Never say Neverland — Rigby’s back
Cathy Rigby, seemingly forever young, is flying again as Peter Pan.
The onetime Olympic gymnast who became famous for hawking feminine hygiene products on TV reinvented herself as an actor when she retired from gymnastics, but her acting career didn’t fully take off until she did. In 1990, after appearing in a number of musicals, Rigby took to the theatrical skies as Peter Pan in the 1954 Broadway musical of the same name.
That was 22 years ago, and she’s still aiming for the second star to the right. Oh, and she turns 60 next month.
Tony nomination
After taking “Peter Pan” to Broadway four times — she was nominated for a Tony Award the first time — Rigby said she was retiring the green tights. But last year, she un-retired herself and headed out on tour again. Her “Peter Pan” returns to the Bay Area this week as part of the Broadway San Jose season.
“I wish I could give you a profound reason why I decided to do this again,” Rigby says on the phone from her Southern California home. “I’d like to sound really smart and say, ‘This is the big epiphany I had.’ But it’s really about doing the show, meeting the kids and seeing how the show works on the audience. There’s just this tradition with ‘Peter Pan,’ and when I put on the green tights, it’s like being Santa Claus and being part of people’s lives for that moment. I wanted to do it again and do it as well or better. I wanted to make an impact on one more generation of children.”
Rigby, and her husband, Tom McCoy, are essentially pulling the strings on this production, which comes from their McCoy Rigby Entertainment company, so they’re working again with longtime director Glenn Casale and Paul Rubin, the guy in charge of flying Rigby all over the theater.
In 2000, when Rigby brought “Pan” to San Francisco, she estimated that she had already flown 2,000 times as Peter Pan. Now she says it’s somewhere closer to 3,000. “I know it’s a cliche, but I have a lot of frequent-flier miles,” she says.
But Rigby does insist the flying is better this time around. “It’s not easier, but it’s better,” she says. “In the first scene, I wear a double harness along with a single harness, so when I fly, I can flip and soar. Then, when I’m on the single line, I can go faster and spin horizontally and vertically.
‘Daring and fun’
“It’s a little more daring and fun that way. The great thing is it’s not about technology. It’s two guys flying me by pulling ropes. Their timing has to be right, and so does mine. It’s a lot like doing gymnastics with two spotters.”
What is it about playing Peter Pan that inspires such devotion? Mary Martin, who originated the role, was 41 when she first played Pan and won a Tony Award. Her performance was telecast in 1955 (the first Broadway production telecast in color, by the way). The show was restaged for TV again the next year and yet again in 1960.
Rigby was only 38 when she first tackled the role, and in the intervening two decades, she has done plays without flying, like “Steel Magnolias” and “Sylvia.” She has also seen her four children grow up and give her four grandkids, two of whom have even flown around with Grandma Pan.
As a doting grandmother, Rigby can’t help but gush a little bit. “My 3-year-old grandson had just seen me do the show, and I was standing by him afterward, not in costume, and he looked at me sideways and said, ‘Hi, Peter Pan.’ It was just so precious.”
Seeing the show through the eyes of each new generation is really what keeps Rigby coming back.
‘Bittersweet fact’
“It’s a sentimental thing,” she says. “Whether it’s your children or your grandchildren, you see it through their eyes. It’s like in the show when Wendy’s mother says, ‘If only you could remain like this forever.’ It’s a bittersweet fact that as much as you want them to grow up, you want to keep them young forever. James Barrie, the author, understood that.”
Though she perpetually plays the boy who won’t grow up, there’s no denying that in a few weeks, Rigby faces the big 6-0. She’s not thinking about it too much.
“Yes, I’d like to be 30 again. We all would,” she says. “I’m a lot like Peter Pan that way, but being older makes you appreciate every moment because you do see the end in sight. As Peter says, ‘To die will be an awfully big adventure.’ I’m not denying I’m getting older, but I’m not dwelling on it. As long as the kids believe me as Peter Pan, I don’t have to deal with it. For now I choose to be in the moment.”