Maria Friedman: Loving you is not a choice. It's who I am.
Martin Milnes: Maria Friedman was a close friend of both Stephen Sondheim and Peter Jones. She observed firsthand their romantic relationship and subsequent lifelong friendship.
Maria Friedman: I know the love, the deep, deep, deep love that Steve had for PJ. I was witness to it. I saw it. So when when he was lighter and like a little kind of teenager over this love, It was really joyous to see. He always said, I'll I'll never be able to love.
I'll never be in love. And then it was unlocked and he was in love. Definitely in love. I saw the devastation when it wasn't there and and how PJ has been the most incredible, dignified, quiet man that let Steve live his life and didn't do anything other than support that, which is incredible. Incredible. And I've advocated that that PJ is allowed to do what he wants with that because it was genuine and real and the real deal. With all of those who know Steve and know PJ know that.
Martin Milnes: Welcome to Loving You: The Untold Sondheim, a podcast made by Steve's friends with Steve's friends. Hosted by me, Martin Milnes. And me, Peter E. Jones. After meeting in 1991, a beautiful connection developed between Stephen Sondheim and Peter Jones. It was Steve's first ever official relationship. A meeting of minds and hearts celebrated by those closest to Steve and welcomed by PJ's family. Their romance was not without its difficulties, but in 1994, Steve and PJ exchanged rings and entered a committed relationship. We shall now hear the second half of PJ's story of life and love with Steve, shared exclusively on this podcast with special contributions from close friends Mia Farrow and Maria Friedman. They were firsthand witnesses to the relationship which forever changed the lives of both PJ and Steve. It's 1994. PJ has moved in to Steve's Manhattan townhouse. He is 27 years old and writing his musical, Peyton Place. Meanwhile, Steve is 64 and working on his new musical, Passion, the score of which he dedicated to PJ. They are happy and enjoying the glamorous life.
Peter E. Jones: Often the best times we had were when we were on an airplane getting ready to go on a trip. We had this little tradition where we would order a glass of champagne and toast each other before takeoff. Phone calls. When we were on the phone to each other, and there were many phone calls, either when one of us was in the city and one was in the country, or if one of us did have a trip that was separate. The phone calls were always wonderful. We were at our most affable and charming. There were plenty of moments in front of the television where we had a wonderful time together. But as I say, the trips, the feelings we had on the plane, you know, doing that thing on the plane, that was just a wonderful thing that still sticks with me, how wonderful it was.
Martin Milnes: As the relationship progressed, were there difficulties being the partner of a person of such stature?
Peter E. Jones: Yes, there were the obvious ones of being with him in public, that all those things that are, you know, difficult can be dealt with, but it depends on your maturity level and that fact that my maturity level was questionable. I was not able to handle things that perhaps had I been, certainly had I been this age, I would have handled, or even just more adult than I was. The conundrum is, of course, I couldn't reach a higher adult level until I'd gone through all this anyway. But I was highly naive and fairly immature for a 20 year old. I had certain aspects about me that were older than my years and that went a long way to keep us going.
But the other parts, the insecurity ego wise and the not being able to understand what his side of the relationship was to me caused the undoing in general. It really did. Because I more and more could not understand why we were together instead of just embracing it. Again, wanting to be another Steve, wanting to be him in whatever way it is was a big part of it. We, on the surface, had set up a situation that was positive, that was happy, and that was, he liked to compare us to Menotti and Barber.
Martin Milnes: The composers who were a couple.
Peter E. Jones: Yes. We were both working on our little opuses in each end of the house. And that's what we were doing day in and day out. He was writing Passion, I was writing Peyton Place.
Martin Milnes: So tell me more about Peyton Place.
Peter E. Jones: Peyton Place was a novel written around 1954, I believe. It was what they used to call a pot boiler, which was a very steamy romance novel of some kind or another. In this particular case, it was all about the dirty little secrets of a small town that were revealed, the hypocrisies and lies and all those things that are underneath the smile of the American small town. The novel was so successful and at the same time so scandalous that many people read it secretly in bed at night with a light underneath the covers or with a brown paper wrapper wrapped around it so people didn't know what they were reading. It was subsequently turned into a popular film starring Lana Turner that gave her her only Oscar nomination.
After a couple of, sequel movies, it was also turned into a very popular television series that starred our dear Mia Farrow as Allison MacKenzie. I chose it because when Steve said you've got to pick a project, it seemed to be the only thing I could think of that I had a real strong interest in. When I did decide that was what I wanted to do, Steve asked his agent Flora Roberts to secure the rights for me, which she did. So as I began working on Peyton Place, Steve had already begun working on Passion. We would meet up in the kitchen often for a moment where he liked to nosh on crudites and get the first drink of the day, the first vodka, and I would come down for whatever.
And we'd maybe compare notes or not, as the case may be, if it was a good day and we were both feeling good about everything. Those were good times. Those were the benefit of the relationship, the positive aspects, the parts that nobody saw. But the difficulties were often, to be blunt about it, when he would present what he called his opinion on something, it was presented as fact, and that used to rankle me. Resist that and I would call him on that and we would, you know, the arguments began and the disgruntlements began.
When we became comfortable enough that I wanted to hear from him what he thought of my work, I wasn't prepared for the honesty of it. To him, he's just telling it as it is, and to you, you're taking it personally. I guess what I'm trying to say is I thought I could handle those things, and then I found out I couldn't. I was a part of it.
Martin Milnes: Some of Steve's proteges have commented that he always seemed to know how much criticism each student could take. But would you say that in your case, it was very different because you were also living with him as his partner?
Peter E. Jones: Well, yes, what I would say in my case was the rose colored glasses were on a little bit. He was so excited to help me get going. Almost like there was a list of steps to implement for my self improvement, and one of them was you've got to have a project and so on. Well, it it was a similar thing. The first thing that happened, and this was before I started Peyton Place, he wanted me to audition for Putting It Together as a second keyboardist, which I said, that's not I don't have the technical skills for that.
But he urged me to do it anyway, and I did. And indeed, when I auditioned for Scott Frankel, he said to me, 'I think we both know you're not quite ready for this'. And I said, 'Yes, we do'. The second time was much later when I was writing Peyton Place, had written quite a bit of it. And he suggested I submit it to the Richard Rodgers Award.
And I said, No, no, the book's not ready. And he said, You're being overcritical. Do it anyway. So I did, and there were two opinions that came back to me. One was the composer Robert Ward who was in favor of it because the score showed promise.
But our dear John Kander pointed out that the book was not ready and therefore shouldn't be given a workshop when the book wasn't even ready to mount. The second time, I hesitated and he pushed me. But, you know, it was good that he pushed me to do it. Take these chances. It may not work out, but take the chances. So I learned something from that too.
Martin Milnes: Did anyone observe this struggle you had?
Peter E. Jones: Yes, I would say certainly the two M's, as I call them, Mia and Maria, Mia Farrow and Maria Friedman, they would have witnessed this struggle, I think.
Maria Friedman: One thing I always said to PJ when we all used to meet is that I didn't understand how he could even breathe under the weight of living with Steve as a composer, as a lyricist of everything. And I'd always advocated that you did it, that you carried on composing. But I don't see how it's possible. I mean, it's a real testament to you that you you you even put a pen and or pencil to your manuscript at all because I think most people couldn't.
Peter E. Jones: It's easy to hang on to that and say, well, I I can't do it because and I I tried to let go of that when that would come to me. But at the same time, he didn't understand that in the beginning how self critical I was. I learned later when he would say certain things to me that ended up being cutting or or ended up freezing me. It was because he thought I was more put together than I was.
Maria Friedman: Yeah. Yeah.
Peter E. Jones: So when he'd say things to me that to him were, as I like to say, 70 going on 10, which is how he was in certain ways. And so when he would say things to me like, it's interesting how you can't act when you perform your songs. He thinks he's just pointing something out. But Yeah. He doesn't realize that if you don't have your self esteem in place, that something like that coming from him is rough.
And so we had those moments that took me years to understand what they were actually about. And and I I always thought I don't have the relationship he would have with an Adam Guettel or whoever would come to him on that level. There's all this other that came with it. How lucky am I now? I understand. At the time though, it was difficult to try to hold both of those.
Maria Friedman: But I think if you speak to any one of those other people, he still was that ferocious. What I was saying is ferocious with notes. Ferocious, because he saw something in you that was worth grappling with. There wouldn't be any notes if he didn't. There would be no notes.
That's the thing you have to would never have been couched in a way that's easy because actually criticism is really, really hard to take however you're gonna say it. But what I learned very quickly with all the people I admire, that you notice they don't engage in the conversation with people that just don't need it. It's just like, well done, that's great. The note means there's something there, and you have to understand that. And I know I'm told over and over again by my husband and everyone, that was brutal.
I'm like, was it? It doesn't seem brutal to me at all. It just means I can see you have that, bring it out. And so how we collide in that, how we collide in that moment of creativity is is really a difficult one to navigate, I think. And then you have on top of that the fact that he's a, you know, Shakespeare or whatever.
But as we know, Mozart, Shakespeare, their humanity goes into their work, and they're quite often left a little bit empty at the actual ability to put that humanity into their everyday moment to moment meetings. It's all gone in there for all to have and own and grow from. That process leaves people completely devoid of the energy of trying to work out, is that gonna blunt the person I love most? And we're swiped. And it's only those that they love the most that they can blunt the most.
Peter E. Jones: When you can trust each other, you know that the bluntness is about the professionalism involved in dealing with the work, not attacking the person. And many people have trouble distinguishing between those two things. Separating their work from themselves in terms of how it's dealt with. And so if that was the difficulty from the beginning with He and I, was all intertwined. It so easy to separate it, especially when I was as naive as I was.
Mia Farrow: He was being paternal, so
Peter E. Jones: He was.
Mia Farrow: In that paternal thing, that can be annoying to
Peter E. Jones: Well, yes. But what? Bossy. But why was I there? Because he could be paternal with me.
I was still looking for a father. Yeah. But that could it could have worked. It could have worked, but I wasn't there. You know, it probably would have worked had I not been trying to be him.
Mia Farrow: Well, that was it, and he knew that.
Peter E. Jones: I know he knew that. He handled that very well, actually. He handled so many things very well.
Mia Farrow: His best to support you in your writing work.
Peter E. Jones: Yes. He did.
Mia Farrow: And he knew how important it was to you. But he also knew you weren't gonna be him. You know? But he the struggle for you to become who you wanted to become, he was a 100% with you on that. You know?
Peter E. Jones: And I go back. When we
Mia Farrow: There was something competitive in you, and rightly, you were right to be competitive as a young artist.
Peter E. Jones: That's interesting. Do anything. I would never have known that.
Mia Farrow: But he
Peter E. Jones: He thought that?
Mia Farrow: He thought not competitive, I wanna be Steve, but I wanna I wanna make something of of my career writing music too. Know?
Peter E. Jones: Yes. But with one important difference, Steve was disciplined and worked, and I didn't I didn't work at it. I thought I was working at it. Oh. But I wasn't.
And I didn't do what it took, and I had the chance to do what it took because there was a golden opportunity to make the connections and I was too proud to do that. I wasn't going to rub someone's elbows because of Steve. I couldn't do that. So there was that, and then there was the fact that I was talented and could always fly by the seat of my pants and therefore didn't work very hard. And that bit me in the ass in the end. But Wow. But he knew I loved him, and I knew he loved me. And we sounds funny to say, we occasionally would remind each other of that.
Martin Milnes: But despite that love, the relationship began to break down.
Peter E. Jones: I can truthfully say now that it didn't have to break down. There was a point where I let it. It was all I could do. There was a point where I didn't want to solve the problems. I was still growing into my twenties.
I wanted a lot of sex with younger people. I did want interactions with younger people. And be it sexual or social. Now I was getting some of the social. But that had its own effects too because of, you know, I was self conscious of the fact most people my age in New York were struggling and I wasn't and I was aware of that.
Nobody ever tried to make me feel bad for it, but you know, it was there. So there were these little anomalies that started to pile up more and more. And when you put that together with the times we would go out and he would be the one holding court and you would be the silent one. It did become, at times, I felt insurmountable. And then I did the dysfunctional thing of having an affair, and that was what made everything come to a head.
Not so much that it happened, but the way I chose to deal with it in the end.
Martin Milnes: Did you get back together after that affair?
Peter E. Jones: There was a stretch of time where we tried to come to an understanding and and work it out. You know, he was certainly no innocent about that sort of thing. But because I was I was special to him, this was the first time he was going to settle down that way, and this kinda put a wrench in the in the works. But to his credit, he tried to talk us through.
Martin Milnes: He was making an effort to try and save what you had.
Peter E. Jones: Yeah, yeah. And I just couldn't, I couldn't grapple with it. And I was quite infatuated with this affair and it it was intense and, you know, one can only say in retrospect it was so because I wanted it to be. I couldn't keep my eyes on the prize, if you wanna put it that way, which was that we had this special thing. I mean, an affair with a handsome man that I was attracted to my age is not that special.
This was special, but I wasn't mature enough for that, and that's on me. You can say he would have to expect something like that being involved with somebody who was so young, but nonetheless.
Martin Milnes: And so where did it go from there with Steve?
Peter E. Jones: So after this, there was a period of time, I would say two months, where we tried to work out what to do and how to do it. And it eventually broke down as well. And there was a melodramatically documented report of how the end came down in the biography of Steve that came out a few years later is that I ran out in the rain with tears streaming down my face and something to that effect. It was very poetic. But essentially, my pride got in the way at this very last juncture and I left the house.
And then it got really bad for a long stretch of time. So that was April '96 into September. It was really bad. And I lived in New Haven, and I worked in a record store as a clerk, and he suffered and brooded and kept to himself in the country. And then there were these interactions we had where I had to come back and he wanted all my things out.
It just got really ugly because he was so hurt.
Martin Milnes: How did things recover themselves?
Peter E. Jones: I don't know. I'm thinking about it now. This affair that I was having, and the the gentleman was in New Haven, is why I decided to go there. It cooled very quickly. It it cooled because he developed a great animosity toward me.
And to this day, I don't know exactly why. I don't know if it was that he felt hemmed into a new relationship that maybe we weren't ready for, but he became distinctly unpleasant toward me and we had a blow up and it was done. So there I was in New Haven in this little apartment and everything I made as a record clerk went to that. I pretty much had to sort of charge a meal every day on my card to eat. And I was still trying to work on the show.
Martin Milnes: On Peyton Place.
Peter E. Jones: Peyton Place. There was a final visit that was okay. We had agreed to meet because it had been so awful, we wanted some kind of closure mitigation, amelioration of all the badness, you know, to some degree. We were sitting together in the living room. It was very sad.
We were but we were talking. He was telling me what was going on with him, and he gave me something. I'll hand it to him, it was wrapped. And wrapped it, and it was that framed first page of Passion because the scores had come back from the publisher. The irony, the timing of that.
So I fell apart in tears just and cried on his shoulder.
Martin Milnes: Because he'd dedicated it to you? Yeah. What did the first page of the score say?
Peter E. Jones: 'To PJ, With Love'. To get that after everything. And that was our timing in some ways. 'Losing my timing this late in my career', I mean, was something that we ran into on more than one occasion.
Martin Milnes: When you saw that printed score, how did you react?
Peter E. Jones: Oh, I fell to pieces. That was it.
Martin Milnes: And how did he react?
Peter E. Jones: I think he was stoic, you know. Not because he didn't feel, but that's the mistake people make about him. They think that this thing that somehow scares people or that he's scary, that he's rigid. He's none of those things. He was none of those things.
Deepest feeling man on the earth. You don't write 'Move On' and be a cold person. You don't write anything he wrote and be cold as people like to say he was. It's hilarious. But the wild card was that he presented me with this gift and, So you I got back in the car and went back to New Haven with the score and full of, obviously, ambivalence ambivalence about everything that had happened.
But I had made my bed and here I was now lying in it.
Martin Milnes: And then what next?
Peter E. Jones: So I spent the next full year, all through '97, in New Haven, working at the record store. Something Steve asked me to do was to go into analysis. Now, you might ask, how could you have afforded analysis when you couldn't even buy your dinner? There was a program in, I don't know if it was through Yale, but it might have been, for training analysts. If you were willing to submit yourself as a guinea pig to a training analyst, it was something like $6 a session or something.
And you had to go five times a week for two years, you commit to that.
Martin Milnes: And that helped?
Peter E. Jones: Oh, it was a big help, yes. And that was one of the reasons I was there as long as I was. Because in addition to that, I wanna say by October certainly, we were starting to see each other again. I would come and maybe stay the night and then go back. When I had a day off from the record store, I would come stay the night.
It was, as before, as though we were living together. But it, you know, it was all somewhat, as I recall, tentative at first. And then on my birthday, I had to work that day. But then I got on a train to the city and met him for a birthday dinner. So by then, we were starting to heal enough.
One can question whether it may be all went too fast, but essentially we were trying to put it back together. Mhmm. What with me still being in this other sort of rough going life that I was in. But also by the time we were in mid ninety seven, that was when there was Arthur Laurents' eightieth birthday party, that was when we took the trip to the Galapagos. So things were good again, but I was still living in New Haven and working at a record store and going to analysis every day.
At the '97, he had a Christmas dinner, which I came to with a friend of mine who worked at the record store. I was a guest. It was curious. I stayed the night and, you know, went back to New Haven, I guess. And then in '98, we decided I would move back.
So that started our second pass, which was a short lived one. It was early in the year. I got the musical directing and orchestrating job. And right smack in the middle of all that, we fell apart again, and I had to move out.
Martin Milnes: What led to this falling apart?
Peter E. Jones: It was not the melodrama of the first go around, but it was that our egos clashed again. I spoke out of turn a little more, shall we say, when, again, didn't need to happen, you know, had I the maturity. The the caveman's tools that I had to work with necessitated what I did. I don't remember the specific straw that broke the camel's back. We had argument in which I made some kind of melodramatic statement like, For seven years, I listened to blah blah blah blah blah.
And I remember he marched up because my study was on the fifth floor. And he stomped up those stairs to come and confront me. I'm amazed he didn't have a heart attack going up the stairs. You know, climbing those five flights is exhausting for anyone. And he went flying up those stairs and we had it out.
But the thing we learned to do was to cool down, which we did. And then we decided, well, I guess this is not gonna work.
Jere Shea: Just another love story.
Marin Mazzie: No one is to blame.
Peter E. Jones: So I'm in the middle of doing all this work, and I have to find a place to live and move all the equipment to this place and do it when he's not there and it's five flights and I gotta carry everything down. You know, it was like that. We didn't shut off from each other. It was just, we can't do it this way, can we? Okay.
So we continued to see each other, but I was now scrambling for a place to live and all of that. And eventually, I got an apartment with three other people and various jobs. And then the review of my songs came out.
Singers: Numbers in two. Numbers in four.
Martin Milnes: This is a show called Numbers.
Peter E. Jones: Numbers. It came to be because of a cast member who wanted to do a review of my songs. I thought, do a review of my songs? Nobody's ever even heard my songs or any of the shows. How do you do a review when nobody knows who you are?
But where there's a will, there's a way. So I spent a lot of time working on this review, living in this apartment. I was still working on the Peyton Place score at the end of it, and it was an exciting time. He came to see numbers twice. And by this time, we could joke about what was amusing in it and what wasn't, you know.
I had learned and I understood what what the weaknesses were in my old writing and what the strengths were, and it was something we could share. But but we had to get there. It didn't happen, you know, right away. It took time. But we did get there, and that's something I can hold close to my heart, I guess, that we did.
That we could enjoy it. And with his work too, we would do it both ways, which was nice. It was very nice. But that took time, the maturity for us.
Martin Milnes: And in 2002, you met Randy, who later became your husband, and subsequently Steve met Jeff, who later became his husband.
Peter E. Jones: Up to 2002, we still, it might have been more sporadic, but we were still seeing each other in that way. After that, we stopped seeing each other in any kind of sexual or romantic aspect shortly after I met Randy. So to take that chance was big for me, and it was big for him to accept it.
Jere Shea: But no one has ever loved me as deeply as you. No one has truly loved me as you have, Fosca. Love without reason, love without mercy, love without pride or shame. Love unconcerned with being returned. No wisdom, no judgment, no caution, no blame. No one has ever known me as clearly as you. No one has ever shown me what love could be like until now. Not pretty or safe or easy, but more than I ever knew. Love within reason, that isn't love. And I've learned that from you.
Peter E. Jones: But by 2003, I had been just doing what I could to make it on my own, and the writing wasn't really happening, and I wasn't making it happen. I was not doing the work. I think Steve Clar saw this because he said to me one day, I think you should come to work here because we do need more help. And I thought the same thing, especially because now that I was with Randy, I knew that if I wanted that relationship, I was gonna need to have work, steady work, and that that would not be an issue. I thought then maybe this is the thing to do.
And I was always trying to find a way to be with Steve or to support him or to to keep connected to him. And this is another way to do it, a way to take care of him. So I approached the idea to him and he was amenable to it but cautious because it was a risky thing to do, this arrangement, you know. Because years later, after it all worked out, we used to joke that it was Sunset Boulevard in a weird twist, you know? And it was.
There were moments where it was just strange for him to introduce me as either his assistant, his archivist, his amanuensis, or whatever it was he chose to use when we had the history we had, you know? It was weird. So that's how it happened. By the 2003, I then became a staff member of the house, and I was generally referred to as the archivist, which is a little inflated for what I did, but that that was the reference. The reason that I could be the person to do the job was if you had just hired an archivist, they wouldn't have been able to the job because it wasn't about that.
It was about being flexible. Those kinds of positions require a lot of flexibility. Three four eight six. You can't really pigeonhole yourself as I am a something because you might be running the car into the garage to have it repaired, but then you might be having dinner with him because you know somebody else and you can be helpful with you know, I mean, the the area is great.
Honey, the AC on the 4th Floor is out again. Help me roll in that temp air conditioner.
Martin Milnes: But also I suppose this requires an understanding of the human being.
Peter E. Jones: Yeah. Because I knew him not just on a level that was special, but practical things. So all those emails you told me you didn't get, you did get, but they're in your spam folder. Let me show you what happened. Things that you if you bring somebody new into the circle, there's all this Yeah. Stuff that either has to be explained or kept secret, secret. And that didn't have to be with me.
Hi. You know who is on the line. Shall I put him through? I'm just kidding. I told him to take a long walk off a short precipice. No. I did. I just I said that you were out.
Martin Milnes: How did it feel for you to see Steve in that different capacity? And how did he react to you as you had your relationship and then marriage to Randy, and indeed Steve then had Jeff in his life?
Peter E. Jones: Well, given it all, it it actually we handled it very well. You know, finally, some maturity dawned on my end. We occasionally would have a moment of candid truth, you know, where there would just be a moment where something would make one of us or the other acknowledge that there's always gonna be this special thing between us. So by the time we got to the point where I was working, we did have a few bumps that we had to iron out in terms of me learning my place, you know, me getting used to that side of it because, of course, being the partner, I didn't always see the upstairs, downstairs aspect of things. But I obviously did very quickly once I was here.
And generally speaking, I knew he felt comfortable.
Martin Milnes: Were you pleased with the way that your friendship developed with Steve towards the end of his life?
Peter E. Jones: Yes, I was, but if I had any regrets, I do regret that we lost some of our intimacy. You know, there was no way that could have been anything He had his life with Jeff and I had my life with Randy. And one of the things he would say over and over again when we got our house up in Dutchess County was, I've gotta come see your house. I mean, heard it a number of times and we even planned one particular visit. But I always knew it would never happen.
So I knew that he's making a good gesture, but he was never really going to come.
Martin Milnes: Because he didn't want to see the new life that you had?
Peter E. Jones: I think he even said to me once something about imagining you having your own house was hard for him. I was a part of his life. I wasn't the master of my own universe, so to speak, you know. So that was hard for him to see. And that was a little bit the father son thing going on, I suppose.
One of my siblings always said the hardest thing was to let Pete grow up, know, that was just hard for them to get the little one out of their heads. So I think it was a similar thing with him. One time we were at a dinner, probably I think it was the Academy of Arts and Letters. And I was sitting next to Adele Chatfield Taylor, the wife of John Guare. First time I met her, she came over to the table, and I pulled the chair out for sat her down and I sat down. Steve's across the table watching all this and he said to me later, I'm so proud of you. You've grown up so beautifully. Said something like, there was a little regret that you grew up, but you're no longer mine. It's one of those moments that we would have on occasion where that was touching between us.
Martin Milnes: To paraphrase Bette Davis in 'Now, Voyager', you had that 'little strip of territory that was forever yours'.
Peter E. Jones: 'Don't let's ask for the moon, we have the stars.' Yes. We had something, that never went away. There were times where it made things complicated, but I learned so much from it. I learned how to support him and not confront him when it was unnecessary. It also helped me with my own mother. You know, I learned I don't have to be her equal. Be the son that she loves. That's how you support her. That's how you help her. There was a little of that with him too. I don't have to be his equal. This is an extraordinary man who's earned his way, wasn't handed to him on a silver platter, and he should have that. You have a part in it. So, you learn.
Martin Milnes: And throughout all these years, after the breakup, what happened to your writing and Peyton Place?
Peter E. Jones: So, another thing that happened at the same time as the breakup was that my option for Peyton Place expired. And I received an icy letter from Flora Roberts saying that she would no longer be able to represent me in renegotiating any rights for Peyton Place. So long and don't let the door slam your butt on the way out. So, I did continue to work on the show because there were two or three things I was still finishing, and I wanted to complete them. So I kept working on it through 1998.
After Peyton Place, I did work on one promising piece, and then I wrote one song for a show I was an MD on. And that was it. By that time, Randy and I had met. We were starting a life together and I was having real ambivalence about composing and the very thought of it could turn my stomach. So I stopped.
I just stopped. I had to stop. I had to spend some time growing in other areas of my life. And that lasted about ten years. I was in the living room with him one day when he was visiting a mutual friend, and somehow the subject came up.
It might have been that the friend asked me, 'So what are you writing?' I said, 'I've stopped writing a long time ago'. And Steve said, 'Oh, no, you're still writing'. I mean, he actually disagreed with me on that. And I said, 'No, I haven't written a note in ten years'.
And he was dumbfounded by that. And then he tried to pass it off as like, Woah, woah, woah, woah, you know, the way he does. But that actually shocked me too, to actually have said that, I thought, because I hadn't really put that into words. So after that hiatus, a friend of mine who had a little theater company up in Cape Ann in Massachusetts had pulling me out of mothballs for various projects that he was mounting. That ultimately culminated in a spoof of a softcore porn movie that was a it was an operetta spoof. It was quite fun to do. And from there, I scored a documentary for a dear friend of mine and a short film for another dear friend of mine. Those three things essentially got the motor started again.
Martin Milnes: Has it been easier to go back to composing since Steve died?
Peter E. Jones: Yes and no. One thing I think about is that I know that he would want me to. I know that he would want want this for me, and always did, but was willing, if I decided that I was going to put it aside to devote myself to him, he was willing to accept that. And one can ask why that was, but he was. In essence, I know he wanted me to write and that he would want me to do it now.
And I think the things that I have started doing, he'd be thrilled about, but one of the ironies of it all is it doesn't matter now, in a way. That part is over, and now if I am going to write, it matters to me.
Martin Milnes: And yet, after thirty years, although Peyton Place remains unproduced, it leaves a legacy. Because in 2000, for Steve's seventieth birthday, The New York Times published his list entitled, Songs I Wish I'd Written (At Least In Part). As we know, Steve included songs by composers he truly admired, including Maltby and Shire, Kander and Ebb, Maury Yeston and Adam Guettel. There's also Gershwin, Bernstein, Copland, Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hammerstein. And on that list, among all these great composers, is one of your songs from Peyton Place called Bluellow.
Bluellow is sung by the teenage characters of Allison and Norman, who meet in the woods discovering the spark of their sexuality. The song was publicly heard in numbers, but as the review only had five performances, only a very limited number of people ever heard it. And after numbers, even though Steve included Bluellow on his list, the song was never heard again. Yet Bluellow remains a vital part of your history with Steve and without it, your story is incomplete. That's why PJ, in the 2024, you came to London because you and I had decided to make a recording of Bluellow for this podcast.
The rehearsal with our two performers, Lauren and Shane, was the first time that anyone had ever sung the number or that you had heard it in nearly thirty years. How did that feel?
Peter E. Jones: Well, first, it was fantastic to hear these two performers and this pianist weave their magic spell. That was thrilling. But a few months after listening to it, on the way to my therapist, I had a revelation. And I shared this with Mia Farrow during our interview. And of course Mia was also Allison MacKenzie in the television version.
So you know about this list of songs he wished he'd written? Well, I have a song on that one.
Mia Farrow: Yay! Well, he said you had talent.
Peter E. Jones: And you're indirectly related, but it's from Peyton Place, so.
Mia Farrow: Oh my gosh.
Martin Milnes: And it's wonderful, Mia. It's a really, really moving, beautiful song between Allison and Norman.
Peter E. Jones: In the woods, no less.
Mia Farrow: Wow.
Peter E. Jones: So it's significant on a number of levels. At the time, you know, I don't even remember him telling me he had done it, that he had included me. Now with all those people, all those songs in the world, he could have had any other song.
Mia Farrow: Sure.
Peter E. Jones: But at the time, all I could think of was rose colored glasses, which is so absurd when you're objectively looking at it, but that's what I could see. So I had this little revelation since we've been doing all this, which is that I was driving to my therapist literally when this happened. I was listening to this new recording Bluellow was so, it just takes me by surprise how beautiful it is. I've got to I've got to hear thirty years on.
Mia Farrow: Okay.
Peter E. Jones: And I thought, it just hit me like a ton of bricks. This was a gift from Steve. He put that song on the list. Not that it wasn't good, not that he didn't like it. I know he did.
But he put it on there. I think he thought someday this may help you. And someday this will help people hear your work.
Mia Farrow: It will point to your work.
Peter E. Jones: Also And And here here we we are. Are.
Mia Farrow: But would never have put it on the list were it not first rate.
Peter E. Jones: I I know. It'll be in
Mia Farrow: Knowing Steve, there's no way he would have put that on the list because he would have he would have had too much integrity and put it on the list if it was less than wonderful.
Peter E. Jones: So I'm most moved by the fact that he had the forethought to do something like that and did it because that was four years after the breakup. And of course I was still around but that he would do that. That's the generosity he had in his heart.
Mia Farrow: Yeah.
Peter E. Jones: So that's been a hard one too. A good one and a Yeah. All of it.
Mia Farrow: Yeah.
Martin Milnes: And now, in memory of Steve, whose fondest wish was for PJ's work to be heard, we proudly present, after thirty years, the woodland scene from Peyton Place, featuring Bluellow, with music and lyrics by Peter E Jones.
Allison: Norman?
Norman: Allison. How did you know about this place?
Allison: You mean, you thought this was your secret place too?
Norman: Never told anyone about it.
Allison: I come here all the time. How come we never ran into each other before?
Norman: You're not disappointed, are you? I I could leave.
Allison: No! I mean, it'll be different now, but I'm glad it's you. What were you reading?
Norman: A book.
Allison: No kidding. I meant what?
Norman: I know. I got it from an ad in a magazine about sex. I got it from a magazine ad.
Allison: You said that already. Show me. What does it say?
Norman: Well, it shows how men and women are put together and where their erotic zones are. Where? Around nipples and body orifices.
Allison: Interesting.
Norman: There's a lot of blueberries now and buttercups. I've never seen so many here before.
Allison: We should have a feast.
Norman: Okay. Let's see. If the yellow reflects on your skin, it means you like butter and you're gonna get fat.
Allison: Really? Tell me.
Norman: No. Not a chance.
Allison: Let me try.
Norman: Okay. Neither will you. Lucky me.
Allison: It's like a poem here today. Woe me with a poem, Lord Byron.
Norman: Certainly, Miss Bronte. Blueberries and buttercups. Bluey, huey, cluttercups. Barrage of blue, yards of yellow, shimmer from the land of Bluellow.
Allison: Bluellow! Brilliant!
Norman: I trapped myself. Not much rhymes with yellow.
Allison: Cello, fellow, bellow, Othello.
Norman: Blue lips.
Allison: What?
Norman: Your lips are blue.
Allison: You mean my eyes.
Norman: Your eyes are too, but I meant your lips. The blueberries.
Allison: Oh, what about my tongue?
Norman: Black.
Allison: Bet yours is too, let me see. You're black and blue like me.
Norman: Not like you.
Allison: Those erotic zones. Where are they?
Norman: I can show you.
Allison: Okay.
Norman: Close your eyes.
Allison: Here. Oh.
Norman: And here.
Allison: Oh, I see. Allow me here. Uh-huh. And here. Uh-huh.
How about here?
Norman: That tickles. How about you?
Allison: Tickles me too, but I like it. Where else?
Norman: Well, the area around the mouth is, of course, the most highly sensitized of all, except for the vaginal opening and the tip of the penis.
Allison: Touch me. Just touch me here. Just stroke my ear again, not with your talk, with your finger. Oh, why don't you kiss me?
Norman: And kissing, of course, is the first or one of the first overtures that a good lover makes to a woman.
Allison: Oh, shut up.
Norman: But Allison, you asked me ---
Allison: Well, some boys don't run off of the mouth. Some boys simply show me! What boys? Never mind. Like boys. I will tell you. You're a liar. I'm not. Yes, you are.
Norman: Everywhere in view. Bursting with blueberries.
Allison: Blooming with buttercups,
Norman: Yellowy Blue.
Allison: Think if we could live here.
Norman: We'd be all alone and free
Allison: I can have my way here
Norman: I can have my say here With no one making fun of me! Sometimes I ---
Allison: Oh, you first. No, you. Well, sometimes I hear things Yeah? Not things, but oh, you'll think I'm dumb.
Norman: No, sir.
Allison: It's voices that I hear calling my name so sweetly. Oh, maybe I'm crazy.
Norman: No. No. I hear them too.
Allison: No, you don't.
Norman: Yes, I do when I close my eyes.
Allison: Me too. Me too.
Norman: Kind of takes me by surprise
Allison: when I'm just
Norman: I don't know.
Allison: I don't know Gosh, the way it's breathing, whispering around your ear, whispering you're free to be just who you are as long as you are here.
Norman: Bending with the branches.
Allison: Rounding with the river. Feeling coming true.
Norman: Feeling like blue berries dotting the view.
Allison: Feeling like buttercups, butterflies too. Feeling like me and me me. Feeling like you. Feeling like
Norman: blue and and yellow. Bluellow. Bluellow. Finally. Yeah. You're the first girl I've ever kissed.
Allison: You're the second. Boy, I mean.
Norman: Is Rodney Harrington really taking you to the dance?
Allison: That's right.
Norman: I have to go. Mother will wonder where I am. I hide the book up here for obvious reasons.
Allison: May I look at it sometime? I mean, when I'm alone here. Sure.
Martin Milnes: PJ, as you look back on everything, this may be an impossible question to answer, but what has your life been because of Steve? And what might your life have been if you had never sent that letter to him back in 1990?
Peter E. Jones: When I walk through the Valley Of Regret, which can be a regular visit for for me. Probably the first stop I make on that little trip is that I didn't get an education, something that I've always regretted, certainly by my forties. I was offered a full scholarship to a local college, and I was asked personally by the dean of music to come and study with him. I turned it down because I didn't wanna stay in Wyoming. The dichotomy here is something I can't justify, but I truly regret that and what might have happened had I gone that direction.
I might have become a concert composer, I might have become a film composer, but I literally couldn't see straight to get out of this area I lived in, so I was going to the big city, and I was going to pursue the theater and the rest would, you know. So, of course, what comes with that is maybe there would have been no Steve. It's possible there could have been some other way, I don't know. But I do hold those opposing scenarios in my heart. I wished I had become a properly trained composer, and at the same time, I'm glad things happened the way they did, by and large.
And what I learned from him in terms of being a composer was certainly nothing to sneeze at. Do I wish we had been able to stay together and be yeah. I do. But again, that's another set of oppositions you're holding because I don't regret having my husband either. One doesn't know how to square that kind of thing.
I guess you have to say you're where you are because of your choices. You are your choices. You are your decisions. You are your but you can still say you wished something else might have been the case too. Did I even come close to answering Yes, the
Martin Milnes: that's good, yeah. And what do you think Steve would want for you now for the rest of your life?
Peter E. Jones: I'm going to be somewhat sentimental about it. I think he really the obvious thing is he would want me to write. I don't think he would even care so much about whether I have any success, in quotes, at it. He would just want me to write as long as it was fulfilling. He would want me to write and not judge my writing.
And what I mean by that is the way I judge things because he knew how self critical I was. So he would want me to be writing, and some of that would be his own sentiments going, I want him to be the composer that he wanted to be and so on. But also, he would want me to love myself. That one's tougher. And he tried, you know?
He tried. I wish I could have given him that. So, we'll go with that.
Martin Milnes: We'll go with that. If Steve was here now, which wouldn't surprise me if he was, what would you say to him right now?
Peter E. Jones: It would have to be something witty, and I can't think of anything. I'm so glad you came. I would just hug him. I don't think I could say anything. I would just you know?
I don't know what I'd say, actually. I've never thought about it. Do you know what you'd say?
Martin Milnes: My relationship with him was very different to yours, so
Peter E. Jones: But do you know what you'd say? That's a hard question. Yeah.
Martin Milnes: I know I'd say thank you.
Peter E. Jones: Now, see, why didn't I think of that? Thank you. It says it all.
Martin Milnes: And thank you for sharing this journey.
Peter E. Jones: You're welcome, Martin.
Matt Bartlett: In Bluellow from Peyton Place, with music and lyrics by Peter E Jones, the roles of Allison and Norman were played by Lauren Jones and Shane O'Riordan. The song was produced by Chris Traves, with musical direction by Gareth Valentine and piano accompaniment by Sam Young.
Mehran James McCullough: In this episode, Numbers by Peter E Jones was sung by the review's original cast, James Martin, Angela Parks, Diann Hinson and Peter E Jones. The music of Stephen Sondheim was played by Colm Molloy. Sondheim instrumental tracks were provided by Broadway Studio Orchestra. Excerpts from Passion by Stephen Sondheim were sung by Maria Friedman of the original London cast and Jere Shea and Marin Mazzie of the Original Broadway Cast. The theme from Now Voyager, composed by Max Steiner, was played by the National Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Charles Gerhardt.
Dramatic reenactments were written by Martin Milnes and produced by Peter E Jones. The credits for Bluellow were read by Matt Bartlett. And I am Mehran James McCullough. Loving You: The Untold Sondheim is produced by Martin Milnes and Peter E Jones. The executive producer is Jason Caffrey of Creative Kin Limited.
Mix and mastering is by Chris Traves. Stephen Sondheim's music and lyrics are featured courtesy of the Stephen Sondheim Trust. The podcast's original score is composed by Peter E. Jones. The series is written, devised, and directed by Martin Milnes.