Broadway: A Man for All Scenes

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"Scenic designers," he maintains, "are the most underpaid people in the theater." And he notes that the cost of carting off and burning the sets of Kelly, after its inadvertent one-night stand on Broadway last month, was $6,000—slightly more than Smith's fee for creating them. Not that Smith is hurting. His take from My Fair Lady alone reached $65,000, with royalties still acoming. And in any case, he has managed to move out of the old artists' commune to a bachelor pad of his own a few blocks away. It is a yellow brick Federal house, with a staff of three for the dishes and furnace. It also has 16 rooms and 16 fireplaces and, consequently, more Oliver Smith sets than even David Merrick could afford.