A 'LINE' IN THE RECORD BOOKS

In early 1974, director-choreographer Michael Bennett, a former dancer on the '60s rock & roll show Hullabaloo who was becoming a major force in the theater, rented a studio and invited two dozen chorus dancers-or ''gypsies''-to what were essentially group-therapy sessions about their lives and dreams. The resulting 40-plus hours of taped confessions were distilled in a workshop production, which in April 1975 opened Off Broadway as A Chorus Line. The musical play instantly became a singular sensation, hitting a post-Watergate public right in its zeitgeist. In July of that year it moved to the big time, Broadway's Shubert Theatre-and stayed there for a monumental, record-smashing 15 years. Long before TV talk shows began spilling people's innermost secrets, Chorus Line's confessional content was a revelation. Seventeen dancers, auditioning for eight slots in a Broadway show, are goaded by an offstage director into revealing what makes them tick. Their emotionally raw story-songs of dysfunctional families, plastic surgery, homosexuality, and, above all, their passion for-and need to-dance were revolutionary for musical theater: The show earned nine Tony awards, as well as a Pulitzer for drama. Over the years it has been seen in 22 countries and has grossed nearly $300 million worldwide. The movie rights to Chorus Line were snapped up by Universal for an amazing $5.5 million plus 20 percent of the gross. But after doing time in Hollywood, Bennett decided he wanted nothing to do with the screen version, and the project languished for almost a decade. ''They bought the single most sought- after property in the world,'' says John Breglio, Bennett's former business partner and today a top entertainment lawyer. ''But once they bought it, they didn't know how to make it.'' They never did figure it out. Sir Richard Attenborough's clumsy 1985 film, starring Michael Douglas, earned a mere $14 million. The final curtain call came on April 28, 1990, three years after Bennett had died of AIDS at age 44. Its 6,137 performances still make Chorus Line the Great White Way's longest-running show, and there's talk of a 25th-anniversary revival. Ironically, none of the original cast went on to become stars, which may be the ultimate case of life imitating art. As Bennett's ex-wife, Chorus Line Tony winner Donna McKechnie, said, the show ''was designed to be bigger than any one cast member. It's about dreams. Everybody has dreams. We're all in the chorus.'' *

TIME CAPSULE

April 28, 1990

NOTHING compared to Sinead O'Connor's ''Nothing Compares 2 U,'' while Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cracked the big screen. The Golden Girls shone on TV, and Robert Ludlum gave birth to the best-selling The Bourne Ultimatum.