Winks and Minx!

 

Donna Murphy,

of Corona, Queens, 

grew up on Long Island 

(where she asked, at the age of 3, for voice lessons...and got 'em!),

and who dropped out of NYU when she scooped the part of 

a back up singer in They're Playing My Song,

making her Broadway debut at the age of 20.

 Along with Broadway (off and on) roles,

Donna has done soaps (Another World),

movies and television appearances.

Above, in one of her 2 Tony Award winning performances,

as Anna in The King And I, the 1996 revival.

(No, that's not a Herb Alpert whipped-cream cover,

that's a dress.)

 ...and as Ruth Sherwood (on the right) in 

Wonderful Town (at Encores! in 2000, on Broadway in 2003).

Jessica Westfeldt played her "sister Eileen."

Above, Donna as Lotte Lenya in LoveMusik (2007).

"She cuts through the glamour while managing somehow to 

hold onto it,

and the sleight of hand takes your breath away."

...and as Bubbie/Raisel

in The People In The Picture (2011).

"In Donna Murphy, the creators have a shimmering star

who can play a tender, doting grandma and yet evoke Lombard, 

that irresistible mix of winks and minx …

...and an almost unrecognizable in 

Stephen Sondheim's Passion,

as Fosca,

another role that brought Donna a 

Tony for Best Actress in a Musical (1995).

We'll hear "Loving You" this Sunday (3/31/19).

As Fosca with her leading man,

Jere Shea.

Passion brought Sondheim and cohort James Lapine

another Best Musical Award.

Below, Donna with Bernadette Peters.

Donna recently replaced Bette Midler

in Hello, Dolly!

Love the way Klea Blackhurst

calls herself a Mermanologist!

She's a Salt Lake City gal,

who's done tributes to Ethel, Vernon Duke, Jule Styne,

Jerry Herman, and Hoagy Carmichael. 

Show-wise,

she's performed off and on Broadway, at the Royal Albert Hall in London,

Carnegie Hall,

in regional theatre, and cabaret.

Klea with Hayley Mills in Party Face

at City Center just last year.

Klea received a

  Special Achievement Award from

 Time Out New York

for her Merman tribute,

"Everything the Traffic Will Allow" (2002).

Below, Klea as The Merm in

  Call Me Madam

done in San Francisco.

Other productions Klea has graced:

Oil City Symphony, Radio Gals, Anything Goes,

and Red, Hot, and Blue.

 

And here's the real thing:

Ethel Merman above in Anything Goes...

with William Gaxton,

and below with the perpetrator of that musical,

Cole Porter.

...and in Call Me Madam.

With the clothes.

With the baubles.

And with Vera Ellen in the 1953 film version.

 

...and with the original "Madam",

Pearl Mesta,

the inspiration for that Irving Berlin musical.

A Washington socialite, U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg,

active in the National Women's Party and an

early supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment.

A gutsy dame...right up Ethel's alley! 

And Ethel supposedly had no idea who Pearl was

til maybe the second run-thru!