Bernadette Peters
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Birth name Bernadette Lazzara
Born February 28, 1948 (age 58)
Ozone Park, Queens, New York
Spouse(s) Michael Wittenberg
(1996-2005)
Official site
http://www.bernadettepeters.com
Notable roles Dot/Marie in
Sunday in the Park with George,
Rose in
Gypsy
The Witch in
Into the Woods
Tony Awards
Song and Dance (1986)
Annie Get Your Gun (1999)
Bernadette Peters is an American Tony Award-winning actress and singer.
Early career
Bernadette Lazzara was born to an Italian-American family in Queens, New York. Her mother, Marguerite, started her 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". In her teen years, she attended the Quintano School for Young Professionals.
At the age of nine she 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. She made her theatrical debut at age 9 in This is Goggle, directed by Otto Preminger, a comedy that closed during out-of-town tryouts, before reaching New York. She first appeared on the New York stage at age 10 in the New York City Center revival of The Most Happy Fella (1959). At 13 she was an understudy for Dainty June and one of the ensemble in a touring company of Gypsy. Upon graduation from high school, she started working steadily, appearing 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 appeared next as George M. Cohan's sister, co-starring with Joel Grey in the Broadway musical George M! (1968), for which she received the Theatre World Award for a Debut Performance. 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.) (See Joe Cino)
She had starring roles in her next Broadway vehicles --Gelsomina in La Strada (one performance); Hildy in On the Town (73 performances); and Mabel Normand in Mack and Mabel (65 performances), but they had disappointingly short runs. Peters moved to Los Angeles in the early 1970's, where she concentrated on television and film work. She did not appear on stage again until 1982 in the Off-Broadway Sally and Marsha.
Theatre
Peters returned to the Broadway stage after a ten-year absence as Dot/Marie in the Stephen Sondheim-James Lapine musical, Sunday in the Park with George, followed by the Andrew Lloyd Webber Song and Dance, and again, as The Witch for 5 months in Sondheim-Lapine's Into the Woods. She continued her association with Sondheim in a 1995 benefit concert of Anyone Can Whistle and, in 2003, in Gypsy as Mama Rose (the role made famous by Ethel Merman). Most recently, in February 2006, she participated in a reading of the Sondheim-Weidman musical Bounce. Additionally, she performed at the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony for Sondheim (1993), as well as at several concerts featuring his work.
She has became known for her performances in the works of Stephen Sondheim and is "considered by many to be the premier interpreter of his work", according to the writer Alex Witchel. [1] Raymond Knapp writes that Peters "achieved her definitive stardom" in Sunday in the Park With George and Into the Woods.[2]
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." [3]
Peters in her Tony Award-winning role in Song and Dance (1985)She won her first Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Musical in 1986 for her performance as Emma in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Song and Dance. Theater critic Frank Rich wrote in an otherwise negative review of Song and Dance that "[Peters] has no peer in the musical theater right now." [4] 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." [5]
She won her second Tony Award for her performance as Annie Oakley in the 1999 revival of Annie Get Your Gun, opposite Tom Wopat. Although his review of the production was generally unfavorable Ben Brantley wrote of Peters' performance "...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." [6]
Peters most recently appeared on Broadway as Rose in Gypsy, which closed 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." [7]
She has been called "America's premier musical theater actress" (David Patrick Stearns, USA Today, January 28, 1999); a "National Living Treasure[s]" (Lloyd Rose, Washington Post, January 8, 1999); and "as close to a diva as the New York theater has produced in the past thirty years" (John M. Clum, Something for the Boys, 1999, ISBN 0-312-23832-0). And, Andrew Gans wrote: ..."it wasn't until her triptych of hits in the '80s ?- Sunday in the Park with George, Song & Dance and Into the Woods ?- that she solidified her place among the tiny pantheon of Broadway's great musical theatre stars, joining the likes of Ethel Merman and Mary Martin and those select few who possess the talent, star quality and drawing power that create a Broadway legend." (Playbill On-Line's Brief Encounter with Bernadette Peters, March 12, 2002)
Film
She has appeared in 19 films, and is remembered mainly for the 1979 comedy classic The Jerk co-starring Steve Martin, whom she dated. She won a 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 Martin. She most recently appeared with three generations of the Kirk Douglas family in It Runs in the Family. In May 2006 she filmed a movie in Italy, titled "Come le formiche", co-starring with F. Murray Abraham; there is no release date announced.
Television
Peters has appeared in many made-for-television movies and variety shows, and has performed on the Academy Awards, both presented at and co-hosted the Tony Awards, and hosted Saturday Night Live. She made guest appearances on all of Carol Burnett's television variety series, (see The Carol Burnett Show and the parody As the Stomach Turns), as well as appearing with her in the made-for-television version of Once Upon A Mattress and the 1982 film Annie. Peters performed at the Kennedy Center Honors for Burnett in 2003.
She appeared often on the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (at least 32 times) and on the day time talk show Live with Regis and Kelly, both as a co-host and a guest (at least 20 times). Peters said of performing on the Carson show: "The first time I was on [in 1970] I sang 'What'll I Do.' There was a good reaction afterwards, really wonderful. People started to notice me when I would appear on his show... I got exposure on that show." [8]
Peters voiced "Rita", a stray cat, in the Rita and Runt segments of the animated series Animaniacs. Rita often sang on the show, sometimes in a parody of a Broadway musical.
She co-starred in her own short-lived series, All's Fair, with Richard Crenna in the late 1970s. In March 2005, Peters made a pilot for an ABC sitcom series titled "Adopted", co-starring with Christine Baranski. They played comically competing mothers--one natural, one adoptive--of an adult son. The series was not picked up. [9]
Peters most recently appeared as a defense attorney on the NBC series, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, 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).
Concerts
Ms. Peters has been performing her one-woman concert in the United States and Canada for many years. She made her solo concert debut at Carnegie Hall in New York City in 1996, devoting the second half to the work of Stephen Sondheim. In his review 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). She performed a similar concert in London, which 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 on the cover of the December 1981 issue of Playboy Magazine, as well as in a full inside spread, featuring her posing in lingerie designed by Bob Mackie.
She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located in Hollywood, California, in April 1987, at 6706 Hollywood Blvd.
She was honored as the Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year for 1987.
In 1994, she received the Sarah Siddons Award for outstanding performance in a Chicago theatrical production.
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]
She was inducted into The Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame on June 28, 2002.
Personal
She is a co-founder with Mary Tyler Moore of Broadway Barks, an annual animal adopt-a-thon held in New York City. The goal is to promote adopting animals from shelters and to make New York City a no-kill city.
Bernadette Peters married investment adviser Michael Wittenberg on July 20, 1996 at the upstate New York home of Mary Tyler Moore, her longtime friend. Wittenberg died at age 43 on September 26, 2005 in a helicopter crash in Montenegro while on a business trip.
