A Weekend in LA with Buddy

I spent the weekend in LA at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills, but it wasn't a spa or relaxation trip. I went out to the coast to interview on video music legend Buddy Bregman. One of Buddy's first professional jobs, his big first orchestration credit was on the 1954 TV musical Anything Goes starring Ethel Merman, Frank Sinatra and Bert Lahr and Sheree North. Buddy's uncle Jule Styne was producer of the show and Leland Hayward was the executive producer. Jule loved nepotism and got his talented nephew the job. He was 24. Now 80 and looking great, I got to talk to Buddy about the show and his subsequent dazzling career (he was A&R man for Verve Records and did all the arrangements on Ella's Cole Porter and Rodgers and Hart songbook albums...Buddy also orchestrated Kay Thompson and the Williams Brothers and recorded with Bing and worked with Garland and Bolger and everyone and his mother.) This will be an extra on the DVD release of Anything Goes which is taken from Ethel Merman's personal kinescope from the collection of yours truly. As a little sidebar I got to audition a potential short Jew for The Road to Qatar! and he was marvelous. Today we did official agent submission auditions and that went very well with a front runner for Nazirah rearing her little head. Thursday we see more actors and do callbacks. This is what I call showbiz...but does it have to be so cold out?