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I thought I wouldn't get home.

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I had to do some errands early this morning.

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I went out.

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It was awful.

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There was a huge downpour and the traffic was crawling.

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It was terrible.

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Oh, this climate.

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I know.

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We ready?

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Sure.

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Okay, tell me when.

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May we begin?

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Yes, you may.

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Okay.

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We're recording again.

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Frankie and Johnny did shock the French, although they clearly loved it, too.

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One of the French newspapers printed a list of ten things in Frankie and Johnny that shocked them.

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And illustrated it with photographs.

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Here's the list.

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Number one, they didn't like the daring manner of this dance.

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Two, they didn't like Frankie's red hair.

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Three, they didn't like Johnny's purple shirt.

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Four, they didn't like the dance with the coffin, which I think is one of the best parts of the dance.

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Yes, I do, too.

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Because a coffin is apparently an absolute taboo on the French stage.

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As I remember once in Saint-Ropé, on the beach, there was a, somebody's tomb was there.

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It was a marvelous place to have a picnic.

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And we'd started having picnics up there because you didn't get in the sand.

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And you know, more people said, oh, get over there, get over there.

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This is a tomb.

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Don't you know that's a tomb?

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So I guess they don't like tombs and coffins.

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They didn't like the placing of the corpse in the beer.

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They didn't like Nellie's little wreath, Lily wreath.

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They didn't like the fact that they thought the parody was macabre.

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They didn't like Frankie making effects with her legs over the coffin, which is another great moment.

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They didn't like the Salvation Army girls drinking beer.

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And they didn't like that all the dancers were dressed in earth colors.

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Silly. What do you think of the list?

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Well, I think it's ridiculous, of course. Just ridiculous.

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After you read that in the newspaper, you wrote, well, if they don't like this, I'm sure they're going to hate Billy Sunday.

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But they didn't. They loved Billy Sunday.

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You got a French actor to come out and explain.

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Yes, that's right. We did.

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Because the words were all in English, you know, and forget who danced it.

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Did Freddie Franklin dance it there? Who danced it?

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I would guess it would be Freddie Franklin. He was with you on that tour.

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Yes, he was marvelous in the part. He was terrific.

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No, no, I'm sorry. It was not Freddie Franklin. I think it was Bentley.

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Bentley Stone, maybe.

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It was Bentley Stone.

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He was good in it, too. But I like Freddie better than Bentley in it. I don't know why.

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Strangely enough, he's English, but he got the American accent better than Bentley.

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It was supposed to be told in the vernacular. And Freddie got that just perfectly.

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Now, Billy Sunday is a very interesting ballet.

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Where did you first get the idea of deciding to do a ballet about Billy Sunday?

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Well, I've always liked the Bible stories. I've always wanted to dance all the Bible stories.

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And then everybody's done Bible ballets, so I thought, well, I have to find a point of view of something different.

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And then I remembered about Billy Sunday, how interesting he was, the way he told the stories in slang.

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And I remembered him, and so I did it that way.

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Right before that, you had also been doing some words and music in solo programs of yours,

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where you danced and recited poetry at the same time.

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It was really quite a sensation when in Billy Sunday there was so much talk.

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Well, I was the first one that sort of started dancers to talk. I don't know if it was a good idea or not,

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but everybody's doing it now, so I suppose it was a good idea.

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I did lots of poems, solo dances, where I recited the poems and danced at the same time.

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I did a lot of E.E. Cummings.

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You did the Cambridge Ladies. Do you remember that one?

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Oh, yes, very well. I should say I do.

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Do you remember it now?

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Yeah.

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Can you do it now?

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The Cambridge Ladies, who live in furnished souls, are unbeautiful, but have comfortable minds.

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Also, with the Church's proudest blessings, daughters, unscented, shapeless, spirited,

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they believe in Christ and Longfellow, both dead, but are invariably interested in so many things.

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At the present writing, one still finds delighted fingers knitting for the, is it poles, perhaps,

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while permanent faces coily bandy scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D.

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The Cambridge Ladies do not care above Cambridge, as sometimes in its box of sky, loud and cornerless,

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the moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy.

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Very good.

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I did all kinds of poems. I love to do them.

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Yeah, now when you did them, Ruth, you danced and recited the poems at the same time.

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Yes.

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The poems were not tape recorded.

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No, no, I did it. Oh, of course, I did it.

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Now, a lot of people said it's too hard for dancers to talk.

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Well, they all do it now, so I don't know what they were talking about. It isn't hard at all.

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If you use your breath right, of course you can go leaping around and do classical dances and talk at the same time,

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but if you choreograph them right for the talking, it's perfectly possible.

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I like talking also. I like words.

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And I like straight dances too. I don't mean that I insist on always talking while dancing.

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I did lots of dances without any talking.

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But those poems, it was a time, Bentley was off in the war, I think, or something.

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Yes, Bentley was.

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So I had to do things alone, and that's when I started doing them, I think. When was the war?

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Well, Bentley went in just after, Bentley went in I think in about 1939 or 1940.

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Well, whenever it was, when Bentley went off to the war is when I started doing it because I didn't have anybody to dance with, so I had to either not dance or...

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Actually, I have that wrong. Bentley went later. It was in 41, and you began doing them in 1943.

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Yes, that's right.

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The dances with words and music. What kind of, we have no records of those. We have some photographs of you in costume, but we have no records of those.

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What were the dances like, Ruth?

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Well, it's impossible to describe dances and words. They weren't complicated dances, and they were geared to the words, like the Cambridge Ladies and the other one of his, His Twist, Little Ghost Things.

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I did the Carole Sandberg songs. I had a horse and his name was Bill, and when he ran he couldn't stand still. He ran away one day, and I ran with him.

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What other ones were there? I'm Sad and I'm Lonely, My Heart It Will Break, My Sweetie Loves Another, I Wish I Were Dead.

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There were a lot of, they were sort of funny humors, you know, serious and humors at the same time.

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And the music?

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Well, I think Wilkins wrote all that music. No, it was Louis Horst. Yes, Louis Horst.

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I think so, yes.

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Louis Horst wrote all the music for them. He was a very extraordinary man, and he was really, knew so much about dance, and he was a very good musician, too.

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He knew how to write music for dance. I don't say he was the greatest composer on earth, but he knew how to write music for, he'd watch you rehearse and wouldn't say a word,

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and then at the end he'd have the music on his head and he'd try it out, and it always worked. I think he was a very extraordinary person, really.

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And yet he never really did musical arrangements later for any of your ballets?

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No.

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Or composed?

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No, I don't think so, no.

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Was the music just played on a piano? Was it a small?

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With piano, yes.

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And so you would go in and you would do the programs, and you had a variety of costume changes.

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Yes, I always liked costumes, and I was very careful to have the costumes made so like when I was doing the Carl Sandberg songs, there was one basic costume,

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and you put the tail on when you were with the horse named Bill, and I'm sad and I'm lonely, I forget what the, but the costume was sort of all black and white,

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and I had a little hat that I wore for one or two numbers, and I think that was designed by Nicholas Remesov, if I'm not mistaken, wasn't it?

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I think so, yes.

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He was a very good costumer, marvelous costumer, and so I was always very careful of the costumes. I wasn't all my ballets, whatever I had.

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And when Delpho started doing ballets for me, he did marvelous costumes, like he did my Flatermouse ballet, which were reviving soon, and as I look back on the costumes, they're just marvelous.

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Costumes have always been, yes, as you say, very, very important.

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Yes, and I don't know what to do with all my costumes now. We're going to take them all out and decide what to do with them, throw them out, or I don't know.

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There should be a costume museum where you could keep all the costumes, but I don't think there is in Chicago.

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I don't think there is in New York. I don't know, really.

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They fall apart pretty quickly, you know. They don't last forever. I guess nothing lasts forever, but costumes are very fragile things, you know, especially Tarleton ones.

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They don't make Tarleton anymore. There used to be this marvelous material that you made ballet skirts out of, and they don't make it anymore, I don't believe.

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They make some kind of different tool, and the materials change. They're hard to copy, in other words.

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If you make a costume at a certain time, if you want to copy it 20 years later, it's very hard to get the same materials, also the same colors, and it's not easy, the subject of costumes.

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There was one ballet of yours for which the costumes proved absolutely impossible, and then you got rid of them and then changed them.

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What was that? I don't remember.

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It was one of the... I'll find it later. Then you had some costumes once designed for you by Calder.

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Oh, Alexander Calder, yes. Sandy Calder, yes.

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I think they were impossible to dance in.

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Yes, he didn't have a sense of what to design. He was a great artist, I think.

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Oh, yes.

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A marvelous person, and I admired his work so much, but he didn't have any sense about dance and what you could dance in, so I don't think I ever used them, maybe.

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I don't remember using any of Sandy Calder's costumes. I'm trying to think. I don't remember.

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In choosing people, you've chosen people to design your costumes, who would not necessarily... They're artists. They're not people starting with Noguchi and moving right on through Clavé, Delpho.

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They were not experienced costume designers.

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Well, Delpho certainly was.

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By the time you met him, I'm sorry. Then I'm wrong about him.

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But I know that Remesov, before you started, had designed costumes.

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Oh, yes. He designed most of Ballet of Chauffe-Sarie. He did a lot of costumes. He was a great costumer.

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But yet, Clavé, Calder...

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Yeah, they hadn't done any.

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Noguchi?

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Yes, that's true. They hadn't, yeah.

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Now, what was it that you saw in Clavé's work, for example, that made you feel that he was going to be able to design the costumes?

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Well, I admired him as a painter, and I liked him as a person. He was easy to work with, and he lived right next door to me in Satra Bay, so it was as simple as that.

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You didn't think there was a certain amount of risk in it?

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Oh, of course. There's risk in every art. You don't take any risks. You can't do anything. You have to make some mistakes, of course.

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So when you would go searching, thinking of somebody to design settings and costumes, you would look for an artist who you thought had an original vision?

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Yes, or you'd ask somebody. I remember when I got Del Faux, Marjorie Talchev was working with me a lot. She and her husband Skabeen, they were dancing in my company.

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And it was Skabeen, and I said, I need somebody to design this ballet. Who do you think would be good?

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And he said, oh, I think Del Faux would be marvelous. And that's how I got him. I wrote to him and said, you'll come over and do this ballet?

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He said, yes. It was as simple as that.

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And they're very expensive ballet costumes. I read somewhere that the three costumes for the Mary Widow cost you $21,000.

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That I don't remember. They are expensive. Well, the Mary Widow is something very special, though. Those costumes, they were expensive because they were so elaborate.

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And I mean like that red costume that the Mary Widow makes her entrance in, it's all covered with diamonds sewed on it, you know, and full skirts with pleats.

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And then the Mrs. Popoff costume also is a very elaborate white lace costume with big hats. The tangle costumes are elaborate, too. So that's a very expensive ballet to do.

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But it's beautiful. It was worth every cent of it.

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You never stinted on sets and costumes for your ballets. You always seemed to have been willing to spend what was necessary in order for them to be right.

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Well, I wasn't extravagant about it. I got them right. But they weren't anything very elaborate for those days. Lots of people spent lots more than I did on them.

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Going back for a minute now to Billy Sunday and to the whole story of getting that ballet started.

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I mean, it took years before you finally could get the music. The composer kept promising it.

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Well, that was Remy Gassman. Yes, and he wasn't the right choice for that either. The music was never a success the way he did it.

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He couldn't be...it was supposed to be everyday kind of music, you know, popular music. He didn't have any sense about that at all. He was too intellectual to do it. That was the trouble with him.

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He was a good composer, but he wasn't right for that ballet. I picked the wrong person for that ballet.

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And you stuck with him? Yes. Well, I wanted to give him a full chance, and I had it all recomposed.

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Later, when he was finally finished, as one reads the long story of Gassman promising... Yes, he was very slow.

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One marvels at your patience. Well, each one...some compose quickly and some compose slowly, and some are always late, and some are before time.

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Every artist is different. You can't expect them all to be the same. But he was always late. He drove me crazy. He never had anything ready on time.

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In fact, several times that ballet was scheduled and had to be canceled. Yeah, because he wasn't ready with the music. That's true, yes.

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Now, do you think that there was some place where you wrote that if the music had been better to begin with, Billy Sunday would have been an even greater success than it was?

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Yes, I think that the music is terribly important in a ballet. The reason Frankie and Johnny always say that's such a big success is because Jerry Morose did such a wonderful job on the music.

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That's a perfect score for that ballet. And that's the only perfect score I ever got.

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We have to turn the tapes? Yes. Ruth, would you like another cup of tea or coffee or something? Would you? No, I'm fine. I just thought I'd ask you.