Joel Grey sang “Willkommen,” Donna McKechnie sang “I Love Paris” and Neil Simon delivered a few one-liners; that’s how a showman is mourned, if mourned is the right word.
It was more of a memorial cabaret yesterday as hundreds gathered at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater on Broadway to pay tribute to Cy Feuer: trumpet player, Oscar-nominated composer, director and, most notably, producer of musicals like “Guys and Dolls” and “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” and the film version of “Cabaret.”
The site was no accident: Mr. Feuer (pronounced FEW-er), who died in May at the age of 95, was an owner of the Lunt-Fontanne for more than a decade, starting in 1959.
Among those who spoke, sang and played were the performers Michele Lee and Steve Ross; the producer Michael David; the theater owners Gerald Schoenfeld and Rocco Landesman; and a costume designer, Alvin Colt, 90, who worked on the original production of “Guys and Dolls.”
Jed Bernstein, the former president of the League of American Theaters and Producers, read letters from the producer-director Harold Prince and the composer John Kander. Marian Seldes read a letter from Julie Andrews, whom Mr. Feuer plucked out of a disastrous show in England in 1954 for her first Broadway role, in “The Boy Friend.”
“Cy was an adorable man,” wrote Ms. Andrews, “freckle-faced, aggressive, a go-getter with enough enthusiasm for an entire company.”
The stories about Mr. Feuer, who with his producing partner Ernest H. Martin dominated Broadway in the 1950’s and early 60’s, portrayed a man by turns witty, brash and contentious, a despot and a pussycat. The punch lines to many of the anecdotes about him, though hilarious, are not printable.
“I didn’t think of Cy as a producer,” said Mr. Simon, who wrote the book for the musical “Little Me.” “To me he seemed like an Irish boxer with Jewish friends.”
Jimmy Breslin, a close friend, emphasized Mr. Feuer’s brio and his lack of pretension. “He instilled in me enthusiasm and I loved his energy, which are two of the things that make this city what it is,” he said.
The service also celebrated an era when guys called redheaded women “tomatoes” and when Broadway producers were not just financiers, but were involved in their shows down to the last quarter note.
In one of several clips shown from a 2000 interview, Mr. Feuer spoke of a call he once received at 4 a.m.
“’Hello Cy, it’s Cole,” Mr. Feuer remembered Cole Porter saying. “I’m stuck for a rhyme: ‘The aurora borealis is not as heated as a dah-dah-dah.’ ”
Mr. Feuer said he thought about it and the next day approached Mr. Porter with a solution: “ ‘The aurora borealis is not as heated as a palace is.’ What a great rhyme,” Mr. Feuer told him. To which Mr. Porter replied: “Yeah, that’s the first one I threw out.” (The “palace” lyric did stick in the end, appearing in the 1955 show “Silk Stockings.”)
Near the end of the ceremony, Mr. Feuer’s son, Jed, introduced Joe Wilder, a black trumpet player whom Mr. Feuer hired for “Guys and Dolls,” thus helping to integrate the Broadway orchestra pit. Jed then brought out his seven-piece jazz band, Bipolar, and played a medley of songs from Feuer musicals, including “Brotherhood of Man,” from “How to Succeed” and “Once in Love With Amy,” from “Where’s Charley?”
And as the crowd walked out onto West 46th Street, there stood the Salvation Army band, right out of “Guys and Dolls,” playing “Follow the Fold.”
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company