Bob Bingham

Q. How did you first hear about Jesus Christ Superstar?
A. Oh man! In about forty-five years, I’ve never really talked about that! (Laughs) I was actually performing in Coconut Grove doing Hair in the traveling tour. When that shut down, we started touring the country. We went to Coconut Grove and we were there for about six months. One day, somebody told me I had to go up and talk to the theater manager. His name was Charlie Cinnamon. [Note: Cinnamon was actually the show’s press representative.–ed.] He was sitting there with our tour manager, Bob Lussier. He asked me, “What do you know about Jesus Christ Superstar?” I said, “Nothing.” He said, “We think you ought to go up and audition for Superstar.” Now, in Hair, I was just a Tribe member, I wasn’t Claude or Berger or anything like that, but they thought I should go and audition for it, so I did. Bob gave me the keys to his apartment in Greenwich Village, I go up there the next day. The next morning, I went to auditions at the Mark Hellinger Theatre, where Superstar ultimately premiered. It was what you might call a “cattle call,” where everybody shows up, but there was nobody around. Finally, somebody came and asked me for my Actors’ Equity card — and I didn’t have mine! I suppose, because we were members of Hair, we were Equity members, but we never had cards, so I had to wait and go to the Actors’ Equity office, got a copy of my card, went back, auditioned, gave my 8×10 glossy to a guy named Charlie Gray, who was the production manager in New York. Then I went back to Florida and we continued touring. I never heard anything.

I think it was maybe three or four months later, we were in San Diego, and we were doing Hair up there. One of the other cast members came up to me, his name was Skip Bowe, and said, “We’ve got callbacks for Jesus Christ Superstar. Why don’t you come with us?” I said, “You know, I auditioned for that months ago, and I didn’t get in.” He said, “Oh, come on! Come with us anyway!” So I did. They all auditioned. I wasn’t on the list; I waited until everyone else had finished their auditions. On the plane ride, I had rehearsed or studied one of Caiaphas’ recitatives, so I got up and I sang that. Little did I know that Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber were in the audience that day, and they pretty much hired me on the spot! I think they were having trouble casting the part at that point; in fact, I saw a newspaper ad once, they were looking for someone to play Caiaphas. I think they were also looking for someone for the role of Peter, but it was mainly Caiaphas they were looking for. They were having a hard time.

Q. Had you not heard the concept album?
A. You know, I don’t think I ever did at that point.  We were working primarily from sheet music. In fact, the original Caiaphas, Victor Brox… they had such a hard time casting the role in the United States, I’m surprised they didn’t go back and get him! He was a tremendous bass. But they ended up with me, so there you go. (Laughs) They hired me on the spot. I think that, aside from Yvonne [Elliman] and maybe Carl [Anderson], I was one of the first ones that got hired for the premiere concert tour, before Broadway or anything. Yvonne was in that, Carl was in that… we toured that around the country. It was just a concert version. There was a band, an orchestra. It was a good setup because there were no sets — bare stage, microphones, chairs. We interacted, of course, because it’s a major piece, so not just singing a list of songs in a concert; we pretty much developed and honed our characters, microphones in hand, right on the stage in front of everyone.

Then some of us got to go to New York, for Broadway. They cast us from that tour! Tom O’Horgan saw us, but I don’t remember seeing him during the tour… I guess he must have been there some place seeing the tour around the country… Then we went to New York and started rehearsing for the Broadway show. You may have seen some of the black and white pictures, you know, there’s one where I’m standing on top of the piano — that was one of the first days of rehearsal.  I came directly from the plane to the rehearsal. Along the way, I stopped and bought a bottle of Ouzo (I’m not sure why I did that, because I wasn’t much of a drinker), I brought it to rehearsal and I had a few drinks – even though there was “no alcohol at rehearsal.” Barry [Dennen] was there, Kurt [Yaghjian] was there, Yvonne was there, pretty much the whole cast was there.

Q. Just for a moment, let’s expand outward and consider the character of Caiaphas. Any thoughts on him, as a character in the show or in history?
A. (Laughs) I’m sad to say, none. I was working with the lyrics that Tim Rice wrote. That was my interpretation. I’ve seen other films, but really… Have you ever seen that TV series The Chosen? Check it out. It’s a really well done series of Jesus and those times. Historically… people didn’t know what to do at that time. The priests were just trying to interpret their laws and their religious books at the time. Unfortunately, when you do that, everybody’s got their own personal philosophy that colors their interpretation of their so-called religion to some degree. I think that’s why there’s so much conflict – even in the Christian world.

Q. Fair enough. Back to show history. Tell me about the Broadway production. What did you think of O’Horgan as director and the show’s concept?
A. Tom was… he was fun.  He was far out there. You know, I think at one time, he had four different shows on Broadway; he had Superstar, Hair, Lenny, and one called Inner City. Tom never took himself too seriously, like being too strict or overbearing as a director. The Broadway production was interesting. It was bizarre. I think Tom pictured something from the music that nobody else saw. It was very modern, very avant-garde, it was… it was strange. Different than anything that had been on Broadway at that point. You had the scaffolding that had the high priests on it at one point that was supposed to look like dinosaur bones or something. The costumes were just absolutely surreal. Paul Ainsley as Herod was an example of that. (You may have seen him; he was a bartender in Three’s Company.) He was a big guy already, he was like 6’3″ tall, and they put him on those platform shoes that… I think they were 6 inches on top of that. He had those flowing veils as part of his costume and a huge headdress. That, and the High Priests’ costumes, were the most bizarre. The costumes, the lighting… it was incredible. It was incredible! Really, a lot of fun.

Q. What did you think about the protests?
A. I don’t remember anything major. I think some people tend to embellish that to a point. I remember there were some protesters, but it was never a fight to get into or out of the theater. It was never difficult like that.

Q. What do you remember about recording the Broadway cast album?
A. Oh! (Laughs) I was thinking about that question! [Bob was sent the questions prior to the interview.–ed.] I really don’t remember. I remember going to the studio. I only have slight memories of doing the recording in England and doing the French version… only because Paul McCartney looked in the door and popped his head in!

Q. Wow!
A. Yeah, he was there. We recorded our vocals first, for the English version. That’s a great testament to all the singers and actors in the film. That was all lip-synced in the film. Every single bit of it. We were syncing to the soundtrack on speakers. [Bob is describing the standard Hollywood process of prerecording, for those confused.–ed.] We had to match the lip sync while we were recording [the film soundtrack]. They would play clips of the film so we could match our lip movements to the film – of the English performers for the French [dub of the film]. But that’s really all I can remember, either of the Broadway version or even the film version.

Q. How long were you on Broadway?
A. About two months. I’d have to look it up, but… yeah, a short time I was doing it. I wasn’t enjoying New York. (Laughs) I had no appreciation yet for what we were doing, you know, opening a show on Broadway. I hated New York. I’m from Seattle. Back in those days, in Seattle, the air was clean and pure. Coming to New York, every time I’d step out of the hotel onto the street, it’d be like getting dirt and dust in your eyes. There was dog shit all over the place. The place smelled. It was not a nice place to be. But doing the show was astonishing!

Q. I assume that played a role in joining the Paris production.
A. After about a month or so, I went and talked to Robert Stigwood, he was the producer of the show. I went to his office and said, “You know, I’m having a lot of fun, but I don’t like New York. I’m assuming you’re going to open the show in some other location. Would you consider me to play it somewhere else?” And he said, “We’ll let you know.” A couple of weeks later, he called me up to the office and said, “Can you speak French?” And I could! I was President of the French Club in high school! He got me on the phone with the producer in Paris, and my audition was simply me having a conversation with her in French. (I suppose she needed to know that I could be understood or my accent was good.) I ended up being cast as Caiaphas for the French production at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris, and that was fun! Victor Spinetti was the director of that production.

When I first got to France, you have to study in French. And I had a good accent; based on my hearing, I was able to speak French in a coherent way. But when I got there, it was nightmarish in a way. For the first few times, I couldn’t understand what people were saying. But it totally immersed me in the language, in a way that everywhere you look everything is written in French, everyone is speaking French. After maybe about four or five weeks, it fell into place. The guy who played Jesus, his name was Daniel Beretta. (By the way, he’s heavily involved in films; he’s the one who dubs in French for Arnold Schwarzenegger. All the films that feature Arnold, he’s the one dubbing for Arnold.) Daniel had a restaurant; a lot of us would go there after the shows to eat and drink and just unwind. And somehow, during that, the language all fell into place, and I was able to understand and speak the language. It was almost like someone had just turned on a light.

I ended up doing the French album. I think I’m the only one who did that. There was an English guy on there, Michael Wade who played Simon [sic; he played Peter–ed.], he did the part in French, too. I was the only one from Broadway who did that. That was fun. I carried on doing the production. The production didn’t go over very well in France. French people, or at least the crowds that go to see musicals, are a little picky. It didn’t do well. 

Q. Were you in the cast when Andrew Lloyd Webber reportedly stormed the stage in Paris? What do you remember?
A. That was in New York. No, I don’t remember him ever coming to Paris and doing anything like that. He may have been there, I’m assuming he went to a lot of them. I had never even heard of that incident.

Q. So, how did you progress from there to the film?
A. One night, Tom O’Horgan was in the audience, with his pal Harvey Milk… and Norman Jewison! They had come to Paris to see the production. They cast me in the film based on what I did in the show. I’m sure that other people you’ve talked to have told you about how many auditions they had to do for the stage or for the film, but I only had to do the thing I always had been doing. I didn’t have to do anything special, they just cast me on what I was doing!

Q. Tell me about shooting in Israel.
A. What’s that, that Mark Twain said about travel? You know what I’m talking about? Travel really broadens your approach to life. Israel really did. As much time as I spent in other countries, European countries, there’s not really much of a culture shock; they’re still kind of Western civilization. Israel was very different for me. Aside from the physical aspect, like climate or anything else, it was the cultural difference. You got the Hindus (sic) and the Arabs and others over there… that was very different. Going and spending time in Jerusalem in the Old City and going to camel markets, I really enjoyed that. The cuisine was very different. I’m used to having bacon and eggs, cereal, or toast, or something like that, but you get up there and you get cucumbers and sardines! (Laughs) Everything that I associate with lunch was for breakfast! Kurt and I were always looking around. We both loved hummus. That was my favorite. The appetizer was hummus with eggplant dip. I really loved that a lot.

I wasn’t on set for the entire time. I think that maybe Teddie, Yvonne, Carl, were there for about four or five months; Kurt and I were there for, maybe, two months. There were plenty of scenes that we weren’t in; the scenes we were in, that’s what we really came to do. We had a break from shooting where Kurt and I were not needed for about a week. We decided that we would take a little side trip. We went to a place called Sharm el-Sheikh. It’s right at the bottom of the peninsula on the Red Sea. Now, it’s a major tourist destination; major hotels and resorts down there. When we went, all they had was this one place with little places big enough for two people within walking distance of the Red Sea. That’s where we stayed for a week.

The sun was so hot that it gets to the point where when you tan, you can’t get any more tanned; you get so dark that when you go inside, you tend to lighten up a little bit. We both went scuba diving everyday in the Red Sea while we were down there. One day we came back, and they said that there’s a phone call; we were asked to go back up because they had changed the shooting schedule. They told us to come back up, sent a car for us to pick us up. At that time, most of the people who were taxi drivers had guns. Our driver came and picked us up, it was the middle of the night and we were driving back up, and he would take out his gun and shoot at road signs! (Laughs) As we were going back! We got back to the site and – I forget what was to be shot next. This was 50 years ago! Some of this stuff is hard to recall!

Q. Was your portrayal any different on film than the stage?
A. Only in the actual direction, I think. The music is the same, of course, so you can’t really change the interpretation of the music. All the interpretations of the roles were based on Tim’s lyrics. I’m always astounded at his authorship. He was a young man, too! He somehow had the ability – or the intuitive grasp of the story – and was able to compose something as it was. The lyrics themselves are very unusual, which may lead to the discussion about… I don’t know, some people thought it was blasphemous, some of the things that Jesus says, or some of the other characters in the film or the show say. But Tim’s a brilliant writer. He’s done some fantastic work, I’m sure you know.

Q. What are your thoughts on “Then We Are Decided”? Do you remember how the song came about?
A. Norman wanted it. He requested it as something for the priests; he wanted to, I guess, expand on the positions of the priests in terms of how the story flowed. I don’t know if he wanted them to take a more dominant role in the film or what, but that was his inspiration to put that piece in. He asked Andrew and Tim to put that piece in. I don’t know how much they collaborated on it, on talking to Norman about what he wanted to do. They must have had some discussions on it. That’s what they put in.

Q. Do you think it should be added to the show?
A. I don’t see why not! It’s written by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber! Why shouldn’t it be part of the show? I don’t know what is involved, either legally or politically, to put it in (I mean, there may be some issues), but yeah, I think it should be part of the show.

Q. What did you think of the film, at the time or looking back?
A. I go to the screenings now and you think, “My God! This film is 50 years old!” The concepts were pretty advanced. One of my favorite scenes is the one where Carl is being chased by the tanks and you got the jets going over his head! (Laughs) That’s a fantastic scene! But the content itself, of putting the music into a film… I thought Norman did a fantastic job. There are aspects of it that are just pure serendipity. I don’t know if you’ve heard the stories that we’ve [the cast] told over the years in the things that Teddie has done, but just the fact that we were involved in it, to me, is amazing, without ever tipping my cap at ever becoming a movie star or anything like that. It’s a laurel that’s really nice to have. I’ve met so many fantastic and talented people. I’m always a little undone that they chose me out of all the thousands of people in the world to do this film. It was fun and, you know, I’m proud of it.

Q. Did you go to any of the premieres?
A. Jeez… you know, I don’t think I did! I don’t think I went to any of the premieres! I came back to New York after that. Then I went to England to get some work – doing some other things. As a matter of fact, Sam Wright, he was in The Little Mermaid [and Simon in JCS on Broadway–ed.] and he ended up doing a production of Two Gentlemen of Verona that I tried to audition for, but it was very hard for American actors to find work in Europe, particularly in England. They tend to hire, primarily, English actors. Believe me, there are plenty of English actors compared to American actors! So, I came back to New York and ended up working in the chorus of Superstar for a while, doing odd roles and doing other things. Finally, I just dropped out of it. Actually, I ended up doing one production with Larry T. Marshall. We did a show called Up From Paradise by Arthur Miller. He cast me in that, in the role of God, of all things. (Laughs) So, I got to work with Arthur Miller! At that time, I didn’t know how special that was; Arthur Miller wasn’t a familiar name to me. I was pretty much ignorant of the theater scene. Musically, I was trained in choirs when I was at school and the University of Washington. Most of the people from the show were trained in, I don’t know, a contemporary way. That was it, pretty much.

Q. You went “missing in action” for a number of years.
A. I got out of theater and ended up working in manufacturing for 30 years.

Q. Any regrets on leaving the business?
A. No, no, no. I mean, I look back on it now and I think, you know, “I could have been a contender!” (Laughs) Maybe I could have, but I didn’t have the interest or the desire to continue doing it. I was young, and naive in terms of business. One of the things that bothered me was the nepotism in the business. (That’s something that exists in all business, I guess, I didn’t realize it at that time, but I’ll stick to the theater.) I saw evidence of that in the theater. That bothers me a lot. A couple of times, I got turned down for roles because they went with somebody’s cousin or in-laws. Also… you’re a performer, too, right? I don’t know if you have the same problem I do, but… you tend to be self-critical. You’re like, “Oh, why did I do that,” or “I’m flat on that note,” or “I could have done that differently,” or whatever. So I got out of it. Besides, I still sang. I love singing. I’ve been singing all my life. I started singing in church choirs when I was 14 years old, and I continued when I came back to the United States. I was a soloist in many major churches in New York City. I did that until about, oh, 15 years ago. I’d moved out of the city by then. I live not too far from the city, though.

Q. So, how did the cast find you again?
A. There’s a lady by the name of Vanessa that went looking for me. She couldn’t find me, so she created a website or something called “The Bob Bingham Enigma.” She was thinking, “How can it be in this day and age that people can disappear?” People were contacting her, and she finally located me with this website. One of my relatives (one of my nieces, in fact) ran across it and told her where I was. She contacted me, and she contacted Ted and Barry, and they showed up here one day! That’s how it was.

Q. Well, I’ve got a couple of general JCS questions we ask everyone we interview, so let me get those out of the way. Do you have a favorite song? 
A. Oh, let’s see… The one that comes to mind is “Simon Zealotes.” I love that song! I really loved it. You know, I was always envious… When I was in Hair, I was just a Tribe member, didn’t have any solos. I was always envious of the people who got to sing “Aquarius” or something like that. But that one… that one was my favorite of Superstar, the one that Larry sang. That one’s a really great piece. I like that one a lot.

Q. Have you seen any other productions of JCS on stage, live or recorded, like the 2000 film or the arena tour? If so, what did you think?
A. No, no. The only one that I have seen is the one with John Legend, the live one that was done a few years ago. John Legend is a good singer in his own right… I don’t know why he was chosen to play Jesus, other than because of his name and that he was one of the producers. I felt that it was kind of disappointing. When we did the concert tour or the Broadway production, you know, we didn’t have commercial breaks. It was disappointing to see that they would take a commercial break every 15 minutes and still not be able to handle the vocal challenge of Superstar. (Then again, those are difficult roles, vocally, for just about anybody!) But that’s the only production that I’ve seen. I’ve also seen some short clips of the European show that Ted did in Italy. They’re kind of over the top, more showy; it’s kind of like mixing Superstar with Cirque du Soleil. But I mean, they were good, they filled those theaters, and it’s still a really popular show in Europe. The show is still so vibrant after 50 years. It’s a testament to what a good piece of theater it really is.

Q. That’s a great segue into my next question: why do you think it still resonates?
A. Um… there’s a couple of things. Of course, I would say primarily, it’s just the composition, the music and Tim’s lyrics. I think they’re timeless! The music itself — and we’re going back to the ’70s — it’s still a fantastic piece of orchestration. It really is. The combination of classical orchestra and rock musicians was really great. I think the rock part of it is outstanding! I mean, many pieces of music from that era still stand out that are so unforgettable. I don’t know if you want to say “golden age,” but it was a really special time in popular music. Nobody can beat it! People try to, but there was something special about that time in the ’70s.

Q. What are you up to now?
A. Well, right now, I’m retired. I’m 76; I’ll be 77 in a couple of more months. My son is 18, my daughter is 16 now. That’s what I’ve been involved with for the last 20 years now, pretty much. My challenge right now is teaching my son how to drive, so he can get out and go to work himself! When I can fit it in with my schedule, I still do the screenings with Ted, Kurt, and whoever’s there, like the one we did up in Boston for the video. I’m going to go down to Orlando and Tampa in Florida in September, then we’re doing one in New Jersey in December. [Reminder: this interview was conducted in 2023.–ed.] That’s difficult for me, because I’ve got to do dialysis every couple of days. I was hospitalized about a year and a half ago for health reasons, and I had kidney failure when I was in the hospital. Now I’m on dialysis three times a week for four hours. That’s been tough; it’s almost nightmarish in some ways. For me, it’s like a day of recovery and then I have to go back in again. A couple of days on the weekend, it’s like a vacation to me! (Laughs) So for me to go to another location, I have to make arrangements at a dialysis clinic – wherever that is – so that I don’t miss my treatment.

Q. Last but not least, any advice for people wanting to get into acting/singing?
A. For singers, probably the most important thing is practice, for this or any type of music or singing. Strengthen your skills. As a singer, it’s important to have that practice, every couple of days. It’s costly. A lot of people can’t afford to go out and hire a voice coach, or to take individual or vocal or… guitar lessons or whatever. One of the simplest and most economical ways to do that is to join a church choir, because you’ll get the exercise of reading the music and exercising your voice a couple of hours every week. Like I said, it doesn’t cost you anything… except to sit through a sermon by a priest that you may or may not adore. (Laughs) But that’s the simplest thing. You’ve got chorus, and orchestras, and so on. And there’s so much available now on the Internet. The interesting thing about the Internet is there’s a lot of training, or self-training; you can train to do just about anything.

But it’s difficult. For anyone to want to be a soloist or performer, it’s difficult. It does require… it takes up a lot… you have to sacrifice a lot of your personal time, to some degree. I think that may be one of the larger challenges to today’s youth and generation: everybody wants to be a star, but not everybody wants to make the personal sacrifice and do the work to get to that level. And not everyone can be a star. Everybody’s got some path or goal; they may not know what it is at any point in their life. You get up every day and do what you gotta do, take advantage of what’s really available to you. There’s so much, but… like I said, I’ve got my own kids; my son is 18 and my daughter’s 16. I don’t know if you’ve heard the term “bedrotting”? That’s what this generation of children is doing, as a result of being house bound for months to a year [in 2020–ed.]. You sit in your bed, watch TV, play video games, and look at your phone, and that becomes your life! That becomes your way of socializing with other people. Unfortunately, it’s not healthy, to a large degree; it’s addictive, and that’s what you have to break out of.

Q. That’s all the time we have. Thanks for talking to JCS Zone, Bob!
A. Of course.

(Postscript from Simpson: “After the interview, he wanted to know what I was up to and asked how my career was going. I told him about the theater I’d done and was doing, and mentioned I had an audition for my fourth production of JCS about a week later. He wanted to tell him how it went. [I passed; I was cast as Annas.] The delay in publishing this interview was because I asked Bob to look it over after transcribing our chat. He said he’d look at it and send it back to me within the week, but I never heard from him again, despite a couple of attempts to reach out, until the news of his passing. I decided to release it to honor his memory. Any notes or corrections are those of the editor.”)