well, That's Show Biz, 04-10-2022 2 - Before They Were Famous

Before They Were Famous

“Well, That’s Show Biz!”

4-10-2022

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• Welcome to “well, That’s Show Biz!” and I’m your host Jeremy Freedman. Every show we’ll be bringing you music  from Broadway, Movies, and Entertainers with some commentary and anecdotes in between.

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• If you have yet to see Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of West Side Story, it is streaming now on Disney+. I was very apprehensive when I first learned that he was doing this afterall, the original movie won 10 Academy Awards including Best Picture. But I have to say that he hit a home run. Without giving too much away, Spielberg’s adaptation is grittier and more culturally accurate than the play or original movie. He moved some of the songs around which worked to achieve his vision. But the thing that bothered me most about both the play and original movie was how the main male character of Tony was written. I never really believed him to be a former thug and gang member. Tony Kushner who rewrote the script and Spielberg’s direction pretty much fixed that for me. Tony now works as a reformed gang member.  If you haven’t seen it, see it. I bawled my eyes out at the end even knowing what was going to happen.

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• Now, on with our show. Every week will be a different theme and this week’s theme is “Before They Were Famous”. Often it looks like someone just pops up on screen, seemingly from nowhere. But most of them put in years worth of time, work, and effort just to get to that point of fame. We are going to look at a few of them today.

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• Barbra Streisand is a legend, an icon with an extraordinary voice; an EGOT winner, which stands for Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony. Everyone knows that she burst on the scene in the musical Funny Girl, and winning the Oscar for the movie version. But what most people don’t know is that before she hit the big time she didn’t even know she could sing.  In trying to get jobs she was told to include singer on her resume. Her boyfriend at the time made some recordings of her and couldn’t believe what he was hearing.  Before Funny Girl, she got cast in a musical called, I Can Get It For You Wholesale. After that we will hear a song from Funny Girl that didn’t make it into the movie but should have, “The Music That Makes Me Dance”. Carol Burnett is well known for her Emmy winning comedy show, but not many know that she is also and amazing singer.  She burst on the scene in the musical Once Upon A Mattress, a musical comedy update of The Princess And The Pea. We will hear her sing “Shy”.  After that we will hear her sing a selection from Stephen Sondheim’s Follies with The New York Philharmonic, “I’m Still Here”. But first here’s Streisand singing “Miss Marmelstein”.

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• We just heard Barbra Streisand singing Miss Marmelstein from I Can Get It For You Wholesale and The Music That Makes Me Dance from Funny Girl then Carol Burnett singing Shy from Once Upon a Mattress and the I’m Still Here from Follies. 

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• <PSA>

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• You  are listening to, “well, That’s Show Biz!” on [station ID]. I’m Jeremy Freedman and our theme today is, “Before They Were Famous”. Many famous people got their starts on Broadway as understudies or taking over roles that others originated and so there is no Broadway recording of their debuts. For example, Sarah Jessica Parker, got her start as the third person to take on the role of Annie in Annie on Broadway.

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• I first knew of Betty Buckley when she starred on the 70s television show, Eight Is Enough. She hit stardom though when she sang “Memory” in the Broadway version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats. She has since been called, the “Voice of Broadway”. But she made her Broadway debut in 1969 playing Martha Jefferson in the musical 1776. Here is Betty Buckley singing “He Plays the Violin” from 1776 followed by Memory from Cats.

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• <Underwriting or PSA>

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• Julie Andrews became a star playing Eliza Dolittle in Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady. But she made her Broadway debut in the musical, The Boyfriend. Here is Julie Andrews in her Broadway debut followed by I Could Have Danced All Night from My Fair Lady.

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• You are listening to “well, That’s Show Biz!” on [station ID]. I’m Jeremy Freedman. If you would like to email me any theme or song recommendations, you can contact me at wruushowbz@gmail.com. Glenn Close is a major Hollywood star. Just before she hit Hollywood, she played Charity Barnum, wife of P.T. in the Broadway musical Barnum. She came back to Broadway in 1993, winning the Tony Award for playing Norma Desmond in Andrew Lloyd Webeber’s Sunset Boulevard. And our final “Before They Were Famous” performers today is another EGOT owner, Liza Minnelli. She was originally famous for being the eldest daughter of Judy Garland but rose to superstardom on her own. In 1965, she won the Tony Award for starring in the Kander and Ebb musical, Flora The Red Menace. We will hear her sing a beautiful song from Flora called “When It All Comes True”, followed by a selection from her Emmy Award winning turn in Liza With a “Z”. but first here’s Glenn Close and Ensemble singing, “One Brick at a Time” from Barnum.

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• We just heard Glenn Close and Company singing One Brick At a Time from Barnum and As If We Never Said Goodbye from Sunset Boulevard. We followed that with Liza Minnelli singing When It All Comes True from Flora The Red Menace and Ring Them Bells from Liza With a “Z”.

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•  Well that’s our show for this week.  You can contact me, Jeremy Freedman, your host for “well, That’s Show Biz!” at wruushowbiz@gmail.com send me your song or theme recommendations. Once again, that”s wruushowbiz@gmail.com and this is [station ID].