Last week Tom O’Horgan did something he never thought he’d do. He left New York.
This is the city, after all, where Mr. O’Horgan, the director, became, as one critic called him, the Busby Berkeley of the acid set, a La MaMa veteran of the 1960s who publicly bemoaned the “blue-haired audience” of Broadway, but who in 1971 had four Broadway shows running simultaneously: “Hair,” “Jesus Christ Superstar,” “Lenny” and “Inner City.” For a brief moment Mr. O’Horgan stood astride this city’s theater scene, suede boots planted uptown and downtown.
But last Sunday he left his apartment at 840 Broadway, on 13th Street — a 2,600-square-foot loft crammed with musical instruments of every conceivable kind, the site of parties, salons and visits by Leonard Bernstein, Norman Mailer, Beverly Sills and Gore Vidal — and took a plane to Sarasota, Fla. There a condo was waiting, a few blocks from the beach.
And this Saturday, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., the loft on 13th Street will be opened to the public and everything in it put up for sale.
Mr. O’Horgan, 83, was hard pressed to explain.
“I’m thinking, ‘Why am I doing this?’” he said, sitting on a park bench in Union Square the day before he left town. “It’s not good.”
Money is why, said Marc Cohen, who has known Mr. O’Horgan for years, found the apartment in the early 1970s and lived there on and off, as a lover, then as a friend and recently as a nearly full-time caretaker.
Mr. O’Horgan’s income, primarily from author royalties his agent negotiated on “Superstar” (he received a “conceived by” credit), has not been substantial for years. But five years ago he was found to have Alzheimer’s, and he now needs round-the-clock care. All of this has drained the bank dry.
“Even after the sale there won’t be much left, because there are a lot of debts,” Mr. Cohen said, referring mostly to a mortgage taken out a few years ago to keep Mr. O’Horgan afloat.
"Winning a Tony this year is like winning Best Attendance in third grade: no one will care but the winner and their mom."
-Kad
"I have also met him in person, and I find him to be quite funny actually. Arrogant and often misinformed, but still funny."
-bjh2114 (on Michael Riedel)
How incredibly awful. Good luck to him and lets hope this article opens a few eyes and hearts.
"Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”
~ Muhammad Ali
I'm going to try to go to the sale this weekend. I don't think I'll be able to afford anything, but the $25 admission fee will go to a good cause.
"Winning a Tony this year is like winning Best Attendance in third grade: no one will care but the winner and their mom."
-Kad
"I have also met him in person, and I find him to be quite funny actually. Arrogant and often misinformed, but still funny."
-bjh2114 (on Michael Riedel)
Having worked in American healthcare-related industries for years, I can say with confidence that in the USA, it STINKS. If this country can't have enough pride and care for one of the significant cultural figures of the 20th century, think how awful it must be for those who don't even have a "name." The whole thing is an absolute DISGRACE. Of course, if you even mention the word socialism to our beloved president and his co-horts, you're going to be accused of being anti-American. Heaven forbid that the people who've had to support this government should look to it for assistance when they are in true need. This S---s!!!!!
O'Horgan, if he wasn't exploited, could make a stunning example of the failure of our country to care for its people. If he and his friends were willing, a short documentary about his plight would be very powrful. To see a great and successful commercial artist being bankrupt and forced to leave his home might help get the message out that the healthcare and insurance industries are a house of cards waiting to collapse.
Wait a sec. Our health care system does in many ways suck but don't go saying that you don't have to pay for your health care in the UK or in any other gov't run health system. You pay for your health care in the form of taxes.
I'm not a big fan of our system - we DESPERATELY need government-mandated catastrophic health coverage for all our citizens - but it's disingenuous to say you have free health care in the UK..