Broadway star got start singing at school dances

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This article was published 03/07/2010 (5872 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In the collage of band photographs on display in Shakin’ All Over — the Manitoba Museum’s celebration of the province’s music history — is an innocuous colour snapshot of four young players called the Len Cariou Trio.

The band’s name rings a bell not so much for the trio but for the then-17-year-old Len Cariou, the St. Boniface-born vocalist who would grow up to become a Broadway star and Manitoba’s only Tony Award winner.

Who knew that Cariou was the Burton Cummings of his day?

There is no accompanying history of the long forgotten musical act, but its namesake just happens to have returned home this week from New York City.

Cariou says he was finishing his last year at Miles Macdonnell Collegiate when he and drummer Owen Clark put together the trio in 1957 with guitarist Merv Bales and piano player Cam Fairfield. The former Holy Cross Church choirboy was already a veteran of the burgeoning Winnipeg music scene with the Starlights but the formation of his own trio was the modest on-ramp to singing stardom.

“I felt I could choose new material a little more freely,” says Cariou, 70, during a telephone interview. “I just wanted to see if I could do it or not. It was great fun.”

The band lasted two years after making the rounds of high school dances, community clubs, hotels and clubs like the Copa Cabana.

“The group was good,” recalls Clark. “We recorded but over the years the tapes were lost.

“Even at his age, Len was so confident of his vocal ability and how to deal with an audience.”

Cariou sang from the pre-rock pop charts of the day, tunes like Frankie Laine’s Jezebel, Witchcraft by Frank Sinatra and St. Louis Blues.

Clark remembers a gig at the Olympic (curling) rink on Main Street at which Cariou put a charge into the Platters’ version of the Hoagy Carmichael classic Stardust.

“Len blew everyone away,” Clark remembers. “Nobody in town was singing with that kind of power and confidence.”

By 1959, the baby-faced 19-year-old went it alone as a nightclub act, sang in the chorus of Rainbow Stage and a year later joined the Manitoba Theatre Centre for six seasons. By 1968 he made his Broadway debut in The House of Atreus, followed by appearances in Applause, Night Watch, A Little Night Music and Cold Storage. In 1979 Cariou won his Tony for best actor in a musical for his performance in the title role of Sweeney Todd.

Last year he starred in a sell-out production of Arthur Miller’s All My Children at The Gate theatre in Dublin. Management was so enamoured they agreed to do the play of his choice and announced Cariou would return this summer to make his debut as Willie Loman in Death of a Salesman. The run was set for July but Cariou had to renege after he landed a part in a new CBS police drama called Blue Bloods, starring Tom Selleck as New York’s Chief of police.

“The Gate is not too pleased with me at the moment,” Cariou says.

The former MTC artistic director plays the 65-year-old Selleck’s father, a former police chief, although the age gap between the men is five years.

“That’s television,” Cariou says, about playing the father of a contemporary.

“The writing is good. It remains to be seen how it goes but it tested with audiences really, really well.”

Shooting begins in New York City late this month.

kevin.prokosh@freepress.mb.ca