Coordinates	40°13′45″N76°52′26″N
Name	Arthur Laurents
Birthdate	July 14, 1918
Birthplace	Brooklyn
Occupation	PlaywrightLibrettistStage directorScreenwriter
Alma mater	Cornell University
Awards	1968 Tony Award for Best Musical for Hallelujah, Baby!1975 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Musical for 1977 Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay for The Turning Point1984 Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for La Cage aux Folles

Arthur Laurents (born July 14, 1918) is an American playwright, librettist, stage director, and screenwriter. His credits include the stage musicals West Side Story and and the film The Way We Were.

Early life

Laurents, the son of a lawyer and a schoolteacher who gave up her career when she married, was born and raised in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, the elder of two children, and attended Erasmus Hall High School. His sister Edith suffered from chorea as a child and, as a result, Laurents always felt protective toward her.

His paternal grandparents were Orthodox Jews and his mother's parents, although born Jewish, were atheists. His mother kept a Kosher home for her husband's sake, but was lax about attending temple and observing the Jewish holidays. His Bar Mitzvah marked the end of Laurents' religious education and the beginning of his rejection of all fundamentalist religions, although he continued to identify himself as Jewish.

After graduating from Cornell University, Laurents took an evening class in radio writing at New York University. His instructor, a CBS Radio director/producer, submitted his script Now Playing Tomorrow, a comedic fantasy about clairvoyance, to the network, and it was produced with Shirley Booth in the lead role. It was Laurents' first professional credit. The show's success led to him being hired to write scripts for various radio shows, among them Lux Radio Theater.

Military career

Laurents' career came to a halt when he was drafted into the United States Army in the middle of World War II. Through a series of clerical errors, he never saw battle, but instead was assigned to the US Army Pictorial Service located in a film studio in Astoria, Queens, where he wrote training films and met, among others, George Cukor and William Holden. He later was reassigned to write plays for Armed Service Force Presents, a radio show that dramatized the contributions of all branches of the armed forces.

Theatrical career

Soon after being discharged from the Army, Laurents met ballerina Nora Kaye, and the two became involved in an on-again, off-again romantic relationship. While Kaye was on tour with Fancy Free, Laurents continued to write for the radio but was becoming discontented with the medium. At the urging of Martin Gabel, he spent nine consecutive nights writing a play inspired by a photograph of GIs in a South Pacific jungle. The result was Home of the Brave, a drama about anti-semitism in the military, which opened on Broadway on December 27, 1945 and ran for 69 performances. Stanley Kramer filmed the Home of the Brave in 1949 changing the character from Jewish to black.

Five years later, his second Broadway production, The Bird Cage, was even less successful, running for only 21 performances. In 1952, The Time of the Cuckoo reunited him with Shirley Booth and ran for 263 performances. (Laurents later would adapt it for the 1965 musical Do I Hear a Waltz?) Other successes in the 1950s included the books for West Side Story and Gypsy.

In 1962, Laurents directed I Can Get It for You Wholesale, which helped to turn then-unknown Barbra Streisand into a star. His next project was Anyone Can Whistle, which he directed and for which he wrote the book, but it proved to be an infamous flop. He later had success with the musicals Hallelujah, Baby! (written for Lena Horne but ultimately starring Leslie Uggams) and La Cage Aux Folles, but Nick & Nora was another flop.

In 2008, Laurents directed a Broadway revival of Gypsy starring Patti LuPone, and in 2009, he tackled a bilingual revival of West Side Story, with Spanish translations to some dialogue and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda. While preparing the show, he noted, "The musical theatre and cultural conventions of 1957 made it next to impossible for the characters to have authenticity." Following the production's March 19 opening at the Palace Theatre, Ben Brantley of the New York Times called the translations "an only partly successful experiment" and added, "Mr. Laurents has exchanged insolence for innocence and, as with most such bargains, there are dividends and losses."

Film career

Laurents' first Hollywood experience proved to be a frustrating disappointment. Unhappy with the script for The Snake Pit submitted by Frank Partos and Millen Brand, director Anatole Litvak hired Laurents to rewrite it. Partos and Brand later insisted the bulk of the shooting script was theirs, and produced carbon copies of many of the pages Laurents actually had written to bolster their claim. Having destroyed the original script and all his notes and rewritten pages after completing the project, Laurents had no way to prove most of the work was his, and the Writers Guild of America denied him screen credit. Brand later confessed he and Partos had copied scenes written by Laurents and apologized for his role in the deception. Four decades later, Laurents learned he was ineligible for WGA health benefits because he had failed to accumulate enough credits to qualify. He was short by one, the one he failed to get for The Snake Pit.

Upon hearing 20th Century Fox executives were pleased with Laurents' work on The Snake Pit, Alfred Hitchcock hired him to Americanize the British play Rope for the screen. With his then-lover Farley Granger set to star, Laurents was happy to accept the assignment. His dilemma was how to make the audience aware of the fact the three main characters were homosexual without blatantly saying so. The Hays Office kept close tabs on his work, and the final script was so discreet that Laurents was unsure whether co-star James Stewart ever realized that his character was gay. In later years, Hitchcock asked him to script both Torn Curtain and Topaz but, unenthused by the material, Laurents declined the offers.

Laurents also scripted Anastasia and Bonjour Tristesse. The Way We Were, in which he incorporated many of his own experiences, particularly those with the HUAC, reunited him with Barbra Streisand, and The Turning Point, inspired in part by his love for Nora Kaye, was directed by her husband Herbert Ross.

Blacklist

Because of a casual remark made by Russel Crouse, Laurents was called to Washington, DC to account for his political views. He explained himself to the House Un-American Activities Committee, and his appearance had no obvious impact on his career, which at the time was primarily in the theatre.

When the McCarran Internal Security Act, which prohibited individuals suspected of engaging in subversive activities from obtaining a passport, was passed in 1950, Laurents and Granger immediately applied for and received passports and departed for Paris with Harold Clurman and his wife Stella Adler. Laurents and Granger remained abroad, traveling throughout Europe and northern Africa, for about eighteen months.

Years earlier, Laurents and Jerome Robbins had developed Look Ma, I'm Dancin'!, a 1948 stage musical about the world of ballet that ran for 188 performances on Broadway, and starred Nancy Walker and Harold Lang. (Although the musical was ultimately produced with a book by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, as Laurents left the project. Robbins approached Paramount Pictures about directing a screen version, and the studio agreed as long as Laurents was not part of the package. It wasn't until then that Laurents learned he officially had been blacklisted, primarily because a review of Home of the Brave had been published in the Daily Worker. He decided to return to Paris, but the State Department refused to renew his passport. Laurents spent three months trying to clear his name, and after submitting a lengthy letter explaining his political beliefs in detail, it was determined they were so idiosyncratic he couldn't have been a member of any subversive groups. Within a week his passport was renewed, and the following day he sailed for Europe on the Ile de France. While on board, he received a cable from MGM offering him a screenwriting assignment. The blacklist had ended.

Memoirs

In 2000, Laurents published Original Story By Arthur Laurents: A Memoir of Broadway and Hollywood. In it, he discusses his lengthy career and his many gay affairs and long-term relationships, including those with Farley Granger and Tom Hatcher, an aspiring actor whom Gore Vidal suggested Laurents seek out at the men's clothing store in Beverly Hills Hatcher was managing at the time. The couple remained together for 52 years until Hatcher's death on October 26, 2006.

In 2009, Laurents published Mainly on Directing: Gypsy, West Side Story and Other Musicals, in which he discusses musicals he directed and the works of other directors he admires.

Work

(1948)]]

Libretti

West Side Story - 1957 - Tony Nomination for Best Musical

- 1959 - Tony Nomination for Best Musical

Anyone Can Whistle - 1964

Do I Hear a Waltz? - 1965

Hallelujah, Baby! - 1967 - Tony Award for Best Musical

The Madwoman of Central Park West - 1979

Nick & Nora - 1991

Direction

Invitation to a March - 1960

I Can Get It for You Wholesale - 1962

Anyone Can Whistle - 1964

- 1974 - Tony Nomination for Best Direction of a Musical

The Madwoman of Central Park West - 1979

La Cage aux Folles - 1983 - Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical

Nick & Nora - 1991

- 2008 - Tony Award nomination as Best Director of a Musical

West Side Story - 2009 Broadway Revival

Plays

Home of the Brave - 1945

The Bird Cage - 1950

The Time of the Cuckoo - 1952

A Clearing in the Woods - 1957

Invitation to a March - 1960

west side story 1960

Additional credits

Anna Lucasta (screenwriter)

A Clearing in the Woods (playwright)

Invitation to a March (playwright, director)

The Madwoman of Central Park West (playwright, director)

My Good Name (playwright)

Jolson Sings Again (playwright)

The Enclave (playwright, director)

Radical Mystique (playwright, director)

Big Potato (playwright)

Two Lives (playwright)

My Good Name (playwright)

Claudia Lazlo (playwright)

Attacks on the Heart (playwright)

2 Lives (playwright)

New Year's Eve (playwright)

Come Back, Come Back, Wherever You Are (playwright, director)

Rope (playwright)

Awards, nominations and honors

A new award has been established in 2010, The Laurents/Hatcher Foundation Award. This will be awarded annually "for an un-produced, full-length play of social relevance by an emerging American playwright." The Laurents/Hatcher Foundation will give $50,000 to the writer with a grant of $100,000 towards production costs at a nonprofit theatre. The first award will be given in 2011.

;Theatre

1958 Tony Award for Best Musical (West Side Story, nominee)

1960 Tony Award for Best Musical (Gypsy, nominee)

1968 Tony Award for Best Musical (Hallelujah, Baby!, winner)

1975 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Musical (Gypsy, winner)

1975 Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical (Gypsy, nominee)

1984 Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical (La Cage aux Folles, winner)

2008 Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical (Gypsy, nominee)

;Film

Academy Award for Best Picture (''The Turning Point, nominee)

Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay (The Turning Point, nominee)

Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay (Rope, nominee)

Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay (The Turning Point, nominee)

Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay (The Way We Were, nominee; The Turning Point, winner)

National Board of Review Award for Career Achievement (winner)

References

Further reading

Laurents, Arthur, Original Story by Arthur Laurents: A Memoir of Broadway and Hollywood. New York: Knopf 2000. ISBN 0-375-40055-9

Laurents, Arthur, Mainly on Directing: Gypsy, West Side Story, and Other Musicals. New York: Knopf 2009. ISBN 0-307-27088-2

External links

Arthur Laurents at the Internet Off-Broadway Database

American Theatre Wing biography

Category:1918 births Category:Living people Category:American dramatists and playwrights Category:American musical theatre librettists Category:American screenwriters Category:Cornell University alumni Category:Drama Desk Award winners Category:Gay writers Category:Hollywood blacklist Category:Jewish American writers Category:LGBT Jews Category:People from Brooklyn Category:LGBT writers from the United States Category:American atheists Category:Jewish atheists

Coordinates	40°13′45″N76°52′26″N
Name	Sam Mendes
Birth name	Samuel Alexander Mendes
Birth date	August 01, 1965
Birth place	Reading, Berkshire, England
Occupation	Director
Spouse	Kate Winslet (2003–2010) (separated)
Years active	1993–present

Samuel Alexander "Sam" Mendes, CBE (born 1 August 1965) is an English stage and film director. He has won two Laurence Olivier Awards for his London stage productions The Glass Menagerie and Company in 1996, and Twelfth Night and Uncle Vanya in 2003. He also received a Tony Award nomination for Best Direction of a Musical for the Broadway revival of Cabaret in 1998. His debut film American Beauty (1999) earned him an Academy Award for Best Director.

Early years

Mendes was born in Reading, Berkshire, England to Jameson Peter Mendes, a university professor, and Valerie Helene Barnett, an author of children's books. His father is from Trinidad's ethnic Portuguese community, and his mother an English Jew. His grandfather is the Trinidadian writer Alfred Mendes. He attended Magdalen College School, Oxford and graduated from Peterhouse, Cambridge, with a BA in 1987.

Mendes first attracted attention for his production of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard in the West End which starred Judi Dench before he was twenty-five years old. Soon he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company where his productions, many of them featuring Simon Russell Beale, included Troilus and Cressida, Richard III and The Tempest.

He has also worked at the Royal National Theatre, directing Edward Bond's The Sea, Jim Cartwright's The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party, and Othello with Simon Russell Beale as Iago.

Career

Stage

In 1992 Mendes was appointed artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse, an intimate studio space in London's Covent Garden which he quickly transformed into one of the most exciting venues in the city. His opening production was Stephen Sondheim's Assassins which reveled in the show's dark, comic brilliance and rescued it from the critical opprobrium it had suffered on its American opening. He followed this with a series of excellent classic revivals, many of which attracted some of the finest actors and biggest stars of the decade.

In 1994, Mendes tackled Lionel Bart's Oliver! which is based on Charles Dickens' novel Oliver Twist. Mendes, a long time fan of the work, worked in close collaboration with Bart and other production team members, William David Brohn, Martin Koch and Anthony Ward, to create a brand new staging of the well known classic. Bart added new lyrics and music as well as refreshed dialogue. Brohn and Koch worked with the composer on new music material as well as revising the orchestrations. Mendes brought Jonathan Pryce on board to play Fagin. Pryce starred alongside Sally Dexter as Nancy. Both Pryce and Dexter were well known for their classical work and were widely acknowledged for their work on Oliver!. This production is the longest running show ever to play at the London Palladium closing in 1998. This version recently re-opened at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London's West End to great acclaim, with Rowan Atkinson as Fagin. Rupert Goold has adapted Mendes' original direction for this production, and it has been extremely well received.

Mendes is also known for his highly acclaimed production of John Kander and Fred Ebb's Cabaret. In this version, Alan Cumming played Emcee and Natasha Richardson played Sally Bowles. Once again, he decided to approach a classic piece of theatre with a fresh look, revisiting the character of Emcee amongst others. This production opened at the Donmar, moving promptly to Broadway. Cumming and Richardson both won Tony Awards for their work. A cast recording of this production is available.

He has also directed Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie, Stephen Sondheim's Company (which had the first ever African American "Bobby"), Alan Bennett's Habeas Corpus and his farewell duo of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya and Twelfth Night, which transferred to the Brooklyn Academy of Music. As artistic director Mendes also gave some of the country's finest younger directors the opportunity to do some of their best work: Matthew Warchus's production of Sam Shepard's True West, Katie Mitchell's of Beckett's Endgame, David Leveaux's of Sophocles's Elektra and Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing were amongst the most critically acclaimed of the decade. The Donmar's present artistic director, Michael Grandage, directed some of the key productions of the later part of Mendes's tenure, including Peter Nichols's Passion and Privates on Parade and Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along.

In 2003, Mendes directed a new production of Gypsy. Originally, he planned to open this production in London's West End, but when this failed, he decided to go straight to Broadway with it. Bernadette Peters played Mama Rose and Tammy Blanchard played Louise. The show's author Arthur Laurents has expressed disappointment in Mendes' direction.

Film

Mendes made his directorial debut with the critically acclaimed and box-office success American Beauty, starring Kevin Spacey. The film grossed US$356.3 million worldwide and had a 2373% ROI. The film won the Golden Globe Award, the BAFTA Award and the Academy Award for Best Picture. Mendes won a Directors Guild of America Award, a Golden Globe Award, and the Academy Award for directing American Beauty.

Mendes's second film, in 2002, was Road to Perdition, which grossed US$181 million. The aggregate review score on Rotten Tomatoes was 82%; critics praised Paul Newman for his performance. The film was nominated for 6 Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actor, and won one for Best Cinematography.

In 2005, Mendes directed the war film Jarhead. The film received mixed reviews, receiving a Rotten Tomatoes aggregate of 60%, and a gross revenue of US$96.9 million worldwide. The film focused on the boredom and other psychological challenges of wartime, instead of being a traditional combat-action film.

In 2008, Mendes directed Revolutionary Road, starring his wife, Academy Award-winner Kate Winslet, along with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kathy Bates. In a January 2009 interview, Mendes opened up about directing his wife for the first time:

Mendes completed work on a comedy-drama called Away We Go, which opened the 2009 Edinburgh International Film Festival. The film follows a couple searching across North America for the perfect community in which to settle down and start a family. The film stars John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Catherine O'Hara, and Melanie Lynskey.

Mendes is starting pre-production on a film adaptation of the acclaimed 1971 Tony-winning Broadway musical Follies and has announced his intentions to film an adaptation of the novel Middlemarch in the near future.

According to ComingSoon.net, Columbia Pictures has purchased the rights to the Preacher graphic novel series and have hired Sam Mendes to direct it. He will also be an executive producer for the American movie remake of the British mini series Lost in Austen.

On January 5, 2010, news broke that Mendes was in negotiations to direct the 23rd installment of the James Bond franchise. At the time, Plans for the production were underway and filming was to begin as early as June, with an eye toward a 2011 release. Previous Bond writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade were last known to be the writers of the screenplay, along with Frost/Nixon screenwriter Peter Morgan. Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli will presumably produce, and Daniel Craig will continue his run as 007. On April 10, 2010, Mendes was officially confirmed as director by Broccoli herself.

On April 19, 2010, production of the film was suspended indefinitely due to the crippling debt and uncertain future of MGM.

Recently, Mendes pulled out of negotiations to direct futuristic thriller The Hunger Games because MGM is ready to move forward with production on Bond 23. The film has a release date of November 9, 2012.

Personal life

Mendes married British actress Kate Winslet on 24 May 2003 in Anguilla in the Caribbean. The pair met in 2001, when Mendes approached his future wife about appearing in a play at the Donmar Warehouse Theater, where he was then artistic director.

Mendes was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2000.

Work

Stage productions

1990: Began directing for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

1992: became artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse theatre

1992: directed Assassins at the Donmar

1994: directed revival of Oliver! (with score specially revised and augmented by original composer and lyricist Lionel Bart) at the London Palladium; the show ran for four years, becoming on 8 July 1997 the longest running show at the venue.

1994: directed revival of Cabaret

1995: directed Company

1997: directed The Fix in the West End

1997: directed The Front Page starring Griff Rhys Jones and Alun Armstrong.

1998: alongside Rob Marshall, directed Broadway revival of Cabaret, closely based on his previous production

1998: directed David Hare's The Blue Room, starring Nicole Kidman (and Iain Glen).

1999: directed Wise Guys in New York

2002: directed Uncle Vanya and Twelfth Night.

2003: directed a Broadway revival of , starring Bernadette Peters.

2003: started film and theatre production company, Neal Street Productions, with Pippa Harris and Caro Newling.

2006: directed The Vertical Hour on Broadway, with Julianne Moore and Bill Nighy

2009: directed The Winter's Tale and The Cherry Orchard for BAM and the Old Vic, with Simon Russell Beale, Sinéad Cusack, Rebecca Hall and Ethan Hawke.

2010: directed As You Like It and The Tempest for BAM and the Old Vic, starring Stephen Dillane.

Feature films

Awards and nominations

References

External links

The Observer Interview 14 December 2008

Charlie Rose interview 5 June 2009

Category:1965 births Category:Living people Category:People from Reading, Berkshire Category:English expatriates in the United States Category:Old Waynfletes Category:Alumni of Peterhouse, Cambridge Category:English Jews Category:English people of Trinidad and Tobago descent Category:English people of Portuguese descent Category:English theatre directors Category:English film directors Category:Drama Desk Award winners Category:Olivier Award winners Category:Tony Award winners Category:Best Director Academy Award winners Category:Best Director Golden Globe winners Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire

Coordinates	40°13′45″N76°52′26″N
Name	Johnny Mathis
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	John Royce Mathis
Born	September 30, 1935
Origin	Gilmer, Texas, United States
Genre	Pop, soul, easy listening
Occupation	Singer, songwriter, actor
Years active	1956–present
Label	Columbia, Mercury
Url	www.JohnnyMathis.com

John Royce "Johnny" Mathis (born September 30, 1935) is an American singer of popular music.

Mathis concentrated on romantic jazz and pop standards for the adult contemporary audience through the 1980s. Starting his career with singles of standards, Mathis became more popular as an album artist, with several dozen of his albums achieving gold or platinum status, and 73 making the Billboard charts. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, Mathis has sales of over 27 million sellers, certified units in the United States. According to recordings chart historian and music writer Paul Gambaccini, Mathis has recorded over 130 albums and sold more than 350 million records worldwide.

Early life

Mathis was born in Gilmer, Texas, the fourth of seven children of Clem Mathis and his wife, Mildred Boyd. Their family moved to San Francisco, California, settling in the Fillmore district where he grew up. Mathis's father had worked in vaudeville, and when he saw his son's talent, he bought an old upright piano for US$25 and encouraged his efforts. Mathis began learning songs and routines from his father; his first song was "My Blue Heaven." Mathis started singing and dancing for visitors at home, and at school and church functions.

When Mathis was 13, Connie Cox, a voice teacher, accepted him as a student in exchange for work around her house. He studied with Cox for six years, learning vocal scales and exercises, voice production, classical and operatic skills. He is one of the few popular singers who received years of professional voice training that included opera. The first band Mathis would sing with was formed by fellow high school student Merl Saunders. Mathis eulogized him in October, 2007 at his funeral, to thank him for giving him his first chance as a singer.

Mathis was a star athlete at George Washington High School. He was a high jumper and hurdler, and played on the basketball team, earning four athletic letters. In 1954, he enrolled at San Francisco State University on a scholarship, intending to become an English and physical education teacher. as a guest on March 29, 2007 performing the classic "The Shadow of Your Smile" with saxophonist Dave Koz. Mathis returned to the UK Top 20 album chart in 2007 with the Sony BMG release "The Very Best of Johnny Mathis" and again in 2008 with the Columbia CD "A Night to Remember". Also in 2007, he was inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame.

A performance by Mathis in Florida in 2009 netted him $65,000 in artist fees and royalties.

Personal life

In a 1982 Us Magazine article, Mathis was quoted as having said, "Homosexuality is a way of life that I've grown accustomed to." Us Magazine later retracted the statement. After more than 20 years of silence on the subject, Mathis revealed in an interview, in 2006, that his silence was due to death threats he received as a result of that 1982 article. On April 13, 2006, Mathis granted a podcast interview with The Strip in which he talked about the subject once again, and how some of his reticence to speak of the subject was partially generational.

In 1982 he published a cookbook, Cooking for You Alone.

Mathis has undergone rehab for both alcohol and prescription drug addictions.

Grammy Hall of Fame

Johnny Mathis was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, which is a special Grammy award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least twenty-five years old, and that have "qualitative or historical significance."

{| class=wikitable |- | colspan=5 align=center | Grammy Hall of Fame Awards |- ! Year Recorded ! Title ! Genre ! Label ! Year Inducted |- align=center | 1957 | It's Not for Me to Say | Traditional Pop (Single) | Columbia | 2008 |- align=center | 1959 | Misty | Traditional Pop (Single) | Columbia | 2002 |- align=center | 1957 | Chances Are | Traditional Pop (Single) | Columbia | 1998 |- align=center |}

Discography

Hit singles

|- DUET PARTNERS: *Gladys Knight & the Pips, **Deniece Williams, ***Jane Olivor, #Paulette, ##Dionne Warwick, ###Regina Belle

JOHNNY MATHIS "THE MILLION SELLERS"

Singles: 1 Wonderful Wonderful USA

2 Its not For Me To say USA

3 Chances Are (over 2 Million) USA

4 Misty USA (over 2 million ) USA & UK

5 When A Child Is Born UK

6 Too Much,Too Little,Too Late (over 2 million USA & UK )

Albums: 1 Johnnys Greatest Hits (approaching 5 Million) USA

2 Merry Christmas (approaching 6 Million) USA

3 Heavenly (over 2.5 million) USA

4 Give Me Your Love For Christmas USA

5 All Time Greatest Hits (approaching 2 Million) UK and USA

6 You Light Up My Life (over 2 million) USA and UK )

Albums

Mathis has had much more success as an album artist. His celebrated albums include:

Johnny Mathis Columbia CL-887 1957

Wonderful, Wonderful Columbia CL-1028 (Gold) 1957

Warm Columbia CL-1078/CS-8039 (Gold) 1957

Good Night, Dear Lord Columbia 1958

Johnny's Greatest Hits Columbia CL-1133 (Multi-Platinum) 1958

Swing Softly Columbia CL-1165/CS-8023 (Gold), #10 UK Pop Albums 1958

Merry Christmas Columbia CL-1195/CS-8021 (Multi-Platinum) 1958

Open Fire, Two Guitars Columbia CL-1270/CS-8056 (Gold) 1959

More Johnny's Greatest Hits Columbia CL-1344/CS-8150 (Gold) 1959

Heavenly Columbia CL-1354/CS-8152 (Multi-Platinum) 1959

Faithfully Columbia CS-8219 (Gold) 1959

The Rhythms and Ballads of Broadway Columbia #6 UK Pop Albums 1960

Johnny's Mood Columbia 1960

I'll Buy You A Star #18 UK Pop Albums Columbia 1961

Portrait Of Johnny Columbia 1961

Live It Up! Columbia 1962

Rapture Columbia 1962

Johnny's Newest Hits Columbia 1963

Johnny Columbia 1963

Romantically Columbia CS 8898, CL 2098 1963

Sounds of Christmas Mercury 1963

I'll Search My Heart and Other Great Hits Columbia CS-8943

The Great Years Columbia 1964

Tender Is The Night Mercury 1964

The Wonderful World of Make Believe Mercury 1964

This Is Love Mercury MG 20942/SR 60942 1964

Olé Mercury 1965

Love Is Everything Mercury 1965

The Sweetheart Tree Mercury SR 61041/MG 21041 1965

The Shadow of Your Smile Mercury 1966

So Nice Mercury 1966

Johnny Mathis Sings Mercury SR-61107 1967

Up, Up & Away Columbia 1967

Love is Blue Columbia CS-9637 1968

Those Were The Days Columbia CS 9705 1968

Theme From Romeo And Juliet Columbia 1969

People Columbia 1969

The Impossible Dream Columbia 1969

Give Me Your Love For Christmas Columbia 1969

Close To You Columbia 1970

Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head #23 UK Pop Albums 1970

Sings The Music Of Bacharach & Kaempfert 1970

Love Story #27 UK Pop Albums 1971

You've Got A Friend Columbia 1971

In Person - Recorded Live At Las Vegas Columbia 1972

The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face #40 UK Pop Albums 1972

Johnny Mathis' All-Time Greatest Hits 1972

Song Sung Blue 1972

This Guy's In Love With You Harmony 1972

Christmas With Johnny Mathis Columbia 1972

Me And Mrs. Jones 1973

Killing Me Softly 1973

I'm Coming Home Columbia #18 UK Pop Albums 1973

The Heart Of A Woman #39 UK Pop Albums 1974

What'll I Do 1974

When Will I See You Again #13 UK Pop Albums 1975

Feelings 1975 (Platinum)

Heavenly And Faithfully Columbia 1975

I Only Have Eyes For You #14 UK Pop Albums 1976

Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me 1977

''The Johnny Mathis Collection" #1 UK Pop Albums 1977

''Sweet Surrender" Pop Albums 1977

Mathis Is 1977

Johnny's Greatest Hits 1977

You Light Up My Life (Platinum), #3 UK Pop Albums 1978

That's What Friends Are For #16 UK Pop Albums 1978

The Best Days Of My Life#38 UK Pop Albums 1979

Mathis Magic #59 UK Pop Albums 1979

Tears and Laughter #1 UK Pop Albums 1980

All For You #20 UK Pop Albums 1980

Different Kinda Different 1980

The Best Of Johnny Mathis (1975–1980) 1980

Celebration #9 UK Pop Albums 1981

The First 25 Years: Silver Anniversary Album 1981

Friends In Love #34 UK Pop Albums 1982

Unforgettable #5 UK Pop Albums 1983

A Special Part Of Me #45 UK Pop Albums 1984

For Christmas 1984

Johnny Mathis Live 1985

Right From the Heart 1985

Hollywood Musicals #46 UK Pop Albums 1986

Christmas Eve With Johnny Mathis 1986

Once In A While 1988

Love Songs 1988

In the Still Of the Night 1989

In A Sentimental Mood: Mathis Sings Ellington 1990

Better Together: The Duet Album 1991

How Do You Keep the Music Playing 1993

All About Love 1996

Because You Loved Me: Songs of Diane Warren 1998

Mathis On Broadway 2000

The Christmas Album 2002

Isn't It Romantic: The Standards Album 2005

The Very Best Of Johnny Mathis #6 UK Pop Albums 2006

A Night To Remember #29 UK Pop Albums 2008

Release September 2010

Bibliography

References

External links

Johnny Mathis Official website

Johnny Mathis at Sony website

[ Mathis, Johnny-AMG discography] — ''Allmusic

Johnny Mathis at The Mathis Chronicles

Johnny Mathis NPR Audio: with Ed Gordon

Dave Koz f/ Johnny Mathis "The Shadow of Your Smile" NBC Audio: The Tonight Show

Thom Bell talks about his classic Johnny Mathis produced album "I'm Coming Home" Soul Jones Presents

Category:1935 births Category:African American singers Category:American crooners Category:American jazz singers Category:American male singers Category:American pop singers Category:Columbia Records artists Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners Category:LGBT African Americans Category:LGBT musicians from the United States Category:Living people Category:Mercury Records artists Category:People from Beverly Hills, California Category:People from Longview, Texas Category:People from San Francisco, California Category:San Francisco State University alumni Category:Traditional pop music singers

Coordinates	40°13′45″N76°52′26″N
Name	Jerome Robbins
Birth name	Jerome Rabinowitz
Birth date	October 11, 1918
Birth place	New York City, USA
Death date	July 29, 1998
Death place	New York City, USA

Jerome Robbins (October 11, 1918 – July 29, 1998) was a five time Tony Award, two time Academy Award, and Kennedy Center Honors winning American theater producer, director, and choreographer known primarily for Broadway Theater and Ballet/Dance, but who also occasionally directed films and directed/produced for television. His work has included everything from classical ballet to contemporary musical theater. Among the numerous stage productions he worked on were On the Town, High Button Shoes, The King And I, The Pajama Game, Bells Are Ringing, West Side Story, , and Fiddler on the Roof. He won the Academy Award for Best Director with Robert Wise for West Side Story. A documentary about his life and work, Something to Dance About, featuring excerpts from his journals, archival performance and rehearsal footage and interviews with Robbins and his colleagues, premiered in PBS in 2009.

Biography

Early years

Robbins was born Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz, exactly one month before the end of World War I, in the Jewish Maternity Hospital in the heart of Manhattan’s Lower East Side – a neighborhood populated by many immigrants. The Rabinowitz family lived in a large apartment house at 51 East 97th at the northeast corner of Madison Avenue. Known as "Jerry" to those close to him, Robbins was given a middle name that reflected his parents' patriotic enthusiasm for the then-president. Rabinowitz, however, translates to “son of a rabbi”, a name Robbins never liked, since it marked him as the son of an immigrant. So he took the name "Robbins".

In the early 1920s, the Rabinowitz family moved to Weehawken, New Jersey. 10 years earlier, Fred and Adele Astaire had lived there briefly as children, only a block away from one of Robbins's boyhood homes. His father and uncle opened the “Comfort Corset Company,” a unique venture for the family, which had many show business connections, including vaudeville performers and theater owners.

Robbins began college studying chemistry at New York University (NYU) but dropped out after a year for financial reasons and to pursue dance. He studied at the New Dance League, learning ballet with Ella Daganova, Antony Tudor and Eugene Loring; modern dance; Spanish dancing with the famed Helen Veola; folk dance with Yeichi Nimura; and dance composition with Bessie Schoenberg.

Career

1930s and 40s

By 1939, Robbins was dancing in the chorus of such Broadway shows as Great Lady, The Straw Hat Revue, and Keep off the Grass, which George Balanchine choreographed. Robbins was also dancing and choreographing at Camp Tamiment in the Poconos of Pennsylvania. Here he choreographed many dramatic pieces with controversial ideas about race, lynching, and war. But in 1940, he turned his back (albeit temporarily) on the theater and joined Ballet Theatre (later known as American Ballet Theatre). From 1941 through 1944, Robbins was a soloist with the company, gaining notice for his Hermes in Helen of Troy, the Moor in Petrouchka and Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet.

At this time, Broadway dance was changing. Agnes de Mille had brought not just ballet to Oklahoma! but had also made dance an integral part of the drama of the musical. Challenged, Robbins choreographed and performed in Fancy Free, a ballet about sailors on liberty, at the Metropolitan Opera as part of the Ballet Theatre season in 1944. The inspiration for Fancy Free came from Paul Cadmus' 1934 painting The Fleet's In! which is part of the Sailor Trilogy. Robbins was recommended for a ballet based on the art work by his friend Mary Hunter Wolf. Distancing himself from the implicit homosexuality of that depiction, an element of controversy, Robbins said in an interview with The Christian Science Monitor, "After seeing...Fleet's In, which I inwardly rejected though it gave me the idea of doing the ballet, I watched sailors, and girls, too, all over town." He went on to say "I wanted to show that the boys in the service are healthy, vital boys: there is nothing sordid or morbid about them." Oliver Smith, set designer and collaborator on Fancy Free, knew Leonard Bernstein and eventually Robbins and Bernstein met to work on the music. This would be the first of several collaborative efforts. Fancy Free was a great success.

Later that year, Robbins conceived and choreographed On the Town (1944), a musical partly inspired by Fancy Free, which effectively launched his Broadway career. Once again, Bernstein wrote the music and Smith designed the sets. The book and lyrics were by a team that Robbins would work with again, Betty Comden and Adolph Green. His next musical was Billion Dollar Baby (1945). He was reportedly so unpopular by this point, that the company of this show watched silently as he backed up to the orchestra pit - and fell in. Two years later, he received plaudits for his hilarious Keystone Kops ballet in High Button Shoes (1947), including his first Tony Award for choreography.

1950s

, 1934, the inspiration for the ballet, Fancy Free (1944)]] During this period, Robbins continued to create dances for the Ballet Theatre, alternating between musicals and ballet for the better part of the next two decades. Barely a year went by without a new Robbins ballet and a new Robbins musical. With George Balanchine, he choreographed Jones Beach at the City Center Theater in 1950, and directed and choreographed Irving Berlin's Call Me Madam, starring Ethel Merman.

In 1951, Robbins created the now-celebrated dance sequences in Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King & I (including the March of the Siamese Children, the ballet The Small House of Uncle Thomas and the "Shall We Dance?" polka between the two leads). That same year, he created The Cage for the New York City Ballet, with which he was now associated. He also performed, uncredited, show doctoring on the musicals A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1951), Wish You Were Here (1952), and Wonderful Town (1953).

Robbins collaborated with George Abbott on The Pajama Game (1954), which launched the career of Shirley MacLaine, worked on the 1955 Mary Martin vehicle, Peter Pan (recreated for the small screen in 1955, 1956 and 1960) and directed and co-choreographed (with Bob Fosse) Bells Are Ringing (1956), starring Judy Holliday. In 1957, he conceived, choreographed, and directed a show that some feel is his crowning achievement: West Side Story.

West Side Story is a contemporary version of Romeo and Juliet, set in Hell's Kitchen. The show, with music by Leonard Bernstein, marked the first collaboration between Robbins and Stephen Sondheim, who wrote the lyrics, as well as Arthur Laurents, who wrote the book. To help the young cast grow into their roles, Robbins did not allow those playing members of opposite gangs (Jets and Sharks) to mix during the rehearsal process. The original Broadway production featured Carol Lawrence as Maria, Larry Kert as Tony and Chita Rivera as Anita. Although it opened to good reviews, it was overshadowed by Meredith Willson's The Music Man at that year's Tony Awards. West Side Story did, however, earn Robbins his second Tony Award for choreography, and is now hailed as a groundbreaking classic.

The streak of hits continued with (1959), starring Ethel Merman. Robbins re-teamed with Sondheim and Laurents, and the music was by Jule Styne. The musical is based—loosely—on the life of stripper Gypsy Rose Lee.

House Un-American Activities Committee

While Robbins's career seemed to be a charmed one, it was not without a period of difficulty. In the early 1950s, he was called to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), suspected of Communist sympathies. Threatened with the exposure of his homosexuality, Robbins named names along with Sterling Hayden, Burl Ives, Robert Montgomery, Elia Kazan and Lela Rogers (mother of Ginger Rogers). Because he cooperated with HUAC, Robbins's career did not visibly suffer and he was not blacklisted. Robbins named more names than any other HUAC witness.

1960s

Robbins directed, with Robert Wise, the highly successful 1961 movie version of West Side Story. However, he took so long with rehearsals and filming of dances that he was fired during production, though he did receive credit as co-director.

In 1962, Robbins tried his hand at a straight play, directing Arthur Kopit's unconventional Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad. The production ran over a year off-Broadway and was transferred to Broadway for a short run in 1963.

Robbins was still highly sought after as a show doctor. He took over the direction of two troubled productions during this period and helped turn them into smashes. In 1962, he saved A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), a musical farce starring Zero Mostel, Jack Gilford, David Burns and John Carradine. The production, with book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart, and songs by Stephen Sondheim, was not working. Robbins staged an entirely new opening number which explained to the audience what was to follow, and the show played beautifully from then on. In 1964, he took on a floundering Funny Girl and devised a show that ran 1348 performances. The musical helped turn lead Barbra Streisand into a superstar.

That same year, Robbins won matching Tony Awards for his direction and choreography in Fiddler on the Roof (1964). The show starred Zero Mostel as Tevye and ran for 3242 performances, setting the record (since surpassed) for longest-running Broadway show. The plot, about Jews living in Russia near the beginning of the 20th century, is based on the stories of Sholom Aleichem. The subject matter allowed Robbins to return to his religious roots.

1970s and 80s

Never deserting the ballet, he continued to choreograph and stage productions for both the Joffrey Ballet and the New York City Ballet into the 1970s.

Robbins became ballet master of the New York City Ballet in 1972 and worked almost exclusively in classical dance throughout the next decade, pausing only to stage revivals of West Side Story (1980) and Fiddler on the Roof (1981). In 1981, his Chamber Dance Company toured the People's Republic of China.

The 1980s saw an increased presence on TV as NBC aired with members of the New York City Ballet, and a retrospective of Robbins's choreography aired on PBS in a 1986 installment of Dance in America. The latter led to his creating the anthology show Jerome Robbins' Broadway in 1989 which recreated the most successful production numbers from his 50-plus year career. Starring Jason Alexander as the narrator, the show included stagings of cut numbers like Irving Berlin's Mr. Monotony and well-known ones like the "Tradition" number from Fiddler on the Roof. For his efforts, he earned a fifth Tony Award.

1990s

Following a bicycle accident in 1990 and heart-valve surgery in 1994, in 1996 he began showing signs of a form of Parkinson’s disease, and his hearing was quickly deteriorating. He nevertheless insisted on staging Les Noces for City Ballet in 1998, his last project. He suffered a massive stroke two months later, and died at his home in New York on July 29, 1998. On the evening of his death, the lights of Broadway were dimmed for a moment in tribute. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered into the Atlantic Ocean.

Private life

Robbins was bisexual. He had a relationship with Montgomery Clift and never married.

Notable awards

On screen, Robbins recreated his stage dances for The King and I (1956) and shared the Best Director Oscar with Robert Wise for the film version of West Side Story (1961). In fact, Robbins was one of only six directors who won the Academy Award for Best Director for a film debut. That same year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honored him with a special award for his choreographic achievements on film. By the end of his life in 1998, he was awarded with 5 Tony Awards, 2 Academy Awards, the Kennedy Center Honors (1981), the National Medal of Arts (1988), the French Legion of Honor, three Honorary Doctorates, and an Honorary Membership in the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.

Robbins was inducted into the National Museum of Dance C.V. Whitney Hall of Fame in 1989.

Broadway productions

1939 Stars In Your Eyes - musical - performer in the role of "Gentleman of the Ballet"

1939 The Straw Hat Revue - revue - performer

1941 Giselle - ballet - dancer in the role of a "Peasant"

1941 Three Virgins and a Devil - ballet to the music of Ottorino Respighi, dancer in the role of the "Youth"

1941 Gala Performance - ballet to the music of Serge Prokofiev - dancer in the role of an "Attendant Cavalier"

1944 On the Town - musical - choreographer and the originator of the idea for the show

1945 Common Ground - play - co-director

1945 Interplay - ballet to the music of Morton Gould - choreographer and dancer

1945 Billion Dollar Baby - musical - choreographer

1946 Fancy Free - ballet (revival) - original played at the Metropolitan Opera House in 1944

1947 High Button Shoes - musical - choreographer - Tony Award for Best Choreography

1948 Look, Ma, I'm Dancin'! - musical - choreographer, co-director, and the originator of the idea for the show

1949 Miss Liberty - musical - choreographer

1950 Call Me Madam - musical - choreographer

1951 The King and I - musical - choreographer

1952 Two's Company - revue - choreographer

1954 The Pajama Game - musical - co-director

1954 Peter Pan - musical - director and choreographer

1956 Bells Are Ringing - musical - director and co-choreographer with Bob Fosse - Tony co-Nominee for Best Choreography

1957 West Side Story - musical - choreographer, director - Tony Award for Best Choreography

1958 The Concert (or the Perils of Everybody) - ballet to the music of Frédéric Chopin - choreographer

1958 Afternoon of a Faun - ballet to the music of Claude Debussy - choreographer

1958 3 x 3 - ballet to the music of Georges Auric - choreographer

1958 New York Export: Opus Jazz - ballet to the music of Robert Prince, choreographer

1959 - musical - choreographer and director - Tony Award Nomination for Best Direction of a Musical

1961 Moves - silent ballet - choreographer

1962 A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum - musical - uncredit directing and choreography assistant

1963 Mother Courage and Her Children - play - co-producer and director - Tony Award nomination for Best Play, and Best Producer of a Play

1963 Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feeling so Sad - play - director

1964 Funny Girl - musical - production supervisor

1964 Fiddler on the Roof - musical - director and choreographer - Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical, and Best Choreography

1966 The Office - never officially opened - director

1989 Jerome Robbins' Broadway - revue - director and choreographer - Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical

Bibliography

Conrad, Christine (2001). Jerome Robbins: That Broadway Man', Booth-Clibborn ISBN 1861541732

Emmet Long, Robert (2001). Broadway, the Golden Years: Jerome Robbins and the Great Choreographer Directors, 1940 to the Present. Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 0826414621

Altman, Richard (1971). The Making of a Musical: Fiddler on the Roof. Crown Publishers.

Thelen, Lawrence (1999). The Show Makers: Great Directors of the American Musical Theatre. Routledge.ISBN 0415923468

See also

Ballets by Jerome Robbins

References

Articles

NY Times, August 9^th, 1998

NY Times, Alan Riding, March 12^th, 1999

NY Times, Alastair Macaulay, April 27^th, 2008

External links

Jerome Robbins Foundation and Trust website

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Category:1918 births Category:1998 deaths Category:Academy Honorary Award recipients Category:American ballet dancers Category:American choreographers Category:American dancers Category:American Jews Category:Ballet choreographers Category:Ballet masters Category:Best Director Academy Award winners Category:Bisexual actors Category:Danseurs Category:Deaths from stroke Category:Kennedy Center honorees Category:LGBT directors Category:LGBT Jews Category:LGBT people from the United States Category:National Museum of Dance Hall of Fame inductees Category:New York City Ballet principal dancers Category:New York City Ballet Category:People from New York City Category:Tony Award winners Category:United States National Medal of Arts recipients Category:Choreographers of New York City Ballet Category:Choreographers of American Ballet Theatre *Jerome Robbins

Coordinates	40°13′45″N76°52′26″N
Name	Harvey Fierstein
Caption	Fierstein at the 2009 Metropolitan Opera premiere
Birth name	Harvey Forbes Fierstein
Birth date	June 06, 1952
Birth place	Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Years active	1982–present
Occupation	Actor/Playwright

Harvey Forbes Fierstein (born June 6, 1952) is a U.S. actor and playwright, noted for the early (1982) distinction of winning Tony Awards for both writing and playing the lead role in his long-running play Torch Song Trilogy, about a gay drag-performer and his quest for true love and family. He has since become a champion for gay civil rights.

Personal life

Fierstein was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Jacqueline Harriet (née Gilbert), a school librarian, and Irving Fierstein, a handkerchief manufacturer. Even though he was raised Jewish he is now an Atheist.

Fierstein occasionally writes columns about gay issues. He was openly gay at a time when very few celebrities were, and never needed to come out. His careers as a stand-up comic and female impersonator are mostly behind him. Fierstein resides in Ridgefield, Connecticut.

Career

The gravel-voiced actor perhaps is known best for the play and film Torch Song Trilogy, which he wrote and starred in both Off-Broadway (with the young Matthew Broderick) and on Broadway (with Estelle Getty and Fisher Stevens). The 1982 Broadway production won him two Tony Awards, for Best Play and Best Actor in a Play, two Drama Desk Awards, for Outstanding New Play and Outstanding Actor in a Play, and the Theatre World Award, and the film adaptation earned him an Independent Spirit Award nomination as Best Male Lead.

Fierstein also wrote the book for La Cage aux Folles (1983), winning another Tony Award, this time for Best Book of a Musical, and a Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Book. He later presented the 2010 Tony for Best Actor in a Musical, which went to Douglas Hodge for playing Albin/Zaza in La Cage. Legs Diamond, his 1988 collaboration with Peter Allen, was a critical and commercial failure, closing after 72 previews and 64 performances. His other playwriting credits include Safe Sex, Spookhouse, and Forget Him.

In 2007, Fierstein wrote the book to the musical A Catered Affair in which he also starred. After tryouts at San Diego's Old Globe Theatre in Fall 2007, it began previews on Broadway in March 2008 and opened on April 17. He received a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Book of a Musical, and the show won the Drama League Award for Distinguished Production of a Musical.

In 2010, it was revealed that Fierstein will be adapting Newsies, a Disney movie musical, for the stage, along with Alan Menken (music) and Jack Feldman (lyrics).

Acting

Fierstein made his acting debut at La MaMa, E.T.C. in Andy Warhol's only play, Pork. Fierstein continued to appear at La MaMa and other venues but also, having some aspirations to become a painter, enrolled at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) from Pratt in 1973. at the Annual Flea Market and Grand Auction hosted by Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, September, 2006.]] In addition to Torch Song Trilogy, La Cage aux Folles and A Catered Affair, Fierstein's Broadway acting credits include playing the mother, Edna Turnblad in Hairspray (2003), for which he won a Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical. He later replaced Alfred Molina as Tevye in the 2004 revival of Fiddler on the Roof. Fierstein and Tommy Tune are the only individuals to have won Tony Awards in four different categories.

Besides his leading role in the film version of Torch Song Trilogy co-starring Matthew Broderick and Anne Bancroft, Fierstein's film roles include Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway, Robin Williams' makeup-artist brother in Mrs. Doubtfire, and Merv Green in Death to Smoochy, in addition to parts in Garbo Talks, Duplex, Kull the Conqueror, and Independence Day. He narrated the documentary The Times of Harvey Milk, for which he won a News & Documentary Emmy Award. He also voiced the role of Yao in Walt Disney's animated feature Mulan, a role he later reprised for the video game Kingdom Hearts II and the direct-to-DVD sequel Mulan II.

On television, Fierstein was featured as the voice of Karl, Homer Simpson's assistant, in the "Simpson and Delilah" episode of The Simpsons, and the voice of Elmer in the 1999 HBO special based on his children's book The Sissy Duckling, which won the Humanitas Prize for Children's Animation. Additional credits include Miami Vice, Murder, She Wrote, the Showtime TV movie Common Ground (which he also wrote), and Cheers, which earned him an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. He sang a tribute to Katie Couric on the Today Show on May 31, 2006, her last day as anchor. He appeared as Heat Miser in the television movie remake of The Year Without a Santa Claus in December 2006. More recent television performances include an episode of Family Guy, in which he played an overweight, chainsmoking mother. He also gave the voice-over for Lily in the "Last Cigarette Ever" episode of How I Met Your Mother when she gets a sore throat on account of too much smoking.

Fierstein returned to the theatre when he toured as Tevye, replacing Chaim Topol in Fiddler on the Roof starting in December 2009. He is scheduled to replace Douglas Hodge as Albin/Zaza in the Broadway revival of La Cage aux Folles starting February 15, 2011.

References

External links

Harvey!

Review of Torch Song Trilogy, with information about Fierstein

TonyAwards.com Interview with Harvey Fierstein

Category:1952 births Category:Living people Category:American dramatists and playwrights Category:American film actors Category:American atheists Category:Jewish atheists Category:American musical theatre actors Category:American stage actors Category:American stand-up comedians Category:American television actors Category:American voice actors Category:Drag queens Category:Drama Desk Award winners Category:Gay actors Category:Jewish actors Category:Jewish dramatists and playwrights Category:American Jews Category:LGBT Jews Category:People from Brooklyn Category:People from Ridgefield, Connecticut Category:Pratt Institute alumni Category:Tony Award winners

Now in his twelfth season at George Street Playhouse, Artistic Director David Saint has directed twenty-six mainstage productions, most recently Marlo Thomas and Keith Carradine in Arthur Laurents’ New Year’s Eve, Matthew Arkin in Donald Marguiles’ Sight Unseen, Neil Simon’s The Sunshine Boys, William Finn’s landmark musical Falsettos, Joan Vail Thorne’s The Things You Least Expect, the film noir musical Gunmetal Blues, Inspecting Carol, the world premiere of Arthur Laurents’ 2 Lives, The Last Five Years, Lend Me a Tenor and the world premiere of Charles Evered’s Celadine starring Amy Irving. Mr. Saint’s time in New Brunswick has been marked by collaborations with such artists as Uta Hagen, A.R. Gurney, Arthur Laurents, George Grizzard, Chita Rivera, Eli Wallach, Frances Sternhagen, Anne Meara, Dan Lauria, Stephen Sondheim and Jack Klugman.

An ardent advocate for new work, Mr. Saint created the Next Stage Festival of New Plays at George Street where the recent Broadway hit and Tony Award-winner Proof by David Auburn was developed by David Saint before moving on to Manhattan Theatre Club and Broadway, becoming the longest-running play in two decades and the most produced play in the nation during the 2002-03 season. Another success story emerging from the Festival is The Spitfire Grill (musical), which won the prestigious Richard Rodgers Award for New American Musicals and was produced under Mr. Saint’s direction at Playwrights Horizons in New York, winning Drama Desk, Drama-League and Outer Critics Circle award nominations, before becoming one of the most produced plays in the nation during the 2004-05 season, generating more than 100 productions across the country.

Recent credits include A.R. Gurney’s new play The Fourth Wall at Primary Stages, starring Sandy Duncan, as well as the world premiere of Mark St. Germain’s The God Committee at Barrington Stage. Other regional credits include Manhattan Theatre Club, Playwrights Horizons, McCarter Theatre, Long Wharf Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Paper Mill Playhouse, Bay Street Theatre, Walnut Street Theatre, and Seattle Repertory Theatre, where he served as Associate Artistic Director to Daniel Sullivan, directing many productions including the West Coast premiere of Wendy Wasserstein’s An American Daughter. Other productions include two Anne Meara plays: After-Play, in New York and Los Angeles, and Down the Garden Paths, which began at George Street and moved to New York; the national tour of The Cocktail Hour, with Fritz Weaver and Elizabeth Wilson; Fame: The Musical; The Fourth Wall, with Betty Buckley and George Segal; Fourplay, with Elaine May and Gene Saks; Sons and Fathers, with Holly Hunter; and the West Coast premiere of Lend Me A Tenor, as well as world premieres by such authors as Jonathan Larson, Peter Parnell, Jonathan Marc Sherman, Aaron Sorkin, and others. Mr. Saint was recently a panelist for the Philadelphia Theatre Initiative for the Pew Charitable Trust, has taught at Bennington College, and directed the short film Celebrity. He is the recipient of the Alan Schneider Award, Helen Hayes Award, Los Angeles Drama Critics Award, and several Drama-Logue Awards. George Street Playhouse

Category:American theatre directors Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:Living people