Born: October 25, 1927
Broadway's favorite ingenue got her first glimpse of New York City at the age of 20, on a trip with her mother from her native Atlanta in 1948. After seeing "Oklahoma!," she sent her mother back alone. The silver-throated soprano soon made her Broadway debut as the ingenue in Yip Harburg's satirical flop, "Flahooley," in 1951, following it with a series of other roles on tour and on Broadway. Cook finally made a name for herself in 1956 as the much-maligned Cunegonde in "Candide." Her showcase number in Leonard Bernstein's demanding score, "Glitter and Be Gay," in which she essentially makes a compelling case for being a kept woman; required her to hit 21 high Cs.
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Made a name for herself in 1956 as the much-maligned Cunegonde in "Candide."
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Her porcelain skin, blue eyes, and vocal purity made her the golden girl next door, but it was never as easy as it looked. "Very early in my career, I was standing in the wings, waiting to audition, and I thought everybody who sang before me had a better voice, looked prettier, had a better figure. I was always a mess," she recounted. "For some reason, it occurred to me that if I could find a way to really learn who I am and put that into my work, then there could be no real competition -- because there's only one of me." That "me" won hearts as a midwestern librarian searching for her "White Knight" in "The Music Man" (1957); an ardent bride-to-be in "The Gay Life" (1961); a lovelorn shopgirl in "She Loves Me" (1963); and in several Rodgers and Hammerstein revivals. She brought a feisty determination to all her roles -- one way or another, she was going to get the guy before the end of the second act, and isn't that what musical comedy is all about?
The second act of her own life proved to be more interesting than those of some of her shows. After dropping out of the Broadway scene in the late 1960s, she returned to a triumphant debut at Carnegie Hall in 1975. Since then, she has built a second career as the most accomplished cabaret and concert singer of her generation. In the 1950s, no one could match the buoyancy of her innocence; now, no one can match the poignancy of her experience.
Source: Excerpted from BROADWAY: THE AMERICAN MUSICAL by Michael Kantor and Laurence Maslon. Published by Bulfinch Press.
photo credits: Photofest
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