Friday, February 16, 2018

Look at that face. Just LOOK at it.


 A bevy of ballads awaits us on Sunday,
starting off with Betty Buckley
and selections from her recent Story Songs album.
Below, Betty in her Broadway debut in 1969
with William Daniels and Howard DaSilva
in 1776.
She got the job as Martha Jefferson on her 
very first day in NYC.
 
  Betty has been called "The Voice of Broadway",
with Cats, Pippin, Sunset Boulevard, Promises, Promises and Drood
 and many more under her belt.
But she's also done a ton of television 
(remember "Eight Is Enough"?
Cagney & Lacey? L.A.Law?), and
films (Another Woman, Tender Mercies, Carrie).
Below, in character for Grey Gardens...
Betty played Big Edie with 
Rachel Yorke as the little variety.


Faith Prince, born in Georgia, raised in Virginia,
made her Broadway debut in 1989
in Jerome Robbin's Broadway.
She followed that up as Miss Adelaide in the 1992 revival
of Guys and Dolls (for which Faith won a Tony),
and below, in the revival of Bells Are Ringing.

She's played Ursula, below,
in The Little Mermaid...


and Miss Hannigan in Annie! 

  


 And then 3 faces from our
THAT FACE! theme...
above Jack Cassidy in Fade Out - Fade In
(above with Carol Burnett) 
and "My Fortune Is My Face"...
below Cyril Ritchard (here with a young Joel Grey
who replaced Anthony Newley in The Roar Of The Greasepaint,
The Smell Of The Crowd),
with "Look At That Face."


Dick Van Dyke in an early "silly walk" above.
He won a Tony for his performance in Bye Bye Birdie,
in only is second show on The Great White Way.
He had debuted on Broadway just one year before that,
in The Girls Against The Boys.
The next year he auditioned for a small part in Birdie,
threw in a quasi soft shoe at the end of his song,
prompting Gower Champion to give him the lead of Albert.
Dick: "But I can't really dance!"
Gower: "We'll teach you!"
Prior to Broadway, Dick was part of a 2 person act
called "The Merry Mutes" with Phil Erickson, 
doing mime and lip-synching to 78s.

3 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Pretty sure that was Martha Jefferson, not Washinngton. Pretty sure I saw her in that role doing “He Plays then Violin”. (Both Adams and Franklin miming the violin behind her in the photo)

    ReplyDelete
  3. You're right! Martha Jefferson, my error! Thanks for correcting!!!

    ReplyDelete