By Kati Neiheisel***Intrigued by NLE’s Who Was Who!, I want to know who was where. I want to know about the hot and happening clubs and piano bars of previous decades. Perhaps the past can inspire today’s New York City nightlife.
On a recent sunny afternoon, I was thrilled to have lunch with beloved cabaret icon Sidney Myer at Tony’s Di Napoli in Times Square. We discussed the seven and a half years Sidney was involved with the club Panache (1981-1988) through its three incarnations and three locations, prior to the thirty-five years he’s been with Don’t Tell Mama (1989-present).
Sidney’s 2018 solo show, Sidney Myer: LIVE at Pangea, directed by Peter 
Schlosser,with musical director Tracy Stark on piano and Tom Hubbard on bass, sold out six times that year. If you were lucky enough to be there, you’ll remember Sidney’s hilarious riff on his fantastic journey from the Magic Pan to Panache to Don’t Tell Mama. But there’s more! The following is the story of Panache in Sidney’s own words.
“In the 1970s, I worked as a host and waiter at a very chic chain restaurant called the Magic Pan. It was a very trendy creperie owned by Quaker Oats which had its start in San Francisco’s Ghirardelli Square. There was one in every city. This one was on Manhattan’s “Gold Coast” at (149) East 57th Street, between Lexington and 3rd Avenue. The amusing thing is, although there were some genuine French women on staff, the majority were American actors. Most were older and had experience on Broadway and Off-Broadway. One starred in a very popular commercial as Madge, the manicurist (Jan Miner).
One of the new hires was a gal from a tiny place called North
Little Rock, Arkansas. Her name was Mary Steenburgen. I was appearing in little cabarets and Mary would come to my shows. The next day, when we crossed paths at the change of shifts, she would say, ‘Oh, Sidney, those songs! Where do you get them?’ I was a ‘star’ to her. I guess because there was no one like me in North Little Rock. Another waitress at the Magic Pan was studying at the Neighborhood Playhouse and got Mary to study there. A group of us waiters went to see her in her first showcase. She was adorable and charming and funny. The next thing I knew, from that showcase, she had an agent. I said, ‘How wonderful for you,’ and I was happy, but I had to gulp a little. I was supposed to be the performer with experience.
One day, I read in the New York Post that Jack Nicholson was in town casting his newest film. He was the biggest star at that time. All the leading ladies of the day were being considered: Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Dolly Parton. Mary comes in and says, ‘I have an audition tomorrow. My agent got it for me. It’s for the new Jack 
Nicholson film.’ The film I had just read about! The next day, I asked, ‘How did it go?’ She said there were Wilhelmina models there and she waited and waited. Then, at one point, Jack came to the door and said, ‘Are you here for the audition?’ She said, ‘He talked to me for three hours and sent out for pizza.’ Two days later, she says they want her for a screen test and they’re flying her to Los Angeles. But there’s a problem. She doesn’t have a suitcase. My friend Kevin, a waiter, had a suitcase. Two days later, I’m hosting when the phone rings. I hear, ‘Sidney, it’s Mary! I’m in Warren Beatty’s living room. Sidney, I got the part. But there’s a problem. Can you work my lunches this week?’ She was always very practical and realistic. Mary skyrocketed to fame. On her third picture, Melvin and Howard, she won an Oscar.”
This Magic Pan was run by Don and Mary Fitzgerald, who had met at a Magic Pan in Chicago. They were young and very supportive and would come to all our shows, whether to see me in a little club or to see someone on Broadway. The restaurant was so popular, the powers that be decided to open a second one on 6th Avenue (1409) between 57th and 58th Streets. Mr. Don said, ‘We have such talent here, why don’t we start a nightclub on the third floor of the new location.’ Nobody in a million years would have thought of that—it was never even discussed! There are so man
y lessons in this. Mr. Don had the idea of making it like a cabaret dinner theater–meaning there would be a musical revue with a band. The waiters would serve the appetizer and main course, do a half hour show, then come back and serve coffee and dessert and do another half hour.
It would be directed; it was not a free-for-all. He was so excited about it, and I was delirious. I didn’t know if I was a shoo-in, but I was excited about the prospect. He wasn’t in show business, but he was very respectful of it. He hired a director and even though he had seen all of us perform, they had auditions. Immediately, 80% of the staff who had worked there for years and liked Mr. Don were completely offended that they had to audition. They just would not do it! They said, ‘Audition to be a singing waiter? He knows me, I’ve been on Broadway!’ Another 10% said, ‘My agent said it would be embarrassi
ng to be a singing waiter. It would hurt my career.’ I didn’t mean to be sarcastic, but I thought to myself, ‘What career? You’re delivering crepes!’ A few of us did audition, a very few. I auditioned and this other gal auditioned and got in, but for whatever reason, she declined to do it. So, I was the only one from the whole restaurant! And I did it happily. I wasn’t angry about it or resentful. It was an opportunity to perform and be in a show!
When searching for a name for the club, they were looking at show biz names that were too obvious. I couldn’t come up with anything myself and usually I’m very good at that. But one night, I was waiting tables and Mr. Don called to say, ‘We have the name: Pan-ache – PAN for the Magic PAN.’ Brilliant! That has style. I loved it. It was genius.
At that point, I was the only person in-house that knew this world. Others could have done it, but they didn’t. And I thought this was such an opportunity! Nothing against waiting tables, but wouldn’t you rather sing for your supper? I got the lighting man who I had worked with in different clubs around town, Bobby Kneeland. Bobby was one of a kind, a wonderful man. He had worked at Scene One and other little clubs in the Village where I played. Bobby was also one of the bookers and a tech director at a prominent club called The Grand Finale on West 70th Street. 
It was a ‘star’ room: Chita Rivera, Nina Simone, Bernadette Peters… and when they didn’t have a star, they had people like me. I played there a few times. Mary, when she was married to Malcolm McDowell, came to see me there!
Panache was open four nights a week and the other three nights, Bobby would book regular cabaret acts. Well, I loved it! I was having the best time. We were reviewed and it was very popular. They did one show for six months, then another revue that they created. We had to go to the outside world, through Backstage, to get other people to be in it. One girl, a terrific singer, was Jan Hunter. She was new to the city, a darling Southern girl. Her husband, Alan Hunter, who was equally darling, got a job as the bartender at Panache. Alan was a young, good-looking actor. He came in one day and said, ‘I auditioned for a new television network.’ I said, ‘What is it?’ He said, ‘They’re going to play records, but then you’re going to see films of the records.’ I had seen singers on TV at night, like on “Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert,” but I couldn’t understand what he was saying, and I don’t think he was even sure. Well, it turned out to be MTV! He was one of the original VJs. He went from being the bartender to a few months later coming to see a show with a group of MTV people, and there am I singing ‘Peel Me a Grape’—it was crazy!
Bobby was the lighting and tech man and created the room, but he wasn’t the ideal man for a corporate environment. After a year or two, Mr. Don came to me and said, ‘Nothing against Bobby, but we would like you to take over booking the shows. We just think you’d be more conscientious.’ Bobby was smoking and drinking and going out every night, which was fine, but he was from a different world. So, I started booking. One of the most unbelievable acts that I booked at the time was an act called J. Glitz. It 
was two fellows and a gal. One fellow was Broadway actor and songwriter Scott Burkell, the gal was three-time Tony Award-nominee Marin Mazzie, and seated at the piano was Jonathan Larson, who went on to do Rent. I can see it like it was yesterday. Bobby had the idea for an anniversary show and we asked back the most dazzling acts of the year. J. Glitz was one of the acts in that show.
After four years, Quaker Oats sold the Magic Pan. It was shocking. I think they made a mistake to this day. They sold it to an Indian family named Patel. There was still the Magic Pan on 6th Avenue, but Panache was closed. They told us the East 57th Street location was closing, and we were all so sad, but within days we were told the new owners wanted to keep it going! So, Bobby and I went to East 57th Street and Bobby completely gutted the second floor to make Panache there. Jamie deRoy, Ricky Ritzel, Eric Comstock and his sister Kate, and many well-known cabaret people of the time performed there. Then one night, after two years, we found out one of the restaurant managers was embezzling. In the middle of the night, we were thrown out in the street. All these performers had contracts, so people were picketing, and some were taken away in squad cars. Some performers took the owners to court. Not that they made a fortune, but they got compensated for flyers and such.
People who ran a business across the street from Panache wanted to see the club continue. They had some connection to a place that w
as big in its day but had closed—Ted Hook’s Backstage, (318) W. 45th Street, next to the Martin Beck Theatre, now the Al Hirschfeld Theatre. We met two men who were the current owners of the restaurant, a giant room with a piano in the front window and a small room in the back. For the third time, we gutted the little space in the back, got lights and a piano. The name of the restaurant was Encore, so we became Panache Encore. Mark Nadler often performed there. The restaurant had started out as glamorous, but began to fail by the time we arrived. I think they thought cabaret at night would lift their fortunes. The little back room was packed, and every night, someone would say, ‘This doesn’t make sense. Why don’t you move the cabaret room to the front?’ But they never did. One night, Ann Hampton Callaway was playing piano in the front window of the restaurant. The only people in the entire room were Andrew Lloyd Webber and Sarah Brightman. We had finished our shift in the back, and as we walked out, we saw them seated in a corner. Just at that moment, Ann stood up and without saying a word, sang “Memory,” a cappella. It was magnificent! Then she sat down and continued playing. Nothing was said. He clapped. It was so stunning the way she never called attention to herself other than standing up and singing. She sang like a bird.
One day, after about a year, I walked to work. We had a gospel group that night and they were all coming in when I got there. Suddenly, men in black suits were at the door. They asked, ‘Do you own this?’ I said, ‘No, I’m the manager.’ They asked, ‘Are the owners here?’ I said, ‘Not at the moment.’ They said, ‘We’re from the IRS and we’re here to close the place.’ I said, ‘Close the place? We have a sold-out show!’ That’s how naive I was! They said, ‘Well, you can keep it open.’ I said, ‘I can?’ They said, ‘Yes. Do you have $140,000? That’s what they owe in back taxes.’ I almost fainted. Right then and there, they shut the place down. It was locked and padlocked, and they put signs on the door.
This was before we had computers for sending out the word, but I contacted every performer who had reservations on the books then contacted the cabaret rooms that were just a few blocks away: Don’t Tell Mama, Danny’s Skylight Room and Jan Wallman’s. Every act was relocated to another club on the same night, maybe a little earlier or later. I would come every night, two hours before show time and stand there in case the performer wasn’t able to contact everyone by phone. If they showed up, I would redirect them to the new location. At that point, I thought the universe was trying to tell me something. Three strikes and you’re out. The owners had disappeared, the place was gone, and I was ready to be institutionalized. If you’ve read James Gavin’s Intimate Nights: The Golden Age of New York Cabaret, you will see that 95% of any cabaret that ever existed, no matter how popular, successful or supported, eventually went down in flames.
Don’t Tell Mama was originally in one building. The restaurant was a piano bar and the original cabaret room, which is still there, was opened by the late Nancy LaMott and Broadway and cabaret singer Karen Mason, who’s still going strong. I was there, not at the opening night shows, but for the party after the shows. Bobby and I were invited because we were Panache. We heard there was this hot new room, which was owned by the two men who had bought the original Duplex—Erv Raible and Rob Hoskins. They were partners in life and a few years after they opened Don’t Tell Mama, Rob died. By the late ’80s, Erv had owned The Duplex, Brandy’s Piano Bar and Don’t Tell Mama, but he wanted to move on. He opened Eighty Eight’s with partners. Even though Panache was popular at that time, Don’t Tell Mama was THE Place. It was the hippest: Jenifer Lewis, Sharon McNight, Lina Koutrakos, Jimmy James as Marilyn Monroe—fabulous! I would go there as a customer. The minute Erv created Eighty Eight’s with his partners, all the people who put Don’t Tell Mama on the map, including Jeff Harnar and Helen Baldassarre, went down to Eighty Eight’s because it was a new shiny penny. Don’t Tell Mama was on its last legs.
To complete my world tour of nightclub owners, Erv sold Don’t Tell Mama to a Vietnamese family. They had run bars but nothing like Don’t Tell Mama. Within three days, the managers and the waiters quit! Suddenly, I was bombarded with phone calls from people saying the owners don’t know what they’re doing and they need a manager. They said the club was going to die. When I got there, there were three bottles of booze 
and the awning was torn. It had been let go since Erv had moved on and all the people were playing Eighty Eight’s. I was hesitant because I had been burned three times, but I love cabaret and they seemed to want me. So, I started in the late ’80s. By 1992 they bought the building next door and moved the piano bar there. What can I say? Every day has been a gift. If you would have told me in the mid-80s, when I was at Panache, which was very nice and “Quaker Oats,” that I would be at the very smoky and dark Don’t Tell Mama five times longer than any original manager, I would have said, ‘You’re crazy.’ You have to love it. No one opens a cabaret to make money.
When I was coming up, you showed up at the club, they had a piano player, you sang two songs, they said OK, and gave you a letter of agreement. Nobody told you how to do anything. You had to learn it the hard way. There were no MAC seminars. One of the things people say when my name comes up is that I sit with everyone for an hour and I learn about them and their show. I think, personally, if there’s a fondness for me in a particular way, it’s because I establish a relationship. None of that was intentional. I was busy trying to make the moment work.
When I started to book, I thought, this is such a personal art form and the whole thing is about communication, and when you sing, people should feel that you’re talking directly to them. I want to meet these people. I want them to feel cared for. I don’t want to just be a name on a letter of agreement. So, I started meeting with people. In the beginning, it 
wasn’t by design. I wanted them to feel supported and that they knew somebody. I wasn’t some Wizard of Oz that was unavailable to them. It wasn’t just for one night that I was booking them, but it never occurred to me I would be booking people 20 or 30 years later. For some, it’s been 40 years.
There’s a classic story from Panache, which was very instructive to me. A Broadway person, not famous, was performing. There were only three people in the audience. She was in the dressing room having a fit: ‘I’m not going to play for three people.’ I went back and I said, ‘Well, do you know who’s here?’ She said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘The casting director of the Public Theater.’ Well, she went out there. And that really taught me something. You never know who’s there. The audience is made up of individuals; you never know who they are or who they may become. Do your best because people will remember you if you give them something to remember.
It wasn’t that I had a dream or a vision, but when I look back, in the ’50s and ’60s, the records and people I liked were never the rock and roll people. I was into Judy Garland and Peggy Lee. The albums I loved best were the live albums: Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall, Peggy at Basin Street East. And I thought of these people, not just as singers but as entertainers.
If I look back on every room I ever went to in its day, it’s an obituary of New York night life. Whether run by idiots or geniuses, they’re all gone except for one or two still kicking around. Every newspaper had weekend listings: the New York Times, the Daily News, the New York Post. Time Out New York gave it a full page and every week Adam Feldman would do a tribute or a picture of somebody. It was not considered something below the radar. I understand that newspapers depend on advertising dollars and cabaret is two nickels, but the shame is these reviews can make a difference.
Going out in the ’70s and ’80s was a continuation of what nightclubs always were in the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s. The Waldorf-Astoria had the Empire Room, the Plaza had the Persian Room, the Americana had the Royal Box, meaning there were three channels. And Ed Sullivan would talk about them. One appearance on the talk shows with Jack Parr, Merv Griffin or Dick Cavett, and you could blow up. Everyone was watching the same thing. My devotion to cabaret wasn’t premeditated. The people I got to see and meet live: Peggy Lee, Ethel Merman, Carol Channing, Eartha Kitt, Josephine Baker, Marlene Dietrich, as great as any of them are on records, television or film, it’s still one degree of separation. But when they’re live!
And, of course, Judy Garland! I think about her e
very day and it’s over 50 years after her death. She was electrifying! I never talked about it until a few years ago. At a Cabaret Convention salute, someone told KT Sullivan that I was the only person there who had seen and met Judy Garland. So, she said, ‘We’d like you to tell us the story.” It’s a cliche that gay men like her. The WORLD likes her! She was a top star for MGM. And Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall? There’s not one note, 60 years later, not one note or one arrangement that is dated, that is not today, hip, fabulous. It’s a timeless classic. It’s peerless. No one told me to like her. I just went to that. An old soul. That was the music that spoke to me and expressed me.”
