Oh Captain! Oh Bobo! Oh Maud!

Here's an oddity:

Oh Captain!

Note exclamation mark.

Note the song writing team that brought us

"Mona Lisa" and "Silver Bells".

Note daring apron, which is certainly not a safe way to "stir a pot".

A Jose Ferrer production! 

You can just tell this will be a wild night in the theatre, right?

And you would be wrong. 

Oh Captain!, starring Tony Randall, Abbe Lane, Susan Johnson,

 and Jacquelyn McKeever,

opened on Broadway in 1958.

It was based on a British movie, The Captain's Paradise,

which was set in Algiers and Gibraltar...

about a sea captain who led 2 very different lives (with 2 very different wives!)

 in each of these ports. 

The movie starred Alec Guinness and Yvonne DeCarlo (below),

and you can see where they got the apron idea...

Well, for the Broadway musical, they switched venues to

London and Paris. 

At first, Danny Kaye was slated to star, then David Wayne,

but Tony ended up with it.

Critics dissed it as a "tired businessman's show",

but what WAS adored was a 5 minute ballet that

Tony got to do with Alexandra Danilova (above)...

I'll post it on my 2 on the Aisle Facebook page;

it's a hoot, tho I don't think it's supposed to be! :)

The show ran for 192 performances.

Abbe Lane played the Captain's French wife,

Bobo (above)

and Jacquelyn McKeever (below), the English wife,

Maud:

French ooh la la and English cottage pie.

The Al Hirschfeld rendition...note a two-faced Tony!

Of course prior to this,

Jay Livingston and Ray Evans

were popular song writers (with more than 700 titles to their names),

especially for movies and television.

Among their many tunes...

the themes for Bonanza and Mr. Ed

 (Jay actually sang that theme song for the show) 

and the songs "Buttons and Bows", "Que Sera Sera", "Tammy",

and "Dear Heart" (in collaboration with Henry Mancini).

Couldn't resist including this pic:

 the team rehearsing music for The Red Parasol,

with Lucille Ball wearing what looks like a bird cage

or a small jail in the middle of her hair.

Recording the cast album with 

Goddard Lieberson,

President of Columbia Records

and God of original cast recordings...

with Jay and Ray.

Interesting trivia: J&R appeared as themselves 

in the movie Sunset Boulevard, 

in the New Year's Eve party scene.