She wired the studio head, Jack Warner, that she was “not keen”, and suggested Dean Martin or Gordon Macrae. Raitt then flew to Hollywood to test with Day herself, and gained her approval. “To get the movie,” he said, I had to turn down Bells Are Ringing on Broadway, but I wanted a shot at being in the movies. One of my main competitors was Howard Keel, who had just done Calamity Jane with Doris, but George Abbott told me to sit tight, he was going to push for me.Made when film musicals were on the wane, the film was given a tight budget, and Raitt was paid $25,000, the same as Fosse but less than Carol Haney, who was recreating her supporting role from the stage version. Donen said, “The picture was made in something like just under six weeks, because the studio didn’t care if it was made or not.” With virtually the entire Broadway cast, except Janis Paige, the film proved as joyous as the show, one of its highlights being the recreation by Day and Raitt of the ebullient “There Once Was a Man” routine.Returning to the theatre, he had a great success as Frank Butler opposite Mary Martin in a revival of Annie Get Your Gun that toured the US and then played on television He and Martin also made a popular record album of the score. Subsequently, he spent much of his time touring in such musicals as Oklahoma!, Destry Rides Again, Kismet and On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, as well as the perennial Carousel and The Pajama Game.I first met him in 1970 at the Westbury Music Fair in Long Island, where he was starring with Chita Rivera in Zorba. In 1957 he was given his original role in the film version of The Pajama Game, though once again he was not the first choice.
Warner Bros wanted Frank Sinatra, while George Abbott, who co-directed the film with Stanley Donen, wanted Marlon Brando. Bing Crosby was the next choice and would have been given the role had he not asked for too much money.Abbott thereupon shot a test of Raitt in New York, which was flown to Day, who had cast approval. Years of operatic training and very legit theatre singing got in the way. Finally, he found that ideal combination of rich sound and sustained character that gave his role unity and life on stage.Besides “Hey, There”, Raitt introduced “Once a Year Day” and had two outstanding duets with his leading lady, Janis Paige, “Small Talk”, in which he sings of his desire to make love while she counters with trivialities, and the show-stopping “There Once Was a Man”, a frenetic declaration of love incorporating some brilliantly imaginative choreography by Bob Fosse. (Raitt claimed that Frank Loesser, in fact, wrote the song.)The Pajama Game opened to raves from all nine New York newspapers of the time, the Times praising Raitt’s “deep voice and romantic manner”.Raitt would often return to the roles of Bigelow and Sorokin throughout his career in revivals or touring productions. “When you’re the superintendent, and you’re speaking dialogue, you sound like a factory superintendent.
Jerry and I had to agree on that point, but, being songwriters, we wanted our songs sung well.Abbott continued to search for an alternative and it was only two days before the beginning of rehearsals that he agreed to hire Raitt, still with some reluctance. Adler confessed that Raitt’s operatic qualities initially damaged his big number, “Hey, There”, sung into a dictaphone as he berates himself for succumbing to love, after which he plays the song back and answers himself with a sung obbligato: “Look, John,” I said. Why not sound like a superintendent when you’re singing, too?” He laughed, and he got it, but very slowly. This veritable young giant came on stage and sang Figaro with such zest, execution, beauty of voice and clarity of diction, that we were all carried away by the excitement of the occasion.
But, when you’re singing a song, you sound like an opera star, making with the round, pearly tones. Though praised for its music, production values and Jack Cole’s exotic choreography, most agreed with Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times that the libretto was “profoundly dull”, and the show ran for only 88 performances.In 1952 Raitt starred with Anne Jeffreys in the whimsical Three Wishes for Jamie, and the following year partnered Dolores Gray in Carnival in Flanders, a short-lived show notable for a song introduced by Gray, “Here’s That Rainy Day”, which went on to become a standard.Raitt had to wait until 1954 for another solid hit, when he was cast as Sid Sorokin, the factory superintendent who falls in love with a union official, in The Pajama Game. And, if his vocal delivery was a little too operatic, so what, I thought, I can work with it.George Abbott, though, was not impressed: He was, in Mr Abbott’s words, a stiff actor. He was big, handsome, powerful, and a little on the square side – which wasn’t wrong for the part. Raitt auditioned, and his projection and intonation were perfect for the role. We had seen Raitt a few months before in a City Center revival of Carousel, and we suggested him to our director, George Abbott. The show’s score was by two newcomers (both prot?s of Frank Loesser), Richard Adler and Jerry Ross, and Adler later recalled that he and Ross initially fought to get Raitt cast: Van Johnson wanted the part very badly, but his voice wasn’t strong enough for the kind of singers’ songs we’d written.
