PW: You're a renowned dance critic with a number of books to your name. How did the idea for this book, Jerome Robbins, come about?
A close friend of Jerry's and one of his literary executors called me and said, "Do you have any idea how much Jerry liked your writing?" And I said, "Not really." [laughs] He basically said that if I agreed, they would give me complete access to Robbins's archives, his private letters, journals — everything.
You're quoted as saying you felt like a "sleuth" going through his papers. Were there any surprises?
There were delicious things that came out. I was looking through one box and found an audio tape. It was a recording of Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim singing the songs for The Exception and the Rule. To find this tape and hear these voices was amazing.
How would you describe the relationship Robbins had with George Balanchine?
Robbins admired Balanchine tremendously; he considered him a mentor. In Robbins's early journal entries and stories, he doesn't rave about Balanchine, but later he talks about wanting to sit in on Balanchine's rehearsals. In his relationship with Balanchine, there was a combination of awe and a little bit of jealousy, over [the ballerina Tanaquil] Le Clerqc, whom Robbins was crazy about, and about their reputations.
Do you think he ever came to terms with testifying to the House Committee on Un-American Activities?
Never totally. He said something like, "It didn't come out the way I thought, but at least it's out and I'll move on." But I don't think he could ever deal with it fully.
What do you think of the state of the Robbins repertory eight years after his death?
Well, Robbins cared a great deal about posterity, while Balanchine said he didn't. But Robbins had a very different, type A personality. He passed on his perfectionism to the people he chose to be his ballet masters. And he left them money in his will, not as a bribe, but an appreciation for how well they understood his work.
The characters in Balanchine's works are adults, while in Robbins's musicals and ballets, they're always young.
I think Robbins had a thing about youth. He was young when he started; he admired youth. In some senses, he was very youthful himself. He retained a lively curiosity and was interested in things around him. He retained an excitement about things he saw; there was definitely a kind of boyishness about him. And maybe there was in his work a sort of nostalgia for the youth he never really had.
Did Simon & Schuster ask you to do the book, or did you approach them?
My agent, Robert Cornfield, sent the book around to a number of publishers, and Simon & Schuster put in a bid for it.
