Gilbert Price

GILBERT PRICE

In 1962, Gilbert Price became my close companion. In 1961 my college roommate, Fernando Vargas, and I founded Variety Recording Studio on 46th Street in Manhattan. Marvin Hamlisch brought a teenage Liza Minnelli in as one of our first clients, recording the score for Best Foot Forward. Other of our clients included David Åmram, Jerry Bock, Irving Caesar, Sammy Cahn, Paddy Chayevsky, Chubby Checker, Bob Fosse, Lionel Hampton, Meadowlark Lemon, Barry Manilow, Mary Martin, Ethel Merman, David Merrick, Arthur Miller, Odetta, Joseph Papp, Elvis Presley Music, Harold Prince, Tito Puente, Doc Severinsen, Carly Simon, Paul Simon, Sun Ra and His Arkestra, Tiny Tim, Sarah Vaughan, Gwen Verdon, Harold Wheeler, and Robert Whitehead.

One day I thought I heard an aging Italian opera singer in Studio A and, because no group was booked for an hour, I entered to find Gilbert, a personable and sexy young black chap with a voice that had a timbre that reminded me of that of Paul Robeson. We made small talk, I learned that he had toured with Harry Belafonte’s group from 1961 to 1962, he had come early to be a backup singer for someone, he said he wanted an acting career, and he added that he was going to be in Langston Hughes’s “Jerico-Jim Crow.” I told him my partner, Costa Rican Fernando Vargas, and I had started the studio on a shoestring, I taught English 180 days a year in New Canaan, Connecticut, and for the other 185 days I was the business side of the studio whereas Fred (as most called him) was the technical side.

“Come see my play,” he asked. “May I bring a friend?” I inquired, mentioning Luis Fantauzzi. And that was the start of our twenty-nine-year friendship. The play, directed by Alvin Ailey and William Hairston at The Sanctuary, 143 West 13th Street, was performed in the basement of a white Presbyterian church that had distinctive Grecian columns. Gilbert was a hit, both with the critics and with me.

Life

To insure the friendship would continue, I invited Gil to spend time at the studio. If a room was vacant, I’d accompany him on the piano. We went to different restaurants, to plays, took long walks together, and I began getting invited to Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners with his family in their 106th Street Harlem project. When Granny, as we all called his beautiful white-haired grandmother, explained she'd been born in St. Kitts, I was the first to explain that that island was not in Africa but, in fact, was one of the West Indian islands that was publishing my syndicated column, “Scene From Manhattan.” I wear many hats, Gilbert noted.

Soon after our meeting, he wanted to learn how to play my studio’s Wurlitzer church organ. So as he sat at the organ, I got behind him and, while he placed his hands on the keys, I put my arms around to guide them on the keyboard. He turned his head around knowingly, we both forgot the lesson, and for the remainder of his life we remained close.

On one subject we entirely differed: religion. I had made a small name for myself as the book review editor of The Humanist, a journal of secular humanists. Gil was a 99% Catholic. Proof of our being buddies was that he talked me into singing with him several times in Harlem’s small St. Cecilia’s choir, and he became friendly with the atheists, agnostics, rationalists, and freethinkers that I hung out with.

The Prices were Protestant, but Carmen his mother wanted Gil to attend a Catholic school because she thought its standards were higher. After attending the Catholic school, Gil chose on his own to convert to Catholicism.

Carmen Price had been separated from her husband, Leon Price, when I met Gilbert. I was told that the father, then in Charlotte, North Carolina, had been a comedian. In an elevator one time when Red Foxx entered, Gil quickly introduced himself and said he was Leon’s son, that the two had worked together. Foxx was late for the opening of his own play and smiled but was in too much of a hurry to say much more.

Cardinal Spellman loved Gil’s singing and called upon him several times to perform. At Madison Square Garden just as Ed Sullivan was about to announce that Gil was going to sing, the sound went out. “Ladies and gentlemen,” Sullivan intoned as the cardinal smiled, “Gilbert Price is the only person in this huge room who doesn’t need a microphone.” And, true, Gil’s projection was phenomenal. In order to help me improve my own projection, he would have me place my hand on his spine, his abdomen, his throat, in order to feel what was physically happening. I flunked the lessons, I would sneakily put my hand elsewhere . . . and as a result I still have a quiet voice that is hard to hear.

As to whether Spellman was gay, Gil said only that the cardinal sometimes had dinner with a Hungarian (I think) nobleman who wrote for The New York Times, that at their table they’d invite two young chaps to join them. My take on this was that the cardinal enjoyed the mental temptations up to the point that he would excuse himself, then walk off to the men’s room, to repent or whatever. Arthur C. Clarke, I told Gil, once remarked that celibacy is the strangest of human aberrations. Gil’s reaction was that it was difficult enough to be Catholic and gay, that I didn’t have to rub it in.

When he asked if I could get a drama yearbook for Langston, one that contained the "Jim Crow" photo, I did and met the eminent poet on several occasions. It wasn’t true, but when people asked where we had met Gil said Langston had introduced us. I saw no reason to complain but never fully understood Gil’s reasoning.

When we went to restaurants, I paid, for his family had many financial problems. It was only natural that I should become Gil’s bookkeeper, his financial advisor. When he got paid for any job, I cashed his check or credited him with the amount. I soon became his bank, for he would withdraw money that I had saved from his earnings. If I weren’t available, Fernando would advance money and Gil would sign in a book that he had received the amount. I also soon became aware that he owed more than he earned, despite his simple lifestyle. On one occasion when he had a chance to get some 8x10 professional glossies, he had to borrow one of my sweaters inasmuch as he had nothing else to wear.

Neither of us was monogamous. I began meeting some of his sexual partners and he met mine. We didn’t much care for the other’s, although I took a liking to one of his understudies, Bruce Hubbard. All the while, my recording studio partner Fernando remained my numero uno and Gil had many partners, most of whom like the Canadian George Stanton I disapproved of (likely out of jealousy). We cruised together, one time having our billfolds stolen from my locked car when we went to a Greenwich Village bar with a popular back room. We also cruised the waterfront and “the trucks,” places where anonymous sex was quickly had with no strings attached. We had few secrets from each other. We knew each other’s weaknesses whereas most only knew our strengths.

At some point I would like to write in detail about our decades together and, in fact, I am working on just such a project: In the Heart of Showbiz, a story of Variety Recording Studio. Following are some notes I must include:

When Gil played a lion in Joseph Papp’s Shakespeare Theatre that performed in parks around the city, I learned how some of the kids in the audience threw stones at the lion so he would roar. In the back seat of a car returning us from one of the outer boroughs, pot was passed around. It was the first I had ever smoked and, a non-smoker, I didn’t inhale nor enjoy the rope-like aroma. Gil, a diabetic, claimed he couldn’t get high on liquor but could on pot. I stuck with my manhattans, but I learned from Gil about the relativity of moral standards – what is immoral to some is not to others. Sin is relative . . . and adds spice.

When Gil was down in spirits, I worried that he would not take insulin as a way of committing suicide, which a Catholic cannot do. While standing in my office and gazing at himself in a large mirror one day, a quizzical smile on his face, I suddenly realized he had not eaten. “You need some sugar?” I asked. If I had not rushed to our Coke machine in time, I think he might have fallen to the floor in a fit. In his apartment, his late sister Jeanette Stargill (later living at 1829 Lexington Avenue) had once tried to help him up when he fell to the floor, whereupon he smacked her in the mouth and knocked a front tooth out.

Giora Feidman, the NY Symphony clarinetist who could make the licorice stick cry as well as laugh, once looked into my office when Gil was using a needle to shoot insulin into his leg. I'm sure Giora imagined the worst.

Gil’s younger brother Stanley (once befriended by Jerome Robbins, who took him on a weekend trip to his place) was always a problem. Stanley would take Gil’s property without asking, and when I arranged for a padlock on Gil’s bedroom door Stanley still was able to get in. The three of us tried to resolve any family problems, but when Stanley got AIDS and called it a disease invented by whites to kill blacks, Gil advised me not to go see Stanley at the hospital, which I had planned on doing.

On the Ed Sullivan Show, where he appeared numerous times, Gil had a national audience that included my parents out in Iowa. He kindly talked to them by telephone one time, and my parents’ town of 328 people all heard about it within minutes.

Gil, after being invited by Fidel Castro to be the first American to sing in a Cuban prison, brought me a little rock from Castro’s front yard – it’s still in my tropical aquarium. In Cuba a prisoner had sneaked a note from an inmate to be given to a brother in Connecticut. Gil stupidly, one could say, hid it in his shoe and brought it back to the States. But when we drove to Hartford some time later in order to find the brother to give him the note, everyone we talked with assumed we were government agents. The message was never delivered.

In “Lost in the Stars,” Gil died every performance and twice on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Jesus died only once, we joked.

In Australia, when he was in “Two Gentlemen of Verona” and also had a TV show, he was popular and accepted as a black. But he often heard that Australians liked him because they knew he was just visiting, not planning to stay.

On a Canadian TV show for which he was the lead, he received first-rate reviews.

Leonard Bernstein chose Gil for “Mass.” Lenny often made affectionate moves in the back seat of his limo. The two got along beautifully, and Gil later was to get a job in his “1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”

Gil won a Tony nomination for Harry Chapin’s “The Night That Made America Famous,” but he almost hurt himself badly during one acrobatic-like move in full view of the entire cast.

When a sports show paid his way to Central Africa to be filmed with Pygmies and to learn how they made a certain click when they sang, Gil told me, "When I was showering outdoors one morning, to my surprise I saw faces out there, sizing me up!" “They have size queens too?” I joked. Required to write something about his trip for the organization that had financed it, he gave me the details and I pretty much wrote his story.

When Anthony Newley was casting for “Roar of the Greasepaint” upstairs in the Variety Arts Building, Gil got a copy of “Feeling Good” at the cattle call and raced to my studio downstairs for me to help him prep. We weren’t sure whether it was a fast or a slow number, but in a very few minutes we rehearsed, he ran back upstairs, and heard Newley exclaim that he had not been looking for a black, had not wanted a baritone, had not wanted a person of Gil’s size, “but you’ve got the greatest fucking voice I’ve ever heard!” And Gil got the job. I was the first to play Newley’s song on a piano, I kept telling myself!

When Gil and I once went to hear Tiger Haynes play in a small cabaret in the Village, he recognized a high school teacher at the next table. And the teacher’s friend was Bette Midler, who was not as well known as Gil at that time. She told us about having grown up in Hawaii on a block where she was the only white. Barbra Streisand came backstage at one play to see if Gil remembered her. Yes, he had been the lead in their Erasmus Hall choir and she had only been one of the chorus.

Several female members of different casts, particularly Chita Rivera, referred to Gil as “BB.” I hadn’t seen any connection with B. B. King, however. Gil smiled that the reference was to his beautiful buns.

Gil stayed often at 425 West 45th with Fernando and me, very near the Shubert Theatre. On Wednesdays and Saturdays, he spent the time between “Roar of the Greasepaint” shows sometimes in bed. When he once feared I was becoming overly protective, he let me know that he was a free person and I shouldn’t count upon being his forever. I countered that I was Fernando’s forever. We never had big fights, never physical fights, but we did figure out how to respect the other’s space. He accepted me as his public relations person, his sometime roommate, his chauffeur, his butler, his writer (I worded Playbill entries), his tax man, his confidante, his personal agent, and much more.

Gil once telephoned at 03:00 to say he was lost in Stamford, where I lived during school days. He came to sleep a few hours with me, then accompanied me to school where he taught one of my honor classes about theatre:

At New Canaan High School

When LeRoi Jones (a/k/a Baraka) turned him down for one show, saying “You’re not black enough,” Gil told me he’d never experienced much racism except from blacks, that Jews had been helpful throughout his career. “And don’t forget the Unitarian,” I cracked, because he knew I was neither Protestant, Catholic, nor Jew.

“1600 Pennsylvania Avenue” resulted in many notables coming backstage to see Gil. President Jimmy Carter noted that Gil’s character in the play (for he played the head of the family that was hired by President Adams to look after the White House) had been in the White House longer than he himself had.

The often acerbic John Simon had nothing but praise for Gil in at least one review.

Gil was ecstatic upon seeing his having been sketched by Al Hirschfeld in The New York Times.

When Gil got the role as co-star (with Eartha Kitt and Melba Moore) of “Timbuktu,” I advanced the money to get him to Morocco so at least he could see some camels and sand. I wasn’t happy when he stayed a little extra time in southern Spain, attracted by the natives.

“Timbuktu,” for which he earned his 4th Tony nomination, was a big hit for him. For the big night, Carmen, his mother, needed funds to dress properly, I had to buy a tux, I talked them out of renting a limo to keep the expenses down, and Gil’s aunt and uncle came along on opening night. Afterwards, however, Gil angered Geoffrey Holder by not attending a cast party. Carmen was worse than angered, for she had looked forward to being present as the star’s mother. I ended up taking her, the aunt, and the uncle, to the Boondocks restaurant and nightclub downtown near the Hudson River. Everyone was unhappy. . . . Melba Moore, Gil thought, had paid the sound engineer to turn his volume down so he wouldn’t overshadow her voice – when he developed polyps, he blamed her. Eartha Kitt was not that friendly to him either, he claimed, and he was furious when during a curtain call Eartha had flown across the stage into Sammy Davis’s arms. The rather small Sammy fell backwards and hurt himself, just before a show in which he was opening. (In another play, in which Davis was a boxer, my studio in an emergency had lent a body microphone because we were across the street from the theater. Gil used to joke with people, asking them if they knew where the mike in their hands had been hidden a few minutes prior.)

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The Prince of Timbuktu (above) is singing a Rimski-Korsakov tune and wearing a gown by multi-talented Geoffrey Holder.

Gil invited me to two luncheons that I didn’t accept but wish I had. One was with Tennessee Williams, but Gil told him he was bringing an English teacher. “Why didn’t you tell him you were bringing a drummer!” I exclaimed, knowing Williams would be uncomfortable talking business with a high school teacher present. They were discussing the possibility of Gil’s being in a musical “Camino Real.”

The other was to meet Arthur C. Clarke. When Gil (whom Arthur had met and entertained when living at the Hotel Chelsea on West 23rd Street) was accidentally asphyxiated in Vienna, Arthur in Sri Lanka sent a four-figure check to me, one which enabled Gil's sister to travel to the grave site.

When Langston died, Gil was performing in Vancouver and could not return. I signed his name in the visitors’ book at the Harlem funeral home. It was unnerving to be in the room alone with Langston, who didn’t at all look the way I remembered him. His will, I understand, directed that there be no religious ceremony - he believed in no afterlife. “One might as well have a little fun at one’s own finalization,” he had written, not wanting a public display of his body. But there he lay. He had wanted a service entirely of music, but at the Benta Funeral Home (630 St. Nicholas Avenue at 141st Street), the body was on display the same day the American Academy, of which he had been a member, met in New York City. Langston’s arms were folded, “you know, laughing at us, I’m sure, cracking up,” musician Randy Weston later remembered. Lena Horne, Ralph Bunche, and many other notables were present. Weston’s trio ended with “Do Nothing till You Hear From Me.” I told Gil that Langston’s will left some money for his stepbrother’s family and some for Sunday Osuya, a young Nigerian black policeman he had met on a trip to Lagos. Both of us figured that out quickly. (In my book, Who’s Who in Hell, I wrote more about Hughes’s philosophic outlook. Arnold Rampersad, when he interviewed Gil for the superior biography of Hughes, got a somewhat ambiguous response when asked if anything sexual had happened in the bed Hughes and Gil shared in Puerto Rico. Gil talked of Langston’s frequently booking the cheaper rate for hotel rooms, often ending up with a single bed.

Because in a who’s who book of blacks I used my address in Gil’s listing, The New York Times telephoned me when Gil died, inquiring about the details. I had no knowledge of his death and decided not to report that he showed me medical papers that indicated he had been HIV+ before going to Europe. So the newspaper’s staff eventually informed me about Gil’s having been accidentally asphyxiated by a faulty propane heater while he was staying alone in someone’s borrowed apartment. I then arranged a razzledazzle showbiz memorial in the Actors' Chapel. Gil's entire family came. I had not known that Gil had a half-brother, and I met his father for the first time. “Wiz” arranger Harold Wheeler played piano, "Timbuktu" director-choreographer Geoffrey Holder spoke eloquently and dramatically (“Gil, Gil, I know you’re up there looking”), and sportscaster Dick Schaap was M.C. The first and last words were by two of Gil's Jesuit priest-friends, whom I later learned are gay. I supervised the sound, lighting, publicity . . . and tears.