Unscripted: Dennis Brown on Theater, Criticism, and Conversations

Arnold00:00:00

Our guest is a remarkable storyteller. He has some wonderful stories about people who he's worked with. Henry Fonda, Jason Robards, Jessica Tandy.How about Gregory Peck, Stacy Keech, Paul Winfield and Jimmy Carter? Find out more on St. Louis in tune.Welcome to St. Louis in tune and thank you for joining us for fresh perspectives on issues and events with experts,.

Arnold00:00:37

Community leaders and everyday people who make.

Arnold00:00:40

A difference in shaping our society and world. I'm Arnold Stricker along with co host Mark Langston.

Mark00:00:46

Howdy.

Arnold00:00:48

What's happening? Did you build your ark, Mark?

Mark00:00:51

No kidding. It is.

Dennis00:00:52

Yeah.

Mark00:00:53

I'm not sure when we replay this again and again, but this time when we're recording it, it is a monsoon out there.

Arnold00:00:59

I looked this morning. We had 2.34 inches yesterday.

Mark00:01:04

That doesn't sound like much.

Arnold00:01:05

No, but in the span. It was in the span of probably about nine hours.

Mark00:01:09

But that is a lot.

Arnold00:01:10

Yes.

Mark00:01:11

Yeah, yeah.

Arnold00:01:12

Saturation point.

Mark00:01:14

Oh, yeah.

Arnold00:01:15

I would say, folks, we hope that you get saturated with what we're going to do today. We're glad that you've joined us. We want to thank our sponsor, Better Rate Mortgage, for their support of the show.You can listen to previous shows@stl in tune.com where you can follow us and leave a review. Now, we have a thought to ponder today. It's a funny theater quote from George Bernard Shaw.And some people might say George Bernard Shaw depends upon how you want to pronounce it and what country you're from. The Irish may pronounce it.

Dennis00:01:43

Bernard.

Arnold00:01:44

And those of us in the across the pond may pronounce it. Bernard. But he said this. He's talking about his fellow critics. A dramatic critic is a man who leaves no turn unstoned.A dramatic critic is a man who leaves no turn unstoned.

Mark00:02:04

Okay, I get it.

Arnold00:02:06

He had a way with words.

Mark00:02:07

For me, a minute.

Arnold00:02:08

He had a way with words.

Dennis00:02:09

Yes. Diana Rigg took that quote and wrote an entire book simply comprised of negative things that reviewers had written about people.

Arnold00:02:21

Oh, and that was. That voice was no doubt, Dennis Brown, who is our guest today. He has. He's a playwright, he's an author, he's a screenwriter.He's been a publicist for cbs. He's been a writer for the New York Times, the LA Times, the St. Louis Post Dispatch. He's been a book reviewer, a teacher, and sometimes actor.Dennis.

Dennis00:02:44

Sometimes actor, sometimes actor.

Arnold00:02:46

Welcome to St. Louis in Tune.

Dennis00:02:48

That must have been a long time ago.

Arnold00:02:51

I was reading about one of your acting performances.

Dennis00:02:55

Suddenly it comes back to me.

Arnold00:02:57

Yeah, in the book. We're talking about your book here. Stage page. Memories of mostly marvelous St. Louis theater.And you were a theater critic for the Riverfront Times for how many years?

Dennis00:03:08

13 Years.

Arnold00:03:09

Okay.

Dennis00:03:10

2001 Through 2013.

Arnold00:03:13

Now, we're going to track this back to. We won't ask where you went to high school. I know you're St. Louisian.

Mark00:03:17

Gotta ask.

Dennis00:03:18

Yeah, I went to Clayton High School.

Arnold00:03:20

I went to Clayton High School. Ooh, the greyhounds.

Dennis00:03:22

Yeah. Okay. You absolutely right about that, Mark.

Arnold00:03:26

And I know our mascots from the St. Louis area here. When did you first become interested in rock writing?

Dennis00:03:34

Oh, boy. I thought you were going to say, when did I first become interested in theater?I think I first became interested in writing when I quickly had to write a master's thesis in college, and I ended up doing a thesis on a production my. My advisor wanted me to do. I was Indiana University. And he said, you're from St. Louis. Why don't you.Right about when Henry Irving played St. Louis in 18. And I thought, oh, my goodness gracious. Wow. That means the archives of the Missouri History Museum, which is not air conditioned in the summer.I just can't think of anything more unpleasant than that. So I love the Missouri History Museum.And so I counter proposed and said, what if I did a production on the Miser, which had just been done at the Guthrie Theater a couple years ago, and I could maybe reach the actors? And he said, if you can get the people to go along with you, we'll do that. I called the director, and he was a man named Douglas Campbell.He was directing at Stratford that summer. Right then, Stratford, Ontario Romeo. He said, no, no, I don't want you to do a write about the Miser.Write about Romeo and Juliet, which I'm directing right now. You can come up here, you can talk to everybody. You have carte blanche. So I did that and I started interviewing people.That's the first time I ever really interviewed people and transcribed tapes and wrote it up. And that was my master's thesis, and I never stopped, really. Wow.

Arnold00:05:13

Okay.

Mark00:05:14

How old were you then?

Dennis00:05:15

How old was I? Probably. It was 19, actually. Probably 23, 24.

Arnold00:05:22

Wow.

Mark00:05:22

So you're just a young lad getting started.

Dennis00:05:25

It sounds young now. Yeah, yeah.

Arnold00:05:28

And you were involved in theater in. In college for your bachelor's degree.

Dennis00:05:34

Yes. In those days you got a degree in theater. Now they subdivided and you can get a degree in the most intricate kind of sound design.Much more subdivided than that. But we just had theater.And yes, I got a bachelor's in theater, master's in theater, and then ended up working at a regional theater and never lost my interest in theater, although my life took me in many other directions. I never expected to move to New York. I never expected to work at CBS. When I came back to St. Louis after 22 years.I never expected to write for the Riverfront Times. I never seen a Riverfront Times. I never expected to teach. And I taught for 15 years at Webster. And that was really the high point of everything.

Arnold00:06:31

Hear that, teachers? You hear that, teachers?

Dennis00:06:35

I can't believe there's a teacher out there who wouldn't agree with me.

Arnold00:06:39

It's true.

Mark00:06:39

There you go.

Arnold00:06:40

We agree.

Dennis00:06:40

Yeah, working. But you love. You read a list of people at the outset of this thing, all celebrated names, and they were all terrific people.I didn't hear a name on there that I couldn't have said something kind about. But the people that made the deepest impression on me were those kids in the classroom who came up with things, ideas that I had.I was teaching film appreciation and they saw things in film that I had been seeing those movies for years and had never thought about.

Arnold00:07:13

They keep you young, don't they?

Dennis00:07:14

Keep you young. And they keep the mind alive. And when you're not in the classroom is just the cream of the cherry on top. The preparation, the reading their papers.I made my students keep day weekly journals and they had to submit their journal entries. They could say anything because it was just between me and them. And I still have some of those.A lot of the papers that were sent, the journal entries that were sent to me because they were so insightful, interesting.

Arnold00:07:49

Now you. I want to kind of go back and want to track some of your history. You left Indiana University, have a master's degree.You came back here to St. Louis and you started working for the Post.

Dennis00:08:03

No, no. I'll tell you how that happened. I had a neighbor who worked for the Post Dispatch, known as Eric Zechler, reporter. And I had an idea for a story.And I said, eric, why don't you write this interview about this friend of mine who I went to college with. And he. He's now out touring. He's in the national company of Cabaret, playing the MC Big part. And Eric said, I don't have time to do that.Why don't you do it? And submitted freelance. And I did write it. I did submit it freelance. They bought it. I was very excited. My first time I ever sold a story for money.And I said to Eric, what do I do now. And he said, why don't you write the book editor? Because they use freelance book reviewers.I wrote a man named Clarence Olson who wrote me back and said, I don't really need any reviewers right now, but why don't you take a look at these two books? And he sent two books. That was the beginning.I wrote for Clarence olson for over 20 years until he retired, and then I retired from the Post with him. And I wrote hundreds and hundreds of book reviews for the Post Dispatch and then feature stories, always freelance.But it just opened the world to me. That man, Clarence Olson, helped me to discover the world through books.

Arnold00:09:29

What's the most important thing you learned from him as it related to what you were doing and then how that would propel your career.

Dennis00:09:38

To be to take your first, to take your time. He was a very gentle, patient man. He never got upset about anything.So when I would tend to want to get upset about something, I would think how he would handle it, and I would just pull back. And also to. Don't just. You have a goal in life, you know what you want to do? I wanted to be a theater director.I left college expecting to be a theater director. But I learned, watch what's happening right in front of you. Don't always look for that goal that's over the horizon.Clarence Olson appeared in my life, and I said, fine, let's go with this.And after that, I always told people, be sure to not be so dead set on what you think you have to do, that you don't take advantage of what's right there in front of you.

Arnold00:10:36

That's really good advice.

Mark00:10:37

That's great advice.

Arnold00:10:38

I know people need to hear that, even nowadays.

Mark00:10:42

Oh, yeah.

Dennis00:10:42

I have friends who had the same job for 20, 25 years, and they rose through the company, and they have security and all sorts of wonderful things from that kind of constancy. I didn't have that. I did this for a while, and then something else appeared, and I did that for a while, and then I went over here.And I'm often envious of those people who stayed with it, but I find that they're often envious of me.

Mark00:11:12

Oh, yeah.

Arnold00:11:13

Interesting.

Mark00:11:13

Yeah.

Arnold00:11:14

Interesting perspective. So you get done with the Post, and is that when you get this call from CBS and they say, hey, Dennis, come on up to New York.We'd love for you to work with us.

Dennis00:11:23

As usual, as everything happens, good for me. I didn't get a call. Technically, what I was about to say was that any job that I ever went after I never got. It was always the call that came.And in fact, I guess it was a call from cbs. If you don't know this now, you're going to learn it sooner or later. Everybody has to learn it. We live in a who, you know, world, right?And when I moved to New York, I, with no prospects, I just thought it was time to take a look at New York. My best friend, my roommate from college, was living with a girl who was the photo editor, vice president of photos at cbs.And gee, these are long, involved stories. But she told me about a friend of hers who had to give a speech, didn't know how to write a speech at CBS as an executive.And they said, how would you. She'll pay you if you'll write the speech. I wrote the speech. It was a gigantic hit. The CBS executives came and said to her, who wrote that speech?And the next thing I knew, I was working at cbs.

Mark00:12:34

Place right time.

Arnold00:12:35

And what did you do there?

Dennis00:12:36

I was a publicist. I was a publicist. I went out on the sets, I talked to. The world was very different than today. A publicist would never go to a set of a TV movie.I was on a film called the Blue and the Gray about the Civil War for two months in Fayetteville, Arkansas. But I also went to sets in Paris and London and the Loire Valley and everywhere.CBS is a country, a company that was split down the Mississippi River. Anything that happened east of the Mississippi river was handled out of New York. Anything that was.Anything that covered west of the Mississippi was handled out of LA, which meant Australia, Hawaii, those kinds of places. And 90% of the series which were done on the West Coast. But we did mostly TV movies.I was always in Savannah, Georgia or the Florida TV pilots and they began to mount. But mostly I did miniseries. Eight hours on George Washington, eight hours on the Civil War, eight hours on a show called Ellis Island.And they would always cast big people in these shows. So I would find myself in the company of people like you mentioned. Gregory Peck, who played Abraham Lincoln in the Blue and the Gray.Richard Burton, who played the lead in Ellis Island. Barry Boswick and Jacqueline Smith, who played the leads in George Washington.And when you spend time with people, you learn that what people are really looking for is a friend. And a lot of these people befriended me and are friends to this day day.I just had my birthday two weeks ago and I got the biggest floral arrangement from Jacqueline Smith. I couldn't even lift it. I had to have the guy carry.

Arnold00:14:37

You guys hit it off Very well.

Dennis00:14:39

Yeah.

Arnold00:14:39

As I've read.

Mark00:14:41

Okay. I always had a crush on Jacqueline Smith.

Dennis00:14:44

A lot of people did.

Mark00:14:45

Yeah.

Dennis00:14:45

And I think she was looking for somebody who didn't have a crush on her. Yeah. Somebody who would just sit and talk.

Mark00:14:53

To her, would have done that.

Dennis00:14:55

You know, what are your dreams? What are your hopes? What do you. How do you feel about everything? And I never asked her about Charlie's Angels. We didn't have to.Charlie's Angels was behind her at that point. And I don't know. It didn't always work. Some people I had problems connecting with, but a lot of people I connected with.

Arnold00:15:19

If you asked them questions, though, and you listened and kind of like we're doing now, it's some. And you recorded these things, correct?

Dennis00:15:27

Oh, yes. Everything was recorded.

Arnold00:15:29

Because you got some juicy tidbits that you saved for another book.

Dennis00:15:33

It's not in this. I spent time with a man named William Goldman. William Goldman won the Academy Award for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, all the President's Men.And I wanted to interview him, and he did not want to be interviewed. And I won't go into the whole story. It's too long.But he finally said, I'll give you one hour, one hour only, and the next time you're in New York, call me. And I went to New York and I called him. He met me at his office, the elevator doors open.He was standing there waiting for me, looking at the clock, saying, you have one hour. And he said, there are only two reasons to do an interview.One is for you to make money off of what I say, and the other is for me to say unkind things about other people. And at the end of three hours, he finished the interview, and he finally said, people who are famous, not me, he said, I'm not famous.People who are really famous, they are desperate to be gotten down. They are desperate to be interviewed by somebody who cares about them. And mostly people just want to talk to them about, what's your next project?The worst interview question that was ever created. What's your next project? Because nine times out of 10, it is never the next project. Something always changes.Which is why I go back to my line about be alert to what's happening around you, not what's coming in the future. And he said, if you talk to people like Paul Newman and Robert Redford, they're desperate to be appreciated.And I never talked to Paul Newman or Robert Redford, but the people that I did talk to, I could respond to that. They liked being asked Intelligent questions.

Arnold00:17:26

They liked being my words now explored about who they were apart from really what they did.

Dennis00:17:33

You said something before we ever started. That was the trigger line. You said, I've been researching you. They like to believe that people care.And I once interviewed Mike Wallace at CBS and he said, if you want to be a good interviewer, do what I do. I always arrive with a manila folder filled with paper. He said sometimes it's just blank paper.But the people that I'm interviewing think that it's all material that I've been researching on them. And the minute they think that they've research that you care enough to research, someone gonna open up to you.I'll tell you another great story about interviewing. I was working a show called no Nanette in Cleveland with Ruby Keillor. She was there for three weeks. She had done it on Broadway.It had been a big hit. She had been restored to celebrity and she was very shy, middle aged woman. She did not like to be interviewed.And a fellow on Cleveland air drive time, very popular, insisted and insisted. Finally she said okay, just to shut me up. He came in.I can't even remember his name but I was monitoring the interview and he said, Ms. Keeler, how many pairs of tap shoes have you gone through in your life?

Arnold00:19:01

Great question.

Dennis00:19:02

She had never been asked that question in her life. She started to talking about her tap shoes, how long they last. He asked her, where do you get your taps replaced or do you buy all new?They talked 10 minutes on tap shoes. Then he got into the interview. He got this great interview. I listened to it the next morning. He didn't include 1 second of material about tap shoes.He used that to open her up. And then he got a great interview. Patience. It comes back all the things I talked about here. Take your time.If you have the time, which radio usually has.

Arnold00:19:43

We have the time here on St. Louis in Tune. And we're going to take a little time because we're going to come back and talk about Dennis's new book. It's stage page.We're going to talk about where you can get this new book, where you can get his previous books. And we're going to delve into what does it mean to be a critic and how do you become a critic. So this is Arnold Stricker with Mark.

Arnold00:20:06

Langston of St. Louis and Tune.

Arnold00:20:07

Don't go away.

Arnold00:20:19

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Arnold00:21:05

This is Arnold Stricker of St. Louis in tune on behalf of the Dred Scott Heritage Foundation. In 1857, the Dred Scott decision was a major legal event and catalyst that contributed to the Civil War.The decision declared that Dred Scott could not be free because he was not a citizen.The 14th Amendment, also called the Dred Scott Amendment, granted citizenship to all born or naturalized here in our country and was intended to overturn the US Supreme Court decision on July 9, 1868.The Dred Scott Heritage foundation is requesting a commemorative stamp to be issued from the US Postal Service to recognize and remember the heritage of this amendment by issuing a stamp with the likeness of the man Dred Scott. But we need your support and the support of thousands of people who would like to see this happen.To achieve this goal, we ask you to download, sign and share the one page petition with others. To find the petition, please go to dred ScottLives.org and click on the Dred Scott Petition drive on the right side of the page.

Arnold00:22:01

On behalf of the Dred Scott Heritage.

Arnold00:22:03

Foundation, this has been Arnold Stricker of St. Louis Intune.

Arnold00:22:13

Want to welcome you back to St. Louis in tune. This is Arnold Stricker with Mark Langston. We're talking with Dennis Brown and I want to give you his first website, folks.It's author DennisBrown.com author Dennis Brown.com and that's when you can get his book which we're talking to him about. We're just delving into that. It's called Stage Page Memories of mostly marvelous St. Louis Theatre.And also you can get the book Voices on the river, 22 days on the Delta Queen. That's very interesting one too, Dennis. And those books are available at the Missouri History Museum Bookstore.So don't forget that, folks, if you're over at the History Museum, check that out.

Mark00:22:53

Dennis, how many books have you written? There's just this four.

Dennis00:22:56

Four total. Four. Published. Two questions there. How many have I written and how many have I published? 4. There will be a fifth, and then that's it.I don't have any more books in me.

Mark00:23:07

Okay.

Arnold00:23:07

All right.

Mark00:23:08

You got a lot of recordings, I would think.

Arnold00:23:10

Yeah, I love that one.I need to get that one where you kind of talk about and you write about all the things that these celebrities that you've interviewed, you've had these tapes, and you went back and wrote these things down. I've got to get that one.

Dennis00:23:24

The first book was called Shop Talk, and that was based on the transcripts of my interviews with playwrights and screenwriters, William Goldman, Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, William N. About a dozen. And then the companion volume a few years later was Actors Talk, and that was the interviews with some of the actors that I worked.I never believed people would say, if you're going to write a book about actors, why don't you go interview? Though I never did that. It was only the people whose paths I had crossed in my life.So there's a certain autobiographical quality to it, because the reason why I would be talking to these people always came. Came out of my world.

Arnold00:24:09

That's very humble that you say that, because many people in your position would be trying to contact them and pestering them to get that, just to get the book out.

Dennis00:24:20

And I know you're right about that, Arnold. But I would. I would sit back and say to myself, why do I have to ask Neil Simon that he hasn't been asked 50 times already?

Arnold00:24:32

That's why I like to ask. And you like to ask those questions, too, Mark. The ones people.

Arnold00:24:37

What our listeners want to know.

Mark00:24:38

Yeah.

Arnold00:24:39

Rather than what's your next project?

Dennis00:24:43

I. I just. I really like to interview people that I want to. That I have questions for. And that's not necessarily someone who's famous.

Arnold00:24:54

That makes sense. I want to read something from one of your reviews. And these. Oh, boy, I'm reading from.This is from a Riverfront Times review of the show Skin in Flames. And this is the first sentence, Mark, Anyone attending Skin in Flames is advised to wear asbestos clothes.

Dennis00:25:11

Yeah. Now, I.

Arnold00:25:14

One of the biggest questions I've always had when I read reviews or critics, the theater critic. And I remember you. One of. I can't remember this. This book where somebody said, do you read the Reviews. You go, no, I don't ever read reviews.And how do you become a theater.

Dennis00:25:32

Yes, that was Stephen Schwartz.

Arnold00:25:33

Yes, that's correct. How do you become a critic? You've been on stage. You've got degrees in that.Because I think when people do book reviews and things like that, it's like I can imagine an author or a director saying, you've never directed a play before, so what do you know? Or you don't know what I've gone through, or you understand what I'm saying?

Dennis00:25:52

I know I do understand what you're saying. And that same charge has been leveled. People will say, how can you be objective? I knew different people in the theater world sometimes.How can you be objective? And I would say, theater criticism is not about objectivity. Theater criticism is about informed subjectivity. And my goal was to be informed.So before I would review a play, I would do a lot of research. I'd read the play if I. If possible. If it wasn't a new play, I'd read the history of the play. I'd read all.Anything I could find so that I felt that I was informed. And then I would go on, go in and just trust my own instincts.

Arnold00:26:41

Because there were times, I think when you're writing here, you might be my words calling out in a bad way certain aspects. Then you called out in a good way, other aspects.And you didn't necessarily pooh, pooh something because there's value in whether it's the lighting or the scenery or the acting or et cetera, like that.

Dennis00:26:59

I learned as a reader of reviews. And I like to read reviews. I've always enjoyed reading reviews.But I remember that Walter Kerr, who was the reviewer for the New York Herald Tribune and then moved over to the New York Times, had a way of beginning a review with something.It may have been the most damning review you could ever read, but it would begin with saying there's a moment in Act 2 when the antagonist lifts his finger in a certain way. And it would make you want to see that. Then by the time you finished the review, you knew you didn't want to see it at all.But too many people, they'll write a negative review and they'll end it by saying, there is something nice to see. And I want to say, it's too late. It's too. One of the nice things about this book, to me personally, is that my. I had a great editor.His name was Tom Finkel at the Riverfront Times. And he would write the headlines and often, almost always the headline would tell if it was a negative review, would tell you that in the headline.So I think there's no reason for them to read it. Whereas here in the book, there are no headlines. It's just the title of the play. And you have to read the review to see what. What the opinion is.And I tried to not be. Now, this book is only 14% of my output at the Riverfront Times. And I tried to focus on positive reviews, but some are positive and mixed.But I always would. I rarely would try to open a review with negativity. It's too hard to write, to spend your time writing negative.

Arnold00:28:48

I get that. I get that. And this has some unbelievable kind of illustrations in there. Talk about that illustrator.And it's Marjorie Williamson, and she's well known in St. Louis for illustration.

Dennis00:29:02

Marjorie Williamson is the most talented illustrator artist. She did the COVID for Voices on the river, and I love that cover.So when I got the idea to write this book, I took her to lunch and I said, marjorie, how would you like. Have you ever thought about being the Al Hirschfeld of St. Louis? I love this. She sat there.That was the last question that she ever expected to be asked. Of course, she sat there for about, I don't know, 20 seconds and said, okay, okay, yeah, I'll do it.

Arnold00:29:43

I'll do it.

Dennis00:29:44

And she did it. And it took us months and months because there are almost 50 of them in there and they're all great. And she was a creature of theater.She'd seen most of these plays herself. And I just sat back. I never told her what to do. I just waited and waited for my computer to say marjorie Williamson.And then I'd see what she'd sent me, and then I would just be full of delight. You're looking at an image, the trolley. And I'll tell you about.

Arnold00:30:21

This is typical. That was a fascinating one.

Dennis00:30:23

This is typical Marjorie Williamson. She did that. She did them in order. So that one came quite early because it's early in the book.And one week before the book went to press, she said, I'm not happy with that illustration. And she came back and she filled in all of the background of the city. The city, yes.So this is the sensitivity that she had, the perfectionism that she had, that she was studying each and every. Wasn't, okay, I got that one done. Let's move on to the next one. It was do the best possible job we can possibly do. And I think she has made the book.

Arnold00:31:04

She didn't want to let you down. Because she read this and she knew that you had done the best possible things here. How did you pick these particular plays?

Dennis00:31:13

I'll tell you. Each one of them had to be typed up fresh. And there are 77 in there. I typed up about 150. So it was a process of trial. And what worked.I couldn't have the same actors over and over. I couldn't have the same theater companies over and over. So it was a trying to find the right mix. And so it was a juggling act. But I had.When I left the Riverfront Times, I did an inventory and 50% of my reviews. I did 560 full reviews. 50% Of them were positive, 25% were mixed, and 25% were negative. So I had.Knowing that I wanted to focus on theater at its best, I still had plenty to choose from. There are only three out of 77 that quantified the parenthetical phrase mostly marvelous.There were three negative reviews and two of them, I think, were touring shows that played the Fox.

Arnold00:32:22

Now, I was trying to find. You've written. When you were at the Riverfront Times, you wrote what, a million and a half words or something?

Dennis00:32:30

Oh, yeah. Some silly.

Mark00:32:32

Holy.

Dennis00:32:34

There were. People used to say to me, how come you haven't written a third book? Because the first two would come out.Before I went to the Riverfront Times, I said, in terms of words, I have, but they're just on newsprint. And I thought to myself one day, I thought, but books are more permanent than newspapers. Why not put some of these, not for me, but for these people.Because they are. They're very gifted people. Actors, directors, scenic designers in this theater community, certainly during the years that I was reviewing.And they deserve to have something like this to hand to their mother.

Arnold00:33:16

Absolutely.

Dennis00:33:17

And what I've learned since the book came out is how many of them have said to me, I'd forgotten about that because they keep working. And these are distant reviews from the beginning of the century, our century. And so many people say, oh, I forgot about that. Or I forgot about.I didn't get to see that play that you reviewed because I was in a play and this is all new material to me. Surprised me.

Mark00:33:41

I get that.

Arnold00:33:42

So it's half a million words.

Dennis00:33:43

I'm sorry, Half a million. It's still a lot of words. That's a lot of words.

Arnold00:33:48

Just half a million.

Dennis00:33:49

500,000.

Arnold00:33:50

Now, I lost the question I was going to ask when I interrupted myself there. I look at this and here it is. It's just Not a review, Dennis. It's. You're telling a story just like you.You do here in Voices of the river, on the River. It's like you talk to people, but you put it in a story and it's just. And we are story. People related. That's. That's how we are as human beings.

Dennis00:34:17

I look on that book, I said, There's 77 reviews in there. I think of it as 77 short stories. I think it's a volume of short stories.

Arnold00:34:25

I agree with that.

Dennis00:34:26

You have to learn how to write a review, which I did not know how to write a theater review when I started. I had written book reviews for 22 years for the Post Dispatch. But book reviews and theater reviews are very different animals.

Arnold00:34:41

What's the difference?

Dennis00:34:42

For one thing, a book is permanent. A book will last a hundred years. A theater's memory. By the time you reach your car in the parking lot, that memory has begun to fade.You can't carry that experience with you. A review. I think sometimes reviews are more valuable 10 years later.If you really love a review, if you really love a play, then you're not so much a reviewer. You're the town crier. You're going out saying, hey, you got to come see. You got to come see this. But the review is almost secondary. Years later.That's what happened. That's what happened. And that's what a story's gonna tell you. That's what happened. So I liked you read that line from Skin in Flames.The biggest thing I had to learn as a theater reviewer was how to write a lead.

Arnold00:35:42

Yeah, get a hook.

Dennis00:35:43

Get a hook. And the first. The early reviews begin with lines like such and such. A play open Friday night at the Black Rep. That's a dull opening sentence.By the end of the book, you're reading things like, just the facts, ma', am, or I couldn't pull them out of thin air, but just opening lines that I thought that I'd like to read the second sentence. Make them want to read the second sentence.

Arnold00:36:11

Exactly.

Arnold00:36:12

And that's why I pulled that one out, because that was a really unique line. And my question to you now, is there a difference in writing a critique or being a critic now than there was? Have we lost some of the storytelling?Have we lost getting.

Dennis00:36:27

Well, lost reviewing? Okay, there are no reviewers anymore. Infinitesimal numbers.

Arnold00:36:34

I guess they are on this little machine right here.

Dennis00:36:37

Little machine you're holding in your hand are people. Anybody can be a reviewer.

Arnold00:36:42

That's true.

Dennis00:36:44

I'm going to sound like a snob now. But I always believe that part of professional criticism was being paid for your opinion. Yeah, it's true.

Mark00:36:53

Critiquing.

Arnold00:36:53

Yep.

Dennis00:36:54

And now you read those restaurant, you know, and we all look at them. We all were susceptible to it.

Mark00:37:01

Yes, we do.

Dennis00:37:02

Who are you quoted George Bernard Shaw early in the broadcast. I'll quote him again. I think it was Shaw who said, what is said about a person is secondary. What matters is who said it.

Arnold00:37:16

That's true.

Dennis00:37:17

And. Whoa.

Mark00:37:18

Okay.

Dennis00:37:19

You get to know a reviewer over the years because when I was a kid growing up in St. Louis, I read Miles Standish in the St. Louis Post Dispatch every week. And I knew him. I knew his strengths, I knew his weaknesses, I knew what he liked. And he was good.And I know he was good because I now live on newspapers.com and I read newspaper reviews from the 1950s and 60s from newspapers across the country. And very few reviewers were as good as Miles Standish. But now I can't trust the stuff that's out there. Who are these people? What are their agendas?

Arnold00:37:58

That's true a little bit. It is. It is. It is. We're going to take another brief break here.We've got some additional questions to ask Dennis about his new bookstage page, memories of mostly, mostly marvelous St. Louis theater. And don't go away because we're going to explore some things that you're not.

Arnold00:38:18

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Arnold00:39:42

Of St. Louis@infoistl.org or call 314-773-9090. That's infoistl.org or call 314 203-9090. Welcome back to St. Louis in Tune. This is Arnold Stricker with Mark Langston.We are talking with Dennis Brown about his new book, Stage Page Memories of mostly marvelous St. Louis theater.We were talking about that first line, that hook and Dennis, you were mentioning that people will read that first part and then they will generally jump to where the last paragraph and a lot of times in the middle is where.

Dennis00:40:23

You're doing what you're telling your story and you're filling out the beef. Where's the beef? They used to say the beef is in is not in the hook. The beef is not in the last. The last paragraph is the summing up.And you also want to have a clever ending, the way you had a strong hook. But the content of the review is in the middle. And if you don't get hooked at the beginning, you're not going to make it.

Arnold00:40:50

Don't, don't read the bun, read the meat.

Dennis00:40:52

That's right. You remember the protein.

Arnold00:40:55

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Where's the beef?

Mark00:40:57

I don't think there's any beef in there.

Arnold00:41:00

There's something that I thought was very interesting, and it involves Gregory Peck, that you worked with him on the show, and the extent to which he took a script and then he wrote it out in. Oh, that's in here. Okay. So I'm jumping books. I'm sorry.

Dennis00:41:20

Happy, happy to talk about that. Talk about Voices on the River.

Arnold00:41:24

This is in the Voices on The River Book, 22 days on the Delta Queen.Illuminate a little bit, because I read this morning and I've always known this as a former educator, that writing is important and where kids have gotten away from cursive writing, it's a brain thing. There's a neuroscience about that.But kids now who are in college and university, even high school, taking notes on a laptop, and they're missing that connection because when people write what that does with the brain, on this particular article that I read this morning, it just blows the brain up inside where all the neurons are firing.

Dennis00:41:56

Talk about what Gregory puts When I was a teacher at Webster, I Refused to allow any student to open a laptop in the classroom. Good. But I'm taking, I'm giving you a handout. Anything you need to know is in this handout. You don't have to take notes.I wouldn't get away with that today. The university would come to me and say, you have to let them do that.Finally, there's pushback and it's going in the other way, but it's a long pendulum curve. Gregory Peck was a creature of literature. He thought at one point that he would teach literature. Interesting.That was his major at Cal Berkeley, reading great novels. And so the written word meant everything to him.So when he became an actor and he got a script, he learned it by writing it, because writing meant something to him. He would see other actors, he'd be jealous of other actors. I can name two.Cary Grant, Robert Mitchum, who could walk over to the set, they're about to make an entrance, open the script. That's the first time they looked at it and look at the words and walk off and give what Gregory Peck would say was a perfect Cary Grant performance.He could not do that. He was a creature of words. He had to write those words down.And not only write them down, but then say them aloud 50, 100 times to learn them by rote. But it was all the written word. He saw those words on the page and he had to keep repeating them until he no longer saw them on the page.And then he could just play off the eyes of his fellow actors.

Arnold00:43:36

There's part of that in there that I recall that he actually kind of changed some of the script.

Dennis00:43:40

Well, it's Moby Dick and he was going off to do a one day cameo of a remake of Moby Dick. He had of course, starred as Captain Ahab in the 50s in the John Huston film. And now he's going off to play Father Marple. Father Mapple.Marple, the part that Orson Welles had played in his film in a new version with Patrick Stewart as Ahab. And I saw him, he had the script on a table in front of him.He had the script, he had the Bible because he's delivering a sermon about Jonah and the whale. And he had Melville's novel, all three of them, in front of him.And he picked from this and he picked from that, and he kept this from the script and he put it all together and he went down to Australia, they filmed it in Australia. And he filmed it in one take.

Mark00:44:39

Wow, that's crazy.

Arnold00:44:41

That's Judy Garland in one take.

Dennis00:44:44

Yeah. That's right. Like Judy Garland recording the Trolley Song. The Trolley Song in. In one take. Yeah. People weren't expected to do that.And Peck also then ended up winning the Golden Globe Award for that Best featured actor and they didn't expect him to win. He was seated way in the back of the auditorium and he had to walk all the way down, which was kind of cruel. But he knew why he had won it.He had won it because of his homework and preparation. And he had worked with too many actors who did not take it seriously. And he always took it seriously.

Arnold00:45:24

When you have to make a long.

Arnold00:45:25

Walk to receive an award. As notable as he was, that was probably okay.

Dennis00:45:32

He was another generation. He. By the time I worked with him, he was more an icon than an actor. He started as a star. Most people don't know that. He didn't start as an actor.He didn't work his way up through supporting. Jimmy Stewart did supporting roles. He was the killer in a Thin man movie.Gregory Peck arrived in Hollywood as the star of his first picture and he never was not the star from that point forward until near the end when he did some cameo roles.

Arnold00:46:07

Was he tall?

Dennis00:46:08

Yes, he was tall. About six, two. Yeah.

Arnold00:46:11

A lot of those actors. He's a presence.

Dennis00:46:13

And he kept his hair, you know, which was. I say that unlike Arnold, not to kick a. But he had this beautiful mane of hair which had gone white and it made him look like a presence.Yeah, a presence. You know, every once in a while we traveled together in Voices on the river. That's set in 1986. So nothing happens in that book.Which makes me think maybe I did write about him in Stage Page because I know I wrote him out because he was in the blue and the gray and that's what I was talking about during those cruises. But if I wrote about him writing that scene from Moby Dick, it must be in Stage page, but I can't think of where it is.

Arnold00:46:57

I read both of them.

Dennis00:46:59

He's in a lot of my books and will be the subject of the fifth book. The last book is also because it's about the four years we spent on the road together doing his one man show.

Arnold00:47:08

Is this a spoiler alert?

Dennis00:47:10

I don't know if it's a spoiler alert, but I'm breaking my own rule by saying that you should never talk about what you're going to do next project. But I know that it's the next project because I'm in it and I'm not going to quit it now.And I wrote a TV movie about Lincoln called the Perfect Tribute. Jason Robards played Lincoln.And the fun part was the writing, because every morning I'd get up and I'd turn on the laptop or the computer or whatever it was back then, and I'd say, good morning, Mr. Lincoln. What are we going to talk about this morning? And then the script would go, I'm writing about Gregory Peck now.And I'm getting up every morning and I'm turning on the laptop and I'm saying, good morning, GP which is what I call.

Mark00:47:59

I was going to ask Gregory.

Dennis00:48:01

The title of the book is GP on the Road with Gregory Peck. And the first line of the book is call me Greg, which I liken to call me Ishmael. The first line of Moby Dick.And the day that he said I would always as Mr. Peck, and he said, call me Greg. And I couldn't. Couldn't know it. Words wouldn't come out.

Arnold00:48:24

I get that.

Dennis00:48:24

And so I said GP that's what I said on memos and emails, it was always to G. I said GP And I did my best not to call him anything, but if I did call him something, I called him GP One day we were driving home from the. I never told this before. Oh, tell us.Driving home from the studio, we were working on a clip reel that opened the show with 30 minutes of clips from his movies. And this car in Beverly Hills pulled out in front of us and it was clear there was going to be a collision.And as I slammed on the brakes, I threw my arm, my right arm against him in the driver's side. Oh, Greg.

Mark00:49:05

Well, the first time, the old time,.

Dennis00:49:07

It just came out. Finally, he missed that car by inches. Oh, wow. An inch. Not even plural.And I took my hand back and forgot the fact that I'd called him Greg, went back to GP did he.

Arnold00:49:25

Let you know that you called him Greg?

Dennis00:49:26

No, he wanted me to call him. He did. He was very serious about that. He was letting me know that he respected me as an equal for what I did. I did things that he couldn't do.He couldn't turn a tape over in a tape recorder. He didn't know how to do that.

Arnold00:49:45

Dennis. That speaks, though, of your ability to genuinely talk to people and they know you're not out for something else.

Dennis00:49:55

I'm not out for anything. Anything.

Arnold00:49:57

You have an interest in them. You are just interested in who they are, what they're doing, what their personalities, not trying to be a tick on them and suck something from them.But get their life sucked out of them or something.

Dennis00:50:10

There's nothing I could get from Gregory Peck that I would want, except we'd be watching television one day, and there was Bruce Davison, who was being interviewed because on Friday night, he was opening in a production of To Kill a Mockingbird, and he was playing Atticus Finch. I said, all right, now you've got to write. You've got to write Bruce Davidson a note. And. Oh, you do. It means so much to him.And that's the end of the conversation. I don't know.Two years later, I read an interview in the LA Times with Bruce Davison telling the story of opening night of Mockingbird when a telegram arrived from Gregory Beck.

Arnold00:50:51

Wow.

Dennis00:50:52

And so he did it. He did it. He didn't write a note. He sent a telegram. And it changed the. It's a story that guy will never forget.

Arnold00:51:00

Exactly.

Dennis00:51:01

And I just stand in the background and say, I did that. Yeah. That's all I could want from Gregory Peck.

Arnold00:51:08

Is that story going to be in the book? That story you will only hear exclusively here on St. Louis in Tune.

Dennis00:51:15

Only here, because that's a story about me, and that's not about him. And I'm not trying to. Up to him.

Arnold00:51:23

We get that. We get that you've spent just enough time with you to know who you are.And you're not one of those people who's out trying to make a buck off of somebody.

Dennis00:51:31

If I. There was a teacher, there was a woman who was desperate to have Gregory Peck talk to her students.It was a school in Florida, and we were in Los Angeles, and they couldn't get. They couldn't. And to make a long story short, he did speak over speakerphone to that class in Florida.

Arnold00:51:49

That's cool.

Dennis00:51:50

Never would have happened. But if I. If we've got a minute, I'll tell you my favorite story. Something that I did has nothing to do with Gregory Page.When I was Angela Lansbury's publicist on Murder, She Wrote, this woman called me in my office. She identified herself. She was very. She was a pup. She was a casting agent. She knew everybody in Las Vegas. Her father was Mark.Now I'm gonna lose the name. But the man who directed Top Hat, and he was. So. She had grown up in Hollywood royalty, and she said, I cannot reach Angela Lansbury.I know everyone in this town, and I can't get to Angela Lansbury. My mother is 90 years old, and the only thing that she wants out of life is to meet Angela Lansbury. Would. Can you help Me. So I went over there.I went over to Corymore, over to the set at Universal. I explained the situation. I said, I know you don't want to do it, but come on, let's just do it. Didn't you like Top Hat? Mark Sandridge.Kathy Sandrich was her name. Mark Sandridge directed Top Hat. And she said, sure. So they brought the woman. We set it all up. They brought the woman over. They couldn't get her.He didn't think about this. They couldn't get her into the motorhome because you have to go up these streets.They had to put her in a chair and some of the grips had to lift her up and set her. They had. Angela had tea set out for her. They both had a wonderful time. Angela told me I loved it. I had.The next day, Catherine Sandridge called me, told me all about it. She said, anything you want, Anything. Anyone you want to meet in this town, come to me. I will take it. It's yours. I never spoke to the woman again.

Mark00:53:40

You never cashed in that chip?

Dennis00:53:42

Never. No. Never cashed, Never thought about it. Oh, my goodness. Maybe it's a week good for you.Maybe I should have, but I felt good knowing that I had made that happen.

Arnold00:53:53

You weren't looking for something in return?

Dennis00:53:55

I wasn't looking for anything. And you were right. That Gregory Peck story about writing, rewriting Moby Dick is in stage page. It just hit me. This is what happens when you get old.It's in the story about when I was an actor, the one time I was an actor, and this is how he prepared to act, and this is what I was doing. I was absolutely wrong. I should not have tried to correct you.

Arnold00:54:16

No, you're fine. That's why I said sometimes an actor, sometimes. Folks, if you don't have this, you've got to get this book. Stage page.Memories of mostly marvelous St. Louis theatre by Dennis Brown. Dennis, your other book, Voices on the river, 22 days on the Delta Queen. We'll look forward to the other book coming out.When you get that, you have an open door to come here and talk about that.

Mark00:54:39

Please come back.

Arnold00:54:39

Yes, it's been Fun. Author Dennis Brown.com Author DennisBrown.com, folks, you can listen to the podcast and we'll put all this stuff on there. We have run out of time.Dennis, thank you very much for coming in today.

Dennis00:54:51

It was my pleasure. Totally.

Arnold00:54:54

We've enjoyed it very much. Very much. Folks, that's all.If you've enjoyed this episode, you can listen to additional shows@silver stalentune.com and follow us there and also leave a review. We want to thank Bob Berthisel for our theme Music, our sponsor, Better 8 Mortgage, our guest Dennis Brown and co host Mark Langston.And we thank you for being a part of our community of Curious Minds. St. Louis in Tune is a production of Motif Media Group and the US Radio Network.

Arnold00:55:17

Remember to keep seeking, keep learning, walk.

Arnold00:55:19

Worthy, and let your light shine.

Arnold00:55:20

For St. Louis in tune, I'm Arnold Stricker.

Dennis00:55:26

Sam.