Rex Harrison And Lilli Palmer
Hirschfeld created this beguiling image as the poster for this comedy about witchcraft that audiences found enchanting.
Darlene Love, Linzi Hateley, And Betty Buckley
Although pummeled by scathing reviews, this musical played to sold-out houses for almost all of its 16 previews and five performances on Broadway. At the time it was the costliest flop in Broadway history, inspiring the title of Ken Mandelbaum’s 1992 book, “Not Since Carrie: 40 Years of Broadway Musical Flops.”
Clifton Webb, Mildred Natwick, Leonora Corbett, Peggy Wood
Noel Coward’s classic comedy about a man who discovers that the only thing worse than being haunted by one wife, is being haunted by two wives.
Sarah Churchill, Robert Sterling, Richard Waring
Winston Churchill’s daughter made her Broadway debut in this supernatural comedy about a Revolutionary War ghost who haunts Gramercy Park and falls in love with her. An amusing evening, it nevertheless suffered when compared to Blithe Spirit and Bell, Book and Candle and ran for only 100 performances.
George C. Scott And Colleen Dewhurst
This television production of Arthur Miller’s scariest plays was the first of two Miller plays the acting couple presented on the small screen. They would adapt The Price in 1971.
Richard Hart, Carol Stone, Marjorie Belle
The retelling of the legend of Barbara Allen about a witch-boy who becomes human so he can win the heart of Barbara played by Carol Stone. Marjorie Belle played The Fair Witch. The play had a ten-month run on Broadway and was presented in London in the 1947-48 season in a much admired production by Peter Brook.
Flora Robson, Robinson Stone, Martin Balsam, Harry Hess, Michael Redgrave
In this production of Shakespeare’s “Scottish play”, the three witches were played by men, Robinson Stone, Martin Balsam, Harry Hess, who also doubled in other roles.
Perhaps the most famous stage production of the Dracula legend was this one starring Frank Langella, which featured creepy costumes and sets designed by Edward Gorey.
Sarah Rice, Victor Garber, Joaquin Romaguera, Len Cariou, Angela Lansbury, Jack Eric Williams, Edmund Lyndeck
Sondheim’s Demon Barber of Fleet Street draws on the frightful traditions of the Grand Guignol to scare and entertain audiences in one of the composer’s best-known musicals.
Wilkinson was the first Phantom, playing him in the original workshop production at the Sydmonton Festival in 1985. Hirschfeld would draw him twice in his other signature as Jean Valjean in Les Miserables.
Dick Cavett, Joan Jett, Tom Hewitt And Daphne Rubin-Vega
One of the longest running musicals in British history, Rocky Horror first premiered on stage in the US in 1980 on a national tour. It premiered on Broadway in 2000 and ran for eighteen months. Tom Hewitt played the transvestite scientist, Frank N. Furter, Joan Jett as Columbia, and Dick Cavett as the narrator.
"He was an excellent showman, very aware of what he was doing,” according to Hirschfeld. “And seemed to control the audience. They were very skeptical, but he convinced them after two or three minutes–not of just talking, but of doing–that he had some special quality that most performers did not have.”
Molly Ephraim, Vanessa Williams, Stephen De Ross, Laura Benanti, & Gregg Edelman
Vanessa Williams plyed the Witch in Sondheim’s musical about fairy tales. The witch was given a new song "The Last Midnight" in this production.
Michael Crawford, Mandy Gonzalez, Rene Auberjonois
This musical with lyrics by Jim Steinman was scarier for the producers than to audiences. It closed after seven weeks, losing roughly $12 million, eclipsing the flop of Carrie.
Gordon Richards, Enid Romany, Kathleen Lowry, William Roselle
A flop that lasted one night. The play was so muddled that one reviewer wrote it was a “persistently indifferent play.” His review was titled “Beware!”
The book "The Hirschfeld Century: Portrait of an Artist and His Age," published by Alfred A. Knopf and featuring biographical text by David Leopold, is currently available exclusively at The New-York Historical Society exhibition, and will be available in bookstores around the country July 7. The artist's extraordinary career is revealed in more than 360 of his iconic black-and-white and color drawings, illustrations, and photographs. Hirschfeld's influences, his techniques, and his evolution from his earliest works to his last drawings, are all chronicled.
