Here’s hoping that the No, No Nanette that’s currently at Encores! is going more swimmingly than both the original and the famed 1971 revival.

The production that wound up on Broadway as a 1925 hit had a shaky start. But the ol’ story that its producer-director, H.H. Frazee — also then the owner of the Boston Red Sox — sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees to finance Nanette is untrue; he unloaded the Bambino years before in order to buy five theaters, three in New York, two in Chicago.

During Nanette's rehearsals, Frazee was unhappy with what lyricist Otto Harbach had set to composer Vincent Youmans’ melodies. With Harbach busy with Frank Mandel in fixing the book, Frazee hired Irving Caesar (who’d penned the words to the Jolson hit “Swanee”) to add some lyrics. Youmans and Caesar wrote “You Can Dance with Any Girl at All” in 15 minutes, and “Too Many Rings around Rosie” in a half-hour. On the road, they took a bit longer to write the score’s most enduring hits: “I Want to Be Happy” and “Tea for Two.” Caesar always said that he meant the latter simply as a dummy lyric (one lyricists use just to get the scan of the melody). “I mean,” he’d say for the remaining 70 years of 101-year life, “How can they be having tea if the girl’s sitting on his lap?”

Nanette tells of Jimmy Smith, a Bible salesman who’s at the dangerous age where he flirts, not only with Winnie from Washington, but also with Betty from Boston and Flora from Frisco. Jimmy’s wife Sue suspects nothing, but her best friend Lucille decides to tell her what’s going on. Lucille soon has problems of her own, because she’ll suspect her husband Billy of infidelity.

And who’s Nanette, and how does she fit into all this? She’s Sue’s young “protégé” who’s smitten with Tom. Still, Nanette feels she should experience life a little more before she settles down. Tom’s none too happy, for he suspects Nanette is about to commit a no-no.

The pre-Broadway tryout had to be the strangest ever. Nanette opened in Chicago for ostensibly a few weeks, but it became a sensation, and lasted 49 weeks there. Then came four (!) national companies before the show even opened on Broadway for 321 performances. However, it wasn’t all smooth sailing, for during rehearsals and the tryout, Frazee replaced the performers who portrayed Jimmy, Lucille, and Nanette.

Still, that’s nothing compared to the bloodletting that producer Cyma Rubin did on her 1971 smash revival. Starting with the first rehearsal and right down to its final tryout stop in Baltimore, no fewer than 35 were fired — including Harry Rigby.

He’s the producer who came to her in 1969 and said that a revival of No, No, Nanette could be the hit of the ‘70s — if Sue were played by Ruby (“You’re going out there a youngster, but you’ve got to come back a star”) Keeler and her maid by Patsy Kelly, the sassy comedienne who began her film career in 1929. They’d be under the direction and choreography of ‘30s film legend Busby Berkeley.

Don Dunn, then a Business Week writer, decided to dig into the Rubin-Rigby relationship in The Making of "No, No, Nanette." It’s one thing for a paperback’s back cover to feature great quotes about the book, and Dunn’s has plenty of those. But what it also has as an endorsement quotation is “Dunn had four lawyers read the book before it was printed.” — Chicago Tribune. So you know it’s going to be hot stuff.

How well I remember in 1998, asking Helen Gallagher, who won a Best Musical Actress Tony for this Nanette, what she thought of the book. “I never read it,” she snarled, before realizing that she’d said that in a much-too-strong voice. She pulled back and said more matter-of-factly, “Why would I read it? I lived it.” A few years earlier, I’d interviewed Hilary Knight, who provided the marvelous purple-and-pink Nanette window card. He admitted to reading the book, but was none too pleased with Dunn. “He called me ‘diminutive.’” Knight said with great umbrage. “He should talk! He only came up to my waist!”

But the book’s the thing, and it’s terrific. Dunn described Rigby as “a bachelor” with a voice “as feminine as it is masculine (which) resembles Phyllis Diller’s.” Rubin he characterized as “a lady with whom to be reckoned.” She got her fortune the way women did then — by a second marriage. Her husband Sam, of Revlon cosmetics fame, put up virtually all of the $500,00 budget for a show that needed 270 costumes.

David Merrick, then the still-reigning king of producers, predicted a three-week run. Who could blame him? Charles Gaynor was hired to re-write the book, but couldn’t cut it (literally and figuratively). The 75-year-old Busby Berkeley got off the plane, and immediately collapsed onto the tarmac. Ruby Keeler warned them, “I haven’t danced in 20 years,” and looked every bit the housewife. Kelly felt defeated from all her near-misses in TV Land: “I’ve made so many pilots, I could start my own airline.”

Rubin kept a keen eye on expenses. She’d only pay the legendary Bobby Van (as Billy) half-salary during rehearsals. Even Carole Demas, signed as Nanette, got one-fifth of what the Nanette in 1925 got. However, Rubin didn’t stint on the salary given Loni Zoe Ackerman, who played Betty from Boston. But then again, Rubin was her mother.

Hiram Sherman was hired as Jimmy, though he was famous for leaving show’s at a moment’s notice. He would with this one, too, during the first leg of the tryout. And though he had a run-of-the-play contract, he settled for two weeks’ salary, because he didn’t believe the show would run. Demas settled for a settlement, too, of about four months salary when her dismissal was demanded by Burt Shevelove, the director who took over for Berkeley, soon considered too feeble. Berkeley  was later relegated to punching three holes in each page of the script so they could be accommodated in binders. That script by, the way, was now being re-written by Shevelove, so he couldn’t attend every rehearsal. Not a good sign.

Keeler, who’d been living in California for decades, was lonely, so Rubin hired the star’s son as assistant stage manager, her sister as her dresser, and her daughter as a chorus girl. The last-named refused, knowing she didn’t have the ability to do it. If she had accepted, she would have had to accede to Rubin’s demand that each girl cut her hair in a ‘20s fashion. Rubin had put that in each contract, though, somehow, she missed putting it in one for the first girl she’d hired. That actress chose not to cut her hair — and was fired the second her contract ran out. However, one chorus girl was exempted from cutting her hair in the cookie-cutter style: Loni Zoe Ackerman.

Sherman said he hated Shevelove’s “basic rudeness to Ruby.” Keeler refused to learn “one more step.” Rigby told Rubin, “You’re everything I hate in a woman.” Rubin asked Kelly, “Who does the cast call me ‘the Black Witch?’” Costume designer Raoul Pene du Bois said he couldn’t design for Gallagher, whom he described as “ugly” and with a “fat ass.” (Could this be why Gallagher chose not to read the book?) After on rehearsal, Gallagher said she’s “going to my group and them what I’ve been going through.” Demas’ mother showed up at another rehearsal, and Shevelove treated her as a queen, introduced her warmly to the company, even though he knew he was firing Demas the next day in favor of Susan Watson. Rubin recommended someone else to play Nanette: Loni Zoe Ackerman.

When they headed out-of-town, many pundits echoed Mike Todd’s famous out-of-town pronouncement with Oklahoma!: “No stars, no relevance, no nudity, no chance.” Even Shevelove admitted that the story was little more than “Will Nanette, an innocent little child, get her wish and spend a weekend in Atlantic City?” Their first Boston preview would be on Halloween. Trick or treat?

Treat. Every critic and audience went wild, mostly from the nostalgia value. Ditto in the other cities they visited in the following nine weeks. The wear and tear had worn down Sherman, though, who was spitting up blood, so that's when he left. Frank McHugh, a forgotten featured player, was hired, did three performances, and was fired. Jack Gilford took the role, and they came to town to amazing notices — though John Simon panned it. Later, Simon admitted that he got more hate mail for that notice than for any other he’d ever written.

The show was grossing “a whopping amount” each week, says Dunn: $107,000. Today, of course, with that amount, you’d close faster than Glory Days, but those were the glory days of a $12 top, $15 on weekends, and five bucks for standing room. Scalpers were getting $25. The $500,000 investment was paid back in six months.

Dunn quoted Alex Cohen’s statement that he’d use only one word to describe the show’s success: “Infuckingcredible.” I’d use the same one to describe Don Dunn’s The Making of "No, No, Nanette.”