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Bernadette Peters

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Bernadette Peters is the stage name of Bernadette Lazzara, a Tony Award-winning actress and singer.

Bernadette Peters
File:Bernpeters.jpg
Bernadette Peters
Born
Bernadette Lazzara

200px
Height5 ft 2 in (157 cm)
SpouseMichael Wittenberg (1996-2005)
Awards1985 Song and Dance, 1999 Annie Get Your Gun
Websitehttp://www.bernadettepeters.com

Early career

Bernadette Peters' mother, Marguerite, started her off in show business by putting her on the television show "Juvenile Jury" at the age of three-and-a-half. She later appeared on the television shows "Name That Tune" and "The Horn and Hardart Children's Hour". She took tap lessons so that she could learn how to tap dance and at the age of nine got her Equity Card under the name of Bernadette Peters to avoid ethnic stereotyping. The stage name was taken from her father's first name.

In her teen years, she attended the Quintano School for Young Professionals. She appeared on the stage in "The Most Happy Fella" (1959), was an understudy for Dainty June in the touring company of "Gypsy" and appeared Off-Broadway in "The Penny Friend" (1966) and Curley McDimple (1967) and as an understudy on Broadway in "The Girl In The Freudian Slip" (1967). She made her on-stage Broadway debut in Johnny No-Trump in 1967. She received the Theatre World Award for a Debut Performance for her work in the Broadway musical "George M!" in 1968. But it was her next role, as "Ruby" in the 1968 Off-Broadway spoof of 1930s musicals, "Dames at Sea", that brought her critical notice. (She had appeared in an earlier 1966 version of "Dames at Sea" at the off-off-Broadway performance club, the Caffe Cino.)

Theatre

Stephen Sondheim

In theatre, she has come to be strongly associated with the work of Stephen Sondheim; she is "considered by many to be the premier interpreter of his work", according to the writer Alex Witchel. [1] Peters appeared in his "Sunday in the Park with George", "Into the Woods", a benefit concert of "Anyone Can Whistle" and, in 2003, returned to Broadway in "Gypsy" as Mama Rose (the role made famous by Ethel Merman). Additionally, she performed at the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony for Sondheim (1993), as well as at several concerts featuring his work.

Stephen Sondheim has said of Peters: "Like very few others, she sings and acts at the same time," he says. "Most performers act and then sing, act and then sing. . . . Bernadette is flawless as far as I'm concerned. I can't think of anything negative." [2]

File:Bernadetteinsong.JPG
Peters in her Tony Award-winning role in Song and Dance (1985)

Tony Awards

She won her first Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Musical in 1985 for the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Song and Dance, receiving favorable reviews for her performance. Theater critic Frank Rich remarked in an otherwise negative review of Song and Dance that "[Peters] has no peer in the musical theater right now." [3]

In another review of Song and Dance, the critic John Simon wrote: "She not only sings, acts, and (in the bottom half) dances to perfection, she also, superlatively, is." [4]

She won her second Tony Award for her performance in the 1999 revival of Annie Get Your Gun, opposite Tom Wopat. In his review of the revival, Ben Brantley wrote that it was "misconceived" and a "tawdry take". "Still, it is Ms. Peters who provides the show with its only genuine pleasures, and they come when she sings ... She seems to pull us all into a collective embrace with a mere catch in her voice or a hint of a tear, and there are moments when nothing seems to exist but the star, the song and the audience." [5]

Gypsy

Peters most recently appeared on Broadway as Rose in Gypsy, ending her run in May 2004. Ben Brantley in his review wrote: "Playing a role that few people thought would ever fit her and shadowed by vultures predicting disaster, Bernadette Peters delivered the surprise coup of many a Broadway season in the revival of "Gypsy" that opened last night at the Shubert Theater...Working against type and expectation under the direction of Sam Mendes, Ms. Peters has created the most complex and compelling portrait of her long career, and she has done this in ways that deviate radically from the Merman blueprint." [6]

Miscellaneous

In 1994, she earned the Sarah Siddons Award for dramatic achievement in Chicago theatre.

She is frequently cited as one of the greatest living musical theater divas (along with the likes of Angela Lansbury and Patti LuPone). She was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame for 1995, in a ceremony at the Gershwin Theatre, New York, becoming the youngest person so honored. [citation needed]

Film

In films she is remembered mainly for the 1979 comedy classic The Jerk co-starring Steve Martin, whom she briefly dated. She won the Golden Globe Award as Best Motion Picture Actress - Comedy/Musical for her performance as Eileen in the 1981 film Pennies From Heaven , again co-starring with Steve Martin. She has continued to work in films, most recently appearing with three generations of the Kirk Douglas family in It Runs in the Family.

In April 1987 she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located in Hollywood, California.

Television

Peters has appeared in many made-for-television movies, variety shows, performed on the Academy Awards and both presented at and co-hosted the Tony Awards, as well as co-starring in her own short-lived series, All's Fair, with Richard Crenna. She is a good friend of Carol Burnett's and has made guest appearances on all of her television series. (Peters performed at the Kennedy Center Honors for Burnett in 2003.) She also appeared at least 32 times on the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, from the 1970's through 1992. She has appeared on the day time talk show Live with Regis and Kelly, both as a co-host and a guest, at least 20 times from 1996 through 2006.

Peters most recently appeared as a defense attorney on the NBC series, Law and Order:SVU in November 2006. She previously guest starred on the penultimate episode of NBC's Will & Grace as the sharp-tongued sister of Karen Walker (Megan Mullally).

She was nominated for the Emmy Award for her guest-starring roles on the Fox sitcom Ally McBeal (2001), and The Muppet Show (1978).

Other Work

Concerts

Ms. Peters has been performing her one-woman concert around the United States and Canada for many years. She made her solo concert debut at Carnegie Hall in New York City on December 9, 1996; on September 17, 1998 at the Royal Festival Hall, London; on June 19, 2002 at Radio City Music Hall in New York City; and at Lincoln Center (Avery Fisher Hall), New York, on May 1, 2006. The Carnegie Hall concert was notable for devoting the second half to the work of Stephen Sondheim. In his review of that concert, Stephen Holden wrote: "When she devoted the entire second half of Monday's concert to the songs of Stephen Sondheim, the chemistry between the voice of the wise child and the lyrics of Broadway's ultimate sophisticate filled the hall with a profoundly bittersweet feeling of lessons learned on roads long traveled." (New York Times, December 11, 1996). The London concert was taped and released on video, and also aired on U. S. Public Television stations in 1999.

Recording

She has recorded 6 solo albums, starting with her debut album in 1980 titled Bernadette. Three have been nominated for the Grammy Award. She has recorded most of the Broadway and Off-Broadway musicals she has appeared in. Additionally, she recorded songs on several other albums, such as John Whelan's Flirting with the Edge. "Of course, I can't say enough about Bernadette Peters. I played at her wedding a few years ago...It's Dublin Lady one of the lesser known traditional songs, and her striking voice makes this the best rendition I ever heard." (Liner notes, Flirting with the Edge, Narada, 1998.)

On the Mandy Patinkin Dress Casual album, Patinkin and Peters recorded the suite from Stephen Sondheim's 1966 television play, Evening Primrose.

Other

  • Peters appeared in the December 1981 issue of Playboy (on the cover as well as in a full inside spread, the latter of which featured her posing in lingerie designed by Bob Mackie).
  • She was inducted into the The Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame in 2002.

Personal

Peters is a co-founder of Broadway Barks, an annual animal adopt-a-thon held in NYC. Both Peters, and friend Mary Tyler Moore, work to make New York City a no-kill city and to promote adopting animals from shelters.

Bernadette Peters married Michael Wittenberg on July 20, 1996 at the bucolic upstate New York home of Mary Tyler Moore, a longtime friend of Peters's. Wittenberg died at age 43 on September 26, 2005 in a helicopter crash in Montenegro.

Discography

Solo

 
Album cover from ' Bernadette' (1980)

Cast Recordings

Other recordings

Off-Broadway appearances

Broadway appearances

Filmography

TV work


Preceded by Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical
1986
for Song and Dance 		Succeeded by
Maryann Plunkett
for Me and My Girl
Preceded by Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical
1999
for Annie Get Your Gun 		Succeeded by

See also

References

  1. ^ New York Times, February 28, 1999, Section 2, p.5.
  2. ^ Washington Post, Chip Crews, January 3, 1999, p.G01.
  3. ^ New York Times, September 19, 1985.
  4. ^ John Simon, New York Magazine, Sept 30, 1985.
  5. ^ New York Times, March 5, 1999, p.E1.
  6. ^ New York Times, May 2, 2003, p.E1.
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