Simple Simon
One of America's most cherished clowns, Ed Wynn, brought his fumbling style, nervous laugh, and excruciating puns to this Florenz Ziegfeld production which opened at the impresario's own Broadway theatre on 18 February 1930. Wynn also collaborated with Guy Bolton on the book in which he was cast a a newspaper vendor who, rather than accept that bad news exists, spends his time in a kind of fairy-tale land. This gave Ziegfeld and his designer Joseph Urban the opportunity to display the lavish sets and costumes for which he was justifiably famous. Richard Rodgersand Lorenz Hart wrote the score, and it contained one of their most enduring numbers, Ten Cents A Dance, which was emphatically introduced by Ruth Etting. She had a big record hit with the song, and it figured prominently in her film biography, LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME, in which she was played by Doris Day. Ironically, the song Love Me Or Leave Me ( Gus Kahn- Walter Donaldson) was added to the score of SIMPLE SIMON a couple of months after the show opened. One of the numbers that was cut during the Broadway try-out, Dancing On The Ceiling, was later sung by Jessie Matthews in the London production of Ever Green, and became forever associated with her. The remainder of the score for SIMPLE SIMON included I Can Do Wonders With You, Don't Tell Your Folks, Send For Me, and I Still Believe In You. The show ran for 135 performances, and returned early in 1931 for a further brief engagement.