The Hollywood Legends

This study of Hollywood's favorite "screwball" comedienne begins on the eve of her death. Following a successful war bonds tour, she awaits word in an Indianapolis hotel room to see if she's been successful in securing plane reservations for a flight back to Los Angeles. She's anxious to get home, because she suspects that her husband, Clark Gable, is cheating on her.

He's been called "the best film actor Hollywood has ever known". His marvelous performances in classic movies like Captains Courageous, Adam's Rib, Bad Day at Black Rock, and Inherit the Wind endowed him with a tough, solid humorous image - one that was totally at odds with his own personality. The play opens in 1967 when Tracy was in poor health and struggling to complete what would be his final film, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

As Captain Blood, Robin Hood, and the Sea Hawk, he was the "King of the Swashbucklers". As Errol Flynn, he was Hollywood's number one rogue. He was married three times, and also was the defendant in three rape trials. Indeed, it's fitting that his last major swashbuckling film cast him in the role of Don Juan. The play joins Flynn a few weeks before his premature death. Knowing that the end is near, he is in a New York airport, waiting to fly west to see his children for the last time.

For nearly 30 years, Clark Gable was "the King" of Hollywood. Female fans swooned, and male admirers were made envious of his unaffected masculinity. Through jaunty, self-assured performances in films like It Happened One Night, San Francisco, Mutiny on the Bounty, and Gone with the Wind, he carved a niche for himself as the quintessential American movie star.

Orson Welles is a one-person play in two acts about the life and times of Orson Welles. Some say that Orson Welles was a genius, but he always denied that. He did give us Citizen Kane, considered by most critics to be the best film ever made, but after that, his career took one long downward plunge. The play finds Welles trying to find the financing for one of his film projects. It's a difficult task, since most of the Hollywood community considers him to be a "screwball".

Clara Blow is a one-woman play in two acts about the life and times of Clara Bow. The "It" Girl was the movies' first American sex goddess. The star of Wings, the first film to win the Best Picture Oscar, Clara Bow's unhappy life, in many ways, paralleled that of her successor, Marilyn Monroe. A longtime victim of insomnia, Ms. Bow lies awake on the morning of her estranged husband's funeral and painfully remembers the mentally ill mother who once tried to kill her; her career as the ultimate "flapper" her many nervous breakdowns; and affairs with the likes of Gary Cooper, Gilbert Roland, director Victor Fleming, and, as is said, the USC football team.

Michael B. Druxman’s Rathbone joins the actor near the end of his life while, because of his troubled financial condition, he is working on still another less than memorable film. The play delves into Rathbone’s dark side, exploring his relationships with his first wife, the son he virtually abandoned, and Ouida, the divisive woman to whom he was married for over 40 years, yet perhaps never really knew.

Although he had a long career as an actor and director, Paul Henreid is certainly best remembered for two films he made in the early 1940s: Now, Voyager with Bette Davis, and Casablanca with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. Michael B. Druxman’s Paul Henreid is set in 1968 and finds the actor in Nice, France, about to costar in a film with Katharine Hepburn. He has just learned that his friend, the movie’s original director, has quit the production and must decide whether he will do the same.

He was “Ben-Hur", “Moses” in The Ten Commandments, and he did battle with the Planet of the Apes. During his long career, Charlton Heston projected an unequaled image of strength and authority, tempered with compassion and wisdom. Charlton Heston, Michael B. Druxman’s one-person stage play, finds the Oscar-winning actor in his final years, shortly after it has been discovered that he suffers from Alzheimer’s Disease. Struggling to hold onto his memories, he thinks back on his life; its many successes, as well as its disappointments. One actor; one set. 

The Barrymores were “The Royal Family of Broadway”, and Ethel Barrymore was their queen. Along with her brothers, Lionel and John, she was a legendary presence in the theatre and in motion pictures during the first half of the 20th century. In fact, the Barrymores and the Drews were a theatrical family that dated back many generations. 

A native of New Jersey, Roy Scheider was his own man. He did his work well and was not afraid to butt heads with producers and directors with whom he disagreed, even to the detriment of his career. Michael B. Druxman’s Roy Scheider & the Bigger Boat finds the actor in 2002 during a lull in his career. He hasn’t done a major film for several years, as he ponders how he can change his luck.

Michael B. Druxman’s one-person play, Ronald Reagan: Movie Star, joins the actor in 1949, when he has just lost a major film role to Errol Flynn. Indeed, not much in his life seems to be going well at this time. Divorced from actress Jane Wyman, his recent romance with Patricia Neal has also taken a wrong turn after she discovered Gary Cooper. 

Peter Lorre, Michael B. Druxman’s one-person stage play, finds the famous actor in poor health near the end of his life. He contemplates his third divorce and ponders how he will provide for his young daughter, while remembering the greener years that he spent with the likes of Humphrey Bogart, John Huston, and Sydney Greenstreet. One simple set. 

Maureen O’Hara was “the queen of technicolor”. With her bright red hair and piercing green eyes, this Irish colleen’s career spanned over 70 years, as she held her own against such leading men as Tyrone Power, Errol Flynn, James Stewart, Charles Laughton, Henry Fonda, and, of course, John Wayne. Her films include such classics as The Hunchback of Notre Dame, How Green Was My Valley, Rio Grande, The Quiet Man, Miracle on 34th Street, and The Parent Trap.

Abe Vigoda worked as an actor for all of his adult life. He did theatre...He did television...But it wasn’t until he was 50-years-old that he got a role where the public even noticed him. He played Tessio in The Godfather. Michael B. Druxman’s humorous one-person play, Abe Vigoda, finds the actor with a major problem. The press has, erroneously, announced that he is dead, and his agent’s phone has stopped ringing. Now, Abe has to convince the entertainment industry that he is still with us.

Dick Powell made a career of reinventing himself. Born in Arkansas, the young tenor played horn and banjo, and sang with various dance bands and orchestras in Pittsburgh and elsewhere before he was brought to Hollywood, where he sang opposite Ruby Keeler and others in such classic Busby Berkeley musicals as 42nd Street, Footlight Parade, Gold Diggers of 1935, and the Al Jolson film, Wonder Bar.