Jan. 15, 2006
Big Roles For a Big Guy

Harvey Fierstein talks about adapting ‘Hairspray’ for Vegas, weight loss and gay movies

[hear the podcast with Harvey by clicking here]
[See companion piece on Avenue Q's Vegas woes here]

By Steve Friess
NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE

Jan. 15 — Last week, stage legend Harvey Fierstein gave up the peasant garb of Tevye in Broadway's "Fiddler on the Roof" to head to Las Vegas. There he'll slip back into the outlandish plus-sized dresses of "Hairspray's mammoth mama Edna Turnblad, the role that in 2002 won him his fourth Tony award. A slimmed-down 90-minute sit-down production of the Best Musical Tony winner opens next month at the Luxor Hotel-Casino with Fierstein and Dick Latessa reprising their original roles for the first 12 weeks.

Fierstein, 51, spoke to Steve Friess about the move, his weight loss and "Brokeback Mountain."

NEWSWEEK: So how did this Vegas thing come about?

Harvey Fierstein: Well, I understand there was a desert there and some mobsters came along… But I saw the movie. (Chuckles.) No, really. I decided to come because I've never been to Las Vegas and I'm not sure I would ever get there unless Celebrity Poker called me. But, you know, they only call my ["Fiddler" co-star] wife, Rosie O'Donnell. They don't call me.

Since you've never been to Vegas, predict for me what you'll find there.

Doing 10 shows a week, I probably won't get to see much. I assume there will be a lot of tourists. I assume Rip Taylor will make me crazy. I assume Siegfried and Roy will stop by and say hello. I haven't seen them since they were in my dressing room at "Hairspray" in New York [before a 2003 on-stage tiger attack on Roy ended the duo's Vegas show.] I haven't seen them since all that.

Anything else?

I think being on Broadway on a daily basis and living on the Strip on a daily basis probably aren't that different other than the sound of the [slot] machines. And the lines are longer for the all-you-can-eat buffets.

Speaking of the buffets, I read you lost a bit of weight since you played Edna in order to play Tevye in "Fiddler"...

No, I didn't lose the weight for Tevye. What happened was that playing Edna for two years, I felt there was no need to watch my weight at all. The fatter I was, the less fat I had to wear in the fat suit. So in my dressing room at "Hairspray," I kept the whole counter covered in potato chips and candy and every bit of good things there are to eat. But when I left "Hairspray," I was grand marshalling the Gay Day Parade in New York and I saw the photos on TV. I couldn't tell where my ass ended and the convertible's seat began. I said to myself, "Cookie, who's gonna hire ya looking like that?" I was just too big. So I started doing the low-carb thing.

When you play Edna again, will you need your own personal buffet to get back up?

No, I'm still a big guy, and a big guy makes a big girl.

No misgivings about cutting the show to 90 minutes for Vegas?

We'll see how it works. On paper, it works just fine and looks just lovely. The only thing I will personally miss is the opening of Act Two. I got to tap dance in high heels, which was an ambition of mine, but I've already done it. The audience liked it but, you know, they can live without me tap dancing in high heels. But "Hairspray" in this instance will be entertainment for a mass audience. The way we cut it and shaped it, it's much more like a launching of a rocket. It'll start and keep going and wham! An explosion at the end. And that's a perfectly valid theatrical experience.

It's been reported that the sum of money thrown at you to come to Las Vegas was record-breaking for theatrical entertainers. Is it as big as everybody says it is?

Compared to what people make in show business, it's an absurdly small number. I will never be paid anywhere near what a minor movie star makes. I'm a theater artist who loves doing what I do. For many years, I've made $50 or $100 a week and I assumed in the end it would all even out. So if I happen to be at a moment where I'm making a nice living, I'm going to enjoy it.

You told Playboy in 1988 when [Fierstein's Tony-winning gay play] "Torch Song Trilogy" was being made into a movie that you insisted a gay actor get the lead role, which you eventually took yourself. Now, everything you read about "Brokeback Mountain" is about how these two young hot guys are playing gay...

So nothing has changed. "Brokeback Mountain" is doing fabulous business and I'm very happy about that, but had it been two gay actors, I don't know.

Do you think the place of "Torch Song Trilogy" in gay movie history is being trivialized with all the hype surrounding "Brokeback?"

Things fall into place in time. "Philadelphia" was hyped as the great gay movie when it came out, and there are very few people who think of it as a great gay movie anymore. "Torch Song" still holds an audience and I still have kids who come to me and say 'I used this film to come out to my family or whatever.'

You and Rosie O'Donnell are openly gay people who were playing very iconic straight roles in "Fiddler." Did you two ever giggle about that?

At first we did. But there's no winking like that at all on stage. We play husband and wife as believably as we can. What fascinates me is that we had Hassidic men come and some will wait outside the stage door and compliment me. It's very strange because they've been taught to hate gay people. And here they find a gay man who is bringing pride to our culture.

In that Playboy interview, you referenced a closeted lesbian star whom you were trying to get to come out. It's been more than 15 years. Is that star out yet?

I don't remember who that was. But I will tell you this. You'd think times have changed, but someone was going to be honored last year at a very big public honoring…one of those Kennedy Center kind of things. I was asked to be part of it. I wrote my little speech and in it I mentioned her lover. I was told she wanted me to take that out. This is someone who is supposedly out. So I wasn't a part of it, obviously.

Any chance you'll stay longer than three months in Vegas?

No. They don't want me any longer than that. (Laughs.) I told them I'd stay longer and they said, 'No that's quite all right, get out."

Are you guys doing a movie of "Hairspray?"

Well, if you believe what you read in the paper, then John Travolta is playing my role. So I don't know.

Hear Steve Friess' interview with Harvey Fierstein in its entirety at http://podcasts.lvrocks.com/player.aspx?showid=586

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