Radio City Music Hall
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
116 people
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wow! this website is wonderful and I will pass it on the Rockette alumni for sure! Mom-in-Law was a Rockette 1937-1942 and Dad-in-Law a violinist in the pit right from the beginning.. even have a book sent to the employees from Roxy because he couldnt invite them all to the grande opening.. ahhh… sigh.. to have been a fly on the wall during that era!
As a kid, living in Queens, I grew up with Radio City – every year the Christmas and Easter shows.. past memories/visual include the lil puppet inch worm -for some odd reason. Rockette mom was paid $50 week! and such hard work, pre-union
She was in 1936 Movie as dancer The Devil On Horseback with Ann Miller, did the Mexican Hayride show, a show at the Samoa, The Clover Club, Miami, Billy Rose shows, etc.
Great website.. I’ll be back for sure!
Simon-I believe you meant without the famed 36 so does the strike of ‘67 count? I don’t think there was even the ballet in that one. The film was Up the Down Staircase.
In the Madama Butterfly Jan Peerce sang 4 Pinkertons a day 7 days a week! And then 40 years later he was doing Tevya on Broadway!
Answer to CConnolly: To the best of my knowledge, the Rockettes have appeared in every show but one beginning in January 1933 (througout the golden “olden days”) Leonidoff produced a one-hour version of the opera “Madama Butterfly” for two weeks in 1934. Obviously no spot for 36 tapping geisha girls.The first week of “Madama Butterfly” accompanied the film “Twentieth Century” May 3 – 9 and the second holdover week for the stage show played with “Change of Heart” with Janet Gaynor May 10 – 16. If anyone knows of another show with the famed 36, let me know.
Question regarding The Rockettes: correct me if I’m wrong but the only time they seem to work as the Rockettes is during the Christmas “Spectacular”. What do these women do the rest of the year? Or are the current Rockettes hired as new every year?
In the “olden” days (sorry…) did the Rockettes perform at every stage show?
Truely when it was the Showplace of the Nation, in the heart of Rockefeller Center. :)
Answer to Vincent about the number of Rockettes: The Rockettes were traditonally 36 dancers, but 46 were on the payroll. Each Rockette would work 7 days for 3 weeks with the 4th week off. The extra ten Rockettes allowed for the rotation, plus illness etc. One thing that many of us remember from the old days was how versatile the Rockettes were. They were often brought back in certain shows augment the 24 member ballet company and were just as good on their toes as in their tap shoes. The reverse was true for the ballet company. Some shows boasted a company of 100 (check out some of the early newspaper ads), including the choral ensemble or glee club.
Having worked in retail in a large city in years past, I have adopted a somewhat jaded opinion of the Christmas season. Being bombarded by the insanity that the season seems to bring out in people I am now of the “let’s just get it over with” philosophy. If I feel that I need an uplifting experience, I’ll go to Lourdes or Palmyra NY and see the Passion Play. Let’s see, they hold that about every ten years…that should be enough. RCMH might do better with a lighter touch. Oh, to be able to go back to a simpler time!
Thanks for your comments as I figured it was heavily Jesus-based which is fine except that it sounds “too heavy handed for the setting” and in my opinion a bit “over the top” so will think twice about going to see the show mext season now! Is it me or is Christmas and the holiday season in general just not what it used to be? I mean in reference to all of this talk about saying Merry Christmas over Happy Holidays, etc. It was a more simple time back in the 50’s, I think…now everyone’s remark is examined and disected! The holidays seem to fly by and maybe that’s a good thing! :–(
The ending message that scrolled with narration basically praised Jesus as being the most remembered and greatest leader of all time even after 2000+ years. I wish I could get a transcript of it. Not only was it over the top but it went on forever. I kept thinking “who are they doing this for?” It was like something you’d see at a PTL fundraiser. It was creepy. And I’m not trying to offend anyone because I was raised Catholic and such. I just thought it was too heavy handed for the setting and especially considering the light stuff that came before.
I’m glad to hear that I wasn’t wrong about the Nativity starting off the old show. If you think about it, it made sense: that’s what Christmas is about, fundamentally speaking. And there was absolutely NOTHING offensive about it. It was simply beautiful.
Sam_e: You took the words right out of my mouth….“I’m curious to know just what the ‘message’ is”! I know when we lived in FL and would attend the First Baptist Singing Christmas Tree it was and still is close to 3 hours in length. The reason being the program is done in 2 parts with an intermission. The first half is Toyland and Santa etc. and the second half is very secular with the entire story of Jesus, from birth to death on the cross…complete with the pounding of Jesus to the cross. I know that it scares some children and feel that the Easter story should NOT be a part of the Christmas story, but that’s only my humble opinion. Our friends would ask us what we thought each year and I was never one to hold back my opinion though we usually went each year knowing full well that the format would probably remain the same.
Not having seen the Nativity sequence I’m curious to know just what the ‘message’ is that the management is promoting (although I have my suspicions).
Always at the beginning. Leonidoff knew exactly what he was doing.
CConnolly
I think with the movies it always started the show. At least that’s how I remember it. Rob
Just one more thing (and I sincerely apologize for beating a dead horse here) but I wonder if the reason why the put the Nativity at the end rather than the beginning like the shows I saw was because people actually MIGHT get up and walk out because they were offended by the ending message.
Was the Nativity scene I remember always at the beginning of the Christmas show?
Vincent: I saw your hilarious posting about the Christmas show on the Ziegfeld site and you also say the same thing here about it’s strange Christian Fundamentalist bent. I think what you’re referring to (and we “discussed” this here previously) is that ludicrous speech at the end with it scrolling on the screen. It’s message is so UN-subtle it’s like getting hit over the head. That pushed me over the edge into out and out loathing of the “new” Nativity. The old shows may have morphed into one continuous one in my mind but they never did anything like that back then.
It’s “message” is so heavy handed that they probably should send out a warning to the audience that all non Christians may want to leave the auditorium prior to the Nativity scene.
Even as a kid, I was not into religon and such but the Nativity I saw then could’ve made me relgious…it was that good.
I have to say this once again: The Rockettes were as good as I remember them. If the numbers have dwindled, it had no effect on the presentation. They were outstanding. They did a finale where they were Santa’s reindeer that was as good as anything I remember from the shows as a kid. It was the stuff before this scene and others that was appalling and worse, BORING and pointless (what the HELL was with that toy making factory set? Even my daugther said it looked tacky). If the show was simply the Rockettes “doing-their-thing” it would’ve been a winner. Less is more is definately the key to this kind of show. And that goes for the ticket prices too.
I was surprised to read that the number of Rockettes on stage has been reduced! :–(
Vincent and CC: Boy, between the 2 of you I’m learning ALOT about RCMH and the Christmas Show over the years! Thanks!
Vincent
You are so right, and every year the show got sparser and sparser. I remember by the late 70’s people standing in front of the drapes singing with no backdrops or props for some numbers. The thing is I long for those days just beacuse seeing the movie and stage show was special. I have a question, was there any other theatre anywhere in the world that was still running a stage show and movie until almost 1980?
CC I hope you saw the Disney Robin Hood Christmas show as it was the last one with the ballet company and the Rockettes looking especially sensational much like in that great Kodak photo of them in red against a blue background. For me after that it was never the same. I guess it was right after Leonidoff left that they disbanded the ballet. For me the stage started looking pretty sparse and then they reduced the Rockettes from 36 to 30.(I think at the very beginning the Rockettes totaled 46 on stage. Please correct me if I’m wrong.)
I know I saw the terrible “The Slipper and the Rose” (an absure “reworking” of Cinderella) in 1976…it was the last Christmas show I saw at RCMH. Like KenRoe, we loved the Christmas show so much that year that we saw it twice but exited before we’d have to sit through the movie again.
The first time I saw the Christmas show was with “1776” and it was packed. I was way too young to understand or like the movie. But I loved the Christmas show. Every year after that until 1976, we went to see the show and the movie. Funny thing is I can only remember one other movie besides Slipper and 1776 and that was “The Sunshine Boys” which must’ve been 1975. My parents laughed their heads off at that one but I didn’t think much of it at the age of 9. Again, I loved the show. I don’t remember exactly what was performed…the shows have all kind of morphed into on another.
Ironically, in 1976, for the Bicentennial, my school and (it seemed) all the other school districts in Nassau County saw a special screening of “1776” at the un-multiplexed Lynbrook. I can remember sitting in the high balcony and looking down at the “orchestra” seats and thinking how big the place was. God, that theater was, to me, the Radio City Music Hall of LI. I absolutely LOVED that place.
I saw the Rockettes perform their wooden soldiers routine when I paid my first visit to the USA (and NYC) in 1976 and the R.C.M.H. Christmas Show was performed with the Richard Chamberlain movie “The Slipper and The Rose”. I watched the film once but sat through the Christmas Show twice, I was so impressed.
According to Charles Francisco’s book “The Radio City Music Hall -An Affectionate History of the World’s Greatest Theater” (1979), the 1976 Christmas Show was a Peter Gennaro production. Leon Leonidoff’s last production was ‘Saluda a Colombia’ on his retirement in 1974.
I don’t remember it with The Slipper and the Rose(awful) at all. But maybe you are right. The Variety review would clear that up. Still that would be twice in 10 years.
The movie for that Christmas show should have been Bogdonovich's
Nickolodeon, with the O'Neals pere et fille and Brian Keith, and Slipper should have been the following Easter Show. However Nick had major problems so they moved up Slipper.
I may be the only person in the world who enjoyed Bogdonovich’s At Long Last Love. At least at the Music Hall it was visually stunning(the final moments alone worthy of Lubitsch.) And hearing Porter there was heaven. Yeah for the most part everyone sang very badly, the dialogue was strained and maybe today its unwatchable(anyone out there for a restoration-it was cut during the Music Hall run! I saw two different versions of it there a week apart) but seeing it as an Easter show in the mid 70’s well what else could they have shown. Maybe visually it was the best new film I ever saw at Radio City.
And as regards 1776 imagine anyone sitting through that thing and I had loved the Broadway album as a kid! Though I believe it was the last film to sell out the Hall in the evening shows with people being told that the final stage show was sold out and they could only buy tickets for the movie.
Vincent: I truly hate to disagree with you about the wooden soldiers and I will bow to your memory but I swear I saw it more than once. Yes, I did see the show when “1776” played there (hated it…imagine a 6 year old sitting through a movie like that!). I think I saw it the last time I saw the show which was in 1976 or 1977 with a terrible movie called “The Slipper and the Rose”. Look, I’m probably wrong. But I’m not wrong about the Nativity which we “discussed” here before. Do you know when they did away with the old one and put on the “new” Nativity?
So what’s up with the Rockettes?
Why does their director know what she is doing while her colleagues are 100 percent clueless? It makes no sense.
By the way the wooden soldier routine was not done every year. I saw most of the Christmas shows for the late ‘60’s to the mid 70’s and the only time they did it was for the film 1776. It was a special event not to be overdone. It was done under the large lower branches of a Christmas tree and they came out of a toy castle.
People at the Music Hall today this is not curing cancer-it is simple showmanship. To have them now parade about in front of nothing but a cyclorama makes about as much sense as have them march about in front of the bare back wall.
Oh and by the way did I mention the midgets? It’s like we’re in some seedy presentation house in '32 watching vaudeville die.