13 at 2:26pm

If Diane Keaton's time was short in HAIR then it was more in comparison to Lynn Kellogg's run in the show which was just about 3 months.

I believe that after Keaton departed it was Melba Moore who took over the role of "Sheila" making her the first African-American actress to replace a Caucasian actress on Broadway. I may be wrong about this but I recall reading it somewhere.

Updated On: 4/30/13 at 02:26 PM

[best12bars]

Posted: 4/30/13 at 2:49pm

Melba was a replacement for Sheila, so was Heather MacRae.

Great photos, Brody!

EDIT: And that bio his hilarious. It sounds like Annie Hall at the end.

Updated On: 4/30/13 at 02:49 PM

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 4/30/13 at 3:21pm

I would have loved to have been her in THAT photo session. Woof.

[doodlenyc]

Posted: 4/30/13 at 3:26pm

Why did Lynn Kellogg leave so quickly from the show?

[once a month]

Posted: 4/30/13 at 3:28pm

She may negate that time of her life, but shes still captured in black and white photos in the HAIR program.

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 4/30/13 at 3:29pm

I remember Meat Loaf saying that nudity wasn't required but they got something like an extra $13 per show if they did.

It varied from production to production. And now... a brief (snort) history of the nude scene!

As Ms. Davis recounts it in her tell-it-like-it-is book about her time with Hair, Tom O'Horgan heavily pushed the conceit of the nude scene. Most of the original cast thought it was going too far. The costume designer Nancy Potts suggested body stockings for the girls and briefs for the guys, but O'Horgan and the authors wanted all or nothing. Everybody laid a heavy trip on the cast about nudity being a symbol of freedom and part of the hippie movement, but pretty much everybody felt like they were being romanced for some unknown reason and had no intention of stripping.

At the end of Act I of the first preview, Gerry Ragni and two other male cast members stood up nude; it was a shocker, because after all the uproar between cast and management, and the nude segment never being rehearsed, they'd pretty much forgotten about it. Then two girls joined the original trio later in previews. It was finally starting to catch on, but apparently too slowly for some. One night no one stood up, and the higher-ups gave them the "liberation" and "relevance" song and dance, and at one very heated rehearsal the producer, Michael Butler, told them if more didn't strip, they were going to hire ringers (professional strippers) to do it. This only raised questions of "why do it for free when you'd have to pay the ringers extra."

Several months into the run, management decided, after frequent complaints, to pay the cast. The price of a naked body was $1.50 per strip. (Paul Jabara once mooned the audience, and earned 75 cents.) As one cast member said, "For free was exploitation; for $1.50 we were selling our asses cheap. Hookers made more than we did." They asked for a raise from the business manager, in the form of extraordinary risk pay. He said no. The nudes went on strike. The strikers were told they'd be fired or brought up on breach of contract charges before Equity. The price stayed at a buck-fifty a strip.

Meat Loaf, however, does say in his autobiography that he earned an extra $12.50 a night for the strip. Either his memory's faulty, or some sort of compromise was worked out for future first-runs.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 4/30/13 at 3:31pm

I never got to see Meatloaf nude on stage. Maybe he'll do it again one day!

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 4/30/13 at 4:02pm

I'm calling her right now!

At first I thought that was a phone number, but the second hyphen is in the wrong place.

More importantly (since the hyphen could be a typo), back then ALL area codes had a 0 or 1 as the middle digit; it was how the system distinguished between an area code and an exchange (the latter NEVER had 0 or 1 in the middle).

It's too many digits for a Social Security number.

I'm still wondering what it is. Maybe made up or maybe a college student ID? The latter weren't always social security numbers because college kids were minors and didn't necessarily have SSNs.

Yes, I realize this is the most important issue facing America today.

Updated On: 4/30/13 at 04:02 PM

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 4/30/13 at 4:04pm

It's a play on Claude's line, "I'm human being number 1,005,963,297."

Updated On: 4/30/13 at 04:04 PM

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 4/30/13 at 4:06pm

I believe that after Keaton departed it was Melba Moore who took over the role of "Sheila" making her the first African-American actress to replace a Caucasian actress on Broadway. I may be wrong about this but I recall reading it somewhere.

Melba Moore's bio, perhaps? She always mentions it in bios, so I didn't bother to confirm it when I wrote a bio for her, I just added it in.

I'm not entirely sure why Moore considers it a distinction. Don't get me wrong, I think she's brilliant; but doesn't her replacing Diane Keaton say more about the play and the era than about the actresses?

***

Thanks, Phyllis. Was that Claude's draft number? Surely there were more than 1 billion people in the world back then!
(Damn, dude! How did you remember that? What vitamins do you take and where do I get some?)








Updated On: 4/30/13 at 04:06 PM

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 4/30/13 at 4:23pm

@doodlenyc: I'm going to take a wild guess as to why Lynn Kellogg's run in HAIR was so short. I think it was because she was offered the third lead in the Elvis Presley spaghetti western "CHARRO!" which was filmed in June, July and August of 1968 and was released in March of 1969.

She made the film and never returned to the show afterwards.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 4/30/13 at 4:26pm

BTW ~ I love threads like this. Where board members come together actually discuss, share and exchange information. No bickering, no hating, no disrespect. Just sharing our passion and knowledge for theater.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 4/30/13 at 4:29pm

@ besty: Yes, Heather MacRae originated "Sheila" in the Coconut Grove Playhouse production in Miami. I remember reading somewhere she either (a) had an affair with (b) got pregnant by or (c) married her co-star from that production. Come to think of it,it may have been all three...LOL

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 4/30/13 at 4:36pm

Oh, Carlos, I meant to say something nasty to you, but I forgot! That's why I need Phyllis' vitamins.

But that Coconut Grove production was the first time I saw the show. I was about 14, mortified to see it with my dad, and, at the time, had no idea who Heather MacRae was.

Updated On: 4/30/13 at 04:36 PM

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 4/30/13 at 4:38pm

Now why in the world would you want to say something nasty to me GavestonPS?

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 4/30/13 at 5:02pm

Of course I never have and never would, Carlos. So I thought it was a safe joke. :)

Updated On: 4/30/13 at 05:02 PM

[Gothampc]

Posted: 4/30/13 at 6:30pm

She was angry because Shelley Plimpton and Keith Carradine were always "doing it." You walk into the dressing room and they were going at it, you go up to the catwalk and they were there going at it, you step behind the black curtain and they were there going at it. Diane had to restrain herself from yelling "Get a room!"

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 4/30/13 at 7:52pm

Shelley Plimpton had a brief affair with Carradine but actually wound up falling in love and marrying Steve Curry...another member of the cast.

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 4/30/13 at 8:28pm

Steve Curry is the blonde guy with Diana Keaton (and Barry McGuire) in the photos I posted above.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 4/30/13 at 8:57pm

No Brody...the blonde guy is Barry McGuire. Steve Curry is the one with the wooly afro.

[best12bars]

Posted: 5/1/13 at 7:39am

Shelley Plimpton and Keith Carradine's antics during HAIR produced one good thing for sure ...

Martha Plimpton

EDIT: And as far as interracial casting in the roles of HAIR goes, Melba may have been the first African American Sheila, but Claude was also played during the run by Ben Vereen. So they "mixed it up" more than once.

Updated On: 5/1/13 at 07:39 AM