Song and Dance Man

With the back-to-back successes of Grand Hotel and The Will Rogers Follies, no one would have imagined that these would be the final Tommy Tune hits seen on Broadway. A series of flops (1994’s garish, vulgar The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public, the antithesis of the elegant simplicity of his earlier work) and stillborn projects (1995’s Busker Alley, whose pre-Broadway tour collapsed when Tune broke his foot, and the abandoned Irving Berlin jukebox musical Easter Parade in the late 1990s) tarnished Tune’s status as a director who could rescue any show from disaster. In the years when he was one of Broadway’s most consistently inventive and successful directors of musicals, Tune had continued his performing career. Now, he increasingly spent more time on stage. His intimate, convivial “new vaudeville” act, built around Tune’s easygoing vocals and smooth tapping, featured songs by the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, and other golden-age composers and underscored his affinity for music of an early time. The act proved remarkably flexible and durable, playing nightclubs and concert halls across the country and the world for more than thirty years. His enthusiasm for touring brought him a unique kind of celebrity. For many, he became the quintessential “Broadway Baby,” a man who summoned the spirit and continuity of the theater, even for those with little knowledge of the art form.