Creation of 'Grease' is a slick story

Jim Jacobs, a Chicago actor in the late 1960s, was hanging at his apartment with his fellow actor friends, including the late Warren Casey.

"I got bored with the music," recalled Jacobs, speaking from his San Diego-area home. "So I went into my closet and dug out my old 45s and slipped them on for all the potheads and drunks. I said, 'Wouldn't it be a gas if there were a Broadway show with all this music. I'd love to see a Broadway show with doo-wops.'"

Casey thought it was a funny idea. A few weeks later, after getting fired from a show, Casey called him up and said, "I've started writing a scene for that show we were talking about."

"What show?" Jacobs asked.

"Grease," he replied.

And a musical phenomenon — which Broadway in Tucson brings our way next week — was born. "If Warren had never lost his job, it may never have happened," said Jacobs.

Casey wasn't new to writing songs — he had always whipped together ditties for friends' amusement.

Like the time, five years before "Grease," that he and Jacobs heard a news story about three punks who had mugged a man. One of those punks, the story said, was a beauty school dropout.

"Man, what could be lower than a beauty school dropout," Casey said at the time.

"Three days later, he came up with the song 'Beauty School Dropout,' " Jacobs said, noting it's one of the big numbers from "Grease."

Jacobs and Casey centered the story on Jacobs' old high school in Chicago, and that original version was a tad more raunchy than the one that made it to Broadway and became a long-running hit; a blockbuster movie; a hit around the world, revived and revived again; a reality TV show to cast another revival; and now this road show.

"Today, we couldn't do that original version," Jacobs said. "We've lost our sense of humor over the years."

The sanitization began when a producer saw it in Chicago, suggested adjustments and took it to New York.

It was there that Jim Weston, who retired to Tucson several years ago, first met up with "Grease" and Jacobs — Weston was cast as the predatory DJ Vince Fontaine in the original Broadway production.

"We had such fun," Weston said.

And such adventures, as when actor Richard Burton, who was doing "Equus" on Broadway, came to the show and fell in love with it.

One night, he came backstage.

"And he said, 'Why don't we all go to dinner one night?' So he and Elizabeth Taylor took us to dinner at Sardi's," Weston recalled.

The production had a scrim onstage — a material that the audience can't see through unless it's backlit — and the cast would gather behind it before the play and watch people take their seats.

"The houselights were up and we saw everyone come in," Weston said. "We would look out and there were people like Jackie Kennedy and her two kids. "

The Fontaine character was a kick to play, he said.

"I was very happy doing Vince; he was my baby."

Fontaine was based on "a guy in Chicago who had a Dick Clark-like show on the air," Weston said. "He was a real sleaze. He would go under the bleachers and try to see up girls' dresses."

Weston didn't have to go that far in the production.

"My God, I was wearing a leopard- skin jacket," he said. "I didn't even have to say anything."

Weston spent two years with the show and made lifelong friends, including Jacobs, who will be joining Weston to attend the opening night performance here.

While Jacobs is somewhat baffled about the runaway success of this musical about young love, punks, good girls with bad boys, and high school life, Weston has a good idea why it has had such a long, healthy life.

"It's got such energy, and there's a kind of exuberance that you don't see in a lot of shows," he said. "And the tunes have a real beat to them. Kids love that."

Grown-ups, too, it would seem.

Preview

The Broadway road show of "Grease"

• By: Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey.

• Director: Kathleen Marshall.

• Presented by: Broadway in Tucson.

• When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday; 8 p.m. next Friday; 2 and 8 p.m. Feb. 28; 1 and 6:30 p.m. March 1.

• Where: Tucson Music Hall, 260 S. Church Ave.

• Tickets: $25-$68; half-price student tickets available for the Tuesday through Thursday performances, Feb. 28 matinee and Sunday evening shows.

• Reservations: 321-1000.

• Cast: "American Idol" winner Taylor Hicks in the Teen Angel role (Hicks will not perform at 6:30 p.m. March 1), Eric Schneider as Danny, Emily Padgett as Sandy and Allie Schulz as Rizzo.

• Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes, with one intermission.

"Grease" Trivia

1. Who starred as Danny in the original Broadway production?

2. What year did the play open on Broadway?

3. True or false: When the original Broadway run of "Grease" closed in 1980 after 3,388 performances, it was the longest-running Broadway show in history.

4. What song was not in the original production but was in the movie and nominated for an Academy Award?

5. What's the name of the high school in "Grease"?

6. What sport does Danny try in hopes of impressing Sandy?

7. What do Rosie O'Donnell, Stockard Channing and Brooke Shields have in common?

Answers below

Answers: 1. Barry Bostwick. 2. 1972. 3. True. The current record belongs to "Phantom of the Opera." 4. "Hopelessly Devoted to You." 5. Rydell High. 6. Track. 7. They've all played Rizzo. Source: Broadway in Tucson