ent000814-030

DAILY NEWS, THURSDAY, AUGUST 28, 1969 , ^ Slick Ice Spec at Garden The 25th anniversary edition of "Holiday on Ice" began a 19- day run at Madison Square Garden last night with producer Morris Chalfen marking the occasion by cutting a cake at intermission. If possible, the show is more sparkling, cheerful and brighter than ever and director Donn Arden has succeeded in making the production numbers and the specialty acts look as attractive and move with the fluneney of the lavish Las Vegas revues for which he has become noted. The large cast is beautifully and colorfully costumed by Freddy Wittop, who has dressed many a Broadway musical. Whirling dervish Ronnie Robertson was out of the opening lineup. He injured his neck at rehearsal and is expected back in a day or two. But all the other magnificent skate dancers carried out their athletic balletics with manly grace and feminine charm, There were also some great clowning, the charming Cook family act, three delightfully amusing skating chimpanzees and some mules that were worked on a circus mat spread over the ice. Among the world champion figure skaters were Marei Langenbein, Ray Balmer, Alice Quessy, Tommy Allen, Juanita Percelly and Grete Borgen. The clowns were Paul Andre, Johnny Leech, Alfredo Mendoza and John Ladue. ?╟÷Lee Silver Ketlkhts. 'Mr. Extravaganza1 H |IS OPULENT world has nicknamed Don Arden "Mr. Extravaganza," and as you read this Don will be flying west to his two swimming pools, complete with homes, In Hollywood and Palm Springs. He has frozen "Holiday On Ice" at Madison Square Garden and will pool sit while dictating his memoirs, "10,000 Girls Later." "We've been in Nashville where you can't get a drink except in a private dub," he said moodily, swishing his vodka over the rocks. "I have seen so much ice I can hardly look an ice cube in the face. The vodka makes it possible." "Holiday" is Arden's third stage spectacular of the year. For 22 years he has staged the nude shows at the Lido in Paris. In July he opened "Pzazz '70" for Howard Hughes at Hughes' Desert Inn. Now for his old boss, Morris Chalfen, he has completed the ice routines, lighting and staging for "Holiday," a job he first had 25 years ago 'when, by the way, he named the show. Fortunately Arden, who has the bearing of a Wagnerian tenor, Is a resilient man, essentially jovial and ebullient. He is blessed with a computer mind that clocks the kicks of 36 Ice belles in action and his creativity runs wild among rbinestones, pasties and feathers. He's a perf ectiorJfct. "I was disappointed, not having ostrich plumes and egret enough for my girls," he sighed. "No matter how you ^W^KY NEWS, AUGUST 31, 1969 By ROBERT WAHLS Don Arden demonstrates routine for ice show dancers. handle chicken feathers, they don't have the same bounce, that floating look." The Arden range in aplaahy apec- taculars is wide. His girls are in the altogether in Pajris, and discreetly dis played on ice in "Holiday," for the family trade. Arden has dealt in nudes for years and feels our furor over nudity is a tempest without a D cup. "Sooner or later ice shows will have to break away from old formulas and appeal to the rock set and the nude set," he pointed out. "In my dreams I see a 'Nudies On Ice,' but then I'm always ahead of my time. "Howard Hughes must have heard that I was trying to sneak nudes into 'Pzazz.' Down came a memo, mo nudes.' It was fascinating to work for a boss you never saw. But you feel his presence. He must have seen me in action on closed TV. "I used transparent body stockings, which look nude w^hen they're lighted," Don said. "Sometimes the girls look more sexy in transparents than they do in the altogether. The nylon adds to the texture of their skins." Arden began his career as a dancer after refusing to follow in his father's footsteps as a telegrapher for the Missouri-Pacific Railroad in his native St. Louis. His first dancing lessons came i from Bob Alton, who went on to stage Broadway shows. "One of my early triumphs was winning a Charleston contest in St. Louis," Don said. "The girl who won was named Ginger. She was part of Ginger and Pepper, a vaudeville act with her husband Jack Pepper. I last saw her starring in 'Hello, Dolly' in London, Ginger Rogers. "When I started out you had to have a partner. I started with one girl, gradu- \ ated to twins and then had a whole line on the Fanchon revue circuit," he recalled. "I had to teach the girls how to work on stage, how to project and gradually I got around to just directing and producing. I still do the same coaching for the ice show girls and boys. Most of them come right off a farm. "I have six girls 6 feet tall. I made them show girls on ice and some of them are more graceful than the 5-foot-2-eyes- of-blue-types," he said. "I don't wear ice skates, I stick to my crepe soles on ice. ) John Finley, my assistant, does the skate work, translating our routines to the arena floor." In the old days, Don's label was on ice shows in hotels from coast to coast, including the New Yorker and St. Regis. When night clubs were in flower he staged shows starring young comics such as Danny Thomas and Martin and Lewis . . . the Riviera, the Latin Quarter, the Havana Madrid, all gone now. "I could retire tomorrow and never work again," he says, "but my mother ##is 80 and lives in one of my houses. I don't think she'd approve of my standing still. She never has. "I staged the old Sonja Henie ice shows and I see no reason why Ronnie Robertson and Marei Langenbein of our show couldn't be great stars of her caliber. All they need is exploitation. No, I won't retire, I'll probably write one chapter of '10,000 Girls Later' and hit the road again, or the rink." ?║90 At 50, kid Arden has plenty of pzazz!