Show Business: Broadway Birthday

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Nothing is wasted on an Abbott show. Rehearsals start on time, and there are no temper tantrums or displays of nerves from either the director or the actors. Legend has it that a Method-trained actor once yelled from the stage, "What's my motivation?", to which Abbott responded, "Your job." He despises what he considers exaggerated interpretations. "If an actor puts his personality ahead of creating the character, then he's not an actor," he says. "He's just a performer."

In fact, he could do without stars, often preferring to work with unknowns. "Young people are excited and eager," he says. "They make me feel young." And no one is irreplaceable. "Oh, there are always plenty of people who can play a part," he says. "You think there aren't, but they're there if you look for them."

Abbott is a little embarrassed by the awe he inspires; even old friends are reluctant to call him by his first name. "It's like being knighted when you reach the stage where you can call him George," says Choreographer Donald Saddler, who has worked with him on many shows and now enjoys that privilege. A few weeks ago, Abbott extended the invitation to Gerald Freedman, artistic director of the Cleveland troupe. The dumbstruck Freedman -- Sir Gerry now -- could only respond, "I'll try, Mr. Abbott."

In his autobiography, "Mister Abbott," he wrote lovingly about his first wife, who died in 1930 and with whom he had one daughter, and somewhat less lovingly about his second, from whom he was divorced in the '50s. Right now he is concentrating on No. 3, the bubbly Joy Valderrama, 55, whom he married when he was a mere 96. In Florida, they are usually on the golf course or by a pool during the day and watch television at night. One of his favorite programs is The Newlywed Game, which, he says, gives him an insight into the lives of working-class Americans. He has a fond spot for his fruit trees -- grapefruit, orange and papaya -- and talks to them the way he might like to talk to his actors. "Goddam you!" he says. "Deliver!"