Tingle & Cringe

The one big thing that all of NBC's musical spectaculars have in common is tiny (5 ft. 6 in.) Max Liebman. A showman of 25 years' experience, Liebman has been so successful as producer, director and general mastermind of the specs that last week NBC signed him to a new five-year contract.

When his former stars, Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca, decided to do their own shows this season, Liebman kept on for the spectaculars the veteran technical staff that had run Your Show of Shows for more than five years: a permanent group of 16 dancers and twelve singers, and such top professionals as Scene Designer Frederick Fox, Costume Designer Paul Du-Pont, Music Director Charles Sanford and Associate Producer Bill Hobin. With this well-coordinated team, Liebman has landed eight of his twelve color spectaculars in the Nielsen top ten TV shows.

Ad-Lib Tribute. His most recurrent headache results from having to adjust to a brand-new set of stars on every show: "Each one has to be indoctrinated into our way of doing things. Jimmy Durante worked with us as though we'd been together for years. Perry Como gave us an ad-lib tribute at the end of his show. The only time we've had real difficulty was on the first [Betty Hutton] program. It's a matter of accident whether the personal chemistry works or not."

Liebman, 52, says he knows that a scene is good when it gives him "a tingle up and down my spine . . . The tingle is created by some element of beauty." But there is a drawback: "I'm very sentimental, and sometimes I get the tingle from schmalz." Occasionally, the tingle is replaced by a cringe. Says Liebman: "I cringe at bad taste, at inept jokes, at sloppiness or any lack of fastidiousness." This season Liebman cringed during rehearsals of his swing production of Pinafore "because it was too bop. We had the contemporary beat but we had lost Gilbert & Sullivan." Once in a while, Liebman tingles but the viewers don't--they dialed away in droves during his 20-minute performance of the New York City Ballet's Filling Station. Since that disaster he has kept the dances short and sweet.

In the Salt Mines. When he is off the air, Liebman takes his pleasures seriously. With his wife, ex-Operatic Soprano Sonia Veskova ("She was a pupil of Tetraz-zini"), Liebman lives in a six-room Park Avenue apartment with an extensive collection of impressionist and primitive paintings (his favorite artists: Pierre Bonnard, Edouard Vuillard, Ilonka Karasz) and shelves of Dresden china, porcelain figurines and antique service plates. His personal chef "may possibly be the greatest chef in the whole world." Even when the Liebmans dine alone, service is formal: "We always have wine and finger bowls."

This season Liebman imported some of his top stars from abroad, notably Britain's Jean Carson and France's Jacques Tati and Jeanmaire. He hopes to get Imogene Coca back under his wing for a production of Happy Birthday, and is looking for a vehicle for Sid Caesar.

The future course of NBC's spectaculars is undecided. For himself, Liebman would like to handle more things but with less personal involvement: "Up till now I've been in the salt mines in contact with every part of the operation. I may just turn executive producer and supervise a number of shows, say a half-hour comedy, an hour variety and a half-hour musical as well as a few color spectaculars." That way, he thinks, he might get a few hours off to call his own.

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