Go, “Tootsie,” go!
Well, not so fast, my dear.
Sony Pictures announced last week that it has struck a deal with Broadway producer Scott Sanders (“The Color Purple”) to turn some of its famous movies into musicals, including the classic 1982 comedy, “Tootsie.”
But, in fact, a musical version of “Tootsie” has been in the works for years — and she’s been a little wobbly on those high heels.
One of the stumbling blocks, I’m told, had been Dustin Hoffman, the original Dorothy Michaels. He was dead set against the idea of a “Tootsie” musical and, through contractual entanglements going back to the movie, controlled the name of the title character.
The story, often told in Hollywood circles, is that Hoffman suggested the title because “tootsie” is what his mother called him when he was a boy.
Hoffman and screenwriter Larry Gelbart clashed during the making of the movie. When asked what it was like to work with Hoffman, Gelbart said: “Never work with an Oscar winner shorter than the statue.”
Hoffman got his revenge when he appeared on “Inside the Actors Studio” with James Lipton. He minimized Gelbart’s contribution, saying that “Tootsie” was essentially the creation of his close friend and business partner, writer Murray Schisgal.
Gelbart fired back in Vanity Fair: “ ‘Tootsie’ is my vision, despite Dustin Hoffman’s lifelong mission to deprive anybody of any credit connected with that movie except for . . . Murray Schisgal.”
This led to a bitter standoff, and when Gelbart set out to adapt “Tootsie” for the stage with lyricist David Zippel and composer Walter Afanasieff, Hoffman wouldn’t let him call it “Tootsie.”
The working title was “Dollface” — which is a bit like calling the musical version of “The Color Purple” “Celie.”
“Gelbart and Hoffman hated each other,” says a Hollywood executive. “Nothing much could be done with the movie until one of them died.”
Gelbart did — in 2009.
But then more trouble erupted. Sanders fired Zippel and Afanasieff, and they responded with a lawsuit, which tied the project up for another year.
Reached this week, Zippel said the dispute has been settled “amicably.”
Sanders reached out to other writers, including Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman.
He also brought in Tom Meehan (“Annie,” “The Producers”) to write the book.
“Dollface,” as the show was still called, would be similar to “Tootsie,” but with a major change. In the movie, Dorothy Michaels becomes a soap opera star. In the musical, she becomes a Broadway diva.
Manilow and Sussman, who co-wrote “Copacabana” and many other hits, were interested in the project but surprised when Sanders asked them to audition by writing a handful of songs.
Still, they decided to give it a shot. But when they asked to see the script, there wasn’t one. Meehan’s deal hadn’t been done yet.
“They were supposed to write songs out of thin air, and that’s not how they work,” says a production source.
They passed.
Sanders then went after “everybody who’s ever written a musical, including Stephen Foster,” jokes a production insider.
On his list were Randy Newman, Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty (“Ragtime”), Brian Yorkey and Tom Kitt (“Next to Normal”) and Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (“Dogfight”).
Everybody turned him down.
The reason?
“How do you improve on a perfect movie?” says a theater source.
And that, in a nutshell, is the trouble with “Dollface,” or “Tootsie” or whatever it’ll wind up being called.
The musical will inevitably be compared to the movie, and that’s one hell of a yardstick.
Golden rule on Broadway: Don’t adapt something that’s perfection itself. The list of musical flops based on perfect movies is long — “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” “Victor Victoria,” “Gone With the Wind,” “Arthur,” “Nick & Nora,” which was an adaptation of “The Thin Man.”
“Tootsie” is a classic, so anyone willing to muck around with it must be brave — or foolhardy.
Which may be why, when Sony announced that “Tootsie” was Broadway-bound, the press release read: “No creative team has been announced yet.”