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Bernadette Peters

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Bernadette Peters

Bernadette Peters

<tr><td style="text-align:left;">Birth name</td><td>Bernadette Lazzara</td></tr>

Born February 28 1948 (age 60)
Ozone Park, New York, New York
Height 5' 2"
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
Spouse(s) Michael Wittenberg (1996-2005, his death)

Bernadette Peters is the stage name of Bernadette Lazzara (born February 28, 1948 in Ozone Park, Queens, New York City), an actress and singer.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early career

Ms. 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 Name That Tune and The Horn and Hardart Children's Hour. She took tap lessons, 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 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 received the Theatre World Award for a Debut Performance for her work in the Broadway musical George M! in 1967. She attracted even greater critical notice in her next role, as "Ruby" in the Off-Broadway spoof of 1930s musicals, Dames at Sea.

[edit] Theatre

In theatre, she has come to be strongly associated with the work of Stephen Sondheim, appearing in his Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, and, in 2003, returning to Broadway in Gypsy as Mama Rose (the role made legendary by Ethel Merman). Additionally, she performed at the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony for Sondheim (1993), as well as several concerts featuring his work (such as the concert Sondheim: A Celebration At Carnegie Hall (1992) ).

James Lapine, the writer-director of Sunday in the Park With George says of Peters: "When it came to casting Dot, I thought of Bernadette Peters and I never in a million years thought she would do it because we had only a sketch to show her. I mean, it was just thirty pages of the first act with one song. I was shocked that she said yes immediately, but she just loved the material.". (Zadan, Craig, Sondheim & Company, 1974, 1986, p. 300, ISBN 0-06-015649-X)

She got the role in Into the Woods almost by accident. She learned that the part of the Witch was free while lunching with Sondheim. " 'The next day,' Sondheim remembered, 'she called about the part...It would never have occurred to us to ask her to do the second lead.'" (Gottfried, Martin, Sondheim 2000 Edition, p. 176, ISBN 0-8109-4179-1)

Image:Bernadetteinsong.JPG

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. Critic Frank Rich remarked in an otherwise negative review of Song and Dance, that "[Peters] has no peer in the musical theater right now." (New York Times, September 19, 1985).

In another review of Song and Dance, the critic John Simon wrote: "Miss Peters is an unimpeachable peach of a performer who does so much for the top half of this bill as to warrant its immediate rechristening as Song of Bernadette. She not only sings, acts, and (in the bottom half) dances to perfection, she also, superlatively,is." (John Simon, New York Magazine, Sept 30, 1985)

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." (New York Times, March 5, 1999, Section E, page 1.)

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]

[edit] 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.

[edit] Television

Peters has appeared in many made-for-television movies, variety shows, Awards shows (such as the Academy Awards and 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. She also appeared at least 32 times on the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, from the 1970's through 1992.

Peters appeared as an 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 also guest-starred on the Fox series Ally McBeal in 2001, an appearance which earned her an Emmy nomination. She was also nominated for an Emmy in the category "Outstanding Continuing Or Single Performance By A supporting actress in variety or music", 1978, for her performance on The Muppet Show.

[edit] Other Work

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)

  • 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] Solo recordings

Image:Bernadette-1980.png

[edit] Cast Recordings

[edit] Other recordings

[edit] Off-Broadway appearances

[edit] Broadway appearances

[edit] Filmography

[edit] TV work


Preceded by:
Chita Rivera
for The Rink 		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:
Natasha Richardson
for Cabaret 		Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical
1999
for Annie Get Your Gun 		Succeeded by:
Heather Headley
for Aida

[edit] External links

[edit] See also

fr:Bernadette Peters sv:Bernadette Peters

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