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.
Larry Kert will long be remembered as the original
Tony in West Side Story. He started his professional
performing career with a song and dance group called
the Upstarts before he landed the coveted role in 1957.
He appeared in several Broadway shows in the ‘60s
including Breakfast at Tiffany’s, La Strada and
as a replacement in Cabaret. Then in 1970 Larry replaced
Dean Jones as Bobby in Company shortly after the show’s
opening. His performance earned him a Tony Award nomination.
Mr. Kert is the only cast replacement ever to be nominated
for a Tony. In the ‘80s, he appeared in two ill-fated,
yet cult favorite, musicals: Rags and Legs Diamond.
Alright, here goes:
1) Larry Kert was in Rags with Peter Samuel
2) Peter Samuel did The Secret Garden with Rebecca
Luker
3) Rebecca Luker was the original Princess in “Hannibel” in
The Phantom of the Opera with Michael Crawford.
“
Could be,
who knows?
There’s something due any day
I will know right away
soon as it shows.”
…Tony in West Side Story
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.
