When Ted Neeley was cast in the lead of “Jesus Christ Superstar” in 1973, he had no idea that it was the role of a lifetime.
Twenty years after the film’s release, he reprised the role of Jesus in a national tour that became the longest running revival in North American theater history. A second tour ran from 2006 through 2010. To celebrate the film’s 40th anniversary, Neeley criss-crossed the U.S. screening a digitally remastered print of the film, which he did again in 2023 to commemorate “Jesus Christ Superstar’s” 50th. And now he’s conducting a “farewell tour” that has no discernible end.
He has just one word to describe his lifelong avocation.
“It’s incredible,” said Neeley. “I can’t believe it after all this time. And it’s just like it was when we first went out after the film first was released. So it changed my life absolutely for the better ever since the first day we walked out there in the desert in Israel.”
Neeley’s farewell tour has the same elan as Deadhead and Parrot Head events. Lots of familiar faces. Lots of joy and revelry.
“It’s as if you’re having a meeting with your family, friends, aunts and uncles, cousins and all that,” Neeley said. “It’s incredible. It’s really like having a family reunion every time we do ‘em. People sing. People dance. People do everything they can to enjoy the piece.”
Neeley’s inclusion in the Broadway play and film adaptation almost never happened.
“When I was in the first Broadway show that we did I was originally cast as Jesus, but there was some changes … so they brought in another person to play him and I was the understudy,” Neeley recalled.
That person was Jeff Fenholt. But on occasion, understudies are thrust into the limelight. One night, Neeley finally got his chance to go on as Jesus.
He had misgivings. He listened in the wings to the groans that met the announcement that he’d be playing the lead instead of Fenholt.
“But When I sang 'Gethsemane,' they went berserk. Literally,” Neeley noted. “I was so unbelievably satisfied and happy, but the table we used for the Last Supper had a slant, and I was on my knees on the slant. While they were screaming and hollering and applauding, I fell down…. But the fact that I fell made people feel better for me so they really applauded … [laughing].”
When Norman Jewison decided to adapt the play into a movie, the studios passed on the project. They didn’t think a rock opera would be well received.
Jewison elected to finance the film himself. He concluded he needed big name stars to attract a good box office, but he couldn’t find anyone who had the vocal range required for the leads. Jewison’s buddy, Barry Dennen (who’d played Pontius Pilate in the Broadway production), suggested he screen test Neeley and Carl Anderson.
“[Norman] told us after, ‘I watched your test together, and it really made me think, this is a good idea because people might be thinking they’re really seeing the real characters cause they’ve never seen these people before .… So that’s what made it work for all of us. We’re the luckiest people in the world. I’m so happy I get to be 33 forever.”
Neeley has many other behind-the-scenes stories to share at his farewell tour events. He’s at the Alliance for the Arts on Monday, March 31st for his only Fort Myers appearance.
MORE INFORMATION
Event Details:
4:30 p.m. – Pre-screening VIP reception
6 p.m. – Doors open to the public
7 p.m. – Ted Neeley introduces the film in the Foulds Theatre
7:30 p.m. – Screening of Jesus Christ Superstar film begins
9:20 p.m. – Exclusive meet-and-greet with Ted Neeley in Foulds Theatre lobby and gallery}
For tickets to the VIP reception and screening, visit TedNeeley.com.
While Neeley and his manager, Frank Munoz, have not fixed an end date to Neeley’s farewell tour, they have resolved that they will not return to any city or theater that has previously hosted the tour. Along these lines, they’ve already said farewell to Arizona, Pennsylvania and New Jersey and are completing the last leg of their Florida tour, which has included stops in Tampa, Orlando, Lake Worth, Delray Beach, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach.
They scheduled Fort Myers because one of their crew members made the suggestion that the Alliance for the Arts would be a great place to do a screening.
“We also have some friends there,” Munoz added. “We’ve heard great things about Fort Myers and we’re looking forward to [bringing the tour there].”
The 90-minute VIP reception gives attendees unlimited selfies and photo ops, autographs, a Q&A and the pick of the seats inside the theater.
“The film that they’ll be seeing is a brand-new print,” Munoz pointed out. “It was remastered about five years ago in Europe and, except for the copy we have, is only available in Europe. It’s the version Ted wants fans to see. It’s struck from the last remaining 70-millimeter print that Universal Studios has. A boutique company in Paris is the one who put it together. It blows everybody’s minds when they see it.”
While the farewell tour won’t do any return engagements, there’s no end to the tour in sight.
“We’ve done this now for 12 years [Neeley began the tour to commemorate the film’s 40th anniversary in 2013], and we’d love to keep doing it for another 12, 15 years if we can,” said Neeley. “But there’s a lot of theaters that are closing down, or have been shut down completely since the pandemic, so there are less places for us to go. But we love doing this and it’s the most incredible experience other than actually doing the film. The people who come, they’ve passed this on now for 52 years to the next generation, and it’s just amazing. I can’t believe it.”
As an example, Neeley mentioned a family that came to his screening in Orlando.
“No matter where we go, someone shows up that I’ve seen in two or three other cities or locations. Like last night, there was a family that showed up, there was six of them, and the man who was now the grandfather was 6 years old when he saw [the film for the first time]. So it’s like my family keeps getting larger and larger. It’s amazing to go somewhere we might never have been and suddenly there’s people who show up that you saw two months ago in another town. It really is like having cousins and aunts and uncles everywhere we go."
It was Tom O’Horgan who invited Neeley to try out for the Broadway production of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Jesus Christ Superstar.” O’Horgan had directed Neeley in “Hair,” in which Neeley played the lead, Claude. Neeley actually auditioned for the role of Judas because he thought it was a great opportunity to place a character whom few understood. Because of his extraordinary vocal range (he can hit a G above C), he was cast as Jesus but ended up in the chorus and Jeff Fenholt’s understudy after the producers changed direction and brought in Fenholt to play the lead.
If he was disappointed in the “demotion,” Neeley did not let on. He was just happy to be part of such a groundbreaking production which many theater critics credit with changing the direction and history of musical theater. But not everyone was pleased with the project.
Webber reputedly called the project vulgar, and the show drew vociferous religious protests, as Neeley recalled during a telephone interview.
“We were protested every single show,” Neeley recalled. “We were at 51st and Broadway [at the Mark Hellinger Theatre] right there in the heart of New York City and we had to walk two blocks or so from the hotel to get into the theater. When we were a block away from the theater you could see we might not even be able to get in because the people were protesting so seriously they tried to keep us from going through to the stage door, literally. We were told to be careful because people said you know they might start punching you in the face, so just don’t say anything.”
Neeley’s not the kind of guy to keep silent. He wanted to know why people were so upset by the show.
“I made eye contact with this big guy at one point, and I said, ‘Pardon me, sir, can I ask you a question?’ He said, ‘Yeah, what?’ I said, ‘Have you seen our show? ‘No, I wouldn’t go into that den of iniquity. Why do you want to know?’ I said, “I’d just like to know why you’re protesting if you haven’t seen the show.’ ‘Because Jesus doesn’t sing, and he wouldn’t sing with a rock and roll band. That’s for damn sure. Blah, blah, blah.’ So I said, ‘OK, would you do me a favor? Since you haven’t seen the show, would you come in as my guest tonight, watch the show and then wait for me in the lobby and tell me what you don’t like?’ ‘You’d do that?’ he said. I said, ‘Yes sir, we want to entertain you, not offend you.’ So he stayed. He watched the show. I walked out into the lobby and he went, ‘We loved your show, man, we’re going to bring everybody back to see it.’ So that happened constantly, and basically, the people who were protesting it turned out to be promoting it because the TV, Channel 4, covering everyday about what was going on at 51st and Broadway.”
Filming on location in the Negev desert in Israel presented a very different caliber of danger.
“It was right after the six-day war,” Neeley explained. “We were supposed to go over much earlier, but they kept telling us it’s still going on, it’s still going on. We’ll let you know. So we finally got over there and the war was supposedly over, but we had bombing problems every day. It never got us because we were out in the Negev desert the whole time.”
Producer and director Norman Jewison decided to film on location so that the cast would have the vibe of walking in the footsteps of the characters they were playing. Mindful of the risks his decision entailed, he gave the cast some sage but unusual advice on the first day of filming.
“He said to us on the first day, ‘You normally hear the director say "Action" and "Cut." Well, here we say "Action," "Cut," and "Hit the Dirt!" When you hear me say "Hit the Dirt," that means the planes are coming and they’re going to bomb something somewhere.' That’s why there are airplanes and tanks in the film. Norman hated war and he felt if he put that in there, it might remind people that wars have been going on for 2,000 years and they’ve done nothing but create more wars. But it didn’t work.”
Jewison was an award-winning, internationally acclaimed filmmaker. Over the span of his career, he produced and directed some of the world's most memorable, entertaining and socially important films. Many explored controversial and complicated subjects, giving them a universal accessibility. His credits include “The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming,” the original “Thomas Crown Affair,” the groundbreaking civil rights-era drama “In the Heat of the Night” (which won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture), the futuristic cult hit “Rollerball,” the hit musical comedy-drama “Fiddler on the Roof,” the romantic comedy “Moonstruck,” the courtroom drama “And Justice For All,” the military drama “A Soldier's Story,” the labor movement picture “F.I.S.T.,” the war dramas “The Statement” and “In Country,” and “The Hurricane, ” the story of Reuben 'Hurricane' Carter.
Jewison was nominated for four Oscars and received three Emmy Awards; his films received 46 nominations and won 12 Academy Awards. In 1999, Jewison received the prestigious Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award at the Academy Awards.
“There was only one person in our entire cast who’d ever been in front of a film camera before,” Neeley added. “All the rest of us were completely unknown and had never been in a film. But he treated us like we were the biggest stars in the world. He never once made us feel like we were the idiots that we were,” Neeley said, laughing.
Neeley snagged two Golden Globe nominations. But beyond the opportunities he received from the accolades and recognition, he says the film had an even more profound and positive impact on his life.
“I met my wife while we were in Israel making the film [she was a principal dancer in the film], so that certainly changed my life, and everything that I’ve done since then. People say ‘Oh that’s you? You’re that Jesus guy.’ So I couldn’t be happier. Well, I could be happier if I could just get a guarantee I can live for another thousand years. That’d be cool.”
While many things have changed over the years, there is one constant in Neeley’s life. He can still hit that G over C.
“Oh I hit the G and the F,” Neeley said. “I hit it as much as I possibly can. It just takes a lot of, shall we say, preparation to get up there. Used to it was easy as saying hello, but 33 is good, but it runs out of time at the end anyway. You never know what’s going to happen. For this show, it's always been positive. Always. Never a down time. Always incredible.”
Neeley credits his religious upbringing in the tiny town of Ranger, Texas [population 2,000] with his vocal training and acumen. Church was the only source of entertainment, Neeley has said in other interviews. “I realized later on that I was doing research during my childhood that enabled me to present the character when I got to be an adult.”
Besides “Jesus Christ Superstar,” Neeley played in the rock opera “Tommy” and Billy Shears in “The Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lone Hearts Club Band on the Road” in New York. He’s appeared as a guest on “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson,” “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” [as lead singer in The Teddy Neeley Five], “Sonny and Cher” and network dramas during the 1970s and 1980s such as “Starsky and Hutch.”
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To read more stories about the arts in Southwest Florida visit Tom Hall's website: SWFL Art in the News.