Singin’ a happy Tune

Melissa Schorr

Friday, Jan. 22, 1999 | 10:08 a.m.

It's hard not to look up to Tommy Tune.

Not because he's a nine-time Tony award winner, a legendary song and dance man, or the larger-than-life new star of "EFX."

No, it's hard not to look up to him literally, considering his trademark 6-foot, 6-inch frame.

Tune has been described in many ways: Andy Warhol called him "a human exclamation point"; Twiggy called him "the best legs in the business"; and Tune calls himself "a size small, but stretched extra, extra large."

Now, he is being called the "tallest dreamer around" as he steps into the lead role of the MGM Grand's $50 million production show, following in the footsteps of "Phantom of the Opera" star Michael Crawford, who originated the part, and ex-"Partridge Family" teen idol David Cassidy, who left the part at the end of last year.

Improbably, in Las Vegas, the Broadway hoofer seems to finally have found a stage that fits him -- at least, physically.

"Our theaters in New York are as big as my dressing room (here)," he said. "On Broadway, I do five steps and I'm into the wings. Here, I can really walk. The scale of the stage feels very comfortable to me, being as tall as I am. When I open my arms out, there's room, I don't feel I'm about to hit somebody."

'Tommy Tune Day'

Last Friday, it was was officially "Tommy Tune Day" in Las Vegas. At a press conference held the morning of Tune's opening night, City Councilman Arnie Adamson presented Tune with a gold-framed proclamation declaring it so.

Tune, wearing black from his tinted shades to his black, high-heeled cowboy boots -- and a smile as big as the state -- welcomed reporters to what he called his first "area code 702 press conference debut."

A number of MGM executives in business suits, from CEO Terri Lanni to site COO Bill Hornback, milled about, watching in bewilderment as the artistic, yoga-practicing dancer talked to reporters about life and learning, quoting the ancient Japanese saying "today is a student of yesterday."

But Tune has also been quick to pick up the MGM corporate mantra, already dropping references to the "City of Entertainment" and arcane trivia bits, such as the fact that the MGM serves more over 50,000 eggs a day.

MGM Vice President of Worldwide Entertainment Richard Sturm, who hired Tune, notes that Tune will add a new dimension to the production. "Each celebrity has brought something diferent to the show," he says. "He is a great song and dance man and that's what he brings to the stage."

What Tune also brings is a bod that turns 60 next month.

"I feel grrrreat," he drawls in his slight Texas accent, when asked about his upcoming birthday. "When you think a dancer's life is over by 35 or 40, I'm so grateful my body has lasted."

But contrary to conventional wisdom, Tune contends that his dancing is better, not worse, than when he was 17.

"Then I was kicking and flailing and thinking that's what dance was," he says. "Now, I'm much more restrained. Now, there's a meaning behind it, a wisdom under it, and there's more heart in it."

The press conference included a screening of Young & Rubicam's humorous TV advertisement, filmed in black and white, which began airing last week. The ad features "EFX" stage manager Max Zurflueh prepping Tune for his role, placing him in precarious situations, from a water tank to a cage of spears.

"See Tommy Tune in EFX-- while you still can" the ad solemnly intones.

Adjusting to Vegas

"While you still can" will probably be about a year -- the length of Tune's contract. Tune agreed to elongate his stay, from six, then to eight, then to 12 months, postponing plans to return to New York to appear in his production of "Easter Parade" with Sandy Duncan. "Right now, all my energies are going into this," he says.

Tune plans to begin house hunting soon, and move out his dog, Ophie, his "little critter." "I'm looking for a house with very tall doorways and ceilings," he drawls. "Do you know of any?"

Meanwhile, his time in Las Vegas has been mainly divided between the Grand Theater and his delux, jacuzzi-fitted suite at the hotel. "It's been a very isolated environment for me," he admits. Siegfried and Roy sent flowers on opening night, and Robert Goulet called, but basically, Tune's "a guy out here alone."

On top of that, the longtime New Yorker doesn't own a car -- or even a driver's license. "I guess I'm going to have to take a driver's test," he says, breaking into a laugh. "That's funny! I have to have my freedom, don't I?"

What also tickles him no end is that his voice is now the voice of the MGM Grand's switchboard. "Here's the best part," he says. "When my friends from New York call, I'm the only person from Las Vegas they know, and when they call the hotel, I answer the phone!"

Tune remarks that he doesn't really see himself as a true "Las Vegan." "My idea of gambling is walking through Central Park whistling a show tune," he quips. "Show business is a gamble. It's a gamble every night I step onstage with traps and elevators and those steel grids I have to avoid while I'm dancing -- that's gambling."

Rather than hitting the slots, Tune's main hobbies are painting and cooking -- and attending the theater, naturally. While the MGM Grand was courting him, he was taken to see "O" (which he found "breathtaking"), "Siegfried & Roy" (which is "terrific") and "Enter the Night" (which he is "very fond of").

As Tune tells it, he always has harbored the dream of playing a showroom on the Strip -- a dream that has finally come true. And the new theme of "EFX" -- dreams and how they come true -- coincides nicely with that. "It's theatrical verity!" he declares.

Tune did come close to playing the Strip in the past. In 1994, he brought his one-man show, "Tommy Tune Tonight!" to UNLV's Artemus Ham Hall for one night only.

"When I got there," he recalls, "I thought I'd walk into something like this" -- he gestures at the theater around him -- "but it looked like an arts center in every other city in the country. I was disappointed. I always wanted to play Vegas. And finally, I just gave up that dream and said, it's never going to happen, and then bang, it comes out of nowhere."

A Tuneful career

Tune himself came out of nowhere -- all right, Houston -- when he made his way to New York City in "nineteen sixtysomething," and was hired on his first audition for the show "Irma La Douce." As he writes in his 1997 memoir, "Footnotes," aside from one week as a "concept coder" for Young & Rubicam , he has made his living in the theater ever since.

Tune lightheartedly complains that he always seemed to get to a genre late: He worked as an assistant choreographer for "The Dean Martin Show" at the end of the era of television variety shows; he played Ambrose in "Hello Dolly," starring Barbra Streisand, in 1969, one of the last of the great Hollywood musicals filmed.

Tune did almost made it to Las Vegas once before -- he was on his way to audition for composer Jules Styne for a show for the opening of Caesars Palace when he bumped into choreographer Michael Bennett ("A Chorus Line"). Tune ended up performing in Bennett's next show, instead.

That fortuitous decision led to his first Tony award in 1973 for Bennett's musical, "Seesaw," playing the first openly gay leading role in a musical. Tune created slight stir by bringing his partner at the time, Michael Stuart, to the Tony awards as his date.

Tune went on to a highly successful career on Broadway, winning Tony awards for: best choreography for "A Night in the Ukraine," "My One and Only," "Grand Hotel" and "Will Rogers Follies"; best direction for "Nine," "Grand Hotel" and "Will Rogers Follies"; best actor for "My One and Only"; and best featured actor for "Seesaw."

Then, in 1995, a week before the opening of the new musical "Busker Alley," Tune slipped on a stage in Tampa and broke his right foot.

Using the year of recovery and therapy to his best advantage, Tune took the opportunity to write "Footnotes," his revealing (and often rambling) autobiography, which he acknowledges often "sounds like a monologue from 'A Chorus Line.' " During that time, he also recorded and released "Slow Dancin," his first solo CD.

By now, Tune's foot has healed completely. "My doctor says when you break a bone, it heals even stronger than before," he proudly notes, "so now, I have an even bigger foot than I ever did!"

Stepping in

That's a good thing, because in his two weeks of intensive rehearsals, Tune has already been suffering spills.

"I fell off the escape stairs, I slipped in the front of the big hand and scarred myself mightily," he says, pulling up his pants leg to show me the long brown sliver of a recently healed scar.

The ads, then, are true? "It's treacherous!" he declares. "It's heads-up all the time. There's more complicated choreography off the stage than what you see on the stage!"

Although Tune has redone much of the choreography, he says that "EFX" will remain mostly the same because its technology makes it resistant to last-minute tinkering. "It's a whale of a show," he says, "I had to treat it very gingerly."

He also didn't want to "rock the boat," because "it is a hit show," he adds. "I don't want to mess up anything, I just want to enhance and take it to the next step. I've never replaced anybody, I've always created roles, so that was an interesting process."

Though he was a replacement, Tune left the current dancers in place, choosing not to cast the show with dancers proportional to his height, as he usually does.

"This show has been cast to look right for David (Cassidy)," Tune says, "so sometimes, I look (down the line), and I feel like I'm in Japan."

But one big change for the cast is having a dancer such as Tune in their midst.

"There's this big area downstairs where the dancers warm up," he explains, "and they all are shocked that I was down with them warming up. They've never had a dancer before. The star has always been in their dressing room preparing, but there's no shortcut to being a dancer -- if you're a dancer, you get down on the floor and you stretch. I'm just one of them, because we are dancers."

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