"Cabaret" Brought Fame "Cabaret," the work that made Kander and Ebb famous, opened in November 1966 and was a major critical and box office success. "Cabaret" is the story of an American performer living in Berlin between the two world wars and reflects the anti-Semitism and growing political tumult of those times. "Cabaret" had a Broadway run of 1,166 performances and captured the Tony Award as the season's best musical. The original cast recording won a Grammy Award and the 1972 film adaptation won eight Academy Awards. Years later, in a panel discussion involving several of the people who worked with him on "Cabaret," Ebb said about the play and the nature of the collaborative process: "'Cabaret' is one of the happiest memories I have because [the final product] was mostly what I had in mind, and I think mostly is the best you can do." Kander and Ebb worked steadily together in the years that followed, producing the musicals "The Happy Time" (Broadway opening, January 1968), "Zorba" (November 1968), "70 Girls 70" (April 1971), "Chicago" (June 1975), "The Act" (October 1977), "Woman of the Year" (March 1981; it earned four Tony Awards, including one for its star, Lauren Bacall, and another for Kander and Ebb), "The Rink" (February 1984), "Kiss of the Spider Woman" (London, October 1992; another Tony Award-winner for its star Chita Rivera and for the songwriting duo), and "Steel Pier" (April 1997). Interspersed with their work on Broadway musicals were several projects for television, including the classics GOLDIE AND LIZA TOGETHER (with Goldie Hawn), LIZA MINNELLI LIVE FROM RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL, OL' BLUE EYES IS BACK (with Frank Sinatra), and BARYSHNIKOV ON BROADWAY. Kander and Ebb also produced songs for movies, including FUNNY LADY and the title track for NEW YORK, NEW YORK. There were some disappointments for the songwriting team. "Zorba" was a box-office failure, and "70 Girls 70" closed after only 36 performances. "Steel Pier," a story of love and corruption that took place behind-the-scenes at a 1930s Atlantic City dance marathon, was panned by the critics and closed after two months. Two Kander and Ebb musicals had the distinction of losing the most Tony Awards (11), "Chicago" in 1976 and "Steel Pier" in 1997. "Chicago" unfortunately had to compete with "A Chorus Line," which dominated the musical categories with nine awards. Ironically, "Steel Pier" saw several of its nominations lose to the Broadway revival of "Chicago," which, on its second go-around, took home six awards. Critic David Lefkowitz wrote of the 1996 Broadway revival of "Chicago": "'Chicago's' value as entertainment now comes chiefly from the way fine dancers and larger-than-life theater personalities can mix outrageous camp and deadpan seriousness, not to mention the way Kander and Ebb's score holds together as a unified -- and awesomely zippy -- song cycle." Lefkowitz also raved about the 1996 revival of "Cabaret," calling it "the most wrenching, thrilling musical of the season, a major event, likely to be studied by musical theater directors for years to come." Kander and Ebb continued working throughout the 1990s. In 1998 they were among six people chosen as Kennedy Center honorees for "the unique and invaluable contribution they have made to the cultural life of our nation," in the words of Kennedy Center Chairman James A. Johnson. On June 5, 2000, Kander and Ebb were presented with the eleventh annual Oscar Hammerstein Award at York Theatre Company's annual fundraiser. Among the York's productions is "Musicals in Mufti," a mounting of small revivals of "underrated" musicals. Kander and Ebb's "70 Girls 70" was a 1999 revival at the York. For years Ebb has lived and worked in an apartment overlooking New York's Central Park. He decorates his apartment with memorabilia and German Expressionist paintings and drawings, and he collects record albums as a hobby. Source: ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WORLD BIOGRAPHY SUPPLEMENT, Vol. 21. Gale Group, © 2001 Gale Group. Reprinted by permission of The Gale Group. back to page 2