Like most old Harvard organizations, the Pudding can claim its share of famous alumni. J.P. Morgan '89 was a terrible business manager. Humorist Robert Benchley '12 was "dazzling" as the hairdresser Mayme O'Brien in The Crystal Gazer. The young Frankling Roosevelt '04 a mere stage hand, found his niche in history as the President of The Crimson. Most of us know Archibald Cox '34 as Solicitor General and University troubleshooter in the Pusey years. Few could today visualize him as a chorus girl in Pudding on the Ritz 40 years ago.
More recently the Pudding has hatched a basketful of alumni who have continued their theatrical pursuits professionally. Alan Jay Lerner '40 wrote the music for two consecutive shows. Jack Lemmon '47 was president of Hasty Pudding Theatricals. In 1946, he starred in something call The Proof of the Pudding and was compelled to perform under a pseudonym, reputedly because he was then on academic probation. And anyone who has seen Lemmon as Daphne on the screen in Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot will recognize the appeal of the role for Lemmon--the quintessential Pudding part.
Even Herman Munster once graced the Pudding stage. Fred Gwynne '51 found fame and fortune as TV's pathetic Frankenstein after stints in three Pudding shows. Erich Segal '58 authored The Big Fizz which he recalls today as little more than one large soap bubble. "I refused to write those typically gross Pudding jokes," he says. "So the guys adlibbed the most incredible raunch you can imagine."
Over the years, through bad shows and worse, the Hasty Pudding Theatricals has become talented in at least one area--self-promotion. As the Pudding has aged it has branched out, trading on its name and Harvard affiliation to reap ever greater unwarranted prestige. Be assured that when the Pudding publicists tell you that their is the world's third oldest theatrical organization, they want it translated as third best. By shrewdly playing up this single fact to the uninitiated, it can raise its stock without raising its standards.
The publicity engine runs smoothest in the Pudding's absurd Man and Woman of the Year Awards. By bringing such luminaries as Liza Minelli, James Stewart and Paul Newman to Harvard, the boys at 12 Holyoke have arranged a can't miss mechanism geared to shower headlines on wheat and chaff alike.
PUDDING PREOCCUPATION with publicity began paying dividends long ago and in grand fashion. When the 100th show Here's the Pitch, billed as a "Gay '90s extravaganza," opened in 1947, Newsweek and Life each devoted a full page to the event. "The club began when undergraduates gathered in each other's room to put on mock trials," Life reported. "By 1844 they had developed real theatricals."
It is overly generous to call some of the Pudding's past productions "theatrical" in any meaningful sense. While one can hardly expect undergraduate talent to produce a West Side Story every year, the Pudding has traditionally reveled in insipid humor of the bawdy bathroom variety with acting bad enough to make a stone cry.
It seems unlikely that the winds of change will ever blow through the Hasty Pudding Theatricals. Perhaps the most positive thing that can be said about the shows is that they are unique. They have obviously attracted a devoted following. Says one Theatricals member: "The same people come year after year and its like a ritual with some people. Some even want a special seat. And when the show hits New York one lady buys up two dozen seats every year so that all her friends can have a big night out. It's unbelievable!"
I wonder if she eats hasty pudding.