What do you think?
Rate this book
George M. Cohan: The Man Who Owned Broadway
collectible 1973 1st edition, old Bay Shore Library stock stamp on 1st page and B. Cohen on dust cover. The cover and binder are unbroken, very last page has a tear. great collector
287 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1973
1 person is currently reading
48 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 17, 2025
McCabe makes the same point that Mark Steyn makes in Broadway Babies Say Goodnight, which is that:
In the early seventies when he wrote The Man Who Owned Broadway, this was even more true. Like George Abbott (who appears only as a footnote), George M. Cohan was there at the beginning, as vaudeville was replaced by theaters, especially musical theater. And like Abbott, Cohan worked right up until his death at 62. Cohan was about nine years older than Abbott, but died fifty-three years earlier.
While he was, toward the end of his career, knowingly out of touch with Broadway tastes, he was known for most of his career as much more in-touch with both Broadway and the part of middle America that he brought his touring companies to. Both his language and his topics reflected then-modern habits.
He was continually reinventing himself, from vaudevillian to musician to playwright to satirist.
From the standpoint of who is remembered today, that comparison could just as well be turned around.
McCabe clearly loved Cohan’s work, and wrote from that perspective. It makes me want to see all of these plays, of which few if any have been filmed. He’s clearly disappointed that Cohan’s last work, The Musical Comedy Man, written right up until his death, had never (and has never, as far as I can tell) been produced, although the title song was included in George M! (possibly Joel Grey’s best role, in my very limited opinion).
Cohan tinkered with the idea of film a couple of times, but he loved Broadway, partly because it could embody one man’s vision—George M. Cohan’s vision—in a way that Hollywood could not. But also because of the immediacy for the audience and the direct connection between the audience and the production.
Great American musical theatre is a newcomer to the arts in that it has principally evolved within the life-span of men still with us.
In the early seventies when he wrote The Man Who Owned Broadway, this was even more true. Like George Abbott (who appears only as a footnote), George M. Cohan was there at the beginning, as vaudeville was replaced by theaters, especially musical theater. And like Abbott, Cohan worked right up until his death at 62. Cohan was about nine years older than Abbott, but died fifty-three years earlier.
While he was, toward the end of his career, knowingly out of touch with Broadway tastes, he was known for most of his career as much more in-touch with both Broadway and the part of middle America that he brought his touring companies to. Both his language and his topics reflected then-modern habits.
In the late fall of 1934, during the national tour of Ah, Wilderness!… Cohan’s acting took on certain extensions not present in the Broadway production. He began to add little touches and bits of business which, together with a growing tendency to pause reflectively in reaction to lines spoken to him, stretched the play’s original playing time by half an hour.
Theresa Hepburn asked him tactfully if the play had not become too long. For New York, yes, said Cohan—but not for the heartland. These were the Americans actually being represented on stage, he said, and they were not the kind to be in a hurry. He was right. The audiences were much taken with Cohan’s restful quiet pace and delivery; he seemed their own, one bred from their own stock, a Normal Rockwell illustration come to life.
He was continually reinventing himself, from vaudevillian to musician to playwright to satirist.
The American Idea opened a few eyes. Theatre Magazine which had usually been aloof to the Cohan shows was intrigued by Cohan’s “light satirical touch” which they seemed to have missed before, and it was noted that although the play did not measure up to Arthur Wing Pinero or Augustus Thomas standards…
From the standpoint of who is remembered today, that comparison could just as well be turned around.
McCabe clearly loved Cohan’s work, and wrote from that perspective. It makes me want to see all of these plays, of which few if any have been filmed. He’s clearly disappointed that Cohan’s last work, The Musical Comedy Man, written right up until his death, had never (and has never, as far as I can tell) been produced, although the title song was included in George M! (possibly Joel Grey’s best role, in my very limited opinion).
Cohan tinkered with the idea of film a couple of times, but he loved Broadway, partly because it could embody one man’s vision—George M. Cohan’s vision—in a way that Hollywood could not. But also because of the immediacy for the audience and the direct connection between the audience and the production.
…no one loved Broadway more. Among other things, Broadway for Cohan represented the essence of entertainment, the giving of holiday for those who needed it at a price they could afford. In his view, it was the greatest bargain any buyer of happiness ever had.
April 15, 2019
Excellent!
Read
April 12, 2012I've almost got my review finished, Ron
September 25, 2012
Enjoyable biography of the brash Yankee Doodle Boy George M. Cohan, which I picked up while visiting the Songwriters' Hall of Fame on Broadway during a visit to New York in 1980.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews