The real ‘Jersey Boys’ come clean

Two friends chat in a hotel suite. They represent one of the most enduring partnerships in show business, but one that hardly anyone remembered until five years ago.

Frankie Valli and Bob Gaudio were in town to celebrate the Palazzo's second anniversary of "Jersey Boys." The 2005 Broadway musical tells the story of the Four Seasons, but also how Valli and Gaudio's partnership endured.

A handshake deal between Valli the singer and Gaudio the songwriter led to Valli's solo hit, "Can't Take My Eyes Off You," and a future beyond the original quartet.

"It's been a terrific relationship," says Valli, who turns 76 on Monday. "We're tuned into each other, and we're not afraid to express opinions and not feel as though we're attacking each other. Sometimes you get the best work done that way."

"Jersey Boys" has been a devil's bargain: a blockbuster hit that revived interest in the Four Seasons' catalog, but an unflinching biography, which includes the group's affiliation with a mobster and the death of Valli's daughter from an overdose.

"Certain parts of it are always emotional," Valli says. "There are things that go on in your life that, as you reflect back, stay emotional for you. There are events that are one of a kind."

"Maybe that's why we didn't do a lot of interviews about our past," he says at another point. "We just kind of kept it under the carpet."

But everyone knows the story now. So we can guess why the third surviving Season, Tommy DeVito, isn't sitting here with them, even though he lives in Las Vegas.

The musical depicts DeVito as the group's bad boy, gambling them deeper into debt until he is exiled to Las Vegas. "You see the show, you kind of get a vibe on what we've been through," Gaudio says, before taking the diplomatic route: He and Valli are "more involved in the actual day-to-day 'Jersey Boys' stuff."

Gaudio figures the gambler in DeVito decided the run was over and that it was "time to leave the table." And he wouldn't have been alone in that opinion. "What happened to us after Tommy left? That's got to be against all odds. Who would have thought this would still be going on?"

But it does. "Jersey Boys" goes on in five cities around the world and on tour, with one of its main themes still born out in this hotel suite.

"You should try to come as close as you possibly can to the truth," Valli says. Still, "everybody's truth, even though there may be similarities, is just a little different. ... We may both experience the exact same thing, but you get something totally different from it than I did."

"Of course we know the truth," Gaudio adds with a laugh. "That's not for us to figure out."

Contact Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.