The Cavalier daily :: Thursday, February 24, 1972 :: University of Virginia Library

The cover of the book
jacket to Christopher Davis'
The Producer looks like a cross
between a Playbill and a porno
novel, but though the book
inside could at times pass for
either, it is actually something
else altogether.

Davis "had approached
other producers asking to act
as court biographer and had
been turned down out of
hand" before Hillard Elkins
agreed to be the subject of his
proposed book about the
professional life of a big-time
producer.

While his name isn't a
household word like a Merrick
or a Prince, Elkins has been
and continues to be one of the
more active producers on the
scene today, with such stage
musicals as "Golden Boy,"
"Oh! Calcutta!" and "The
Rothschilds" and such films as
"Alice's Restaurant" and "A
New Leaf" to his credit. Davis'
book chronicles a
year-and-a-half in Elkin's
career, from May, 1969 just
before "Oh! Calcutta!" opened
off-Broadway, to October,
1970 immediately after "The
Rothschilds" opened on
Broadway.

The first part of the book
paints a portrait of Elkins,
presenting him as a
self-confident business tycoon,
always on the move, always
juggling three or four projects
at once, always on or near a
telephone. To quote Davis,
"He is volatile, open,
others-oriented, secret,
disingenuous, candid, ethically
metamorphic, honest, and
sweet-tempered....He is like a
racing car; though he must, like
the rest of us, lose at last, he
seems to have been designed
only to win, and in this
characteristic may be found
the man's informing spirit."

Here, for once is one's
stereotyped image of a show
business mogul (minus casting
couch and big cigar) borne out
in reality. Here is a man who
centers everything around his
work ("I am going to the Cape
for a few days to honeymoon
and see Kurt Vonnegut about
Cat's Cradle" -this after his
marriage to actress Claire
Bloom), who seems afraid to
stop and look back, yet
occasionally does so with
piercing objectivity and truth,
especially where commitment
is concerned ("Things that
really failed are the things that
I haven't delivered on. I
delivered on "Golden Boy." I
delivered on "Oh! Calcutta!" I
didn't deliver on "The
Rothschilds.") Elkins makes a
marvelously colorful, exciting,
and likeable central figure.

The second half of the book
focuses less on Elkins as a
producer and more on the
production progress of "The
Rothschilds" as it affected all
the creative people involved
from its auditions through its
problems on the road to its
semi-successful Broadway
opening. Still, Elkins is
depicted in various critical
situations: handling the
dismissal of his director,
arranging publicity and endless
interviews, screaming
enthusiastically into a radio
mike on opening night ("We
don't have Sammy Davis! We
don't have Danny Kaye! But
we have a brilliant show, and I
think we'll be here a long
time!"), then angrily hitting
closer to the truth just a few
hours later ("This show, don't
kid yourself, is 40 per cent of
what it could have been!").

The book's outspoken
honesty -who, for instance,
would expect a producer to
make a statement on his
opening night like the one just
quoted? -plus the shift of
emphasis from "producer" to
"product" keeps the reader
attentive and interested. Some
of the detail concerning
conferences, auditions, and
interviews slows the book's
forward motion, but, for the
most part, it's well-paced, easy
reading.

How much of this is because
of Davis' literary contribution
and how much is in spite of it
is perhaps debatable; the
subject matter carries much
inherent fascination, and,
actually, Davis has done little
more than report the facts.
There are several instances,
especially early in the book, of
awkward phraseology, a
tendency (usually restrained)
to ramble, and a superfluous
and superficial inclusion of
totally unrelated events taking
place in New York City during
the time period covered,
presented in a modified
interchapter manner.

But whatever Davis' literary
qualifications may be, in The
Producer we have the most
enjoyable book about
commercial theatre since
William Goldman's The Season
back in 1969.