The Nicest Diva of Them All Creator of such indelible musical divas as Dolly Levi, Auntie Mame, and Albin, Jerry Herman will be honored at the opening of the new Hobby Center by D.L. Groover

Broadway legend Jerry Herman is a very nice guy. There are no backstage blowups, Shubert Alley slanders, or stage-door-Johnny gossip to mar his prodigious accomplishments. If he wanted to, he could be a diva.

Having written the mega hits Hello, Dolly!, Mame, and La Cage Aux Folles, as well as Milk and Honey, The Grand Tour, Dear World, and Mack and Mabel, he has won every conceivable Broadway award. His songs have crossed over the footlights and become standards. He’s an honored member of both the Theater and Songwriters’ Hall of Fame. His shows continue to be revived in major productions–a new La Cage is set for London next year. He’s lauded for his benefits for various AIDS causes such as Tuesday’s Child and Starbuck Pediatric Foundation. He is justly proud of Marty’s Place, an AIDS hospice in Key West he founded in honor of his lover Marty Finkelstein, who died in 1992.

Although he moved to Los Angeles to "retire gracefully," he hasn’t slowed down. His hummable melodies graced the score for Hallmark’s TV special Mrs. Santa Claus (1996) and he even wrote Barney’s theme song for the Purple One to croon in his 1998 motion picture debut, Barney’s Great Adventure. Last month his appearance at TimesTalks, an arts symposium in NYC sponsored by the New York Times, was sold out. This June, his latest work, Miss Spectacular, a show written for Las Vegas’ Mirage Hotel, debuts as a concept album on DRG records.

And in Houston on May 18, he will be honored with the American Musical Theatre Award, presented at Theatre Under the Stars’ inaugural evening at the newly opened Hobby Center.

"To me, this is a singular honor," Herman said from his home in Los Angeles. "You know I have shelves full of wonderful stuff and I’m not putting any of it down, but this one is particularly special because it’s the beginning of a series of these kind of awards and I’ve been chosen to be their first one. And I just feel very special about it."

He’s as tuneful as one of his up-tempo Act I closers–"Before the Parade Passes By" springs to mind. In a showbiz career that started with his playing piano for sing-a-longs at his parents’ theater summer camp in NY’s Catskills, he later wrote varsity shows at his alma mater, the University of Miami, and his first NY revue, Nightcap (1958), was the hottest cabaret ticket off-Broadway for months.

But not everything has been a standing ovation. His beloved mother and inspiration died in 1954 without ever having seen her son’s great success. In the ’70s, when Broadway musicals morphed into non-book revues or blowsy mini operas, three of his shows flopped, branded as old-fashioned and out of step alongside Sondheim’s caustic tales and Webber’s grandiosities. Then in 1983, Herman was diagnosed with HIV, and subsequently his lover, Marty Finkelstein, died of AIDS in 1992.

Yet Herman has the bounding enthusiasm and bright-eyed optimism of a new kid fresh on the Great White Way.

"I’m very fortunate because in the musical theater, being Jewish and being gay is expected." He laughs. "I felt so comfortable. I never felt any anti-Semitism and I never felt any… I mean how can you be antigay in the theater? Maybe, if I had been in the trucking business.

"It’s much easier for everyone today, whether people like to admit it or not. We have made some strides in that area. I like to think that La Cage helped a little bit. I know a lot of people came into the theater very skeptical, but when they left, they had for the first time understood that there is very little difference, or no difference, in the emotions that heterosexuals and homosexuals feel. They left the theater, I don’t mean changed overnight–I’m not trying to say it was one of those miracle things–but because it was done as an entertainment and they weren’t preached at, it did more for gay rights than anybody realizes."

Even his HIV diagnosis didn’t suppress his natural ebullience for long. On every conceivable medication and accompanied by all the malefic side effects, Herman didn’t hesitate when his Los Angeles doctor told him of a new protease inhibitor he was about to test.

"I offered my poor body as a guinea pig. Some had kept my numbers down or made me nauseous or gave me headaches or did something terrible to me, but this medicine just worked. For the last two years I’ve had virtually no viral activity in my body. And I’m here and feeling better than I have in years.

"I think that the most important thing I can tell you is that I am living proof that it is possible to manage HIV. Unfortunately, that doesn’t apply to everyone. I would give my left . . . something–not my arm, because I need that–but something, if I felt it could apply to everyone. You have to be lucky, also, or have maybe a certain strain, I don’t know all the technical terms, but I was diagnosed in 1983. Now that’s what’s called a long-term survivor.

"I want young people who are diagnosed to know that I have lived for all these years and had a very happy successful life with this cloud over me. It hasn’t stopped my life in any way. I want to be encouraging about that."

American Musical Theatre Awards

Saturday, May 18

Hobby Center for the Performing Arts

800 Bagby

713/558-2600