Here the Little Guys Win, and Win and Win

By Linda Lee —

You would not have to be a psychologist to guess that Riki Kane Larimer might find something appealing in a story about a fellow who is kept down in Hollywood because the mucky-mucks thought he was too short. We are talking here about one James Cagney, who was 5 foot 5 inches tall. When he arrived in Hollywood in 1930, American-born men were edging up to 5 foot 8 on average. Heroes in movies were meant to stand tall.

Cary Grant was six foot 2. Spencer Tracy was 5 foot 9. Clark Gable was 6 foot 1. Gary Cooper was 6-3.

Immigrants, and bad guys,  on the other hand, could be short, even squat. Thus Jack Warner wanted James Cagney to play tough guys, while Cagney wanted to sing and dance and woo the ladies. Nah, Warner said, hold a gat.

The cast of “Cagney: The Musical” at the Bay Street Theater produced by Riki Kane Larimer (Photo credit: Lenny Stucker)

That’s the premise of “Cagney: The Musical.” The producer of the show, Riki Kane Larimer is considerable shorter than her name, although she would rather be called petite. Not that that has ever kept her down. In fact, she has triumphed in three difficult careers before becoming a successful theatrical producer.

Here are some things most people don’t know about Riki Kane Larimer. She lives north of the highway in Water Mill in a place most people have never heard of:

Lake Nowedonah. She and her husband bought the place in 1985, after staying at a friend’s house too many times. “Hey, get your own damn house!” Over time they enlarged a small house with a sunset view over a 90-acre mill pond.

Riki Kane Larimer and Bob Larimer in Puerto Vallarta. She was 4 foot 10. He was 5 foot 10. (Courtesy Riki Kane Larimer)

Still, if she had to choose between New York City and the Hamptons, no choice. Her home in New York, on Beekman Place. For starters, “The Yankees, although I’m not too happy with them right now.”

She doesn’t do lunch. “I just don’t. I have breakfast, fruit, a scooped out bagel, coffee.” And breakfast is not too early.

Then she might have dinner, but never in East Hampton, which is just too busy. Quieter places like Sag Harbor, near the theater. Southampton. Water Mill.

She has no fondness for the beach. “You get sand in your hair, you get sand in your crotch. Who needs that. Plus, growing up, I went to camp in the Berkshires. I Like Lakes. Lake Nowedonah. I get the best sunsets.”

She has been interviewed so many times over so many careers: publicity, journalism, a syndicated columnist (she is the doyen of a word game – WordyGurdy – that had her touring the country), it is hard to find a question she has not been asked.

Jim Borstelmann, Creighton, Daniel Plimpton (photo credit: Lenny Stucker) We see two tickets on the aisle in row D center right available for July 18, Saturday 8 pm

Speaking of which, it’s time for a commercial break. Riki would not be talking to me right now if she didn’t have something to sell, and that is “Cagney: the Musical.” She began working with this show ten years ago when it was at the York Theater in New York. (She is the vice president of the board of the York Theater.)

Robert Creighton is to “Cagney: The Musical” as Cole Escada is to “Oh Mary,” without the run actually on Broadway and the prizes. Creighton stars as Cagney, he is a co-creator of the show. He co-authored the musical, which uses many Geoge M. Cohan songs from WWI (“Over There,”   “Give My Regards to Broadway”  “You’re a Grand Old Flag” “The Yankee Doodle Boy” along with four new songs and a lot of tap dancing, history and gung-ho patriotism.)

Isn’t that a hard sell to younger audiences I asked. They’ve never heard of Cohan or Cagney.

“Well I’d never heard of Fanny Brice, but I went to see ‘Funny Girl.’ ” she said.

She insists there is  a lot of interest in tap dancing, swing, old codes of behavior. The story of Cagney is a short Irish kid out of the slums who works his way into Vaudeville, then gets exploited by Jack Waner of Warner Brothers, who figures any Irish kid out of New York must be a tough guy.

Robet Creighton, singer, dancer, writer, composer –all around talent on “Cagney: The Musical” and man with a gun (Photo credit:: Lenny Stucker)

So he cast Cagney as a mobster, hat pulled down over his face. And all Cagney wanted to do was sing and dance. Cagney also had a strongly developed sense of right and wrong, and stood up for unions, for the right to get paid, for fair wages, all of which cast him as a communist. Put all those things together, plus a love story and you’ve got a rousing show. Riki is there almost every night. Her last show in New York was 90 minutes of dancing called “Gotta Dance.” We see a theme here.

“Cagney” will run through July 26 except for Bay Street’s 35^th Birthday party and gala on July 11 (honoring Lin-Manuel Miranda, sold out) and July 2 performance of “No Country for Mothers.”

The Bay Street theater seats 299. Every seat is good; you can feel the dancers sweat. But tickets go fast.

Let’s go back to Riki’s story. Somewhere in the 1980s she went to Mexico. We all did. But she was paying attention. She noticed that the bars and refreshment stands had these simple stainless steel mechanical juicers. Cut an orange, put in half, pull the lever down, all the juice came out.

The sleek “Bullet” cocktail shaker. Yes, it looked like something else.

She thought, housewives could use that. Thus was born the MetroKane line of kitchen gadgets. She was no Ron Popiel. There were no slogans or cheesy demonstrations. Her line of devices, first the Mighty OJ Juicer, were nicely designed and won prizes for sleek shapes. (Some critics felt the juicer could have been taller.) After that, other kitchen items came, including the Bullet cocktail shaker and the Faucet pepper mill. Each one a simple yet witty idea. Her husband, Bob Larimer, a successful advertising man, joined the company and they were on their way.

She bounced around the world, going to Asia, meeting suppliers, then came back and sold to Bloomingdales, Neiman Marcus, Crate & Barrel. Those were fun years in retail, when grownups enjoyed witty things; It was exciting to buy a pepper mill that looked like a bathroom faucet. We all wanted a giant yellow pencil in the hallway, to hang our coats on a cactus and sit on a mushroom.

Riki’s favorite product was the whistling tea kettle, T42. The architect Michael Graves designed a playful tea kettle for Alessi that had a simple whistle in its spout and retailed for $100. The MetroKane tea kettle took an aeronautical engineer and a 20-person team three years to design. It had an entire steam engine made of plastic under its lid, and it played, of course, “Tea for Two.” It retailed for $130.

T42 is now one of the great white whales among collectors. Few people have even seen it. But scouts continue to pick though collections hoping to find one. The darned things were impractical. To play the tune, the kettle had to be filled with two-and-a-half quarts of water and had double walls to withstand the pressure. It took two hands to lift it.

But hey, those were fun days at Metrokane. And that was before the Big One, in 1999.

One of the many configurations and colors of the Rabbit corkscrew. In addition to its playful style, it worked.

That was the Rabbit Corkscrew, which just took off. Er, like a rabbit. Come on. We all bought one. Two ears, or handles. Suddenly we could open that bottle of wine.

As usual, it was a handsome product. It was so successful that by 2014 Riki and her husband were able to sell Metrokane. Then Bob died, and Riki turned to producing musicals.

“I still miss him,” she says. “I’ve got his grandchildren. I play tennis at the East Hampton Tennis Club. Between the theater here and the York Theater in New York, I’m busy all the time.”

Riki Kane Larimer in April at the New York Pops Gala honoring Stephen Schwartz. She is with the producer Christina Rose.

There is always a night at the Bay Street Theater, watching the actors with that manic look in their eyes as they tap dance forward, arms windmilling in that mechanical way, singing “There’s NO Business Like SHOW Business Like NO Business I KNOW.”

It winds you up.

She says, “I just want to feel good and have fun.”

And that she does. Ladies and gentlemen, Riki Kane Larimer.

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