WEBVTT 1 00:00:25.180 --> 00:00:28.520 Take number six, this is Freddie Franken. 2 00:00:28.520 --> 00:00:35.960 Okay, are we back in? Not yet. Keep banging. 3 00:00:43.460 --> 00:00:45.880 You must love having us here. 4 00:00:46.120 --> 00:00:54.000 Boomer microphone channel one, tone one channel two is zero VU, that's a mix of Boomer, Thea and Cliff. 5 00:00:57.100 --> 00:00:58.140 The Bells. 6 00:00:58.700 --> 00:01:04.260 1946, 1944, you did Frankie and Charlie's Best the first time you met Ruth. 7 00:01:04.340 --> 00:01:05.940 That's right. Two years later. 8 00:01:05.980 --> 00:01:13.440 Two years later, as always, as always, a new ballet, another ballet, Ruth Page, The Bells. 9 00:01:13.860 --> 00:01:21.280 Well, we all did, we all looked forward to seeing it, especially knowing that I'd be in it, wondering what on earth it was to be this time. 10 00:01:22.380 --> 00:01:27.240 Well, the tint and abulation of The Bells. I thought, well, this is going to be lovely, it's going to be fine. 11 00:01:28.620 --> 00:01:34.620 We had a set by Noguchi, which was remarkable, this beautiful church. 12 00:01:36.040 --> 00:01:41.800 The ballet went along and she said to me, now you make your entrance through the church. 13 00:01:41.880 --> 00:01:43.780 And I thought, well, that's going to be very interesting. 14 00:01:43.780 --> 00:01:51.320 I had a very nice solo and Ruthanna came on and there was an evil man came on and it was all very dramatic. 15 00:01:51.640 --> 00:01:54.700 I thought, this is really going to be marvelous. We all look forward to it. 16 00:01:55.620 --> 00:01:58.260 Now the day came when the costumes arrived. 17 00:01:59.920 --> 00:02:04.620 Now Ruth kept saying to me, now she said, you know, you're going to be wearing a shower curtain. 18 00:02:05.500 --> 00:02:09.460 And I said, Ruth, just exactly what do you mean a shower curtain? 19 00:02:09.460 --> 00:02:16.640 Well, she brought something one day and it was a piece of wire that went round here. 20 00:02:17.660 --> 00:02:22.980 And then there was a stick and down from here, a crossbar, there was a lot of material. 21 00:02:23.600 --> 00:02:27.300 I said, and I have to do this solo with this flying around at the back. 22 00:02:27.340 --> 00:02:33.500 She said, yes, dear. Well, I did. I was on the floor most of the time, but I managed to work it and it was very long. 23 00:02:34.380 --> 00:02:40.040 And then Ruthanna saw what she was wearing and then Ruth said, now in this part you'll have an umbrella. 24 00:02:41.040 --> 00:02:45.060 Now I said, Ruth, what with the umbrella and me with this? I said, I don't know where we're going to be with this ballet. 25 00:02:45.160 --> 00:02:47.140 She said, no, no, I've worked it all out. It's fine. 26 00:02:48.300 --> 00:02:52.180 Now we come to the dress rehearsal. We see the set for the first time. 27 00:02:52.740 --> 00:02:59.180 It is the white. It's a New England white church all jointed like this. It is beautiful. 28 00:03:00.020 --> 00:03:05.220 I'm in all over tights with a red heart and the shower curtain. 29 00:03:05.380 --> 00:03:09.640 Except now the shower curtain is grown. I have a band of wire around my head. 30 00:03:09.880 --> 00:03:19.360 It's got two spikes that go two feet up here. There's a bar across the back and there's a long blue silk thing that goes to the floor at the back. 31 00:03:20.420 --> 00:03:33.420 Well, fine. Ruth, Nikita Tallinn is wearing a hat that's a skull cap and then it has prongs coming out this way and prongs coming out that way that have black material hanging. 32 00:03:34.020 --> 00:03:40.740 He's hardly able to see anything, pushing the stuff away. Ruthanna's got the umbrella. Well, we're right. It was a very dramatic ballet indeed. 33 00:03:40.740 --> 00:03:49.560 Well, we come to the opening night. Up goes the curtain. Nobody's on stage. It goes. It's going marvellously well. 34 00:03:50.400 --> 00:04:03.100 I make a startling entrance through the church with this on and I hear the giggles and I thought I'm right back in England and it's 1935 and I'm getting the bird once again. 35 00:04:03.600 --> 00:04:13.800 I flew around that stage with this thing and the more I did, the more they chuckled and I didn't know what I was doing but gamely on I went. 36 00:04:14.020 --> 00:04:21.080 Now I'm wearing it all the way through until I think there's one moment it comes off. Ruthanna made the entrance. We did the pas de deux. It was lovely. 37 00:04:21.780 --> 00:04:30.000 Then there's this battle between him and me and her and in the meantime the bells have come up with the bell shaped costumes. 38 00:04:30.440 --> 00:04:35.520 They've rather looked at those and thought very peculiar. Girls on their points. Silver and iron. 39 00:04:35.640 --> 00:04:44.060 Well, it got a little sort of raucous in the middle of this ballet and things were happening right and left and we were all going everywhere. 40 00:04:44.060 --> 00:04:53.260 There's a big finale. Well, there's one moment at the end of the ballet when he was evil and Nikita with this black thing on and he was really doing. 41 00:04:53.380 --> 00:05:03.900 He was ruling. He was winning and one minute and she hadn't warned us of the dress rehearsal but then suddenly the church collapses and we're all underneath it and it's all fallen down. 42 00:05:04.100 --> 00:05:10.460 All fallen on us and he's triumphant standing there with the thing. Well, that did it on the opening night. 43 00:05:10.460 --> 00:05:18.080 The curtain came down. There was sort of polite applause. The curtain went up and we were all doing thank you very much and thank you very much. 44 00:05:18.360 --> 00:05:26.060 I go to Ruth and I said Ruth dear on the stage there is a barrage of boos like you've never heard in your life. 45 00:05:26.680 --> 00:05:30.560 Ruth looked at me and she looked at Ruthanna and she said darlings isn't it wonderful. 46 00:05:31.020 --> 00:05:37.580 We're a success and we all bounced very low and down came the curtain and it kept going up and down. 47 00:05:37.580 --> 00:05:43.960 We were really given the bird on this one. It was marvelous but it stayed in the room. I did it. 48 00:05:43.960 --> 00:05:45.900 And so what happened when you performed it again? 49 00:05:46.260 --> 00:05:55.640 Well, it was always the same way. It was the idea again. It was the idea of evil overcoming and a church. 50 00:05:56.300 --> 00:06:04.760 If the church maybe had not collapsed on us because really the essence of it was that the devil had collapsed the church and we're all underneath it on the end. 51 00:06:04.760 --> 00:06:13.560 We all had a marvelous time. I loved doing the ballet and it was very dramatic because the connotations between him and me and her all mixed up. 52 00:06:13.700 --> 00:06:21.380 Telebry psychologically of course. I was dragged around the stage on my knees and I had a wonderful time in the ballet. 53 00:06:22.020 --> 00:06:23.800 But it was just the idea of the church. 54 00:06:24.060 --> 00:06:25.440 How did they like it in Omaha? 55 00:06:26.860 --> 00:06:34.480 I don't think we gave it too much. I don't remember. The one vivid memory of that thing was the opening. 56 00:06:34.480 --> 00:06:41.200 And me walking getting the bird, really getting laughed at. I thought, oh no. And I'm in the ballet. I thought they'd understand. 57 00:06:41.640 --> 00:06:43.740 But usually it was all in the Gucci decor and stuff. 58 00:06:44.840 --> 00:06:48.900 And the set was marvelous. Oh yes. We all had a marvelous time together. 59 00:06:50.180 --> 00:06:57.800 Well, he was, again, now you talk to him and he had a marvelous explanation for what was going on on the stage. 60 00:06:57.800 --> 00:07:05.660 I mean, the reason of the curtain, the reason of the umbrella, the reason of the evil man and the meaning of the poem. 61 00:07:06.620 --> 00:07:11.500 You know, the bells, bells, the tinting of the bells. And all that came through and we understood. 62 00:07:13.280 --> 00:07:16.580 I don't know whether, maybe if the program notes had been a little different. 63 00:07:17.160 --> 00:07:23.980 But it was just that it was unexpected. It was one of Ruth's marvelous unexpected things. 64 00:07:24.620 --> 00:07:26.600 And what would you do on the same program with it? 65 00:07:26.600 --> 00:07:27.060 What would you do? 66 00:07:27.240 --> 00:07:35.240 We'd get to Parisienne or Swan Lake or something like that. You know, it would all be very thoughtful and carefully worked out. 67 00:07:36.720 --> 00:07:43.440 But you see, and the people like John Martin, they liked it. I mean, it wasn't awful. It wasn't a bad ballet. 68 00:07:43.980 --> 00:07:47.520 The idea, it was the people up there and it was the church. 69 00:07:48.340 --> 00:07:49.060 And it was shocking. 70 00:07:49.060 --> 00:07:53.160 And it was shocking, maybe if he just stood over us and beat us down. 71 00:07:53.960 --> 00:07:58.700 But the effect was marvelous. I never saw it because I was always in it. 72 00:07:59.420 --> 00:08:03.320 But I could see it all crumbling and this marvelous thing all. 73 00:08:04.080 --> 00:08:07.740 And down it went, you know, and down came the curtain and down went we. 74 00:08:10.180 --> 00:08:15.320 Now, Noguchi, did you know that Noguchi and Ruth had a special relationship? Did you know that they'd been lovers? 75 00:08:15.800 --> 00:08:21.520 No. Oh, well, I'm so glad. Oh, that makes it all worthwhile. 76 00:08:22.660 --> 00:08:23.520 We didn't know. 77 00:08:23.700 --> 00:08:28.680 No, no, no, that was kept fake. Oh, no, you see, Tom was very much to the fore and oh, no, no, no. 78 00:08:29.020 --> 00:08:35.400 Well, that was, this was now later. It was in 1934 when they had a rather passionate, flaming love affair. 79 00:08:35.400 --> 00:08:37.320 She loved Tom and then came back. 80 00:08:38.600 --> 00:08:43.740 Well, of course, you know, Ruth, the famous story with Ruth in the Jagaliff Ballet, of course, you know, all that. 81 00:08:43.740 --> 00:08:51.960 And then he sure tells me this one, Danny Lever, when she's on her honeymoon with Tom, she hears that there's a ballet company in Monte Carlo. 82 00:08:52.040 --> 00:08:56.360 She goes and joins for six weeks. And thank you very much. Goes right back to Tom's office. 83 00:08:56.660 --> 00:09:02.060 I said, Ruth, what was it like? She said, I was there. They gave me nice parts. She said, I knew Nikitin and all of them. 84 00:09:02.240 --> 00:09:05.760 But she said, Freddie, it wasn't my style. It wasn't for me. 85 00:09:06.200 --> 00:09:11.540 She wasn't bold enough. She kept saying, I have to do other things. And of course, she did. It wasn't strong enough. 86 00:09:12.340 --> 00:09:17.560 She has been dying all of her life to get us all naked on the stage. Always she was dying. 87 00:09:17.840 --> 00:09:20.980 I said, Ruth, we can't do this. No, why not? She said. 88 00:09:21.160 --> 00:09:28.740 And of course, then she adored working with Arthur Mitchell and the Black Company long before it was, you know, whatever it, nobody ever did that sort of thing. 89 00:09:29.180 --> 00:09:32.540 So she's apart from anything else, she's an innovator. She really is. 90 00:09:33.720 --> 00:09:39.620 Danny said, you know, the Ruth, she's brilliant lady. Of course she is. She's a brilliant lady. 91 00:09:40.620 --> 00:09:41.880 Tell about Tom. 92 00:09:42.380 --> 00:09:53.240 Tom, I got along very well right from the very beginning. I think that the first rehearsals and I think it was the fact that and also Ruthanna got along very well. 93 00:09:54.460 --> 00:10:01.620 We liked Ruth. We liked what she was doing. We liked being in her belly, in her whatever it was. 94 00:10:02.460 --> 00:10:08.880 And socially, we all got along very well. I remember going out to Winnetcurb, being with them all out there, you know. 95 00:10:08.880 --> 00:10:14.600 And it was, we didn't always talk about the belly. We all talked about other things. 96 00:10:16.140 --> 00:10:20.840 And I don't know, with Tom, it was, I was interested because he was a very, he was a brilliant man. 97 00:10:21.980 --> 00:10:26.400 A very strange man, but very brilliant and did, knew and talked about lots of lovely people. 98 00:10:27.160 --> 00:10:34.360 And I was, the funny thing, I think with me, the more I got away from the belly people, the better. 99 00:10:34.360 --> 00:10:43.220 The more I could go into the theatre, the better. The more I could see of not only my own, my profession, but other people's profession. 100 00:10:43.740 --> 00:10:50.160 That's what it's always been. And that's why the theatrical people like Ruth have, you know, sort of, we've gotten along. 101 00:10:51.000 --> 00:10:58.280 There's another one with Agnes. There's another one. My goodness, when I think of the birth of Rodeo, all that went on with that one. 102 00:10:58.900 --> 00:10:59.860 You were involved with that? 103 00:10:59.860 --> 00:11:07.940 Oh, I was, I was the hero of her first book. Because we were, you know, that was made on me in this. 104 00:11:08.180 --> 00:11:09.880 I didn't realise that. No, I'd forgotten. 105 00:11:10.280 --> 00:11:12.180 Oh, no way. I changed. 106 00:11:12.200 --> 00:11:13.340 The original was made on you. 107 00:11:13.620 --> 00:11:22.380 Yes, I was, I was the, with her. And the day we were on the train, the day she came and she said, I've changed the ending of the, of the, of the, I said, well, what is it? 108 00:11:22.660 --> 00:11:27.620 She said, well, you don't get me. The other man, I said, Ruth, then I won't be in your belly. 109 00:11:27.620 --> 00:11:33.860 She said, well, I said, there's no way. I was so theatre wise. I said, that's not going to happen. 110 00:11:35.160 --> 00:11:38.860 I said, I've, you've been with him all the way through. You've liked him. 111 00:11:39.380 --> 00:11:45.520 But I said, and I've been on the side looking at you and we've done this. I said, we are wrong, Ruth. I said, it should be the other way. 112 00:11:46.080 --> 00:11:52.460 So she went home. I thought, you're right. Fine. Changed it. And it was this way. Oh, yes, we had a marvellous time. 113 00:11:53.940 --> 00:11:59.800 When you were with Tom Fisher, did you feel as though he dominated her in any way? 114 00:12:00.280 --> 00:12:16.240 Only, only, I tell you, only in a way that if it had anything to do sort of financially or could we, may we do this or may we do that, then there would be a discussion, certainly. 115 00:12:16.240 --> 00:12:23.540 Otherwise, she did what she wanted. She did what she wanted. And the thing where he really let her go was to have the designers. 116 00:12:24.620 --> 00:12:30.540 He never interfered with any of that at all. He, she chose and he said, fine. 117 00:12:31.760 --> 00:12:40.920 They must have had some kind of a funny word to use, some kind of a budget as to how much each thing that she did would cost. 118 00:12:40.920 --> 00:12:48.660 And within that, so that when we were, we were, we were discussing, no, you would have this, you will have that, you will have that and you will have that. 119 00:12:48.680 --> 00:13:02.880 There were never, there were never arguments. I never, I think when we got, when we got outside in the talking outside of the ballet in other sort of worldly affairs, oh, he was very much the strong man, very much the man, very much so. 120 00:13:02.880 --> 00:13:08.860 And then she do it. Then she, of course, what she did, like the kitten that she was in those days, she said, well, Tom knows everything. 121 00:13:08.960 --> 00:13:13.520 Of course, she just sit back and let him do it all, which was the way she was. 122 00:13:14.300 --> 00:13:16.460 Of course. But when it came to the artistic things. 123 00:13:17.100 --> 00:13:21.800 Strong, very strong. No, no, no, like this. Oh, yes, indeed. 124 00:13:22.160 --> 00:13:23.200 Was she tough to work with? 125 00:13:23.200 --> 00:13:25.320 Yes. She was very tough. 126 00:13:27.220 --> 00:13:30.540 She wanted, she was a little short tempered. 127 00:13:31.440 --> 00:13:41.780 And if she saw someone was really trying, it's when it's when things got lax in a rehearsal and then she'd get going, you know, and she'd be very, very strong. 128 00:13:43.000 --> 00:13:50.920 If people weren't working full out every time, which can happen with cordoballi kids that have got two hours and listen to six hours of that and four hours of the other. 129 00:13:50.920 --> 00:13:55.940 Sometimes I was one of those people. I always worked full out everything. 130 00:13:56.200 --> 00:13:59.960 I didn't. I couldn't. I had to know exactly what I was going to do on the stage before I got there. 131 00:13:59.980 --> 00:14:04.540 I had to know. So I did all the time. So did most of the principals. 132 00:14:04.640 --> 00:14:09.540 But it was sometimes with the cordoballi. She was discreet, the kid telling in the most wonderful, colorful language. 133 00:14:09.940 --> 00:14:15.740 I used to roar because she'd say these terrible things to him because he wasn't listening to her and he wasn't doing what she wanted. 134 00:14:15.740 --> 00:14:23.020 He thought what he was doing was what she wanted. And then she'd explain in no certain terms strong language. 135 00:14:23.360 --> 00:14:24.020 You're swearing? 136 00:14:24.200 --> 00:14:28.680 Oh, yes. We had all the all the GDs going through everything. It was wonderful. 137 00:14:29.220 --> 00:14:34.760 But she was. I mean, she wanted and she got what she wanted, which is right. 138 00:14:35.060 --> 00:14:38.960 And she did it no matter what, however it came about. She got it. 139 00:14:39.380 --> 00:14:40.500 Were people afraid of her? 140 00:14:41.300 --> 00:14:47.820 Many people were. Many people were afraid, thinking that she demanded too much of them, 141 00:14:48.940 --> 00:14:52.800 that it wasn't the way to do it, that she went overboard. 142 00:14:53.960 --> 00:14:57.880 And it wasn't. Look, she was used to the theatre. 143 00:14:58.980 --> 00:15:02.800 The real theatre, as opposed to the theatre of the ballet. 144 00:15:03.960 --> 00:15:06.380 And you know, that's a very different cup of tea. 145 00:15:06.380 --> 00:15:10.880 So when you are in a theatre, you well know you do it and it's like this and it's from the top. 146 00:15:11.500 --> 00:15:16.980 And let's have it the right way, please. No ifs, ands or buts. And this is what she was and this is what she got. 147 00:15:17.880 --> 00:15:22.900 That's why I think Ruth, we all got along so well because I understood her right from the beginning. 148 00:15:23.420 --> 00:15:26.800 She was a tough lady. And rightfully so. 149 00:15:28.700 --> 00:15:34.000 Can you ever remember any times when she became really frustrated, when she gave up on something she was trying to get? 150 00:15:36.420 --> 00:15:45.380 Not, no. No, not no. You see, the creations of the ballets, I never was in. 151 00:15:46.200 --> 00:15:51.800 I was always in a revival of hers. So whatever went on with she and Bentley, 152 00:15:52.280 --> 00:15:58.840 and it must have been hair-raising at times, that must have been difficult. That must have been very difficult. 153 00:15:58.840 --> 00:16:04.460 We got things that were already done, which was marvellous of her. 154 00:16:04.900 --> 00:16:11.160 If it didn't fit us, there would be choreographic changes, which was wonderful. You know, really marvellous. 155 00:16:11.340 --> 00:16:16.100 But I never saw her, only one time with Nikita, that once with the bells and she really flew at him. 156 00:16:16.280 --> 00:16:21.280 And she was right. But I never really, she didn't get that mad with us. 157 00:16:21.680 --> 00:16:24.720 I don't know how it must have been when she was working, when she was creating something. 158 00:16:24.720 --> 00:16:27.540 Now what about Bentley? Did you ever get to know him very well? 159 00:16:27.560 --> 00:16:35.480 Not very well. I will tell you, the first time I ever saw Bentley Stone was in a studio in London, Marie Rambert, 160 00:16:35.880 --> 00:16:39.320 and we'd all heard about this wonderful American dancer that had come over. 161 00:16:39.620 --> 00:16:48.820 And there stood Bentley, and he stood at the bar, and his technique was everything written from the book. 162 00:16:48.820 --> 00:16:53.680 Like the drawings from the book, it was turned out, the legs, the feet, everything. 163 00:16:53.840 --> 00:16:59.980 He got in the pillow, nothing was wrong. We all gobbled, we'd never seen anything quite like this. 164 00:17:00.240 --> 00:17:05.180 It was Bentley Stone. That was the first time. And it's very, very strange. 165 00:17:05.280 --> 00:17:13.820 He did, I think, maybe the wrong thing. He joined the old Ballet Rousseau Monte Carlo, and it never worked. 166 00:17:15.380 --> 00:17:21.120 His kind of technique and his kind of dancing did not work in that side, that ballet company, and he left. 167 00:17:22.300 --> 00:17:24.500 Because he had not enough flair. 168 00:17:24.680 --> 00:17:30.820 It could have been, and he wasn't a great personality boy, but when he got with Ruth, then he blossomed. 169 00:17:31.780 --> 00:17:35.760 With Ruth, Ruth brought something out of him. And as a team, they were great. 170 00:17:36.140 --> 00:17:37.400 And he had their partnership ended. 171 00:17:37.400 --> 00:17:44.220 Well, it did. Well, you know, Ruth, Ruth, and Bentley was then, when he had a school, I think Bentley had grown tired of performing. 172 00:17:44.660 --> 00:17:50.940 By heart, he wasn't a performer. Really. Not really. I mean, he loved teaching. 173 00:17:51.480 --> 00:17:58.000 And he loved getting out there and doing the stuff. But had he, had he really wanted to perform, he'd never have left Ruth. 174 00:17:58.040 --> 00:18:01.600 They'd have gone on forever. They could have done many, many things together. 175 00:18:01.600 --> 00:18:06.560 But he had a school going. And also, look, a sense of security. 176 00:18:08.180 --> 00:18:12.420 Except for him. Ruth had a lovely rich husband. But he had nothing. 177 00:18:12.960 --> 00:18:15.940 And it made a big, big difference to his career. You know? 178 00:18:16.040 --> 00:18:20.160 Of course. Tell me about Love Song. What happened with that? 179 00:18:20.460 --> 00:18:29.460 Now, I wasn't involved in Love Song. She said, Ferdi, this is it. We're going to do a ballet, a very classical ballet, as near as to the classic as I can get. 180 00:18:29.460 --> 00:18:36.180 But I was so swamped with other ballets. And it was Roman Yatsinsky that did that one. 181 00:18:36.620 --> 00:18:40.220 And I can't remember with whom it was. But it was a lovely classical ballet. 182 00:18:40.440 --> 00:18:43.720 Lovely music, beautiful costumes, and a very classical work. 183 00:18:43.940 --> 00:18:48.320 As Ruth said, with a little of the Ruth Page here and there, it was a very classical ballet. 184 00:18:49.000 --> 00:18:55.640 But I don't really remember too much of it. It was not as much of a success as for other work. No, no, no. 185 00:18:55.640 --> 00:19:01.540 Well, it didn't have one marvellously shocking moment that we all looked for in Ruth's Ballet.