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  When Schoenfeld and Jacobs warned John Shubert about ice, he responded that room 504 had been set up to prevent brokers from getting their hands on the best tickets. “That, of course, was sheer nonsense,” said Phil Smith. “Either John Shubert was naive or a criminal.”

  John Shubert did not live to see the family empire rattled by a ticket scandal he helped create. On November 16, 1962, he died of a heart attack on a train to Clearwater, Florida. Though they didn’t know it at the time, John’s death was the opening that would one day allow Schoenfeld and Jacobs to ascend to the top of the American theater. “While there is death there is hope.” Or, as Bernie Jacobs once put it, “Gerald and I got where we are because the right people died at the right time.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Bastards, Criminals, and Drunks

  Betty and Bernie Jacobs flew to Clearwater, Florida, to claim John Shubert’s body. He had gone to Florida to celebrate Thanksgiving with his mistress, Nancy Mae Eyerman, a tall, slender, attractive brunette. John’s wife, Kerttu Helene Eklund Shubert—“Eckie,” as everyone called her—lived in New York in an apartment on West Fifty-Fourth Street and in a palatial white colonial house in Byram, Connecticut. John and Eckie, a former showgirl, had been married since 1937. But they had been estranged for years at the time of his death, and he had told those close to him that the love of his life was Nancy, whom he’d met on a transatlantic ocean liner in 1958. He had two children with Nancy, Sarah Catherine and John Jason—J. J. Jr. John had no children with Eckie—it was rumored that he forced her to have at least two abortions—and few people knew about his second family in Clearwater. Betty and Bernie Jacobs knew about it, however. And they knew something else. Nancy Eyerman wasn’t just John’s mistress; she was his second wife. In 1961, John and Nancy traveled to El Paso, Texas. They slipped across the border to Juarez, Mexico, where John got a divorce from Eckie. (In the 1960s, Mexico did not require spouses to be present at divorce hearings. Many celebrities of the era, including Marilyn Monroe, Katharine Hepburn, and Johnny Carson, were also granted Mexican or “quickie” divorces.) A few days later he married Nancy.

  Eckie knew about John’s second marriage, too. The day he filed for the Mexican divorce, he wrote her a letter of apology, telling her the divorce was worthless and that he still loved her. “I think she took John to the train when he went down to see Nancy before he died,” recalled Betty Jacobs. In Clearwater, Bernie and Betty met with Nancy and asked her not to come to the funeral in New York. It would be awkward. The Shubert family didn’t need another scandal.

  John Shubert’s funeral was held on November 21, 1962, on the stage of the Majestic Theatre, where Camelot was playing. In his will, John stipulated that no one but Eckie be onstage during the service. She sat in a chair next to his coffin. And where was Wife Number Two? Accounts differ. Shubert biographer Foster Hirsch reports that people who knew Nancy were stationed at the doors of the Majestic to bar her from entering if she turned up. He says Nancy did not attend the service. But Betty Jacobs has a different recollection. “She was there. I saw her. She sat in the back of the theater. Eckie was up there with the coffin. Nancy was at the back. We asked her not to come, but she came. What were we going to do? She was a wife, too.”

  Schoenfeld and Jacobs sorted out John Shubert’s affairs. He had, they discovered, safe deposit boxes in banks all over town. Squirreled away was about $500,000 in cash. Crisp, clean bills. Some people were quick to suspect that this was John’s share of the ice from room 504. The IRS eventually examined the bills and discovered that the serial numbers were from the 1920s. “Those bills hadn’t seen the daylight for a long time,” said Phil Smith. “They were out of circulation for so long, they weren’t even taxable.”

  In the end, the newspapers reported that John’s estate amounted to $600,000, though many on Broadway thought it was at least $1 million or more. Whatever the figure, it was dwarfed by the value of the Shubert empire. The real money—$15 million, if not more, according to estimates at the time—still belonged to J. J. Shubert. But he was bedridden in his Sardi’s penthouse apartment, lost in the fog of dementia.

  With John dead and J. J. enfeebled, who would run the Shubert empire? Bernie Jacobs thought Schoenfeld should step forward. Schoenfeld had been dealing with Shubert business for more than ten years. He knew as much about the business as anybody else working on West Forty-Fourth Street. He had the respect and support of influential lawyers like John Wharton and Jim Vaughan. He didn’t know much about reading scripts and hiring directors, but that didn’t matter. The Shuberts had been out of the producing business for several years. The empire was, for the most part, a real estate business. But Schoenfeld wasn’t ready. “Jerry was cautious,” said Phil Smith. “I don’t think he thought it would look right. Shubert was a family business.”

  Milton Shubert was in Florida, still recovering from the evisceration he’d suffered at J. J.’s hands in 1954. Murray Helwitz was a distant Shubert cousin, but “Stuttering M-M-Murray,” as they called him because he stuttered when he got nervous, was running 504. Not exactly the Harvard Business School. The best candidate appeared to be Lawrence Shubert Lawrence Jr. His father, Lawrence Shubert Lawrence Sr., was Lee and J. J.’s nephew and ran their theaters in Philadelphia. Lawrence Jr. had attended the right schools—Lawrenceville prep in New Jersey, the University of Pennsylvania. He’d worked under J. J. and John for thirty-six years as manager of various theaters in New York. He also had the Shubert name. He was appointed head of the Shubert Organization after John’s funeral “to provide the illusion of continuity” and calm fears around Broadway that the company might be disbanded and the theaters sold off.1 After his appointment was announced, he celebrated at the second-floor bar at Sardi’s. And that is where you could find him for most of his tenure as head of the Shubert empire.

  • • •

  This is what Bernie Jacobs had to say about Lawrence Shubert Lawrence Jr. in 1996: “Lawrence had alcohol in his system twenty-four hours a day. He woke up in the morning drinking, and he went to sleep drinking. He was an egomaniac, incompetent, and terrible to work with. And still we lived with him for ten years. They were terrible times. The business was going to the devil. Everything was out of control.”

  Sam, Lee, and J. J. were not afflicted by the alcoholism that ruined their father. But their nephew, Lawrence Sr., and his son, Lawrence Jr., certainly were.

  In 1956, Harvey Sabinson, then a young press agent, landed his first Broadway-bound show, Eduardo de Filippo’s The Best House in Naples. The tryout was in Philadelphia at the Shubert-owned Walnut Street Theatre. “Opening night in Philadelphia—I’ll never forget this—in front of the theater, Lawrence Shubert Lawrence Sr. pukes all over the sidewalk as the audience is coming in,” Sabinson recalled. “I thought, How do these guys wind up with these jobs? Well, it’s because they’re named Shubert!” Larry Sr. would sometimes drive up to New York from Philadelphia to see a show. He’d park his Bentley in Shubert Alley and then head straight to the Piccadilly Circus Bar in the Piccadilly Hotel on West Forty-Fifth Street. He’d get so drunk, he’d miss the show and have to sleep it off in the hotel.

  Larry Jr.’s drink of choice was Dewar’s. “Let’s have a blast,” he’d say. After downing several Scotches, he’d relieve himself in the men’s room and say, “I’m just the middleman—it goes right through me!” “That was his favorite joke,” said an old Shubert hand. “He thought it was hilarious.”

  Larry Shubert was at the second-floor bar in Sardi’s so often, he had a phone installed at one end of the bar in case he had to conduct business. One afternoon someone else was in his usual seat by the phone. The next day he had another phone installed at the other end of the bar. If he wasn’t at Sardi’s, you could find him at the Piccadilly Circus Bar. Or at the Playbill Bar in the Hotel Manhattan (now the Row NYC). You’d seldom find him in a theater. He wasn’t interested in shows. Bernie Jacobs once accompanied him to London to see some plays headed for New York. As soon as they got
to the Savoy Hotel, Larry headed for the bar. They were supposed to see a play of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s that night, but Larry didn’t want to go. “Why bother? It’s not worth it,” he said. Jacobs returned to the hotel after the show and found Larry still at the bar. “Well, how was it?” he asked. “Much Ado About Nothing,” Jacobs said. “I thought so!” Larry replied, triumphantly.

  “He was considered that branch of the family where the brains had gone bad,” said Bernard Gersten, who was then working alongside Joe Papp at the New York Shakespeare Festival. “He was disregarded by Bernie and Jerry.”

  When Larry did turn up at the theater, it was usually to leer at the chorus girls during auditions or rehearsals. Betty Jacobs said, “Larry’s mother once told me, ‘Watch out for my son. He’s after you.’ I didn’t pay much attention to that, but I remember she said it.”

  Larry’s girlfriend was Oona White, the choreographer of shows such as The Music Man and Take Me Along. But he favored pretty young blondes. One afternoon he was invited to a reading of a new play at a fancy apartment on Fifth Avenue. He wanted Phil Smith, who had recently joined the company, to drive up from Shubert Alley with him. But first he wanted a drink.

  “Wait for me,” he said.

  “Larry, I want to go now,” Smith replied.

  “You wait for me, you hear?” he said.

  Smith recalled, “He’d always give you the ‘Hear me!’ And that meant, ‘I’m the boss.’ ”

  They took Larry’s limousine up to the apartment, but before they went in, the boss said, “I want to have a blast. Where can we go?” The Stanhope Hotel on Fifth Avenue across the street from the Metropolitan Museum was nearby. So Larry had “a blast.” And then, said Smith, “He had himself another blast. He was a fast drinker.”

  Smith finally got Larry out of the Stanhope and up to the apartment. A young, beautiful blond actress named Blythe Danner had a small part in the reading. Larry, who by now was tipsy, stared at her and started saying, “Weee! Weee!” throughout the reading.

  The ice scandal hit Broadway and the Shuberts not long after Larry succeeded John Shubert. Even in his alcoholic haze he must have realized that the company was in jeopardy. Assistant Attorney General Clurman had enough evidence to indict Stuttering M-M-Murray Helwitz. He pressed Helwitz to finger some higher-ups. Lawrence Shubert Lawrence Jr. was in his sights. But Helwitz wouldn’t talk. “Murray Helwitz took the fall for the industry,” says producer Manny Azenberg. Helwitz pled guilty to taking more than $70,000 from nine ticket brokers in 1963. Clurman said the figure was conservative, believing it was at least $250,000. The criminal court judge who heard the case added, “I suspect somebody above you got some of the money. There’s a well-known rumor that the money trickles upward, not downward. There’s a strong indication that whoever gets the gravy sends it upstairs, not downstairs.”

  Helwitz was sentenced to eight months in jail and fined $4,600. When he got out, he went back to work for the Shubert Organization, now under the direction of Lawrence Shubert Lawrence Jr.

  • • •

  As the ice scandal was unfolding, another scandal hit the Shubert family. In May 1963, Nancy Mae Eyerman Shubert filed a claim in Surrogate Court that she was the real Mrs. John Shubert and that her two children were entitled to his estate. Eckie filed her own claim. The ruling would be crucial to the fate of the Shubert empire. If Nancy won, the Shubert estate would probably have to be broken up. Theaters and other pieces of real estate would be sold to settle accounts. But if Eckie won, it would be business as usual. The case went to court in August 1963, with Surrogate Judge Samuel DiFalco presiding. A product of Tammany Hall, DiFalco and his court were famously corrupt. DiFalco was indicted on misconduct charges in 1976 but died before the case went to trial. One of his schemes was to pass out “guardianships” to cronies. These were practically no-show jobs that came with hefty fees. DiFalco appointed Arthur N. Field as guardian to John Shubert’s children. Field was DiFalco’s former law partner, and he was paid $15,000 to “sit down with us for fifteen minutes,” Nancy would recall ten years later.2

  Eckie attended the trial in a wheelchair, as she’d broken her leg. She wore a short-sleeved black dress, two strands of pearls, and a diamond cross. Both Nancy and Eckie wore wedding rings.3 They sat in the courtroom listening to testimony about the Mexican divorce and marriage; John’s letter to Eckie telling her the divorce was worthless; charges of John having a “divided life” and a “dual personality,” according to Nancy’s attorney. Nancy’s father, Edward Eyerman, said John had told him his life with Eckie was “unbearable” because she drank and cheated on him. The next day the tabloids ran sordid stories about the Shubert family. A young reporter at the New York Post with a stylish pen—Nora Ephron—had fun with John’s letter to Eckie. “It’s a rare man who will take the trouble to write loving and consoling letters to his first wife while clearing the way to acquire a new one,” Ephron wrote. “Nobody, it appears, was more thoughtful about such matters than John Shubert.”4

  It was all too much for both Eckie and Nancy, neither of whom had ever sought publicity. Edward Eyerman, a prosperous banker from Kingston, Pennsylvania, was disgusted with the spectacle. He was battling cancer and wanted to go home. He had no use for the Shuberts and their messy lives. “You don’t need their money,” he told his daughter. “Let’s go home.”5

  The next day, Nancy settled out of court. She did not want to embarrass herself or her children anymore. DiFalco helped draw up the settlement. It could not have been more favorable to the Shuberts. Nancy agreed to give up the name Shubert and never again claim to have been married to John. The Mexican divorce and marriage were invalidated. Eckie was deemed the real Mrs. John Shubert. Nancy’s children were declared legitimate and each received $12,500. But they gave up all claims to the estate of their father or grandfather. Once again, the empire was saved. It would be business as usual.I

  Was the decision fair? Foley Vaughan, who with his father represented many clients in Surrogate Court, said, “It was a horrible result. Now, there was not as much tender feeling toward out-of-wedlock children as there is today. Illegitimacy was a real barrier. But it was a terrible result for those kids and an advantageous result for the Shuberts. But I never heard anyone say the wire was in.”

  “The wire was in”—this was an old expression whispered often around the Surrogate Court. It meant the fix was in. It meant somebody had gotten to DiFalco and secured a favorable decision. It was around the time of the Shubert settlement that a Runyonesque figure named Irving Goldman emerged from the back rooms of New York politics to play a role in Shubert affairs. “Irving Goldman was in the ‘favors business,’ ” said veteran producer Albert Poland. “He had the charm of a guy who sells you used Chevrolet upholstery. And I mean used!”

  Goldman’s background is murky. He was, he would say, born into grinding poverty in Brooklyn. He claimed he wore cardboard shoes to school. As a teenager he got a job in a paint company and would later claim that, while delivering paint to a Shubert theater, he met J. J. Shubert. Goldman said J. J. took a liking to him immediately. “You won’t be an errand boy for long,” J. J. predicted. J. J. took to calling him “son” and gave him a few thousand dollars to start his own paint business. By 1960, according to Shubert biographer Foster Hirsch, Goldman had a thriving business called Gothic Color that supplied paint to Broadway theaters and set shops. He always boasted of his friendship with J. J., but nobody believed him. J. J. barely felt paternal to his own son. Why would he take kindly to a little paint salesman?6

  “I think he made the whole thing up,” said Phil Smith. “Because I talked to guys back then who knew J. J., and nobody remembers him. One guy said to me, ‘I spent a lot of time with J. J. I think I would have remembered Irving Goldman. I don’t remember him.’ ”

  When he wasn’t selling paint, Goldman was cultivating powerful friends, including Abe Beame, who would become mayor in 1974, and Surrogate Court Judge Samuel DiFalco.

&nbs
p; “He called DiFalco ‘Speedy,’ ” Smith remembered. “We were at an event once and he dragged me into the bar at the Bull and the Bear restaurant and said, ‘I want you to come in and have a drink with Speedy and myself!’ ”

  Was Goldman “the wire”? In 1974, New York Post reporter Joseph Berger examined Goldman’s connection to the Shubert settlement. By then, Goldman had become a Shubert executive. Quoting unnamed sources, Berger reported that Goldman boasted of his influence in the case with DiFalco. “It was a tough task I had to do,” Goldman allegedly said. One of Berger’s sources added, “Goldman never let [the Shuberts] forget it was a difficult case.” Berger also interviewed Nancy Eyerman, who recalled that a Shubert secretary named Violet Fisch told her, “DiFalco and a man named Goldman had it all set up. DiFalco wasn’t going to sit there and be impartial the way you’d hope a judge would be.” But Fisch herself said in the same article that she couldn’t remember the incident. And DiFalco told the Post, “No third party has ever influenced me.”7

  Whether or not Goldman had anything to do with the Shubert settlement will probably never be known. But after the decision came down, he became a regular visitor to the Shubert executive offices, and a good deal of business from the company came his way. In Playbills from the 1960s, his paint company is credited with doing interiors of Shubert theaters. He also cultivated a relationship with Lawrence Shubert Lawrence Jr., hanging out with him in bars and introducing him to politicians. In 1971, Lawrence appointed him to the Shubert board of directors. He also got to know Jerry Schoenfeld and Bernie Jacobs. It was an association both men would come to regret.