Joan McCracken

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Joan McCracken

McCracken in Good News (1947)
Born Joan Hume McCracken
(1917-12-31)December 31, 1917
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died November 1, 1961(1961-11-01) (aged 43)
New York, New York, U.S.
Cause of death
 Heart attack (diabetes complication)
Resting place
 Cremated
Nationality American
Education West Philadelphia High School
Occupation Dancer, actress, singer
Years active 1935–1958
Spouse(s) Jack Dunphy (m. 1939–51)
Bob Fosse (m. 1952–59)

Joan McCracken (December 31, 1917 – November 1, 1961) was an American dancer, actress, and comedian who became famous for her role as Sylvie ("The Girl Who Falls Down") in the original 1943 production of Oklahoma!.

McCracken, who was considered an innovator in combining dance with comedy, went on to other musical and dramatic roles on Broadway and early television. But her career was stymied by typecasting and ultimately was cut short due to complications from her lifelong diabetes.

She was noted for unconventional behavior and was one of the real-life persons counterparts to Holly Golightly used by Truman Capote in his Breakfast at Tiffany's.[1]

Early life

Joan Hume McCracken was born in Philadelphia on December 31, 1917,[2] the daughter of Mary Humes and Franklin T. McCracken, a prominent sportswriter at the Philadelphia Public Ledger who was the dean of Philadelphia golf writers and an authority on boxing. [3]

By age 11, she was awarded a scholarship for acrobatic work at a Philadelphia gymnasium, and later studied dance with Catherine Littlefield. She dropped out of West Philadelphia High School in the tenth grade to study dance in New York with George Balanchine in the first year of the School of American Ballet (SAB) in 1934.[4]

Career

Early career

In 1935, McCracken returned to Philadelphia to join a ballet company being formed by Littlefield, originally called the Littlefield Ballet and, from 1936 onwards, also known as the Philadelphia Ballet. When the ballet company made its official debut in November 1935, McCracken was a principal soloist. In 1937 she went on a European tour with the company, in what was the first tour of an American ballet company in Europe. This put a strain on her health, because she had just been diagnosed with Type I diabetes, also known as "juvenile diabetes," which was difficult to control utilizing the medical technology at the time. McCracken kept her diabetes a secret during most of her life, to prevent damage to her career. Her diabetes made her prone to fainting spells, sometimes during performances, as well as medical complications later in her life. [5]

In 1940, McCracken and her new husband Jack Dunphy, also a dancer, moved to New York City. At first neither failed to obtain employment, and McCracken danced in Radio City Music Hall's ballet company. In 1941 she danced with the ballet company at Jacob's Pillow in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts, and later that year joined the Dance Players, formed by choreographer Eugene Loring, with Michael Kidd as Loring's assistant and leading male dancer. [6]

Oklahoma! and Hollywood

In 1942 McCracken and Dunphy both auditioned for Agnes de Mille, who cast them in ensemble roles in her new musical Away We Go, later titled Oklahoma!. The show went into rehearsals in early 1943. McCracken was cast in an anonymous dance role as Sylvie in the Many a New Day dance number, but became famous for taking a comic pratfall in the middle of the number. She became known as "The Girl Who Fell Down." Sources differ as to whether the role's distinctive fall was devised by McCracken or de Mille. [7]

As a result of her performance in Oklahoma!, McCracken was given a movie contract by Warner Brothers. She was in a specialty dance routine in Hollywood Canteen (1944). McCracken was dismayed by the lack of professionalism that she observed at Warner Brothers, and the lack of guidance that she received from the choreographer, LeRoy Prinz. In Hollywood Canteen she performed in a dance number called "Ballet in Jive," which received favorable critical attention. However, McCracken disliked the patronizing tone of the film, which treated servicemen as naive bumpkins, because her husband was serving in the Army and her younger brother, Buddy McCracken, was a lieutenant in the U.S. Marines.[8]

McCracken broke her Warner Brothers contract and went back to Broadway to star in the musical Bloomer Girl, set in the early Twentieth Century, getting rave reviews for her performance, which combined comedy acting with dance. While playing in Bloomer Girl in October 1944, she received the War Department telegram telling her of Buddy McCracken's death a month earlier during combat on Peleliu in the Pacific. She reacted violently, tearing up her dressing room. According to McCracken's biographer, Truman Capote used the incident as the model for a scene in his popular novella Breakfast at Tiffany's, in which Holly Golightly reacts violently to her brother's death during Army service overseas.[9]

Return to the stage

She subsequently appeared in Billion Dollar Baby, which opened on Broadway in December 1945, winning positive reviews for her comic performance. The show itself received only lukewarm reviews, however, and her career was not advanced by her starring role in that play.[10] After Billion Dollar Baby she was hired by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to appear in the 1947 college musical Good News, starring Peter Lawford and June Allyson. She received good reviews playing the vivacious Babe Doolittle. Her song-and-dance number, "Pass That Peace Pipe", was a standout, but MGM did not renew her contract and her movie career never took off.[11]

McCracken was had limited range as a singer, which prevented her from getting some Broadway parts. Shirley MacLaine described her as a "small, yet powerful woman with a foghorn voice."[12] She long yearned to become a serious actress, and in 1947 she began studying acting with Bobby Lewis, Group Theatre alumnus and soon-to-be Actors Studio co-founder (along with fellow alumni Elia Kazan and Cheryl Crawford). That fall, at Lewis' invitation, McCracken would became one of the Studio's charter members. In December 1947 she appeared in the New York production of Bertolt Brecht's play Galileo, starring Charles Laughton in the title role and directed by Joseph Losey, playing Galileo's daughter Virginia.[13] She also studied acting with Sanford Meisner and Herbert Berghof at the Neighborhood Playhouse. [14][15]

Her favorite role was in Peter Pan, a revival of the 1904 J.M. Barrie play. She starred in the title role in a touring company production in 1951, succeeding Jean Arthur.[14][16]

Decline

McCracken's career faded as she appeared in a succession of less-well-received Broadway shows, although her performance in the the Clifford Odets play The Big Knife, starring John Garfield, was well-received, as was her performance in Peter Pan. As her health worsened she found that her dancing ability was affected, and by the mid-1950s, as her marriage to Bob Fosse disintegrated, a heart condition caused by her diabetes made it impossible for her to dance.

Although she appeared on television and in dramatic roles, her career ended in the late 1950s, as complications from her diabetes made it increasingly difficult for her to work. Her final stage appearance was in a 1958 off-Broadway production of Jean Cocteau's 1934 play, The Infernal Machine, appearing alongside John Kerr and June Havoc.[17]

Personal life

McCracken was described by her biographer as a "bohemian" free spirit and uninhibited, and at times like to behave outrageously. In one meeting with MGM vocal coach Kay Thompson, she removed her blouse and bra to become "more comfortable."[18]

She met Jack Dunphy, then a dancer with the Littlefield company, in 1937. They married in 1939 and separated after Dunphy's service during World War II, during which McCracken had an affair with French composer Rudi Revil. Dunphy was devastated by the infidelity and blamed it for his change in sexual orientation. He adopted a gay lifestyle, became romantically involved with Truman Capote, and he and McCracken were divorced in 1951. Dunphy remained Capote's partner until his death in 1984.[19]

McCracken wed dancer and choreographer Bob Fosse, and was married to him from December 1952 to 1959. She worked actively to advance his career and encouraged his work as a choreographer. Her efforts led to his first major job as a choreographer, in The Pajama Game. They divorced as her health worsened, and as Fosse, who was serially unfaithful during their marriage, left McCracken for Gwen Verdon.

Later in life she was in a relationship with actor Marc Adams, and spent large amounts of time at her beach house in The Pines on Fire Island, New York [20]

McCracken died in her sleep, from a heart attack brought on by her diabetes, on November 1, 1961. She was cremated. Her ashes, which were given to mother, were subsequently lost.

Legacy

During her lifetime, McCracken was mainly known for her pixieish stage and screen persona, and for what the New York Times described as her "overnight" success as a comic dancer in Oklahoma! The Times described her as "an enchanting new talent with a flair for puckish comedy." [17] But her influence on musical comedy and other performers was considerable. Shirley MacLaine said that McCracken had "a sense of 'in your face' comedy years before it was fashionable. . . and she possessed a generosity about other people's talent." [21]

In her biography of McCracken, The Girl Who Fell Down, dance critic Mary Jo Sagolla says that McCracken is little remembered today, and not widely appreciated for her influence on Fosse, and for her efforts to encourage him to move from dance to choreography. Even though her career went into a sharp decline in the 1950s due to her diabetes, she directly influenced the career of MacLaine as well as Fosse, and was a pioneer in combining comedy and dance.[22]

Credits

Broadway

Films

Television

  • Actor's Studio ("Night Club", 1948)
  • Great Catherine (1948)
  • Claudia: The Story of a Marriage (1952)
  • The Revlon Mirror Theater ("White Night"; 1953)
  • Toast of the Town, Episode #6.46 (1953)

Off-Broadway

Notes

  1. ↑ Sagolla, p. 110
  2. ↑ Although many biographical sources during her lifetime gave her birth year as 1922, her biographer Lisa Jo Sagolla, author of The Girl Who Fell Down, found that McCracken systematically added five years to her age and went to elaborate lengths to conceal her birth year, and did not even disclose her age to her second husband, Bob Fosse
  3. ↑ Sagolla, p. 10
  4. ↑ Sagolla, p. 24-26
  5. ↑ Sagolla, pp. 29-33
  6. ↑ Sagolla, pp. 50-57
  7. ↑ Sagolla, pp. 69-73
  8. ↑ Sagolla, pp. 82-91
  9. ↑ Sagolla, p. 110
  10. ↑ Sagolla, pp. 123-126
  11. ↑ Sagolla, pp. 138-152
  12. ↑ Sagolla, p. 211
  13. ↑ Sagolla, pp. 152-154
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Ormsbee, Helen (19-July-1953). "44th St. Home to Joan McCracken". New York Herald Tribune. pp. D2. 
  15. ↑ Sagolla, pp. 152-154
  16. ↑ Sagolla, pp. 193-197
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 "Joan McCracken Is Dead at 38; Dancer Appeared in 'Oklahoma!': Became Famous Overnight as 'Girl Who Falls Down'--Also Was Seen in Films". The New York Times. 2 November 1961. p. 37. 
  18. ↑ Sagolla, p. 131, 145
  19. ↑ Sagolla, pp. 139-141
  20. ↑ Sagolla, pp. 192, 204
  21. ↑ Sagolla, pp. 211-212
  22. ↑ Sagolla, pp.5-8

References

  • Sagolla, Lisa Jo (2003). The Girl Who Fell Down. Northeastern University Press. ISBN 1-55553-573-9. 

External links

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