Golden Boy was based on a Clifford Odet's play of the same name.
In the original version,
the main character (played by Sammy Davis, Jr.)
turns to prize fighting to earn money for his education.
He wants to be a doctor,
helping blacks when hospitals are denying them access,
and fights only soooo hard to protect his hands for surgery.
Ironically, he ends up killing a fighter in the ring...
Well, most of that was scrapped.
Above, Sammy surrounded by Lee Adams and Charles Strouse
who wrote the score.
Sammy was difficult to work with evidently,
wanting his songs to sound more his nightclub solos...
they complied!
Paula Wayne as Lorna...
went by Joe's manager to entice Joe to fight harder.
An interracial romance,
yet onstage Paula and Sammy never got closer than 4 feet.
Backstage after a performance
with Frank and Natalie.
Another Golden Moment:
Kaye Ballard, circa 1954, when
The Golden Apple appeared on Broadway
(in an evanescent form...only 125 performances).
It was a "modern day"
(well, post-war, and I mean the Spanish American War here...)
re-telling of both the Illiad and the Odyssey,
almost completely sung thru.
The character of Paris (who steals away Helen, remember?)
was a traveling salesman who had no lines or songs whatsoever;
he expressed himself in dance.
And that dance was by Choreographer Hanya Holm,
who would have a slightly longer job contract with
My Fair Lady, just a few years later.
Music Jerome Moss, Lyrics John LaTouche.
Below: that post-war fashion, and is that one girl eating An APPLE???
Couldn't resist including this shot,
from the cast recording of Cinderella.
That's Kaye in the middle, with Alice Ghostley on the left
(they played the annoyingly wonderful step-sisters)
and of course Julie Andrews on the right.
R&H, 1957.
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