Broadway’s twinkling lights lost some of their sparkle this week with the death of Marty Richards, one of the street’s last, larger-than-life impresarios.
Eccentric doesn’t begin to describe Marty. Bonkers is more like it. He was passionate, funny, lovable, generous — and nuts.
He had millions and burned through millions. He produced spectacular hits (“Grand Hotel”) and spectacular flops (“Rockabye Hamlet”).
He was openly gay but was married, happily, to a Johnson & Johnson heiress. He once hid from a hit man in the trunk of a car. And he threw a lamp at Harvey Weinstein. Or maybe it was a chair. Or a desk. Every time Marty told the story, he changed the furniture.
He was a screamer whose high-pitched, nasal Bronx whine is ringing in my ears as I write this.
I’ll never forget the first time I heard it. It was a Sunday night, and I was playing bridge with friends. That day in the paper I’d written a season preview, tipping “Titanic” as the show to beat. Marty was producing “The Life,” which I dismissed as hopelessly old-fashioned.
The phone rang. It was Judy Jacksina, Marty’s longtime publicist, and herself one of Shubert Alley’s lovable lunatics.
“Hi, Michael. It’s Judy. Can you hold for Marty Richards?”
“Is this Mark Riedel?” he yelled. Before I could correct him, he started in: “What the f – – – is this I’m reading in the paper? You want to send people to a musical where everybody drowns?”
(Marty momentarily forgot that he produced “Sweeney Todd,” a musical where everybody ends up as a meat pie.)
“How dare you call ‘The Life’ old-fashioned. It’s about hookers, for God’s sake! You listen to me. I’m going to kill you. I’m going to break every bone in your body. Not only won’t you work in this town, you won’t walk in this town!”
“Mr. Richards,” I said. “I’m in the middle of a bridge game.”
There was a pause.
“Did you win your rubber?”
The next day, I got an invitation for lunch — corned beef and cabbage — at Marty’s sumptuous River House apartment. He gave me a bear hug when I left.
Jacksina, who worked for Richards for 30 years, remembers the screaming phone call well.
“We were at an ad meeting, and Marty read your column. He was furious. We tried to tell him to just let it go, but he said, “Nobody does this to me! This is one Jew they wouldn’t have gotten in the oven!’”
(Roger Berlind, Marty’s co-producer, dryly replied: “Marty, they wouldn’t have wanted you.”)
At another meeting, an ad person showed Marty a poster idea for “The Life.” The colors were red and black. Marty didn’t like it. The ad executive said: “Red and black is a very bold marketing statement. It works very well.”
“Yeah, I understand it worked very well for the Nazis, too, but not for this musical!” Marty yelled.
And then there was the time Marty showed up for a bus trip to Atlantic City. He was wrapped in a silver fox fur coat and had his Louis Vuitton overnight bag.
“Marty, we’re only going for the day,” one of his underlings said.
“Yeah, well, this is how I go to Auschwitz!”
Marty started out as a cabaret singer, then became a casting director and, eventually, a producer. One of his first shows was the original production of “Chicago.” It was a flop, but he held onto the screen rights, and eventually, after suing Miramax, reaped millions from the movie.
In 1976 he met Mary Lea Johnson, heir to the pharmaceutical fortune, and her psychiatrist husband, Victor D’Arc. They wanted to invest in Broadway shows.
Mary Lea, who’d been abused by her father and whose marriage to D’Arc was on the rocks, began spending more and more time with Marty. When they moved in together, Marty was convinced D’Arc had hired a hit man to kill him.
Marty called an agent friend and said, “They’re coming to get me!” The agent smuggled him out to Queens in the trunk of his car.
Marty and Mary Lea married in 1977, and though he was openly gay — “but I don’t walk around in a tutu!” he once said — they adored each other. Friends always said Marty was the only man who ever treated Mary Lea kindly.
She died in 1990. Marty kept a silver-framed picture of her in the lobby of his production office.
Marty inherited about $50 million from Mary Lea and merrily went right through it. He threw lavish parties at the River House and in Southampton. He passed out gifts like Santa Claus. His floral bill was said to be $75,000 a month.
He once called Jacksina and said: “I’ve decided I’m not getting old! I’m going to get a facelift. There’s this genius doctor in Los Angeles. We’re going out there. I’m bringing you with me — and I’ll buy you one, too.”
“That was Marty,” says his longtime associate Dan Gallagher. “Nothing was ever simple. It was always the grand gesture.”