George cohan biography hardcover book

McCabe makes the same point that Mark Steyn makes in Broadway Babies Say Goodnight, which is that:

Great American musical theatre is a newcomer to the arts in that it has principally evolved within the life-span of men still with us.

In the early seventies when he wrote The Man Who Owned Broadway, this was even more true. Like George Abbott (who appears only as a footnote), George M. Cohan was there at the beginning, as vaudeville was replaced by theaters, especially musical theater. And like Abbott, Cohan worked right up until his death at 62. Cohan was about nine years older than Abbott, but died fifty-three years earlier.

While he was, toward the end of his career, knowingly out of touch with Broadway tastes, he was known for most of his career as much more in-touch with both Broadway and the part of middle America that he brought his touring companies to. Both his language and his topics reflected then-modern habits.

In the late fall of 1934, during the national tour of Ah, Wilderness!… Cohan’s acting took on certain extensions not present in the Broadway production. He began to add little touches and bits of business which, together with a growing tendency to pause reflectively in reaction to