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.
Carol Lawrence started her career
as a dancer. She
made her Broadway debut in Leonard Sillman’s
New Faces of 1952. She racked up three Broadway
credits (Plain and Fancy (1955), Shangri-La (1956)
and Ziegfeld Follies of 1957) before landing
the role for which she is most noted.
In 1957 Ms. Lawrence created the
role of “Maria”in
the original West Side Story. Her performance
brought raves and a Tony Award nomination. Unfortunately
her stage triumph did not transfer to the big screen. She
was replaced in the 1961 film version by Natalie Wood
(with dubbed vocals by Marni Nixon).
Carol went on to star on Broadway in a couple of flops: Saratoga (1959)
and Subways Are for Sleeping (1961); and a
couple of star replacements: I Do, I Do (1966)
opposite Gordan MacRae and Kiss of the Spider Woman (1993).
Her career has include television and film appearances,
several national tours, her own biweekly TV magazine/talk
show, a celebrated cook book, an autobiography and
an aerobic/dancercise video called Broadway Body
Workout set to the music of Broadway.
1) Carol Lawrence starred
in West Side
Story in which Gene Gavin also appeared
2) Gene Gavin did Little Me with Ken Ayers
3) Ken Ayers was in Sugar with Eileen Casey
4) Eileen Casey did Marilyn with George Dvorsky
5) George Dvorsky was in Passion with Cris Groenendaal.
6) Cris Groenendaal was the original “Monsieur André”in The
Phantom of the Opera with Michael Crawford.
“I have a love, and it’s
all that I have.
Right or wrong, what else can I do?”
…Maria
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.
