Eddie Lawrence - Broadway: Kelly and Sherry!

Broadway: Kelly and Sherry!

The hosting stint, however, came to a premature end because of another Broadway show. Lawrence had written the book and lyrics for a musical entitled Kelly. Moose Charlap was the composer, Herbert Ross the director and choreographer, and David Susskind and Joseph E. Levine the producers. With such high-powered names at the helm, there was high expectation of success and Eddie Lawrence, the show's author, was expected to assure it by attending all the rehearsals. The first preview was set for February 1, 1965 and opening night for February 6. At the end of October 1964, he hosted his final "Three Stooges show", said goodbye to his loyal viewers, and exited, trailing a banner across the television screen, emblazoned with the word KELLY.

Kelly became embroiled in controversy when producers Susskind and Levine began to demand extensive changes during rehearsals and out-of-town tryouts. While originally signing onto Lawrence's and Charlap's edgy concept of a darkly comic musical about corruption in old New York, they soon panicked over its perceived lack of commercial appeal, despite some good reviews on the road, and hired new writers in spite of the authors' objections. By the time Kelly's February 6 opening night at the Broadhurst Theatre also turned out to be its closing night, it was an entirely different show. Lawrence and Charlap subsequently brought a lawsuit charging Susskind and Levine with violation of the Dramatists Guild's clauses protecting the rights of creative artists and, ultimately, settling the case out of court for an undisclosed amount.

One lasting legacy from Kelly has been the song "I'll Never Go There Anymore", recorded by many artists over the years. Stephen Sondheim cited it in a 2000 New York Times article as one of the songs "I wish I had written". Eddie Lawrence was not an actor in Kelly and there was no original cast album, but he was popular enough at the time to warrant a recording of comic material and songs from the show, all performed by himself and Charlap (Original Cast Records OC 8025). A new studio recording of the complete score (Original Cast Records ASIN:B00000DGNP) was issued on CD in 1998, featuring the 79-year-old Eddie along with Brian D'Arcy James, Sally Mayes, George S. Irving, John Schuck, Marge Redmond, Jane Connell and Sandy Stewart, who was married to Moose Charlap from 1962 until his death in 1974.

A few months after the Kelly disappointment, one last LP appeared, Is That What's Bothering You Bunkie (Epic LN 24159). Taking its title from "The Old Philosopher"'s catchphrase, Bunkie contained five new "Old Philosopher" monologues and six other routines.

Eddie Lawrence continued to perform in clubs and, in 1967, joined the cast of yet another Broadway musical, Sherry!, nicknamed for Sheridan Whiteside, the acerbic literary wit and radio personality created by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart as the title character in The Man Who Came to Dinner. Whiteside, a comically exaggerated representation of Kaufman and Hart's friend, Alexander Woollcott, was performed by Clive Revill, while Eddie's role was that of Banjo, a send-up of Woollcott's sidekick, Harpo Marx. Sherry! opened at the Alvin Theater on March 28, 1967 and closed on May 27, having played 72 performances plus 14 previews. No cast album was recorded and the score and orchestrations were lost. All that remained were the book and lyrics written by James Lipton who gained celebrity twenty-seven years later, in 1994, as the creator and host of the long-running actor-interview series Inside the Actors Studio. The music was eventually found in 1999, and a 2004 studio cast album was recorded with stars including Nathan Lane, Carol Burnett, Bernadette Peters and Tommy Tune.