The actor talks to Atlantic City Weekly about his portrayal of the iconic entertainer Eddie Cantor on HBO's 'Boardwalk Empire.'
Stephen DeRosa and Paz de la Huerta in a scene from HBO's "Boardwalk Empire."
Stephen DeRosa is a character actor who has appeared on HBO's Boardwalk Empire, portraying the legendary singer Eddie Cantor.
DeRosa. who sings two songs on the show's GRAMMY-nominated soundtrack, spoke to Atlantic City Weekly towards the end of the show's second season in 2011.
The gorgeous and poignant "Life's A Funny Proposition After All" closes the first season and the soundtrack album; did you know that was going to be the final song in season one when you sang it?
No. In 2009 we shot the pilot and the pilot had the song. As the show progressed, the writers, obviously led by Terry [Winter] and [Martin] Scorsese, influence the evolution of the series. I think the music was chosen by Jim Dumbar and Randy Posner. Randy is the music producer and then Jim Dumbar and Vince Giordano had enormous amounts of influence in making suggestions about what they should use for the episodes as they were being written and created. I would get a phone call if they wanted me to sing something and then, of course, my job is then to make sure it feels as authentically Eddie as possible. Eddie lived in a kind of musically optimistic 1920s place even though he had a shitty childhood. His parents died when he was young but his grandmother raised him and he was little and scrawny so he got beaten up a lot. He learned to make jokes so he could avoid getting beaten up, so from then on he realized this singing and dancing thing could work.
So there is a lot of input regarding the music, which plays such an important role on the show?
[Yeah], you have these different people making suggestions for filling up the music of the series in season one and then Randy at the head talking to Terry. But obviously Terry and the writers have a vision and creativity. They want whatever is going on culturally, whether they are bringing in a prize fighter or the [song] "Japanese Sandman {listen}," with a naked girl in a whorehouse. They want to obviously serve the story. So I get a phone call at the end of the season and they say Eddie is going to be in the final episode, and I’m like, 'Amazing, can’t wait!' And then they said: 'Terry found a song that we’re figuring out and we want you to do but we don’t know how we want you to do it.' I get this material and I want to do it the way Eddie would have done it and not only [the] way Eddie would have done it, I want to do it the way [he would have done it] at Babette's [nightclub] at midnight [with] a kind of "Old Lang Syne" kind of feeling. And at the same time, my first instinct was to go to the sad place because we had talked about that, but that’s not what the '20s were about and it certainly wasn’t what Eddie was about. It was about irony. It was about, yeah, things are crazy and fucked up, but we are still hopeful about the future. We have to make peace with it. When I got that song I was like, 'Terry where the hell did you find this?' And Terry said, 'I just knew I wanted to find a song to close out season one and I just looked around and said there it was, that’s my song.'
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Among the genres of music A Night at the Speakeasy embodies are country (catapulted into popularity in the mid-1920s by the Grand Ole Opry radio broadcast, which originates from Tinnon’s home town of Nashville, Tennessee) and gospel, also made widely popular by radio in the 1920s.
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From Nelson Johnson and the original book to the Grammy-winning soundtrack, interviews with the cast and executives of the HBO show set in Atlantic City and the real stories behind the drama series.
"The ending caught me by surprise even though I know the history to which it's adhering. I thought it was such a bold and dramatic move. You sort of figured the series was going to be about these two characters and then one of them dies suddenly at the end of season two."
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New York big-band leader Vince Giordano talks to Atlantic City Weekly about working on HBO's Boardwalk Empire and its GRAMMY-nominated soundtrack.
The famed seaside resort that is portrayed in HBO's hit drama series Boardwalk Empire celebrated the show's second season premiere on Sunday, Sept. 25, in a number of ways over the weekend.
“[Empire’s] helped remind people of what a colorful history we’ve had as a city, and helped bring these things back into focus for some people. And I think the fact that the series is very well regarded only helps.”
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In a “news” box on the upper right side of the Archeophone Records home page, there’s a list of the songs played thus far in the first two episodes of HBO’s 'Boardwalk Empire,' set in 1920s Atlantic City.
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"When I recorded the first two songs I got to record with the band, which I prefer — in the same room, we did it live. Coming from a musical theater background, I prefer to sing live because there's just this synergy when you have a band playing behind you."
“It’s been my love and passion ever since I was five years old and I think this music moves people. People who come to see us, they say, ‘When I got here I was in kind of a blah mood, not so good, or depressed, or whatever and I come out in just a whole different place. I’m laughing, my spirits are lifted, it’s cheaper than going to a psychiatrist!’”
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1. Pete Smith said... on Feb 10, 2012 at 11:48AM
“Fascinating read. Great show, great acting, great music. Eddie was a joy.
FYI: the last video featured "Keep Young and Beautiful" is from Lucille Ball's film debut.”