This is a weekly feature on BroadwayLiving.com. It’s just like the game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”. You know how it goes…someone throws out an actor’s name and you have to try to connect them to Kevin Bacon in six steps or less.
I thought it might be fun to do the same thing with the theater’s luminaries. I will be trying to connect them to the longest running show in Broadway history, The Phantom of the Opera and its very first “Phantom”, Michael Crawford.
On this day in 1959 Tom Bosley made his Broadway debut as Fiorello H. LaGuardia in the musical Fiorello! For his effort he received the 1960 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical.
Other Broadway roles have included playing Maurice, Belle’s father, in Beauty and the Beast (1994), a replacement Herr Schultz in the revival of Cabaret (1998) and the title role in the short-lived The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N (1968).
He is probably best known for his roles on television. For ten years he played Richie Cunningham’s father, Howard Cunningham, on the series Happy Days (1974-1984). He also had long stints on Murder, She Wrote (1984-1988) as Sheriff Amos Tupper and the Father Dowling Mysteries (1987-1991) as the title character.
1) Tom Bosley was in Beauty and the Beast with Linda Talcott
2) Linda Talcott did Jerome Robbins’ Broadway with Irene Cho
3) Irene Cho was the one of the ballet chorus of the Opéra Populaire in the The Phantom of the Opera with Michael Crawford.
“…cast your spell come next election day,
The name’s LaGuardia
L-A-G-U-A-R-D-I-A!”
Fiorello H. LaGuardia in Fiorello!
So that’s the game. Join me each week as I try to come up with new ways of connecting Michael Crawford to the entire theater community.
