BOOK REVIEW, Sunday, October 29, 1995
THEY GET A KICK OUT OF COLE
by James Gavin
Photo by Eugene Cook
BOBBY SHORT The Life and Times of a Saloon Singer. By Bobby Short with Robert Mackintosh. Illustrated. 266 pp. New York: A Panache Press Book/ Clarkson Potter Publishers. $25.
NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT My Life in Rhythm and Rhyme. By Michael Feinstein. Illustrated. 406 pp. New York: Hyperion. $24.95.
MICHAEL FEINSTEIN knows how to make any "swell" Beverly Hills party a triumph -- and in "Nice Work if You Can Get It: My Life in Rhythm and Rhyme," the 39-year-old cabaret star tells you how. Just invoke the name of Cole Porter -- and while you're at it, mention Michael Feinstein. After all, it takes more than "champagne, black tie and glittering diamonds" to insure the success of your soiree. " 'We have Michael Feinstein playing Cole Porter,' proclaims the hostess. Or better yet," he adds, dropping a rare crumb of humility, " 'We have Bobby Short playing Cole Porter.' "
Mr. Feinstein and Mr. Short, cabaret's two most celebrated singer-pianists, have made good in a world as far from their roots as Oz was from Kansas. The Ohio-born Mr. Feinstein chronicles a career that took off in the mid-1980's, when he maneuvered his way from piano bars into the Oak Room of New York's Algonquin Hotel. Mr. Short's memoir, "Bobby Short: The Life and Times of a Saloon Singer" (written with Robert Mackintosh, a theatrical costume designer and author of the novels "Silk" and "A Heritage of Lies"), covers more ground: 60 years behind the piano, starting in roadhouses in his hometown of Danville, Ill., and culminating at the Cafe Carlyle in Manhattan, where he now opens his 28th season.
In his 1971 book, "Black and White Baby," Mr. Short recalled his years as a child performer in the 1930's. His new memoir traces his rise from vaudeville and jazz joints to the poshest rooms in New York, Hollywood and Europe. By the late 60's, Mr. Short -- the son of a miner and a domestic servant -- had landed in a club where only the wealthy could afford to hear him.
Mr. Short likes to call himself a "saloon singer." But everything "saloon" implies -- laughs, fun, loss of inhibitions -- is absent from his new book, a paralyzingly dull recitation of names and places that reads like polite cocktail chatter. He writes of a "lively, lovely" singer, "completely comfortable" engagements, "bubbly conversation" at the Reagan White House, "that twinkling, bugle-beaded sight called Los Angeles." He glosses over most of his hard times, writing as dispassionately of his occasional bouts with racism as he does of getting stuck in an elevator.
Mr. Short has the intelligence and the perspective to have given us much more -- starting with an honest look at how a youngster called "a sweet little pickaninny type" by Variety in 1937 grew up and had the last laugh by becoming the king of white cafe society. He could have offered a sparkling look at the international night life of the 50's, along with incisive cameos of the showbiz greats he knew. Instead, here's his description of Lenny Bruce: "Some people found him abrasive, many more were enchanted -- including me." Of Pearl Bailey he writes: "Her easy banter, her unpretentious style, were endearing." Amid all this, he avoids any mention of his personal life, besides a few disingenuous references to women like Gloria Vanderbilt as girlfriends.
In this book, if not on stage, the author is a victim of the old-school gentility of his day. His mother, he says, instilled in him a philosophy of "what is just not done. Like public displays of emotion. Bad manners. Temperament. Which is why I have always treasured my privacy; it is something that belongs to me." In this exhibitionistic age, such discretion is admirable -- but it hardly seems right in a book about saloons.
No such reticence hampers Mr. Feinstein, who has gone far on sheer chutzpah. A lifelong collector of old records and sheet music, he moved from Columbus to Los Angeles at the age of 20. Within months he had won the trust of June Levant (widow of Oscar), through whom he gained entree to the long-retired, reclusive lyricist Ira Gershwin, who lived in Beverly Hills with his wife, Leonore. In 1977 Gershwin hired the young man to catalogue his and his brother's vast store of memorabilia, much of it piled in a closet. Mr. Feinstein stayed on as assistant and companion until Gershwin died in 1983.
Therein lies the book's main point of interest. He calls "Nice Work if You Can Get It" his life story; instead, it is a rambling pastiche of recycled song trivia, portraits of pop masters he has known or researched, and lots of opinions. The book opens appealingly with Mr. Feinstein's acknowledgment of some of his deficiencies as a musician, then describes his star-struck meetings with Gershwin, Harry Warren, Rosemary Clooney and other boyhood idols. Aficionados will enjoy reading about the part he played in unearthing a bounty of long-lost musical manuscripts from a warehouse in Secaucus, N.J.
But his rise from secretary to star sets off an explosion of ego unmatched by the greatest divas. "Some piano bar performers," he informs us, "have told me that people frequently go up to them and say, 'Do you know any Michael Feinstein?' They don't ask for Gershwin, they want to hear Feinstein." Innumerable mentions of his pal Liza Minnelli alternate with slaps at Frank Sinatra ("his message continues to elude me"), Billie Holiday ("I even had to fire a masseur once because he insisted on playing Billie Holiday records when he worked on me") and others whose contributions to this music, to put it mildly, far outweigh his.
He goes on to share some "horror stories" about performing on the road: "Once I was staying at a hotel in London and the management sent a complimentary bottle of champagne to my room -- at 8 in the morning! . . . I had a hard time appreciating their thoughtfulness." It all adds up to a portrait of an Ohio boy who is still trying desperately to convince himself and everyone around him that he belongs in the spotlight.