George Gershwin: An Intimate Portrait

9. "Something Big"

nine “Something Big” Heyward had been thinking about opera since his initial meeting with Gershwin in 1926. His first post-Porgy novel, Mamba’s Daughters, written in 1929, concluded with a scene that had the Met putting on the first allblack opera. When the soprano brings down the house with “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” one member of the audience exclaims to another, “Can’t you see it’s new—different? Can’t you feel it’s something of our own— American—something . . . that Gershwin actually got his hands on in spots of Rhapsody in Blue.”1 The idea of writing such an opera would not leave him alone. Thus, when he received Gershwin’s letter of March 29, 1932, asking if he was still interested in a collaboration, he immediately telephoned to say yes and then he followed his verbal assent with a written confirmation on April 10. Six weeks later, he received George’s disappointing reply, in which the composer said he could not begin work on the project any time soon. This left him frustrated and in a quandary. Gershwin was backing off again, and there was, it seemed, nothing to be done about it. That summer, 61 “Something Big” however, Heyward heard from his agent, Audrey Wood, that Al Jolson was interested in doing a blackface musical version of Porgy. Jolson had been fascinated by the story for a long time. A few years earlier, he had done it on radio. Shortly after that, he had sought to star in a movie adaptation . He was the first great star of the talkies, having appeared in 1927’s The Jazz Singer, which was the earliest feature length film to incorporate synchronized talking and music. For part of The Jazz Singer, Jolson sang in blackface. Thus, a filmed version of Porgy seemed to him a logical thing to do. He paid $30,000 for the film rights, and the Heywards accepted their share of this money, but Jolson could not get the picture made. Now he was returning to the idea of Porgy, but this time as a Broadway show. Heyward tried to use this turn of events to scare George into making a commitment, but to his surprise, Gershwin greeted the news not just with equanimity but also with something more like relief. If Jolson was in, he was out—and, therefore, off the hook. As of the summer of 1932, he still did not feel ready to write an opera. Heyward, however, was convinced that he and Gershwin could create a masterpiece. A soft-spoken and unassuming man, much like Ira, he now resorted to some uncharacteristic conniving . He told George that Jolson’s offer was tempting to him not just for financial reasons but because it might actually turn out to be interesting. “I cannot see brother Jolson as Porgy,” he wrote, “but I have heard that he was casting about for something more artistic than his usual Sonny Boy line, and what his real potentialities are, I have very little idea.”2 In fact, as Heyward and Gershwin soon found out, Jolson was trying to bring Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II into the undertaking. If that happened, the resulting show might be very good, maybe something on the order of Show Boat, a musical play George greatly admired. Heyward told Gershwin that he would very much prefer working with him but that, given further hesitation, he would go with Jolson. Then he backpedaled, asking if the two of them might collaborate with Jolson. “Or,” he added, “is that too preposterous?”3 To Gershwin that was preposterous. The idea of Jolson as Porgy in blackface seemed like an invitation to disaster. No matter how good the script was or how terrific the music, it would be Blue Monday again. And this time it was not going to be an inexpensive skit inserted into an other- 62 george฀gershwin wise profitable revue. This was going to be a major production requiring a lot of money—money from the backers, money from the ticket buyers, money that was not plentiful in the middle of the Depression. And he would be abandoning the one milieu where he was comfortable and where he still reigned supreme—Broadway musical comedy—for the highbrow world where he had found more scorn than praise. Moreover, this time his foray would not be into the concert hall, it would be...