Pioneer of the Stage. W. C. Fields, star of the silent screen, called Bert Williams “the funniest man I ever saw and the saddest.” As a central figure on America’s vaudeville circuit, Williams sang, danced, and pantomimed in clubs, cabarets, and theaters across the country. Williams was one of, if not the most, famous African-American performers in the 1900s. In an age when the “white vaudeville stage did not welcome black performers,” Williams pioneered an important role for black performers who had so profoundly shaped the genre. With unfortunate regularity, he was often the only African American on stage. In the 1900s Williams was the toast of the cities he toured, and in 1904 he played a command performance in England for King Edward VII.

Facing Racism. Racial prejudice shaped Williams’ career. Unlike many other blackface performers, Williams did not play for laughs at the expense of other African Americans or black culture. Instead, he based his humor on universal situations in which any members of his audience might find themselves. In the style of vaudeville, Williams performed in blackface makeup like his white counterparts. Blackface worked like a double mask for him. It emphasized the difference between Williams, his fellow vaudevillians, and his white audiences.

Many white vaudevillians refused to appear on the same bill with Williams, and others complained that his material, which he wrote himself, was better than theirs. Williams, like many black performers, faced discrimination from the hotels and restaurants in which he often performed. Hotels routinely refused to let Williams ride in the same elevators used by their white patrons. He once told a friend how much such seemingly petty discrimination hurt. “It wouldn’t be so bad. … if I didn’t hear the applause [from his performance] still ringing in my ears.”

Early Life. Williams was born in New Providence, Nassau, in the British West Indies, in 1874. He became a showman in 1893, when he joined Martin and Seig’s Mastodon Minstrels. While performing with the Minstrels he met African American song-and-dance man George Walker, and the two men teamed up. The twosome debuted in New York’s Casino Theatre in 1898 in a short-lived show, “The Gold Bug.” Their act consisted of songs, dance, and quick-paced patter that centered on Walker trying to convince the slower Williams to join him in get-rich-quick schemes. Williams and Walker’s popular act continued until Walker’s death in 1911.

Ziegfeld Follies. Williams struck out on his own when, in 1909, Walker became too ill to perform. In 1910 Florenz Ziegfeld hired Williams to be one of the stars of “The Ziegfeld Follies.” He performed in the “Follies” almost continually, and his national popularity and fame grew. In 1918 Williams broke another color line when he topped the bill at New York City’s Palace. Williams became famous for his pantomimed poker game. In this skit a single spotlight illuminated Williams’ head and shoulders as he mimicked all the gestures of the player, from drawing cards to losing the game. The popularity of this skit led to a brief film career in the summer of 1916 when Williams appeared in the film A NATURAL BORN GAMBLER. In addition to the poker-game skit, Williams introduced many popular songs to audiences across the country, such as “You Ain’t So Warm,” “Nobody,” “That’s Harmony,” and “You Got the Right Church but the Wrong Pew.”

Later Life. In 1920 Williams left the “Follies” and signed with another New York company, the Shuberts. On 21 February 1922 Williams collapsed onstage while touring with the production of “Under the Bamboo Tree.” Williams returned to New York City, where he died a month later.
 
 
Source: Excerpted from AMERICAN DECADES CD-ROM, Gale Research, © 1998 Gale Research. Reprinted by permission of The Gale Group.

Photo credits: Photofest and the New York Public Library

One of the most influential of popular singers, Waters’ early career found her working in vaudeville. As a consequence, her repertoire was more widely based and popularly angled than those of many of her contemporaries. It is reputed that she was the first singer to perform W. C. Handy’s “St. Louis Blues” in public, and she later popularized blues and jazz-influenced songs such as “Stormy Weather” and “Travelin’ All Alone,” also scoring a major success with “Dinah.” She first recorded in 1921, and on her early sessions she was accompanied by artists such as Fletcher Henderson, Coleman Hawkins, James P. Johnson, and Duke Ellington. Significantly, for her acceptance in white circles, she also recorded with Jack Teagarden, Benny Goodman, and Tommy Dorsey.

From the late ’20s, Waters appeared in several Broadway musicals, including “Africana,” “Blackbirds of 1930,” “Rhapsody in Black,” “As Thousands Cheer,” “At Home Abroad,” and “Cabin in the Sky,” in which she introduced several diverting songs such as “I’m Coming Virginia,” “Baby Mine,” “My Handy Man Ain’t Handy No More,” “Till the Real Thing Comes Along,” “Suppertime,” “Harlem on My Mind,” “Heat Wave,” “Got a Bran’ New Suit” (with Eleanor Powell), “Hottentot Potentate,” and “Cabin in the Sky.” In the ’30s she stopped the show regularly at the Cotton Club in Harlem with “Stormy Weather,” and appeared at Carnegie Hall in 1938. She played a few dramatic roles in the theater, and appeared in several films, including “On with the Show,” “Check and Double Check,” “Gift of the Gab,” “Tales of Manhattan,” “Cairo,” “Cabin in the Sky,” “Stage Door Canteen,” “Pinky,” “Member of the Wedding,” and “The Sound and the Fury.” In the ’50s she appeared in the U.S. television series BEULAH for a while, and had her own Broadway show, “An Evening with Ethel Waters” (1957).

Throughout the ’60s and on into the mid-’70s she sang as a member of the organization that accompanied evangelist Billy Graham. Although less highly regarded in blues and jazz circles than either Bessie Smith or Louis Armstrong, in the ’30s Waters transcended the boundaries of these musical forms to far greater effect than either of these artists and spread her influence throughout popular music. Countless young hopefuls emulated her sophisticated, lilting vocal style and her legacy lived on in the work of outstanding and, ironically, frequently better-known successors, such as Connee Boswell, Ruth Etting, Adelaide Hall, Mildred Bailey, Lee Wiley, Lena Horne, and Ella Fitzgerald. Even Billie Holiday (with whom Waters was less than impressed, commenting, “She sings as though her shoes are too tight”), acknowledged her influence. A buoyant, high-spirited singer with a light, engaging voice that frequently sounded “whiter” than most of her contemporaries, Waters’ career was an object lesson in determination and inner drive. Her appalling childhood problems and troubled early life, recounted in the first part of her autobiography, HIS EYE IS ON THE SPARROW, were overcome through grit and the application of her great talent.

FURTHER READING:
HIS EYE IS ON THE SPARROW, Ethel Waters.
TO ME IT’S WONDERFUL, Ethel Waters.

Source: Biographical information provided by MUZE. Excerpted from the ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR MUSIC, edited by Colin Larkin. © 2004 MUZE UK Ltd.

Photo credits: Photofest and the New York Public Library

A Broadway star actor-singer-dancer who has made some inroads in TV, Ben Vereen also has seen his career plagued by personal problems, including a near-fatal car accident in 1992. His elastic movements, ready broad smile, and exuberant energy have made him popular with audiences. But Vereen has also shown himself to be a viable dramatic actor with such roles as Chicken George, the mulatto ancestor of Alex Haley, in ROOTS (ABC, 1977). A graduate of NYC’s High School of Performing Arts, the multitalented performer made his Off-Broadway debut not long after completing his studies in “The Prodigal Son” (1965) at the Greenwich Mews Theater. By the following year, he was in Las Vegas, performing in “Sweet Charity,” a show with which he toured in 1967-68. He returned to NYC to play Claude in “Hair” in the Broadway production, before joining the national touring company. Vereen first won real notice on Broadway in 1971, playing Judas Iscariot in the Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice musical “Jesus Christ Superstar,” for which he earned his first Tony nomination. He earned the Tony as Best Actor in a Musical for his galvanizing turn as The Leading Player in “Pippin,” although he did not have the title role. Vereen’s singing “Join us, leave your cares behind you …” on the TV commercials (the first for a Broadway musical) helped filled the theater. He was now a star and seen around town with Liza Minnelli, Bob Fosse, and the elite of Broadway. Vereen would return to Broadway in 1985 in the short-lived “Grind” and replaced Keith David as The Chimney Man in “Jelly’s Last Jam” in 1993.

Like so many others, Broadway success meant a chance to break out into other media. Vereen had first appeared in feature films as a frug dancer in Bob Fosse’s SWEET CHARITY (1969), a lesser role than what he had played on tour. He had a good shot in FUNNY LADY (1975) playing legendary stage performer Bert Robbins, but much of his work landed on the cutting-room floor and the end result was practically a cameo. He co-starred in ALL THAT JAZZ (1979), Fosse’s semiautobiographical film, in which Vereen could have been playing himself. By the ’80s, however, there were only parts in low-budget independent films like 1988’s BUY AND CELL (1988).

The small screen proved more hospitable. BEN VEREEN … COMIN’ AT YA (NBC, 1975), was his shot at a variety series, but the summer tryout, while proving popular with critics and the audience, was too near the end of the variety show cycle. In 1980, ABC teamed Vereen with Jeff Goldblum in TENSPEED AND BROWNSHOE, in which Vereen was the former, a con artist detective. The first episode of the show was a smash, but the ratings inexplicably collapsed and the show was canceled after its initial short run. In 1984-85, Vereen played Uncle Philip, the diabetic relative of WEBSTER on the ABC sitcom, but by 1986, he was the mayor of ZOOBILEE ZOO, the syndicated kids’ show, off prime time TV. He hosted the syndicated tryout show YOU WRITE THE SONGS (1986-87) and reprised the character of Tenspeed Turner on J. J. STARBUCK (NBC, 1988). Vereen displayed his versatility and dramatic abilities in roles ranging from the trumpeter in LOUIS ARMSTRONG: CHICAGO STYLE (ABC, 1976) and Chicken George, the grandson of Kunte Kinte who wins his freedom, but not that of his wife and children, in the landmark miniseries ROOTS. Vereen also appeared in the miniseries ELLIS ISLAND (CBS, 1984) and A.D. (NBC, 1985). Additionally, he was Emmanuel Lewis’ father estranged from his wife in LOST IN LONDON (CBS, 1985). Vereen also continued as a variety performer, playing several characters in the heralded Mary Tyler Moore special MARY’S INCREDIBLE DREAM (CBS, 1976), headlining BEN VEREEN — HIS ROOTS (ABC, 1978), and guesting on specials hosted by Lynda Carter and David Copperfield.

In 1987, Vereen’s daughter Naja was killed in a freak accident when a truck overturned on the car in which she was a passenger. The actor curtailed his workload somewhat, but reemerged in 1991 as the grumpy boss of the detectives on SILK STALKINGS, a USA Network series on which he appeared for two seasons. In 1992, Vereen was walking on Pacific Coast Highway and was struck by a car driven by record producer and composer David Foster. While he was severely injured and early reports were that he might not survive, within a year he was wowing audiences on Broadway as Keith David’s replacement in “Jelly’s Last Jam.” In 1995, Vereen co-starred in a musical version of “A Christmas Carol” for the holiday season.

Source: Excerpted from Baseline. BaselineStudioSystems — A Hollywood Media Corp. Company.

Photo credits: Photofest

A vivacious, red-headed dancer, actress, and singer, Verdon could be funny or tender, sassy or seductive, depending on the music and the mood. She studied dancing with Ernest Belcher from an early age, but initially followed her first husband into journalism, reviewing films and nightclub acts. After assisting the notable choreographer Jack Cole on “Magdalena” (1948), Verdon made her first appearance on Broadway two years later in “Alive and Kicking.” However, it was Cole Porter’s “Can-Can” that made her a star in 1953. Her thrilling performance as the (very) high-kicking Claudine gained her a Tony Award, and she won another two years later for her portrayal of the bewitching Lola in “Damn Yankees” (“Two Lost Souls,” “Whatever Lola Wants,” “Who’s Got the Pain?”), a show that was brilliantly choreographed by her future husband, Bob Fosse. He restaged his innovative dance sequences for the 1958 film version, for which, instead of casting an already established star, Verdon was invited to reprise her Broadway role. From then on, Fosse choreographed and/or directed all Verdon’s shows.

In 1957 she played Anna Christie in “New Girl in Town” (“Ven I Valse,” “On the Farm,” “It’s Good to Be Alive,” “If That Was Love”), a musical adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s 1921 play, and on this occasion she shared the Tony with fellow cast member Thelma Ritter — the first time there had been a Tony tie. In 1959, Verdon won outright when she starred with Richard Kiley in “Redhead.” After that, Broadway audiences had to wait another seven years before they saw Verdon on the musical stage, but the wait was more than worthwhile. In “Sweet Charity” (1966) she played a dance hall hostess with a heart of gold who yearns for marriage and roses ’round the door. Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields provided her with some lovely songs, including “If My Friends Could See Me Now” and “There’s Gotta Be Something Better Than This.” Verdon’s final Broadway musical was “Chicago” (1975), a razzle-dazzle affair set in the roaring ’20s, full of hoods and Chita Rivera. She then turned once more to films. She had appeared in several during the ’50s, including DAVID AND BATHSHEBA, ON THE RIVIERA, MEET ME AFTER THE SHOW, THE MERRY WIDOW, THE I DON’T CARE GIRL, and THE FARMER TAKES A WIFE, as well as DAMN YANKEES.

In 1983, she played a choreographer in the television movie LEGS, and had several other good roles in big-screen features such as THE COTTON CLUB, COCOON, NADINE, COCOON: THE RETURN, and ALICE. In 1992 she donated a substantial amount of material documenting her own career and that of her late husband, Bob Fosse (he died in 1987), to the Library of Congress. A year later, Gwen Verdon received the 1993 New Dramatists Lifetime Achievement Award at a ceremony in which fellow Broadway legends such as Richard Adler, Chita Rivera, Cy Coleman, John Kander, and Fred Ebb gathered to pay tribute. She continued to be honored throughout the ’90s, with the Broadway Theater Institute’s award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theater, the Actors’ Fund of America’s Julie Harris Lifetime Achievement Award, and the National Medal of Arts, which she received from the U.S. President in November 1998. During that year Verdon had been serving as Artistic Director on a tribute to her late husband entitled “Fosse: A Celebration in Dance and Song,” which opened on Broadway in January 1999.

Source: Biographical information provided by MUZE. Excerpted from the ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR MUSIC, edited by Colin Larkin. © 2004 MUZE UK Ltd.

Photo credits: Photofest and Martha Swope

An inimitable actress and singer with a magnetic appeal, who has combined a career in the musical theater with another in drama, films, and on television. Stritch has been called caustic, sardonic, witty, tough, and much else besides. She is said to have sung for the first time on stage in the Long Island revue “The Shape of Things!”, in June 1947, and a few months later introduced “Civilization (Bongo, Bongo, Bongo)” on Broadway in another revue, “Angels in the Wings.” Stritch subsequently understudied Ethel Merman in Irving Berlin’s hit musical “Call Me Madam,” and played Merman’s role of ambassador Sally Adams in the 1952-53 U.S. tour. Also in 1952, she was Melba Snyder in a revival of “Pal Joey” at the Broadhurst Theater, and gave a memorable reading of the amusing “Zip.” During the remainder of the ’50s, Stritch appeared on Broadway in the 1954 revival of “On Your Toes” (rendering a “drop dead” version of the interpolated “You Took Advantage of Me”) and with Don Ameche and Russell Nype in “Goldilocks” (1958). In 1961, she sang “Why Do the Wrong People Travel?”, among other songs, in Noël Coward’s “Sail Away,” and in the following year went with the show to London. Although she starred as Vera Charles in the U.S. tour of “Mame,” and appeared in a U.S. television version of the legendary revue “Pins and Needles,” Stritch did not appear on Broadway again until “Company” (1970), the show that gave her cult status.

The television program documenting the agonies involved in recording its original cast album, particularly the sequence in which a weary Stritch struggles to lay down a Stephen Sondheim-pleasing version of “The Ladies Who Lunch,” proved to be riveting viewing, and was eventually released on videotape and Laserdisc. After reprising her role for the 1972 London production of “Company,” Stritch lived in England for about 10 years, appearing in various plays, and co-starring with Donald Sinden in the top-rated television series “Two’s Company.”

In 1985, she returned in triumph to New York for the two-performance “Follies in Concert” at Lincoln Center. She played Hattie, and very nearly stopped the show with her “sensational” rendering of “Broadway Baby.” In the early ’90s, she was back at Lincoln Center with the original cast of “Company” for benefit concerts, made her cabaret debut at New York’s Rainbow & Stars, and played the role of Parthy in the 1994 Tony Award-winning revival of “Show Boat” on Broadway. Stritch was inducted into The Theater Hall of Fame in 1995, and two years later made a rare working trip to London in order to join a host of stars celebrating Barbara Cook’s 70th birthday at the Royal Albert Hall. In May 1998 she withdrew from the cast of Bob Kingdom’s play “Elsa Edgar” at the Bay Street Theater, Long Island, just a few hours before its scheduled opening. Stritch was to portray socialite Elsa Maxwell in the first act, and FBI director J. Edgar Hoover in the second.

Source: Biographical information provided by MUZE. Excerpted from the ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR MUSIC, edited by Colin Larkin. © 2004 MUZE UK Ltd.

Photo credits: Photofest and Martha Swope

This multi-talented performer shot to fame when she conquered Broadway with her galvanizing stage presence in the musicals, “I Can Get It for You Wholesale” (1962) and “Funny Girl” (1964), in the latter as the gawky but gifted Fanny Brice. Streisand next powered a number of popular albums (“My Name Is Barbra”) and award-winning TV specials (BARBRA STREISAND: A HAPPENING IN CENTRAL PARK; MY NAME IS BARBRA, which was based on her hit album and won five Emmys) before moving into films. Equally magnetic on the big screen, Streisand patented a brash, loquacious, aggressively optimistic screen persona, starring in musicals before moving on to, and proving herself more than capable in, screwball comedies and romances.

Compensating for her angular, prominent features (which she has often played up self-mockingly in films as her “imperfect” beauty) with unbounded energy and immense talent, Streisand won an Oscar for her first film, William Wyler’s adaptation of FUNNY GIRL (1968), in which she recreated her successful stage role of comedian Fanny Brice. She subsequently turned several mediocre movies into box-office successes, and appeared in such enjoyably old-fashioned films as the farcical WHAT’S UP, DOC? (1972) and the sudsy “The Way We Were” (1973), making her the biggest female box-office star of the 1970s. Part 2″STORY OF A MARRIAGE, PART 2), “1918” (1985) and Off-Broadway in “The Widow Claire” (1986-87).

Increasingly criticized for her sometimes megalomaniac tendencies, Streisand responded by noting that healthy ambition in men has often been seen as unattractive pushiness in women. She also branched out into producing (starting with 1976’s A STAR IS BORN) and then directing (beginning with 1983’s YENTL, which she also wrote). She has since produced most of her own occasional film vehicles and continued to enjoy considerable chart success with her albums and show-stopping singles through the early 80s, ranging from the theme songs of THE WAY WE WERE and THE MAIN EVENT, to “Guilty,” “A Woman in Love,” and a disco-flavored duet with Donna Summer, “Enough Is Enough.”

YENTL, the story of a Jewish girl who disguises herself as a boy in order to pursue an education, garnered Streisand generally respectful but mixed reviews from critics. In general they liked her handling of actors and obvious sincerity and attention to detail, but carped at the many indulgent musical monologues and routine visual style.

After another producing effort and larger-than-life star performance as a woman on trial who is considered NUTS (1987), Streisand directed a second film, THE PRINCE OF TIDES (1991), based on Pat Conroy’s best-selling novel. Both critical and popular response to Streisand’s sensitive directorial work were notably improved, dismay being largely reserved in some corners for Streisand’s glamorized appearance and performance as a sympathetic psychiatrist. The film received seven Oscar nominations among both acting and technical categories, including one for Best Picture. The lack of a nomination for Streisand as director caused a mild stir in the entertainment community, but she blithely continued with other directorial projects, AIDS and Democratic Party activism, and a very well-received compilation of songs associated with her career.

Nineteen ninety four marked a rare return to live concert singing for Streisand with an incredibly popular multi-city tour which found her charisma and her singing voice both in mint condition. She also produced, directed, and starred in THE MIRROR HAS TWO FACES (1996), a remake of a 1958 French film of the same name directed by Andre Cayatte and starring Michele Morgan. The usual stories about Streisand’s perfectionism surrounded the lengthy production, complete with changes of cast and crew. Advance buzz, though, was also generally favorable in its retelling of the story of a plain woman whose marriage is rocked when she undergoes a transformation.

Streisand was formerly married to her “I Can Get It For You Wholeseale” co-star Elliot Gould; their son is actor Jason Gould, who played her son in THE PRINCE OF TIDES.

Source: Excerpted from Baseline. BaselineStudioSystems — A Hollywood Media Corp. Company.

Photo credits: Photofest and the New York Public Library

As a child Robinson worked in racing stables, nursing a desire to become a jockey. He danced for fun and for the entertainment of others, first appearing on stage at the age of eight. Three years later he decided that dancing was likely to prove a more lucrative career than horseback riding. He became popular on the black vaudeville circuit and also appeared in white vaudeville as a “pick,” from pickaninny, where his dancing skills gave a patina of quality to sometimes second-rate white acts. As his reputation grew, so did his prominence in show business. In 1921 while working at the Palace in New York, he danced up and down the stairs leading from the stage to the orchestra pit and out of this developed his famous “stair dance.” Although Robinson was not the first to dance on stairs, he refined the routine until it was one of the most spectacular events in the world of vernacular dance.

Toward the end of the decade, though he was now 60 years old, he was a huge success in the smash-hit production of Lew Leslie’s “Blackbirds of 1928.” In the mid-’30s he appeared at nightclubs in revues, musical comedies, and other stage shows, among which was “Hot Mikado.” He was so active in these years that he sometimes played different shows in different theaters on the same night. Robinson had no doubts that he was the best at what he did, a self-confidence that some took to be arrogance and that was mixed with a sometimes brooding depression at the fact that, because he was black, he had to wait until he was in his sixties before he could enjoy the fame and fortune given to less talented white dancers. In fact, he appears to have been a remarkably generous man and in addition to his massive workload, he never refused to appear at a benefit for those artists who were less successful or ailing. It has been estimated that in one year he appeared in a staggering 400 benefits. In 1930 Robinson had made a film, DIXIANA, but it was not until he went to Hollywood in the middle of the decade that he made a breakthrough in this medium.

He danced in a string of popular films, including some with Shirley Temple. By 1937 Robinson was earning $6,600 a week for his films, a strikingly high sum for a black entertainer in Hollywood at the time. In 1943 he played his first leading role in STORMY WEATHER, an all-black musical in which he starred opposite Lena Horne. Despite being in his early seventies when he made the film, he performed his stair dance and even if he was outclassed by the Nicholas Brothers, his was a remarkable performance. In addition to dancing, Robinson also sang in a light, ingratiating manner, memorably recording “Doin’ the New Low-Down” in 1932 with Don Redman and His Orchestra. Although his high salary meant that he was estimated to have earned more than $2 million during his career, Robinson’s generosity was such that when he died in November 1949 he was broke. Half a million people lined the funeral route of the man who was known with some justification as the Mayor of Harlem. In 1993, a show entitled “Bojangles,” with a book by Douglas Jones and a score by Charles Strouse and the late Sammy Cahn, was being workshopped in various provincial theaters.

FURTHER READING:
MISTER BOJANGLES, Jim Haskins and N. R. Mitgang.

Source: Biographical information provided by MUZE. Excerpted from the ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR MUSIC, edited by Colin Larkin. © 2004 MUZE UK Ltd.

Photo credits: Photofest

A vivacious singer, dancer, and actress — an exciting and explosive performer — Rivera was born to Puerto Rican parents and grew up in the Bronx. She started dancing when she was seven, and from the age of 11, trained for a career in classical ballet. After studying at the New York City Ballet via a scholarship from choreographer George Balanchine, in 1952 she turned from classical dance and joined the chorus of “Call Me Madam” on Broadway. Further chorus work in “Guys and Dolls” and “Can-Can” was followed by appearances in “Shoestring Revue,” “Seventh Heaven,” and “Mr. Wonderful” (1956). She rocketed to stardom in 1957 as Anita in “West Side Story,” and stopped the show nightly by singing and dancing herself into a frenzy to the whooping rhythms of “America.” She caused even more of a sensation when “West Side Story” opened in London on December 12, 1958; it is still regarded by many as the most exciting first night of the postwar years. Two years later she was back on Broadway as Dick Van Dyke’s secretary Rose, in the first successful rock ‘n’ roll musical, “Bye Bye Birdie,” and she re-created her role in London in the following year. A musical adaptation of “The Prisoner of Zenda” (1963), in which she starred with Alfred Drake, folded before it reached New York, but a year later, Rivera was acclaimed for her role as a gypsy princess in “Bajour” on Broadway.

In the late ’60s, she toured in various productions including “Sweet Charity,” and also appeared in the 1969 film version with Shirley MacLaine. After more national tours in the early ’70s in musicals such as “Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris” and “Kiss Me, Kate,” in addition to several straight roles, she co-starred with Gwen Verdon in the “sinfully seductive” “Chicago” (1975). John Kander and Fred Ebb wrote the score, and they also devised and developed Chita Rivera’s cabaret act, which included a number called “Losing,” a reference to the number of Tony Award nominations she had received. She gained one more nomination for her performance in “Bring Back Birdie” (1981), which closed after only four nights, and “Merlin” (1983) was also unsuccessful. Rivera was finally awarded the coveted Tony Award — and a Drama Desk Award — when she co-starred with Liza Minnelli in “The Rink” (1984), another of Kander and Ebb’s projects. Shortly afterward, she was involved in a serious car accident that “mangled my leg from the knee down.” After having 12 bolts inserted in the bones, she was back on Broadway, along with Leslie Uggams, Dorothy Loudon, and others, in “Jerry’s Girls,” a tribute to the composer Jerry Herman. During the rest of the ’80s, she performed in cabaret and continued to tour in America and other countries including the UK. In 198889, she joined the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes in a national tour of “Can-Can” that lasted for over a year. In 1991, she was inducted into New York’s Theater Hall of Fame, along with Kander and Ebb. She was subsequently widely applauded — and won London Evening Standard and Tony awards — for her outstanding dual performance as the movie star Aurora and the Spider Woman in Kander and Ebb’s musical “Kiss of the Spider Woman.” After 749 performances in Toronto, London, and New York, in November 1994 she set out on the show’s two-year road tour of North America.

Her outstanding contribution to the musical theater was recognized in the early ’90s by the Drama Desk’s Annual Achievement Award, and the first annual Bandai Musical Award for Excellence in Broadway Theater. While in Washington, DC during 1996 with “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” she was presented with an honorary Gold Record by the Recording Industry Association of America for her contribution to American sound recording. In the late ’90s, Rivera co-starred with Carol Channing on stage in “Broadway Legends” (“Together at Last!”) and toured her own revue, “Chita & All That Jazz,” through the U.S. regions. In June 1998, she also appeared in a unique reunion of “Sweet Charity” at Avery Fisher Hall at New York’s Lincoln Center, and in the following year starred as Roxie Hart in the Las Vegas production of “Chicago.” She left that show after three months in order to play the same role in the hit West End version. Her subsequent work early in the new millennium included the part of the proverbial hooker with the heart of gold in Arthur Laurents’ new play, “Venecia,” and a U.S. tour of the family musical, “Casper.” In February 2001, Rivera was honored by the Drama League in New York.

Source: Biographical information provided by MUZE. Excerpted from the ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR MUSIC, edited by Colin Larkin. © 2004 MUZE UK Ltd.

Photo credits: Photofest and Martha Swope

A Broadway musical star and later choreographer, Ann Reinking reached a pinnacle in her career in June 1997 when she won the Tony Award for choreographing the revival of “Chicago.” She had been dancing since her youth, and after some early training with the San Francisco Ballet, moved to New York at age 16 to study on scholarship with the Joffrey Ballet. The lure of the theater found her making her debut in “Cabaret” in 1969. After working with Michael Bennett in “Coco” (1969), Reinking first worked with Bob Fosse, who would be her mentor and off-stage paramour, as a chorus performer in “Pippin” (1972). She made the move from the chorus to featured roles with her award-winning turn in “Over Here!” (1974), a stage musical featuring the Andrews Sisters. She garnered her first Tony Award nomination for her portrayal of Joan of Arc to Joel Grey’s Dauphin in the unsuccessful musical “Goodtime Charley” in 1975. The following year, she stepped into Donna McKechnie’s red dress as Cassie, who longs to return to her first love, in Michael Bennett’s “A Chorus Line.” In 1977, Reinking once again was tapped as a replacement, this time for veteran star (and Fosse’s wife) Gwen Verdon as Roxie Hart in “Chicago.”

The casting of the twentysomething Reinking to replace the fiftysomething Verdon was considered insulting by some, while others thought Reinking too young and inexperienced for the role. Nevertheless, she received good notices and won audiences over. “Dancin'” (1978), Fosse’s free-form salute to Broadway gypsies, further raised her profile, and she was again nominated for a Tony for her terpsichorean feats. Her subsequent stage work was sporadic, distinguished by her own Off-Broadway show, “Ann Reinking … Music Loves Me” in 1984 and the lead in the Fosse-directed revival of “Sweet Charity” in 1986-87 (Once again inheriting a role created by Verdon). After the birth of her son and her relocation to Florida, she more or less withdrew from performing. In 1996, Reinking was asked to appear in and help stage a concert-version revival of “Chicago,” which proved so popular and successful, it was moved to Broadway. Her choreography retained much of Fosse’s dark, jazzlike, fluid body movements, yet added her own original touches.

In the late ’70s and early ’80s, Reinking had a brief flurry in films and on TV. She debuted as “Troubles” Moran, a sultry nightclub singer, in Stanley Donen’s pastiche tribute to old Hollywood, MOVIE MOVIE (1978). Although their off-screen relationship had cooled, Fosse tapped her to play his alter ego’s girlfriend in the autobiographical ALL THAT JAZZ (1979). In the film, Reinking has a lovely moment with the choreographer’s daughter where the duo perform a musical number for him. As the film was conceived and directed by Fosse, the role was assumed to be based on Reinking as well. She was the secretary to Daddy Warbucks in John Huston’s overblown screen version of ANNIE (1982) and was Micki, the pregnant wife of Dudley Moore’s philanderer, in MICKI & MAUDE (1984).

Source: Excerpted from Baseline. BaselineStudioSystems — A Hollywood Media Corp. Company.

Photo credits: Photofest

An actor and singer with a fine baritone voice, Raitt sang in light opera and concerts before playing the lead in a Chicago production of “Oklahoma!” (1944). In the following year he made his Broadway debut, playing Billy Bigelow, and introducing immortal songs such as “If I Loved You” and “Soliloquy,” in Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s magnificent “Carousel.” Three years later, he appeared on Broadway again in the short-lived and “unconventional” “Magdelana.” This was followed in 1952 by the “whimsical” “Three Wishes for Jamie,” which was “too treacly” to run for long. “Carnival in Flanders” (1953), despite a score by Johnny Burke and Jimmy Van Heusen that contained “Here’s That Rainy Day,” provided less than a week’s employment, but his next job, as the factory superintendent in “The Pajama Game” (1954), lasted nearly two and a half years. Raitt’s spirited and sensitive renditions of Richard Adler and Jerry Ross’ “‘There Once Was a Man” and “Small Talk” (both with Janis Paige), plus “Hey There,” a duet with a Dictaphone machine, made sufficient impact in Hollywood for him to be cast opposite Doris Day in the 1957 film version, despite his being a complete newcomer to the big screen.

In the ’50s and ’60s Raitt appeared frequently on U.S. television, and in 1960 toured with the satirical musical “Destry Rides Again.” In the spring of 1966 he re-created his original role in a New York Music Theater revival of “Carousel” and, later in the year, dwelled for a brief spell amid the “newly created folk songs” of “A Joyful Noise.”

Thereafter, Raitt devoted much of his time to touring, and in 1975 was back on Broadway, along with Patricia Munsell, Tammy Grimes, Larry Kert, Lillian Gish, and Cyril Ritchard, in “A Musical Jubilee,” a “potpourri” claiming to demonstrate the development of the American musical. By that time, his daughter, Bonnie Raitt, was gaining recognition as a leading blues-rock vocalist and guitarist. John Raitt himself continued to be active, and in 1992 he received an Ovation Award in Hollywood for services to the Los Angeles theater scene. A year later he was inducted into New York’s Theater Hall of Fame, and celebrated the 50th anniversary of “Oklahoma!” by singing the show’s title song on the stage of the St. James Theatre in New York (the theater in which “Oklahoma!” first opened in 1943) prior to a performance of a very different kind of musical — “The Who’s Tommy.” In 1998, Raitt appeared in a London concert, and received a Lifetime Achievement award from the Los Angeles Critics Circle.

Source: Biographical information provided by MUZE. Excerpted from the ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR MUSIC, edited by Colin Larkin. © 2005 MUZE UK Ltd.

Photo credits: Photofest and the New York Public Library

Often called “the finest singing actress since Barbra Streisand,” Bernadette Peters is certainly one of the few leading ladies of the last decade or so whose name on a Broadway marquee can cause box-office lines to form before the show has gone into previews. She was tap dancing and acting at an early age, and joined Actors’ Equity when she was nine. Soon afterward she changed her name to Peters, and played Tessie in the 1959 revival of “The Most Happy Fella” at the New York City Center. After appearing in the role of Baby June in a road tour of “Gypsy,” she gave up performing for a time and studied acting and singing in her teens, before returning to the stage in two Off-Broadway shows, “The Penny Friend” (1966) and a Shirley Temple parody, “Curley McDimple” (1967). In 1968 she received favorable notices, and a Theatre World citation, for her portrayal of George M. Cohan’s sister in “George M!”, and, in the same year, won a Drama Desk Award for her “hilarious performance” as the zany Ruby in “Dames at Sea,” a ’30s movie spoof that enjoyed a good run Off Broadway. Several of the projects with which Peters was involved in the late ’60s and early ’70s had only brief runs, including “La Strada” (one performance). Nevertheless, she gained Tony Award nominations for her part in a New York revival of “On the Town” and “Mack & Mabel.” In the latter she played silent movie star Mabel Normand, opposite Robert Preston as Mack Sennett. The show may have only lasted for two months, but the cast album endured to become a cult item. She turned to films and television, often playing straight roles, but without any really notable success. Over the years, her television work has included series such as ALL’S FAIR (1976), THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES (1980), THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW (1991), voice for the popular animated ANIMANIACS (1993), and THE ODYSSEY (1997), as well as television films: THE ISLANDER (1978), DAVID (1988), FALL FROM GRACE (1990), THE LAST BEST YEAR (1990), WHAT THE DEAF MAN HEARD (1997), HOLIDAY IN YOUR HEART (1997), and the third major small-screen production of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s CINDERELLA, in which Peters played the Wicked Stepmother.

In 1977 Peters formed a private and professional partnership with the comedian and actor Steve Martin, and they appeared together in two movies, THE JERK (1979) and the highly expensive box-office disaster PENNIES FROM HEAVEN (1981), for which Peters won a Golden Globe Award. Her other films around this time included the musical ANNIE, in which she played Lily. In the ’80s she excelled in three Broadway musicals, two of which had scores by Stephen Sondheim, “Sunday in the Park with George” (1984, Tony nomination) and “Into the Woods” (1987). She finally won the Actress (Musical) Tony Award for her brilliant solo performance in Andrew Lloyd Webber and Don Black’s “Song and Dance” (1985).

During the latter part of the decade, Peters developed her cabaret act, which revolved around Broadway show tunes but also contained a lovely version of Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” and a highly effective Harold Arlen medley. In 1993 she was back on Broadway with Martin Short and Carol Woods in the eagerly awaited “The Goodbye Girl.” In spite of Neil Simon’s witty book and a score by Marvin Hamlisch and David Zippel, the show folded after only 188 performances, but Peters departed with another Tony nomination. After being inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in 1995, a year later she was acclaimed in concert at Carnegie Hall. Sondheim material, such as “Not a Day Goes By,” “There Won’t Be Trumpets,” “Being Alive,” “Move On,” “No One Is Alone,” and “Happiness,” formed the core of her performance, and the resulting “live” album was appropriately entitled SONDHEIM, ETC. In September 1998, she made her UK solo concert debut at London’s Royal Festival Hall with a similar show. This followed on from her “knock-out” rendition of “Unexpected Song” (from “Song and Dance”) and other numbers, in the Cameron Mackintosh royal gala “Hey, Mr. Producer!”, earlier in the year. Early in 1999, Peters was due to star on Broadway as sharpshooter Annie Oakley in the Irving Berlin-Herbert and Dorothy Fields classic musical, “Annie Get Your Gun.”

Source: Biographical information provided by MUZE. Excerpted from the ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR MUSIC, edited by Colin Larkin. © 2004 MUZE UK Ltd.

Photo credits: Photofest and Martha Swope

An actor and singer with a “wonderfully expressive voice,” as a boy Patinkin sang in the choir at his Jewish temple, and performed in musicals such as “Anything Goes,” “Stop the World — I Want to Get Off,” and “Carousel” at the local youth center. After attending the University of Kansas and studying drama at the Juilliard School of Music, he worked in regional theater before spending most of the late ’70s with the New York Festival Theatre. In 1980 he won a Tony Award for his portrayal of Che in the Broadway production of “Evita,” and was nominated again, four years later, for his performance in the leading role of “Sunday in the Park with George.” In 1985 Patinkin was one of the many stars of “Follies in Concert,” which played for two nights only at Avery Fisher Hall in New York. His version of “Buddy’s Blues,” in particular, is one of the cast CD’s many highlights. A year later, Patinkin featured on another fine album, a new CBS studio recording of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s classic “South Pacific,” on which he was joined by opera singers Kiri Te Kanawa and Jose Carreras. The album went to number 5 in the UK chart, and Patinkin’s sensitive version of “Younger than Springtime” was released as a single. In 1989, his one-man show, “Mandy Patinkin in Concert: Dress Casual,” played for a four week season at the Helen Hayes Theater in New York, and in 1990 Patinkin co-starred with Claire Moore in the world premiere of the Jason Carr/Julian Barry/Peter Hall musical “Born Again,” based on Eugene Ionesco’s play “Rhinoceros,” at the Chichester Festival Theatre in England.

Since making his film debut in THE BIG FIX in 1978, Patinkin has made highly effective appearances in several other movies, including RAGTIME, YENTL, DICK TRACY (in the role of 88 Keys, Madonna’s pianist), TRUE COLORS, THE DOCTOR, and THE MUSIC OF CHANCE (1993). In 1991 he was back on Broadway, playing the hunchbacked uncle, Archibald Craven, in “The Secret Garden,” and in January 1993 he succeeded Michael Rupert as Marvin in “Falsettos.”

In 1994 Patinkin played Sky Masterson in a BBC Radio 2 recording of “Guys and Dolls,” and in 1994-95 was on international television screens, starring in the medical drama series CHICAGO HOPE, winning Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. He subsequently appeared in concert at the Almeida Theatre in London (1996) and on Broadway (1997), “wrapping all of the songs in an emotionally charged melodrama that works because of his undeniable vocal talent.” Also in 1997, Patinkin joined an impressive cast, which included Henry Goodman and Margot Leicester, in a BBC Television adaptation of Arthur Miller’s “Broken Glass.” In the following year, supported by just a violinist and pianist, Patinkin starred on Broadway in a musical entertainment entitled “Mamaloshen.” Almost all the songs, a collection of old European folk tunes, laments of the Holocaust, and the occasional show number, were sung in Yiddish.

Source: Biographical information provided by MUZE. Excerpted from the ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR MUSIC, edited by Colin Larkin. © 2004 MUZE UK Ltd.

Photo credits: Photofest and Martha Swope

Orbach was an actor and singer who created a handful of important roles for the Broadway musical theater, before turning mostly to films and television. The son of a former vaudevillian actor and a radio singer, Orbach spent an itinerant childhood before settling in Waukegan, Illinois. After attending the University of Illinois and Northwestern University, he returned to New York where he studied acting with Lee Strasberg, and singing with Mazel Schweppe. After making his professional debut as the Typewriter Man in a 1952 Illinois version of “Room Service,” he continued to work in regional theater, appearing in stock productions of musicals such as “The King and I” and “The Student Prince.” He made his Off-Broadway debut taking over the roles of the Streetsinger (1957) and Macheath (1958), in the long-running revival of “The Threepenny Opera” that opened at the Theater de Lys in 1955. In 1960 he played the dual role of the Narrator and the bandit El Gallo off-Broadway in Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones’ historic epic “The Fantasticks,” introducing the show’s hit song, “Try to Remember.” During the ’60s he created the character of cynical puppeteer Paul Berthalet in “Carnival” (1961) on Broadway and on tour, played in revivals of “The Cradle Will Rock” (1964 as Larry Foreman), “Guys and Dolls” (1965 as Sky Masterson, with Alan King and Sheila MacRae), “Carousel” (1965 as Jigger Craigin), and “Annie Get Your Gun” (1966 as Charlie Davenport), as well as appearing in several straight plays.

In 1969 Orbach won a Tony Award for his portrayal of Chuck Baxter, the sad, lowly office worker who lends out his apartment to senior executives in “Promises, Promises,” and introduced (with Jill O’Hara) Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again.” In 1974, he played in the Neil Simon revue “The Trouble with People … and Other Things” in Miami. Orbach subsequently returned to Broadway, full of assurance, singing “All I Care About” and “Razzle Dazzle,” as Gwen Verdon and Chita Rivera’s smart lawyer, the silver-tongued prince of the courtroom, Mr. Billy Flynn, in “Chicago” (1975). Orbach’s last major stage musical role came in 1980, when he portrayed tough producer Julian Marsh in the long-running Broadway adaptation of the famous 1932 Busby Berkeley movie 42ND STREET.

Orbach continued to appear in dramatic parts in the theater, but concentrated mostly on television and films. Although he appeared in the popular show MURDER, SHE WROTE, Orbach was best known on television for his portrayal of the hard-bitten detective Lennie Briscoe in the long-running LAW & ORDER. The music connection continued though, and moviegoers saw him as the disapproving doctor/father figure in the hit DIRTY DANCING (1987), and heard his voice behind the hospitable candelabra, Lumiere, singing Alan Menken and Howard Ashman’s Oscar-nominated “Be Our Guest,” in Walt Disney’s animated feature BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1991). Orbach did other voice work for video productions of ALADDIN AND THE KING OF THIEVES (1996), BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: THE ENCHANTED CHRISTMAS (1997), and BELLE’S MAGICAL WORLD (1998). Orbach died of prostate cancer in December 2004.

Source: Biographical information provided by MUZE. Excerpted from the ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR MUSIC, edited by Colin Larkin. © 2005 MUZE UK Ltd.

Photo credits: Photofest and Martha Swope

This intense, quirky, multitalented actor-singer-dancer, after achieving Broadway success (including a Tony) as a tough-talking dancer in the 1986 revival of “Sweet Charity,” enjoyed similar award-winning popularity for her deadpan portrayal of the brittle, astringent, yet sexually smoldering Dr. Lilith Sternin-Crane on NBC’s long-running sitcom, CHEERS. Bebe Neuwirth’s parents were a mathematician and an artist, which pretty much sums up her appeal: she seems to have a fiercely analytical approach to her acting. After schooling at Juilliard, she got her start touring in “A Chorus Line” (1978-81), playing various roles, including the tough-talking Sheila and the more vulnerable Cassie, and on Broadway in such productions as “Little Me” and Bob Fosse’s “Dancin'” (both 1982), “The Road to Hollywood” (1984), and “Just So” (1985) before hitting the big time (and winning a Tony Award) in Fosse’s “Sweet Charity ” (1986-87).

By this time, her sharp, dark beauty had brought her to the attention of Hollywood. Neuwirth began doing cameos as Frasier Crane’s repressed siren wife on CHEERS (NBC). She continued as a semiregular character through 1992, and has reprised the role from time to time on the spinoff FRASIER (NBC, 1993-). Her other TV work has been spotty. Neuwirth had supporting roles in the 1990 dramas WITHOUT HER CONSENT (NBC), as famed attorney Gloria Allred, and UNSPEAKABLE ACTS (ABC). She also appeared on the short-lived dark fantasy series WILD PALMS (ABC, 1993). DEAR DIARY, a failed ABC sitcom pilot in which Neuwirth portrayed an editor and diarist, was released in 1996 as a short film and won an Oscar as Best Short Subject.

Neuwirth has appeared in a handful of films, few of which have exploited her peculiar, dry talents. She debuted as a guidance counselor in SAY ANYTHING (1989) and had supporting roles in GREEN CARD (1990), as Andie MacDowell’s best friend, and in BUGSY (1991), as the real-life socialite Countess di Frasso. In the effective thriller MALICE (1993), Neuwirth was the detective trailing Alec Baldwin, while in JUMANJI (1995), she was the aunt of the children who begin playing a mysterious board game. She had perhaps her best role to date in a distinct change of pace as a sexy yuppie in THE ASSOCIATE (1996). Additionally, she has also loaned her talents to the kiddie films ALL DOGS GO TO HEAVEN 2 (as a voice-over) and THE ADVENTURES OF PINOCCHIO (both 1996).

But it is onstage that Neuwirth has always been happiest and most effectively utilized. Her combined skills as actor, dancer, and singer have been seen in the musical revue “Showing Off” (New York, 1989), as Lola in the 1994 revival of “Damn Yankees” and in the 1996 revival of “Chicago” on Broadway. In the latter, her portrayal of celebrity murderess Velma Kelly (originated by Chita Rivera in 1975) earned her rave reviews, and she all but overshadowed co-stars Ann Reinking, James Naughton, and Joel Gray. Neuwirth picked up a second Tony Award for her efforts.

Neuwirth had memorable roles in several feature films over the next five years, including playing a hooker in Woody Allen’s film CELEBRITY (1998). She made television appearances as well, most notably returning for an arc on FRASIER in September 2001 as the notorious Dr. Lilith Sternin-Crane. Neuwirth had leading roles in two well-received television movies as well, 1999’s DASH AND LILLY and 2000’s CUPID & CATE.

In 2002, Neuwirth played a sexy chiropractor who seduces a 15-year-old boy who is in love with his stepmother (Sigourney Weaver) in TADPOLE. The movie was a hit with critics and a perfect showcase for Neuwirth’s subtle, out-of-the-ordinary style. She took a supporting role in the romantic comedy HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS (2003) playing a no-nonsense New York fashion editor.
 
 
 
 
Source: Excerpted from Baseline. BaselineStudioSystems — A Hollywood Media Corp. Company.

Photo credits: Photofest

If musical comedy is larger than life, only one performer was larger than musical comedy. The son of an itinerant rabbi, Samuel Joel Mostel was born in Brownsville, the same poor Brooklyn neighborhood Phil Silvers hailed from, in 1915. His dream was to be a painter, and he worked for the WPA as an artist and museum tour guide. During his museum tours, he would blast off into bizarre improvisations, pretending to be Picasso or a coffee percolator. This led to a successful career as a nightclub comedian and to a couple of early appearances in the 1940s on Broadway in revues and as Peachum in Duke Ellington’s “Beggar’s Holiday.” Mostel’s left-wing sympathies caused him great travails during the blacklisting of the 1950s, scotching a blossoming Hollywood career as a character actor and funnyman. He returned to Broadway in triumph in 1961, transforming into a pachyderm before the audience’s very eyes in the absurdist drama, “Rhinoceros,” for which he won his first Tony. Producer Harold Prince thought Mostel’s desperate humanity would be ideal for the freedom-craving slave in “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” and Mostel’s ability to push the complicated farce to the final curtain made it into a hit. He won a second Tony, making him the first performer to win in both musical and dramatic categories.

Mostel’s onstage energy was prodigious; he could bellow like a bull, sing like a choirboy, mince about with the grace of one of Disney’s dancing hippos, pummel another actor like a Teamster, fawn like a coquette, roll, bulge, or cross his “eight-ball eyes,” all the while sweating up a storm and swearing under his breath. Yet, he projected a Talmudic thoughtfulness, and that served him in great stead in his most famous part, Tevye, in “Fiddler on the Roof.” Mostel, an extremely well-read man who continued his painting career throughout his life, was an ardent fan of Sholom Aleichem and brought dignity to his exorbitant clowning. His comic elaborations drove the creative staff crazy and, to Mostel’s amazement, his nine-month contract was not renewed. He won a third Tony for his role, and revived it several times (including a 1976 national tour, for which he was paid an impressive $30,000 a week), although not in the film, a source of great disappointment to him. He did get the chance to give the world Max Bialystock, the unscrupulous producer in Mel Brooks’ 1968 film, THE PRODUCERS, the gold standard of outrageous farce. Mostel, who died suddenly in 1977 during a Philadelphia tryout of a serious play about Shakespeare’s Shylock, was constantly reviled for the ad-libbing that disrupted the context of the show. In a typically Mostellian farrago, he took exception:

There’s a kind of silliness in the theater about what one contributes to a show. The producer obviously contributes the money . . . but must the actor contribute nothing at all? I’m not a modest fellow about those things. I contribute a great deal. And they always manage to hang you for having an interpretation. Isn’t [the theater] where your imagination should flower? Why must it always be dull as shit?

When Zero Mostel was onstage, it was many things, but it was never, never that dull.

Source: Excerpted from BROADWAY: THE AMERICAN MUSICAL by Michael Kantor and Laurence Maslon. Published by Bulfinch Press.

Photo credits: Photofest

This gap-toothed, tousle-haired comic lead and character player first came to prominence as a star of the Broadway stage. After training at the American Theater Wing in the early 1950s, Morse made his Broadway debut in “The Matchmaker” (1955), starring Ruth Gordon, and gained attention for his turn in the play “Say, Darling” (1957). He segued to musicals, co-starring with Jackie Gleason and Walter Pidgeon in “Take Me Along” (1959), based on Eugene O’Neill’s “Ah, Wilderness!”, and achieved stage stardom in the leading role of J. Pierpont Finch in the award-winning “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” (1961), which earned him a Tony Award. In “Sugar” (1974), a musical based on Billy Wilder’s “Some Like It Hot,” Morse assumed the role created by Jack Lemmon. Over a decade later, Morse reignited his career with a tour-de-force portrayal of author Truman Capote in the one-man play “Tru” (1990), which earned him a second Tony Award.

Morse has worked sporadically in features since his 1956 debut in THE PROUD AND THE PROFANE. He reprised two of his best stage roles, Barnaby Tucker in THE MATCHMAKER (1958) and Finch in HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING (1967). Morse offered comic turns as a Brit overseeing his uncle ‘s funeral in Tony Richardson’s THE LOVED ONE (1965) and as Walter Matthau’s best friend extolling the joys of infidelity in Gene Kelly’s A GUIDE FOR THE MARRIED MAN (1967). After appearing in Disney’s THE BOATNICKS (1970), he disappeared from the big screen for 17 years, reemerging in the unfunny comedy HUNK (1987).

Since the mid-’50s, Morse has also appeared on the small screen. He and E. J. Peaker co-starred in the musical/comedy series THAT’S LIFE (ABC, 1967-68), which depicted the life of a young married couple in songs, sketches, and monologues. Morse was a frequent guest on series ranging from NAKED CITY to THE RED SKELTON SHOW to THE HOLLYWOOD SQUARES. In 1992, he re-created his performance as “Tru” for PBS and won an Emmy as Best Actor in a Miniseries or Special. In addition to providing voices for animated shows, Morse has also appeared in the ABC miniseries WILD PALMS (1993) and portrayed Grandpa in the TV remake, HERE COME THE MUNSTERS (Fox, 1995). His daughter Robin is an actress.

Source: Excerpted from Baseline. BaselineStudioSystems — A Hollywood Media Corp. Company.

Photo credits: Photofest

Brian Stokes Mitchell (or “Stokes,” as he likes to be called) is usually spoken of by critics and aficionados as a kind of Matinee Messiah, a full-throated masculine star in the manner of an earlier generation’s Richard Kiley or, even earlier, Alfred Drake. These comparisons are aided and abetted by Stokes’ appearance in revivals of “Man of La Mancha” and “Kiss Me, Kate,” playing roles those two stars made legendary.

Upon his arrival on Broadway, he began a gradual but determined climb up the leading-man ladder, first in a musical called “Mail,” then in David Merrick’s all-black version of Gershwins’ “Oh, Kay!” — both flops. He went on to replace Gregory Hines in “Jelly’s Last Jam,” then took over as the radical political prisoner in “Kiss of the Spider Woman.” His big break came in 1998 when he played Coalhouse Walker, a turn-of-the-century black man who is provoked into becoming an urban terrorist, in the musical version of E. L. Doctorow’s “Ragtime” in 1997. Mitchell’s considerable charm, and the thrilling duets he performed with Audra McDonald, transformed Coalhouse from a smoldering cipher (as he had been in the 1981 film) into the evening’s hero and earned Mitchell a Tony nomination. For years, producers had been trying to revive “Kiss Me, Kate,” but in 1999, they had the real thing in Mitchell, and he finally won his Tony. In 2002, he stared in a Broadway revival of “Man of La Mancha,” for which he received his fourth Tony nomination. He had become that increasing rarity: a real Broadway leading man with a real Broadway sound.

But Mitchell is not just a leading man, he’s a leading man for his times. Coming from a culturally diverse background — African American, German, Scots, and Native American — he lends himself naturally to a greater world of diversity on stage. Within eight seasons, he played a Latin American prisoner, an African-American piano player, the all-American Fred Graham, and the 17th-century Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes. To a 21st-century audience, that all sounds pretty good — just like Mitchell’s booming baritone.

Source: Excerpted from BROADWAY: THE AMERICAN MUSICAL by Michael Kantor and Laurence Maslon. Published by Bulfinch Press.

Photo credits: Photofest

Merman was the most successful musical comedy performer of her generation. Known for her loud, clear voice and excellent enunciation, she was a favorite of such songwriters as George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Irving Berlin, and she introduced some of their most popular songs, including “I Got Rhythm,” “You’re the Top,” “I Get a Kick Out of You,” and “There’s No Business Like Show Business.” Merman reached her zenith as Rose, the overbearing mother of Gypsy Rose Lee in Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim’s “Gypsy,” singing such songs as “Everything’s Coming Up Roses.” She appeared in vaudeville and in nightclubs, gave concerts, made records, and performed on radio, on television, and in films. Her primary achievement was in the 13 roles she created on Broadway between 1930 and 1959.

Merman was the daughter of Edward Zimmermann, a bookkeeper and amateur keyboard player, and Agnes Gardner Zimmermann. She began singing in public as a child. During World War I she entertained at local military camps. After graduating from high school she became a secretary but moonlighted as a nightclub singer. Shortening her name to Merman, she became successful in vaudeville, performing at the Palace Theatre in N.Y. in September 1930 before turning to the legitimate stage in the Gershwins’ musical “Girl Crazy” (N.Y., Oct. 14, 1930). It played 272 performances, and during its run she also appeared at the Central Park Casino and began making films at the Paramount studio, then located in N.Y. Many of these films were shorts or cartoons; her first appearance in a feature film came with FOLLOW THE LEADER, released in December 1930.

Merman’s second Broadway show was the 11th edition of the revue “George White’s Scandals” (N.Y., Sept. 14, 1931), which ran 202 performances. She had her first record hit with “How Deep Is the Ocean?” (music and lyrics by Irving Berlin) in November 1932. The same month, she opened in her third Broadway show, “Take a Chance” (N.Y., Nov. 26, 1932), with songs by composers Richard Whiting and Nacio Herb Brown and lyricist B. G. DeSylva. Chance ran 243 performances, and Merman scored a hit with “Eadie Was a Lady” from the score in January 1933.

Merman went to Hollywood in September 1933 and costarred with Bing Crosby in the film WE’RE NOT DRESSING, released in April 1934, and with Eddie Cantor in KID MILLIONS, released in November 1934. (Her cameo in BIG BROADCAST OF 1936, released in September 1935, was actually an outtake from WE’RE NOT DRESSING.) She scored a hit in November 1934 with “An Earful of Music” (music by Walter Donaldson, lyrics by Gus Kahn) from KID MILLIONS. She returned to Broadway-and to her greatest success yet-in Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes” (N.Y., Nov. 21, 1934), which ran 420 performances with a score that included “You’re the Top” and “I Get a Kick Out of You,” both of which she recorded for hits.

Merman left the show to return to Hollywood and make a second film with Eddie Cantor, STRIKE ME PINK, released in January 1936, and a movie adaptation of ANYTHING GOES with Bing Crosby, released in February 1936. She returned to N.Y. for Cole Porter’s next show, “Red, Hot and Blue!” (N.Y., Oct. 29, 1936), which ran only 183 performances, then signed a new movie contract with 20th Century-Fox and appeared in three films released in 1938: HAPPY LANDING IN JANUARY, the Irving Berlin anthology ALEXANDER’S RAGTIME BAND in August, and STRAIGHT, PLACE AND SHOW in October. This marked the end of her full-time film career, though she continued to make movies occasionally.

Merman returned to Broadway with the Arthur Schwartz-Dorothy Fields musical “Stars in Your Eyes” (N.Y., Feb. 9, 1939), which ran only 127 performances. She moved on to Cole Porter’s “Du Barry Was a Lady” (N.Y., Dec. 6, 1939), which became her biggest hit since “Anything Goes” with a run of 408 performances. Her fourth Porter show, “Panama Hattie” (N.Y., Oct. 30, 1940), did even better, running 501 performances.

On Nov. 15, 1940, Merman married William Jacob Smith, a theatrical agent, but the couple divorced the following year. She then married newspaperman Robert Daniels Levitt, and they had two children: Ethel, b. July 20, 1942; and Robert Jr., b. Aug. 11, 1945. In between she starred in her fifth Cole Porter musical, “Something for the Boys” (N.Y., Jan. 7, 1943), which ran 422 performances, and she made a cameo appearance in the all-star film STAGE DOOR CANTEEN, released in June 1943.

Merman enjoyed her longest-running musical with Irving Berlin’s “Annie Get Your Gun” (N.Y., May 16, 1946), which played 1,147 performances; she stayed in it until it closed on Feb. 19, 1949. The cast album became a Top Ten hit. During 1949 she had her own network radio series, THE ETHEL MERMAN SHOW. She returned to Broadway in Berlin’s “Call Me Madam” (N.Y., Oct. 12, 1950), which ran 644 performances; she won a Tony Award for her role. Since RCA Victor had rights to the cast album and Merman was contracted exclusively to Decca, she recorded the show’s songs with Dick Haymes, and their “Call Me Madam” LP hit the Top Ten while “You’re Just in Love” made the singles charts.

Merman and her second husband were divorced in June 1952. On March 9, 1953, she married Continental Airlines president Robert F. Six. That same month she starred in a film adaptation of CALL ME MADAM, her first major movie role in 15 years. From this point on she divided her time between the theater, television, and film. She appeared in a series of TV specials: THE FORD 50TH ANNIVERSARY SHOW (June 15, 1953), on which she duetted with Broadway’s other leading female star, Mary Martin, and small-screen adaptations of ANYTHING GOES (Feb. 28, 1954), with Frank Sinatra, and PANAMA HATTIE (Nov. 10, 1954). In December 1954 she starred in another Irving Berlin anthology film, THERE’S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS; the soundtrack album made the Top Ten.

Merman returned to Broadway with “Happy Hunting” (N.Y., Dec. 6, 1956), which ran 412 performances. Her next Broadway show was “Gypsy” (N.Y., May 21, 1959), which ran 702 performances in N.Y. She also starred in a nine-month national tour, staying with the show until the end of 1961. The cast album was a Top Ten hit that stayed in the charts more than two years, and it won a Grammy Award for Best Show Album.

Merman divorced her third husband in December 1960. She married actor Ernest Borgnine on June 26, 1964, but they separated after 38 days and divorced in November 1965. During the 1960s she returned to nightclub performing (making her Las Vegas debut in October 1962), appeared on television, and had small roles in the films IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD (1963) and THE ART OF LOVE (1965). She also starred in a Broadway revival of “Annie Get Your Gun” (N.Y., May 31, 1966) that led to a chart album and a television adaptation (March 19, 1967), and she toured in “Call Me Madam” in the latter part of the decade.

On March 28, 1970, Merman became the eighth person to play the title role in the long-running musical “Hello, Dolly!” on Broadway, and she stayed with the show until it closed. During the 1970s and early 1980s she continued to appear on television and had a few minor movie roles (JOURNEY BACK TO OZ [voice only; 1974], WON TON TON, THE DOG WHO SAVED HOLLYWOOD [1976], AIRPLANE! [1980]). She also gave concerts, notably one at Carnegie Hall on May 10, 1982. She died of a brain tumor in 1984.

Source: Excerpted from the BAKER’S BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF MUSICIANS®, Centennial Edition. Nicolas Slonimsky, Editor Emeritus. Schirmer, 2001.

Photo credits: Photofest and the New York Public Library

An outstanding dancer, singer, and actress, McKechnie grew up in Detroit and decided she wanted to be a dancer after seeing the classic 1948 British film THE RED SHOES. Her parents were opposed to the idea, but when she was 15 she moved to New York to try out for the American Ballet Theatre, but was turned down. There followed a brief and unhappy spell at Radio City Music Hall, before she discovered the world of the musical theater. After touring in “West Side Story,” in which she played one of the “Cool girls,” and various other productions, she made her Broadway debut as a dancer in “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” in 1961. This was her first meeting with choreographer Bob Fosse, and Gwen Verdon, who was the dance captain. McKechnie was involved in several numbers, including “A Secretary Is Not a Toy” and “Coffee Break.” She subsequently toured as Philia in “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” before becoming one of the six gyrating girl dancers on the popular television program HULLABALOO. Also in the show was Michael Bennett, who was to become an immensely influential figure in her life. In April 1968, McKechnie was back on Broadway as Kathy McKenna in the short-lived musical version of Leo Rosent’s collections of short stories “The Education Of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N,” and in December of that year she played Vivien Della Hoya in Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s “Promises, Promises, “performing the Act One closer, “Turkey Lurkey Time.” This was followed by a spell as the Princess in the touring company of “Call Me Madam,” which was headed by the legendary Ethel Merman.

Michael Bennett had done the choreography for “Promises, Promises,” and he showcased McKechnie again in the acclaimed “Tick Tock” number in Stephen Sondheim’s innovative “Company,” which opened in 1970. She was also a member of the girl trio that sang the ingenious “You Could Drive a Person Crazy.” After leaving the New York show, McKechnie reprised her role in Los Angeles and London, and also toured as Ivy in a 1971 revival of “On the Town.” In March 1973 she choreographed and performed in the renowned one-night-only concert “Sondheim: A Musical Tribute” at the Shubert Theatre, and in the following year appeared in the New York City Center revue “Music! Music!”, as well as joining Richard Kiley and Bob Fosse in the movie THE LITTLE PRINCE.

In 1975 McKechnie created her most memorable role to date, that of Cassie in “A Chorus Line,” which Michael Bennett conceived, directed, and choreographed. Her big number was “The Music and the Mirror,” and she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. She married Bennett in 1976, but the marriage broke up after a only few months. After appearing in further productions of “A Chorus Line,” in 1980 McKechnie was diagnosed as suffering from arthritis and told she would never dance again. She pursued various physical and psychological healing remedies, and returned to the Broadway company of “A Chorus Line” in 1986.During the remainder of the ’80s she toured in “Sweet Charity” and “Annie Get Your Gun,” and appeared in the 1988 London revival of “Can-Can.”

In the early ’90s she was Off Broadway, firstly with Georgia Engel and Barbara Feldon in the revue “Cut the Ribbons,” and then as Mrs. Kelly, “one of the romantic interests” in “Annie Warbucks.” In 1993 she, and all of the original 1970 New York cast of “Company” except one, assembled for three special nostalgic concert performances. In 1996 she received the Fred Astaire Award for Best Female Dancer for her portrayal of Emily Arden, a “city-slicker singer,” in a Broadway adaptation of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s much-loved film STATE FAIR. Later that year she took her one-woman show, “Inside the Music,” to London, and while there re-created her part of Cassie for a BBC Radio 2 production of “A Chorus Line.” Since then, McKechnie has starred in “I Do, I Do” (Queen’s Theater in the Park, New York), “The Goodbye Girl” (Walnut Stree Theater, Philadelphia), and the gala “Standing Ovations: An Evening with the Great Ladies of Broadway” (New York’s 92nd Street YMHA), in which was joined by legendary artists such as Carol Channing, Liliane Montevecchi, Leslie Uggams, and Marilyn Horne. In February 1997 she played Phyllis in a special concert performance of “Follies” at London’s Drury Lane Theatre, and just over a year later switched to the role of Sally in a highly acclaimed production of that same Stephen Sondheim classic at the Paper Mill Playhouse, New Jersey.

FURTHER READING:
A CHORUS LINE AND THE MUSICALS OF MICHAEL BENNETT, Ken Mandelbaum.

Source: Biographical information provided by MUZE. Excerpted from the ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR MUSIC, edited by Colin Larkin. © 2004 MUZE UK Ltd.

Photo credits: Photofest and Martha Swope

She’s stunning. She’s charming. But, in the end, with Audra McDonald, it’s the voice. She broke barriers when she was still “Audra Ann McDonald” by being cast as the second lead in the 1994 revival of “Carousel”; it amused critics to no end that a character named Carrie Snow was being played by a black woman. The production itself made no mention of her race; although she fainted in the middle of her audition, the director thought she was the best woman for the part. So, apparently, did the Tony nominating committee. She won the Best Featured Actress in a Musical in 1994, and then proceeded to win again two years later, this time for Featured Actress in a Play, “Master Class,” by Terrence McNally. Two years after that, she claimed yet a third Tony in the featured musical actress category for her work as the yearning young mother in “Ragtime,” playing opposite Brian Stokes Mitchell. No performer had ever won three Tonys in five years; she was still in her twenties.

McDonald clearly needed a star vehicle, but after the failure of Michael John LaChiusa’s “Marie Christine” in 1999, she chose to devote herself to the concert stage and a series of recordings. Backed up by some of the finest symphony orchestras in the world, she has sung the roles of Bess, in “Porgy and Bess”; the Beggar Woman in “Sweeney Todd”; and Julie Jordan — the lead — in “Carousel.” Not content with mastering the works of Rodgers and Gershwin, she has turned her attention to the latest work of the new generation of musical composers: LaChiusa, Adam Guettel, Jeanine Tesori, Stephen Flaherty, and Lynn Ahrens. They could have no better ally than McDonald, who brings back the thrilling vocal virtuosity of the operetta era, marrying it to the psychological complexity of the 21st century. As Frank Rich put it, “The musical was dreamed up by artists eager to break free, to honor [the] old-world cultural past and yet transcend it, to create a new form as varied and exciting and of-the-moment as their new, melting pot country. In McDonald, the form has found a singer whose voice, history and still-young career embody all its contradictory joys.”

Source: Excerpted from BROADWAY: THE AMERICAN MUSICAL by Michael Kantor and Laurence Maslon. Published by Bulfinch Press.

Photo credits: Photofest

An actress and singer who left several well-known Hollywood and Broadway stars feeling bitterly disappointed and distraught when she won the role of Norma Desmond in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1993 London production of “Sunset Boulevard.” LuPone made her stage debut, tap dancing, at the age of four, and later took dancing classes with Martha Graham. She trained for the stage at the Juilliard School. where she met the actor Kevin Kline. A six-year personal relationship was supplemented by a joint association with John Housman’s Actor’s Company, which gave them both invaluable experience in the straight theater, and resulted in their appearance together — as the bride and bridegroom — in a short-lived Broadway musical, “The Robber Bridegroom” (1975). After several other flops, including “The Baker’s Wife” (1976) and “Working” (1978), LuPone won a Drama Desk Award and a Tony Award for her performance in the leading role of “Evita” (1979) on Broadway, and stayed with the show “until the strain of being obnoxious and dying from cancer every night got too much.” She returned to serious theater in the provinces and had occasionally effective roles in movies such as 1941 and WITNESS. In 1985, LuPone moved to London and appeared first in “The Cradle Will Rock.” In the same year, she became the first American actress and singer to gain a principal role with the Royal Shakespeare Company, in the hit musical “Les Misérables.” The names of both shows appeared on her 1985 Laurence Olivier Award. In complete contrast to those two roles, in 1986 she played Lady Bird Johnson in a U.S. miniseries based on the ex-president’s life, and, a year later, was back on Broadway in an acclaimed revival of “Anything Goes.”

In the late ’80s and early ’90s LuPone had a major role in the popular U.S. situation comedy LIFE GOES ON, and experienced some difficulty breaking free from her contract when the call came from Lloyd Webber. She first played Norma Desmond at the composer’s Sydmonton Festival in the summer of 1992. Declining the use of the book on stage, she learned the part and gave what was regarded as a “sensational” performance. Soon afterward it became obvious that she had stolen the role of a lifetime from under the noses” of bigger names such as Meryl Streep, Angela Lansbury, Liza Minnelli, and Julie Andrews. Sunset Boulevard” opened in the West End in July 1993, and although LuPone enjoyed a personal triumph, her contract to take the show to Broadway was canceled, resulting in a payoff “in the region of $1 million.” During the remainder of the ’90s LuPone appeared in New York in her own “Patti LuPone on Broadway” (1995) and as opera diva Maria Callas in Terrence McNally’s “Master Class” on Broadway (1996) and in London (1997). Early in 1999, she took her acclaimed new concert act, “Matters of the Heart,” to the Sydney Opera House, in Sydney, Australia. The eclectic program of original and contemporary music included works by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, Randy Newman, and Cole Porter.

Source: Biographical information provided by MUZE. Excerpted from the ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR MUSIC, edited by Colin Larkin. © 2004 MUZE UK Ltd.

Photo credits: Photofest

An actress and singer who enjoyed a prolific career in Hollywood before blossoming into a star of Broadway musicals in the ’60s. Angela Lansbury’s grandfather was George Lansbury, the legendary social reformer, and leader of the British Labour Party for a time during the ’30s. She was taken to America in 1942 by her widowed mother, a popular actress named Moyna MacGill. After attending drama school in New York, Lansbury received an Oscar nomination for her first film performance in GASLIGHT (1944). It was the beginning of a long career in Hollywood, during which she appeared in several musicals including THE HARVEY GIRLS (1946), TILL THE CLOUDS ROLL BY (1947), THE COURT JESTER (1956), BLUE HAWAII (1961, as Elvis Presley’s mother), and BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS (1971).

For much of the time she played characters a good deal older than herself. From 1957 onwards, Lansbury played several straight roles on Broadway, but it was not until 1964 that she appeared in her first musical, “Anyone Can Whistle,” which had a score by Stephen Sondheim. It only ran for nine performances, but Lansbury’s subsequent excursions into the musical theater proved far more successful. She won wide acclaim, and Tony Awards, for her roles in “Mame” (1966), “Dear World” (1969), “Gypsy” (1974 revival), and “Sweeney Todd” (1979). She also took “Gypsy” to London in 1973. In the ’80s, Lansbury began to work more in television and created the part of the writer-cum-supersleuth, Jessica Fletcher, in the U.S. MURDER, SHE WROTE. The program’s long-term success resulted in her being rated as one of the highest-paid actresses in the world by the early ’90s.

In 1991 she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), and in the same year, she lent her voice to Mrs Potts, the character that sang the Academy Award-winning title song in the highly acclaimed Walt Disney animated feature BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. In 1992 Angela Lansbury was back to her Cockney roots playing a charlady in the television film MRS ‘ARRIS GOES TO PARIS, and two years later she was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List. During the remainder of the ’90s she led the cast in a concert version of “Anyone Can Whistle at Carnegie Hall” (1995), played the title role in the television musical comedy MRS. SANTA CLAUS (1996), and was honored in “Angela Lansbury: A Celebration.” The latter gala benefit was held in November 1996 at the Majestic Theater, the same house that launched her first musical, “Anyone Can Whistle.” Paying tribute were Barbara Cook, George Hearn, Tyne Daly, and a host of other stars from theater and film.

FURTHER READING:
A BIOGRAPHY, Margaret Wander Bonanno.
BALANCING ACT: THE AUTHORISED BIOGRAPHY OF ANGELA LANSBURY, Martin Gottfried.

Source: Biographical information provided by MUZE. Excerpted from the ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR MUSIC, edited by Colin Larkin. © 2004 MUZE UK Ltd.

Photo credits: Photofest

You gotta love a guy who took his stage name from a character in “Guys and Dolls.” While doing a dinner-theater production of the show in the 1970s, Joseph Lane discovered that someone else in Actors Equity had his name, so he did the obvious: he adopted the first name of his character, Nathan Detroit. When Nathan Lane played his theatrical namesake in the 1992 Broadway revival of “Guys and Dolls,” he also took on the title “Clown Prince of Broadway.”

“The theater was always the dream for me. The reason I was in most of the movies I’ve done is that they paid for me to be in the theater,” he said in a NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE interview. “I used to watch the Tony Awards and I was fascinated by those people — Robert Preston, Zero Mostel, Angela Lansbury. When I was a kid and my brother took me to the theater, that was the most exciting thing.” Lane got his first Tony for reprising Mostel’s role in “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” (1996) and his second in 2001 for adapting Mostel’s film role in “The Producers” to the musical stage.

Lane is able to combine Mostel’s four-dimensional energy with the staccato delivery of a Phil Silvers, but he brings his own neurotic skepticism to the proceedings, adding a modern note of tension to the tradition of buffoonery. There’s something ineffably I-wouldn’t-want-to-belong-to-any-club-that -would-have-someone-like-me-as-a-member to Lane’s performances, a kind of free pass for audiences, in this age of hype, not to take anything too seriously. After all, when it was announced that he would make an unprecedented return to “The Producers” two years into its run, on New Year’s Eve, 2003, he shrugged and said, “I had nothing to do on New Year’s Eve anyway.”
 
 
 
 
Source: Excerpted from BROADWAY: THE AMERICAN MUSICAL by Michael Kantor and Laurence Maslon. Published by Bulfinch Press.

Photo credits: Photofest

An actor, comedian, and singer, with his rubber-faced expression and noisy antics — which included his trademark expression “gnong-gnong” — Lahr was one of the all-time great clowns of the American musical theater. After working for a good many years in vaudeville and burlesque — some of the time with his first wife in an act called “Lahr and Mercedes” — he appeared on Broadway in the revue “Harry Delmar’s Revels” (1927), before making an immediate impact as an erratic prize fighter in the musical comedy “Hold Everything!” in 1928. He repeated his success, this time as airport mechanic who accidentally sets an endurance flying record because he cannot land the plane, in “Flying High” (1930). During the remainder of the ’30s, Lahr spent most of his time in revues, such as “Hot-Cha!” (1932), George White’s “Music Hall Varieties” (1932), “Life Begins at 8:40” (1934), George White’s “Scandals” (1935), and “The Show Is On” (1936), in which he introduced the hilarious “Song of the Woodman” (E. Y. “Yip” Harburg-Harold Arlen). In 1939, he played a nightclub washroom attendant who dreams that he is Louis XV, in the Cole Porter book musical, “Du Barry Was a Lady,” and duetted with costar Ethel Merman on “But in the Morning, No!” and the lively “Friendship.” By this time Lahr had modified his raucous image somewhat, and he brought his new, softer — but often satirical — personality to the character of the Cowardly Lion in the classic 1939 movie, THE WIZARD OF OZ. He was featured in the numbers, “Lions and Tigers and Bears” and the splendid “King of the Forest,” as well as ensemble pieces with Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, and Jack Haley.

Throughout the ’40s and ’50s he continued to appear in revues, including “Seven Lively Arts” (1944), “Meet the People” (1944), “Make Mine Manhattan” (1948), “Two on the Aisle” (1950), and “The Boys Against the Girls” (1959), as well as starring on radio, television, and in films. Toward the end of his career, he also worked extensively in the straight theater in highly regarded productions such as “Waiting for Godot,” “Hotel Paradiso,” and “The Beauty Part.” Lahr made his final Broadway appearance in “Foxy” (1964), a musical comedy adaptation of Ben Jonson’s “Volpone,” in which the action was switched from Venice to the Klondike gold rush. His film career, which had begun with the screen version of one his first stage hits, FLYING HIGH, and peaked with THE WIZARD OF OZ, ended, appropriately enough, with a movie in which he played a burlesque comic, THE NIGHT THEY RAIDED MINSKY’S. Lahr died during the filming. Two years after his death, he was the subject of a biography written by his son.

FURTHER READING:
NOTES ON A COWARDLY LION, John Lahr.

Source: Biographical information provided by MUZE. Excerpted from the ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR MUSIC, edited by Colin Larkin. © 2004 MUZE UK Ltd.

Photo credits: Photofest

This buoyant American film star of the 1940s and ’50s was a renowned dancer-choreographer, the embodiment of proletariat good-guy cheer, and a key figure in shaping the golden age of the Hollywood musical.

Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Kelly was the son of a theatrical manager and an actress. He and his brother Fred performed a dance act for the 1934 Chicago World’s Fair. After an unsuccessful screen test for RKO in 1935, Kelly turned to stage work, making his Broadway debut in the chorus of “Leave It to Me” in 1938. After a dramatic turn in William Saroyan’s “The Time of Your Life” (1939), he scored his biggest stage triumph as Joey Evans, the antihero of the Rodgers and Hart/John O’Hara musical “Pal Joey.” The latter caught the attention of film producer David O. Selznick, who signed Kelly to a seven-year contract.

Selznick immediately loaned his new star to MGM for Busby Berkeley’s FOR ME AND MY GAL (1942), a musical romp about a vaudeville couple (Kelly and Judy Garland) determined to play the Palace Theater. Kelly’s star was on the ascendant and MGM bought out his contract with Selznick. He was cast in the all-male THE CROSS OF LORRAINE as a prisoner of war. In 1944, Kelly added choreographer to his resume when he created the dance sequence for the “Alter Ego” number in the stylish COVER GIRL, in which he was a Brooklyn club owner romancing an up-and-coming actress-model (Rita Hayworth). This marked the beginning of a long string of MGM musicals that starred Kelly, including 1945’s ANCHORS AWEIGH (notable for the sequence in which Kelly dances with cartoon mouse Jerry of TOM AND JERRY fame), and two directed by Vincente Minnelli, ZIEGFELD FOLLIES (1946), in which he dances “The Babbitt and the Bromide,” which had been popularized onstage by Adele and Fred Astaire, and THE PIRATE (1948), which reteamed him with Garland and featured a lively Cole Porter score, including Kelly’s tours de force, “Nina” and “Be a Clown.”

Kelly branched out into directing with ON THE TOWN (1949), which he co-helmed with Stanley Donen. Adapted from the Leonard Bernstein-Betty Comden-Adolph Green Broadway hit, ON THE TOWN followed the adventures of three sailors (Kelly, Frank Sinatra, and Jules Munshin) on leave for one day in New York City and the women (Ann Miller, Vera-Ellen, and Betty Garrett) they encounter. Kelly and Sinatra reteamed for Busby Berkeley’s TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME (also 1949), as turn-of-the-century ballplayers coping with a new female owner (Esther Williams). Kelly and Donen co-directed the “Strictly USA” segment and received an overall story credit. But it was the Oscar-winning AN AMERICAN IN PARIS that marked Kelly’s artistic triumph. Directed by Vincente Minnelli and written by Alan Jay Lerner, the musical was an original story that interpolated a lushly arranged Gershwin score. While the plot was fairly standard (American man, Kelly, torn between wealthy Nina Foch and gamine dancer Leslie Caron), the staging was imaginative, including a spectacular 18-minute ballet sequence that still ranks as one of the best ever filmed. The film won a total of eight Oscars as well as a special award for Kelly, citing his “brilliant achievements in the art of choreography on film.”

Kelly followed with what many consider to be the greatest film musical — SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN (1952). Set in the 1920s, just as talking films are being introduced, the film follows the romance of silent screen star Kelly and newcomer Debbie Reynolds. Featuring the rubbery Donald O’Connor and an uproarious Jean Hagen, the film contains some of the movie musical’s best-remembered sequences, including his signature routine to the title song and the “Broadway Rhythm” ballet. Throughout the ’50s, Kelly continued to appear in musicals (e.g., BRIGADOON, 1954 and the underrated IT’S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER, 1955) but most were forgettable. An attempt to make a strictly dance film, INVITATION TO THE DANCE (1956), which Kelly wrote, directed, choreographed, and starred in, received mixed reviews; most cited the final “Sinbad the Sailor” sequence as the most successful as it displayed the novel mixing of live action and cartoons. Increasingly from the late ’50s, Kelly began to play nonmusical roles, notably as a skeptical reporter in Stanley Kramer’s INHERIT THE WIND (1960). He also worked more behind the camera, helming such diverse fare as THE HAPPY ROAD (1956), A GUIDE FOR THE MARRIED MAN (1967), and the overblown version of HELLO, DOLLY! (1969). Throughout the ’70s and ’80s, Kelly worked less frequently, often as host or narrator of TV specials or compilation films (THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT!, 1974, its two sequels from 1976 and 1994, and their companion piece, THAT’S DANCING!, 1985). His last major onscreen appearance was in the poorly executed XANADU (1980). He worked as an uncredited supervisor of the musical sequences in Francis Ford Coppola’s misbegotten ONE FROM THE HEART (1982). Kelly’s final screen appearance was as host of a segment of THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT! III (1994).

When film dancers are considered, two usually come to mind: Astaire and Kelly. Astaire represented refinement; Kelly, athleticism. Kelly was a swaggeringly virile dancer of incomparable grace and charm. He pushed the boundaries of film dancing beyond the established limits, particularly with AN AMERICAN IN PARIS and INVITATION TO THE DANCE.

Source: Excerpted from Baseline. BaselineStudioSystems — A Hollywood Media Corp. Company.

Photo credits: Photofest and Culver Pictures

Al Jolson lived “The American Dream.” Born in Lithuania, Jolson rose through the ranks of vaudeville as a comedian and a blackface “Mammy” singer. By 1920, he had become the biggest star on Broadway, but he is probably best remembered for his film career. He starred in THE JAZZ SINGER (1927), the first talking movie ever made, and his legend was assured in 1946 with the release of the successful biography of his life called THE JOLSON STORY. Jolson was the first openly Jewish man to become an entertainment star in America. His marginal status as a Jew informed his blackface portrayal of Southern blacks. Almost single-handedly, Jolson helped to introduce African-American musical innovations like jazz, ragtime, and the blues to white audiences. The brightest star of the first half of the 20th century, Jolson was eternally grateful for the opportunities America had given him. He tirelessly entertained American troops in World War II and in the Korean War, and he contributed time and money to the March of Dimes and other philanthropic causes. While some of his colleagues in show business complained about his inflated ego, he certainly deserved his moniker: “The World’s Greatest Entertainer.”

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that the man who made his mark singing “My Mammy” in blackface was himself a “mamma’s boy.” Jolson was born Asa Yoelson in Seredzius, Lithuania, sometime between 1883 and 1886. He was the youngest of four children — the baby of the family and his mother Naomi’s favorite. When Asa was four, his father, Rabbi Moshe Reuben Yoelson, left Lithuania to put down roots for the family in America. From age four to age eight, Asa was raised by his mother. She introduced him to the violin and told him that if he practiced hard he could become a star performer in America someday. When Asa was eight Rabbi Yeolson brought his family to Washington, D.C., where he had found work as a rabbi and a cantor at a Jewish congregation. Later that same year, Naomi died. Seeing his mother in her death throes traumatized young Asa, and he spent much of his life struggling with that trauma. After her death, he remained withdrawn for seven months until he met Al Reeves, who played the banjo, sang, and introduced him to show business. At age nine, Asa and his older brother Hirsch changed their names to Al and Harry, and by age 11 Al was singing in the streets for nickels and dimes that he used to buy tickets to shows at the National Theater.

After running away from home to New York City and doing a stint with a circus, Al joined his brother Harry on the vaudeville circuit. In 1904, the brothers teamed up with a disabled man named Joe Palmer to form a comedy troupe. A friend of Joe’s wrote them a comedy skit, but Al was uncomfortable with it until he took James Dooley’s advice to try performing it in blackface. Jolson remained in blackface for the rest of his stage and screen career. His blackface routine was a hit on the vaudeville circuit and he came to New York to perform it in 1906. His trademarks were a whistling trick that approximated a frenetic birdcall, a performance of vocal scales, and very dramatic facial expressions. He billed himself “The Blackface with the Grand Opera Voice.” After his New York debut, he had success as a blackface comedian and singer in California. In 1911 he returned to New York to star in “La Belle Paree,” a vaudeville revue. There Jolson quickly established himself as the biggest star on Broadway.

 

Jolson’s film career began inauspiciously with a short film for the Vitagraph Company in 1916. In 1923, he agreed to star in a film by D. W. Griffith, but backed out of his contract after filming had begun because Griffith had assigned an assistant to direct Jolson’s scenes. In 1926, he made another short film for Warner Brothers, and in 1927, he was signed to star in a screen version of Samuel Raphelson’s play “The Jazz Singer.” This was the role that Jolson had waited his whole life to play. Based on Jolson’s own life, it was the story of a Jewish boy named Jackie Rabinowitz who runs away from his father, who is a cantor from the old world, because Jackie wants to be in show business. Jackie returns home to chant the Kol Nidre service as his father lies on his deathbed. The film was incredibly popular because it combined old silent film technology (words printed on the screen) with four dramatically innovative vitaphone “talking” sequences. Jolson quickly became the first movie star in the modern sense. He went on to make THE SINGING FOOL (1928), SAY IT WITH SONGS (1929), MAMMY (1930), and BIG BOY (1930) before returning to Broadway in 1931. His star dimmed a bit in the late 1930s and early 1940s until the highly acclaimed biographical film THE JOLSON STORY, starring Larry Parks, was released in 1946. Parks mouthed the songs which Al Jolson himself sang for the film, and the sound track of the film sold several million copies.

Al Jolson was to jazz, blues, and ragtime what Elvis Presley was to rock ‘n’ roll. Jolson had first heard African-American music in New Orleans in 1905, and he performed it for the rest of his life. Like Elvis, Jolson gyrated his lower body as he danced. In THE JAZZ SINGER, white viewers saw Jolson moving his hips and waist in ways that they had never seen before. Historian and performer Stephen Hanan has written in TIKKUN that Jolson’s “funky rhythm and below-the-waist gyrations (not seen again from any white male till the advent of Elvis) were harbingers of the sexual liberation of the new urban era. Jolson was a rock star before the dawn of rock music.” Al Jolson paved the way for African-American performers like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, and Ethel Waters. It is remarkable that a Jewish mamma’s boy from Lithuania could do so much to bridge the cultural gap between black and white America.

Source: Excerpted from ST. JAMES ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE. 5 VOLS., St. James Press, © 2000 St. James Press. Reprinted by permission of The Gale Group.

Photo credits: Photofest and the New York Public Library

Although she practically made a career in middle age as one of the ever-curious panelists on the prime time, daytime, and syndicated versions of the game show TO TELL THE TRUTH during the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s, and even a brief 1990 revamp, Kitty Carlisle actually enjoyed a successful stage career before and during her question-posing days. She also made a brief try at film stardom in the ’30s, and performed very occasionally in movies and TV over the decades. In recent years, though, Carlisle has done her most important work at charity events and in arts administration, serving as chair of the New York State Council of the Arts for 20 years.

Privately educated at schools in Lausanne, London, Paris, and Rome, the New Orleans-born Carlisle later studied for the theater at RADA and at Paris’ Theatre de l’Atelier. A tall brunette with an opera-trained voice, she made her stage debut in a touring company of “Rio Rita” and debuted on Broadway in “Champagne, Sec” in 1933. The movie musical, which had been dormant for several years after the early sound explosion, was reviving, and Carlisle was put under contract by Paramount. She debuted in the enjoyably odd backstage mystery musical MURDER AT THE VANITIES (1934), and that same year was in two fun Bing Crosby vehicles, HERE IS MY HEART (as a princess) and SHE LOVES ME NOT (playing second lead behind Miriam Hopkins). Carlisle looked classy and sang well, but her roles were fairly standardized leading lady types, and in general her male co-stars and the zany comic supporting players won all the kudos. This was especially the case in her last film for eight years, A NIGHT AT THE OPERA (1935); while Carlisle and Allan Jones provided the romance and the songs, the Marx Brothers anarchically satirized any bourgeois convention in sight.

Carlisle returned to the New York stage, mostly in such operettas as “Three Waltzes” (1937) and the occasional straight comedy. She made a guest cameo in the all-star film revue HOLLYWOOD CANTEEN (1944) and starred opposite Jones in a routine “B” movie, LARCENY WITH MUSIC (1943), but here the King Sisters snapped up most of the best songs, so it was back to the stage. She continued until the late ’40s until she had two children by playwright Moss Hart, whom she had married in 1946, but became busier again in the ’50s. Over the years Carlisle has performed on Broadway in “The Rape of Lucretia” (1948) and “The Anniversary Waltz” (1954) and on summer tours of “The Man Who Came to Dinner” (1949), “Die Fledermaus” (with the Metropolitan Opera, 1967), and “You Never Know” (1975), among others.

TO TELL THE TRUTH provided steady, fun work and income as she raised her children after Hart’s death in 1961. Over the years, the ever-gracious Carlisle has regularly appeared in the society column of THE NEW YORK TIMES at high-profile charity fund raisers; played a radio singer in Woody Allen’s nostalgic RADIO DAYS (1987) and a supporting role in the TV movie FLOWERS FOR MATTY (1990); and appeared as host, guest, or interviewee on TV specials including AN EVENING WITH ALAN JAY LERNER and BILL COSBY SALUTES ALVIN AILEY (both 1989). Most importantly, after her appointment by Governor Hugh Carey in 1976, the New York-loving Carlisle also devoted herself tirelessly to promoting the arts in all their variety until she resigned in 1996.

Source: Excerpted from Baseline. BaselineStudioSystems — A Hollywood Media Corp. Company.

Photo credits: Photofest

When Joel Grey stepped into stardom, “wilkomming” wary customers to the Kit Kat Klub at the beginning of “Cabaret”‘s Boston tryout, even his own mother wouldn’t have recognized him:

Out I came in this very extreme pink pancake — the name of the greasepaint actually was “juvenile pink.” And with these very heavy eyelashes, patent-leather hair slicked back, and Clara Bow bee-stung, blood-red lips and some rouge. And a tuxedo and a pink bow tie. I don’t think anybody had ever seen that before.

Thirty-four years old when he appeared as the MC, Grey had toiled in show business since the age of ten. Born Joel Katz in 1932, he grew up in Cleveland, the son of a successful nightclub entertainer and clarinetist, and eventually made it to Broadway as a replacement for such stars as Anthony Newley and Tommy Steele. When Harold Prince picked him to host his “Cabaret,” Grey was so comparatively little known that he was billed fifth, along with the supporting cast. But his dazzling, creepy, utterly unpredictable performance won him a Tony Award and gave the world a Broadway icon. He followed his triumph with his first starring role, as George M. Cohan in the musical biography “George M.!” (1968), where his singing, dancing, and acting talents could be fully exploited. Hollywood beckoned, with a reprise of his role in the film of CABARET, which won him an Oscar.

In the 1970s, he returned to Broadway to star in two more shows, both at the Palace Theatre: “Goodtime Charley,” in which he played the Dauphin of France, and “The Grand Tour,” where he gave his most poignant performance, as a Polish Jew trying to keep one step ahead of the Nazis. Neither show ran for very long, but Grey received Tony nominations for both. He returned once more as MC — this time with his name above the title — in a 1987 revival of “Cabaret,” and performed the self-effacing showstopper “Mr. Cellophane” as the cuckolded husband in the revival of “Chicago” in 1996. In 2003, he appeared as the Wonderful Wizard of Oz in “Wicked,” making his transition from song-and-dance juvenile to beloved character actor complete. “For me to take a role, I read a script and I think wow, I don’t know how I’m going to do this, but I want to try,” said Grey. “That’s where I go.” In “The Grand Tour,” Grey’s big number was called “I’ll Be Here Tomorrow,” a sentiment that seems pretty accurate.

Source: Excerpted from BROADWAY: THE AMERICAN MUSICAL by Michael Kantor and Laurence Maslon. Published by Bulfinch Press.

Photo credits: Photofest

One of America’s first few openly gay major celebrities, actor and playwright Harvey Fierstein (pronounced Fire-steen) didn’t need to “come out” after he became famous and was never “outed” against his will. In many ways a typical product of the post-Stonewall Off-Broadway and live performance art scene of New York in the 1970s, Fierstein combined a semiexperimental, in-your-face approach with the campy nostalgia, the heart-tugging showmanship, and the conventional formats of the tearjerker, the drag revue, and the sitcom. In the process, he proved to be a key figure in promoting the idea that contemporary gay and lesbian life, with no apologies and no climactic suicides, could be a viable subject matter for contemporary drama distributed through fairly widespread venues.

A very versatile performer, Fierstein brought his talent for focusing the outlandish with his debut as an asthmatic lesbian cleaning woman in one of Andy Warhol’s few theatrical ventures, “Pork,” in 1971. During the ’70s, a very up-and-down period for the actor, the one-act pieces that eventually formed “Torch Song Trilogy” were written, performed, and reworked until they became a highly polished triptych of contemporary gay culture. In retrospect, it seems incredible that “Torch Song” didn’t make it to Broadway until 1983, but his dual Tony wins for both Best Play and Best Actor brought a new kind of face into American living rooms during the awards broadcast. Fierstein scored again in the theater the following year by writing the amusing book of the sumptuous, popular Broadway musical adaptation, “La Cage aux Folles,” earning a third Tony in the process.

Acting roles in mainstream films began soon thereafter with a part in GARBO TALKS (1984), and Fierstein eventually co-produced and starred in a somewhat disappointing film adaptation of “Torch Song Trilogy” in 1988. He has subsequently kept very much in the public eye with several AIDS awareness specials, the moving narration to the Oscar-winning documentary THE TIMES OF HARVEY MILK (1984), and hilarious performances on CHEERS as Rebecca’s former boyfriend and on THE SIMPSONS as Homer’s secretary. His voice-over for the latter spotlighted Fierstein’s unique voice, once described in NEW YORK NEWSDAY as “that Brillo-and-bourbon growl.” He played Dr. Lang for a time on the daytime soap LOVING (ABC) and has included several nongay characters in his repertoire of acting stints in TV movies and series work.

His small but highly amusing turn as Robin Williams’ brother in MRS. DOUBTFIRE (1993) seemed a suitable reflection not only of mainstream culture’s continued marginalization of gay characters and lifestyles but also its increased curiosity and, indeed, sometimes liberal acceptance of them, attitudes that typify Fierstein’s important if unsteady niche in popular culture and social politics. He also played a key role in the sci-fi epic INDEPENDENCE DAY (1996), about an alien invasion of the USA. For a while, Fierstein seemed to excel most at playing himself, or winking nods to his real-life persona, on TV guest appearances and the like, but continued to snare roles in everything from family fare such as ELMO SAVES CHRISTMAS (video, 1996) and as a voice actor in Disney’s aninmated adventure MULAN (1998) to barbarian fantasy like KULL THE CONQUEROR (1997). He was Alicia Witt’s gay guy pal in PLAYING MONA LISA (2000) and reunited with Robin Williams for director Danny DeVito’s manic DEATH TO SMOOCHY (2002), but Fierstein would both completely reinvent himself and shrewdly play off his established image in 2002 when he took on the part of “Hairspray”‘s housewife Edna Turnblad (originally played by Divine in the film version) in Marc Shaiman & Scott Wittman’s Broadway musical adaptation of the John Waters cult film. Dressed completely in drag and not afraid to mine the part for the campiest gold he could, Fierstein became the toast of Broadway when the show became a smash hit, winning the trophy for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical at the 2003 Tony Awards.

The actor returned to film work in 2003 with a role in the DeVito-directed comedy DUPLEX opposite Drew Barrymore and Ben Stiller.

Source: Excerpted from Baseline. BaselineStudioSystems — A Hollywood Media Corp. Company.

Photo credits: Photofest and Paul Kolnik