who had been his employer and friend for over twenty years, and thought about how glad he was that Dennis had left A Private Empire behind him. The show had made Dennis a fortune, it was true, but it had also cost him much.
There had been, first and foremost, the problem of identity. To the world at large, Dennis Hamilton was the Emperor Frederick, and vice versa, from the time he was nineteen years old, the star of A Private Empire and the newest enfant terrible of Broadway. The show had run on the street for five years, and Dennis had been with it for every performance, except for a five-month hiatus in 1968 in which he went to Hollywood to star in the film version. After the show closed, he accepted a number of movie offers, but the films, unlike the cinematic A Private Empire, were less than huge successes, both critically and at the box offices.
Dennis Hamilton was Emperor Frederick as surely as George Reeves had been Superman and Bela Lugosi Dracula, and neither his private detective in The Crystal. 45, his beleaguered deputy in The Battle for Tombstone, nor his baffled college student in Up Against It won him attention. Only the rock musical, Sparks, made any money, and that was because Dennis's co-star was Bette Barton, whose rock album went platinum just before the film's release. Most of the critics observed rightly that Dennis's trained lyric baritone wasn't right for the role, and his vocal coach's attempts to turn him into an R amp;B belter were strained at best, laughable at worst.
After Sparks, the only offers of movie roles his agent was able to get were leads in low-budget films, which Dennis turned down. Instead he recorded albums of standards which sold slowly but steadily, appeared on TV variety shows, and performed in solo concerts around the country and occasionally in Vegas. Although films would have been more lucrative, Dennis had no need of money. Back in 1968, when he received a large amount from both his contract renewal and his film performance of Emperor Frederick, he had been lucky enough to fall into the hands of John Steinberg, an experienced financial manager who took the young man and his investments under his wing.
Steinberg guided Dennis through both his career and his private life, which included a marriage in 1969 to Natalie Pierce, a well-known stage actress a few years older than Dennis, the birth of their son Evan in 1970, and their divorce in 1971. Natalie got custody of the baby, which was, in retrospect, a mistake of the court, considering her suicide less than a year after the divorce was final. Evan then came to live with his father, whose career was scudding along more lethargically than the one that had driven Natalie Pierce to wash down fifty-seven sleeping pills with a bottle of Drambuie.
But because of John Steinberg's expertise with a dollar, Dennis Hamilton was able to bide his time and still live like the emperor he had created on the stage. Steinberg bought penny stocks that quickly grew to dollar ones. He invested in real estate like a wizard, purchasing apparently worthless lots that in a few years grew to be ideal places to build shopping malls, housing developments, and industrial parks. With those profits he bought song catalogues and invested in well-chosen films and theatrical productions, a dangerous game, but one which Steinberg loved to play, and played properly. Of seventeen such investments made from 1975 to 1978, only one failed to show a profit, and by 1978, Dennis Hamilton was worth in excess of fifty million dollars.
That year, Dennis was offered a lead in a TV series, a sitcom about a teacher at a military academy, and he accepted it against Steinberg's advice. Twelve episodes of Up in Arms were made, but critical response was so negative and viewer disinterest so high that only seven were aired.
Three more years of gradually declining album sales and less well attended concerts followed. Television variety shows were dead, and from 1978 to 1981 Dennis's television exposure consisted of eight appearances with Mery Griffin, and his annual appearance on the Muscular Dystrophy telethon, which had begun in 1972. Then, in 1981, Irwin Richards decided to stage a revival of A Private Empire, and asked Dennis if he would repeat his role of Emperor Frederick.
At first, Dennis was hesitant. 'I've done it, John,' he told Steinberg. 'I mean, it's a part of my career that's behind me now.'
'And what's ahead is so wonderful?' Steinberg asked. 'You're only thirty-four years old, Dennis. You're a rich man, and your being rich has made me rich too, but except for A Private Empire, your life is notable only for the remarkable string of failures you've been able to pack into such an abbreviated career. No offense.'
'Do I ever take any from you? If I did, we wouldn't have lasted a month together.'
'My point is,' Steinberg went on, 'that like it or not, that show was the high point of your career. You are still a young man, and since you look far younger than you really are, you could still play the role to perfection. There has never been a better male part written in American musical theatre, as far as I'm concerned, and if you're still unconvinced, let me just whisper two little words to you.'
'What?'
'Yul Brynner.'
'Yul Brynner,' Dennis repeated.
'Do you know what The King and I revival did for his career? And he'd been working steadily for nearly three decades anyway. You, on the other hand… Well, if you do this show, it should be even more impressive than Brynner's return to the stage, because, unlike him, you have barely been seen for ten years. You would be like a phoenix rising from the conflagration of a, shall we say, less than
splendid career? It would be as though no time has passed since today and 1966.'
'You think I should do it.'
'No, of course not, I just love to hear myself talk.”
“I don't know, John…'
'My dear boy,' Steinberg said without a smile, 'may I be blunt?”
“Blunter than usual?'
'Yes. It won't be easy to hear, but it's necessary if you want to do more than merely be a wealthy man.'
'All right,' Dennis said after a pause. 'Shoot.'
'I will. You are not a marketable commodity in the eighties, Dennis. You have a spectacular musical comedy voice, your acting is solid if not on the level of Olivier, your dancing is less than splendid, due to those same flat feet that kept you from military service and, you being the klutz you are, no doubt saved your life. You are a creature of the musical theatre. And I have urged you time and again to return to the stage, perhaps in some vehicles that, true, were not worthy of your participation, but you have always refused, feeling that a return to Broadway was a step backwards. But on screen and television, except for the film version of Empire, you have only a string of failures behind you, and as far as recording goes, your once a year albums no longer sell enough to warrant their creation, as you have no doubt been able to tell by RCA's lack of enthusiasm over your latest proposed project. Are you with me so far?'
'I'm listening.'
'Don't hold it back, boy. The truth hurts, and I'm sure that you're very pissed off at me for telling it.'
'You're fucking right.'
'Why? Because I'm blunt, or because I'm right?'
'Both. You prick.'
'That's more like it – a little righteous indignation. But now I'll tell you the good part.'
'I can hardly wait.'
'I love you, Dennis. Like a son. And I've helped to make you very rich. Now it's time to make you a star. Again. And a revival of Empire will do that, I promise you. I swear to you. Have I ever been wrong? Wait, don't answer that, it doesn't matter. Because this time I'm right.'
'John, they're offering scale, for God's sake.'
'What do you care about money? Do it for nothing if you have to, but do it.”
“But Richards is a two bit producer, he won't be able to stage it on the scale that it was done in '66-'
'The hell with Richards. We back him, become the biggest investor, get 51 percent – you know Richards never has enough investors – then take it over. We'll get the best designer, choreographer, costumer -'
'Now wait, John, I don't want this to be a vanity production.'
'It won't be. No one will know we've backed it until much, much later, after all the reviews are in and the tickets sold months in advance. And when it's a hit – note the word when, not if – Richards will sell out the rest to us.' Steinberg paused for a moment, then smiled. 'There's another reason to do it, Dennis.'
'What?'
