Leave It to Perky

Just before curtain time, a member of the audience took the stage. He wore a dark blazer, his goatee was white as a light bulb, his hearing aid seemed to be made of sterling silver. The invited audience--a collector's treasure of florists, bellhops, desk clerks, Schrafft's waitresses, Western Union girls and airline hostesses fell politely silent. Frederick Alden ("Perky") Warren, the man onstage, was their host. He had bought every seat in off-Broadway's Sheridan Square Playhouse to take them to the long-running (seven months) revival of Jerome Kern's Leave It to Jane.

"I have invited you here to see a very good show," said Perky. "I saw the original when I was a sublieutenant in His Majesty's army in 1917, and I can tell you that this production is even better." With that, he seated himself at a piano and ripped off half a dozen numbers from the show, and then tossed in Mac Namara's Band. Leaving the stage, he sat down to watch and loudly cheer Leave It to Jane -- for the 30th time this year. All through the show there were tears in his eyes and bravos on his lips.

And who was Perky Warren? To last week's off-Broadway audience he was only a nice old Canadian eccentric who likes people, but Toronto's Bay Street financiers know him as the 62-year-old onetime president of Gutta Percha & Rubber, Ltd., a latex prince descended from some of the red, white and bluest blood in North America; e.g., Priscilla Mullins' John Alden, Connecticut's Revolutionary Governor Jonathan Trumbull. At home in Toronto, his closest companions are his 13-year-old beagle Tobey and his solicitors, Ricketts, Farley & Lowndes.

The law firm drew up a contract between Perky and the show's producers giving their man the right to play the piano, to address the audience, and not to be referred to by flacks as a "millionaire" or even "rich" (nonetheless, he is wealthy). Since Jane is off Broadway, the playhouse's 175 seats were his for only $300. One extra: Perky, whose father was Princeton 1881, slipped Actor Monroe Arnold a ten-spot to change the target of a snide remark from Old Nassau to Yale.

During intermission, the bearded Canadian almost drowned the show when he served so many drinks to cast and audience that the entire second act played as if the hall were built around an imperial quart. Afterward, Perky offered a farewell round of cheer, announced that he had seen the production for the last time and was content. But when the house lights went dark the following night, there --glistening in the ninth row center--was a familiar white goatee.

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