Babylon on Broadway

Broadway Babylon bears little resemblance to the Kenneth Anger classic its title echoes. And how you respond to that fact will go a long way in determining whether you will enjoy hopscotching through Boze Hadleigh’s latest sojourn in the fields of showbiz.

Certainly he has looked at the subtext of celebrity more piercingly in books like Conversations With My Elders, Hollywood Gays, and Hollywood Lesbians, for which he went to the source and conducted original interviews with some of Hollywood’s top closeted (and occasionally not-so-closeted) talent. In contrast, Broadway Babylon is a compendium of theatrical anecdotes and gossip, sometimes settling for entire chapters that consist merely of quotations from Broadway celebrities on topics such as “Broadway Is...,” “The Dying Theatre,” and “Broadway Economics.” Now and then new facts or anecdotes poke through, suggesting that Hadleigh did consult a few sources firsthand: This is the first time I’ve read—from a quoted, named source—that Alan Jay Lerner engaged in bisexual behavior, though the rumor has been around for years.

But extended chapters on such topics as Jerome Robbins, Ethel Merman, Michael Bennett, David Merrick, and the various ladies who played Mame Dennis, Dolly Levi, and Norma Desmond on Broadway read as if boiled down from other books. And occasional misattributions occur, doing the author’s credibility no favors: Madeline Kahn is quoted as dissing Nathan Lane for participating in the “homophobic humor” of The Producers, but she died in 1999 and the musical opened in 2001.

The proudly gay Hadleigh can be particularly refreshing in his unwillingness to respect the closets of the deceased, especially when they remain shut today—witness the recent Merv Griffin–Hollywood Reporter brouhaha. The oft-told stories remain entertaining and even enlightening and are pieced together with just enough structure to keep the diet varied and the pages turning. If you’re up on your Broadway lore, it may all seem a bit too déjà vu, but there’s something useful in having so much of this material collected between two covers. For the uninitiated, Broadway Babylon is the perfect bathroom book.

(Note: Back Stage Books, an imprint of Watson Guptill Publications, is owned by the Nielsen Company, which also owns Back Stage.)

Broadway Babylon: Glamour, Glitz, and Gossip on the Great White Way, By Boze Hadleigh, Back Stage Books, 2007, hardcover, 342 pages, $24.95.

-- Erik Haagensen