I have long been impressed with folks that can get up on a stage and sing and dance, so when I came across Nothing Like a Dame: Conversations with the Great Women of Musical Theater, by Eddie Shapiro, it was an obvious choice! Since I do not attend Broadway plays, and am (ahem) of a certain age, it turned out to be a mixed bag sort of book for me. Some of the women included were too young for me to recognize their names so I would read their biography but skim or skip the conversation with the author. On the other hand, I really enjoyed the ones with Carol Channing, Patti Lupone, Bebe Neuwirth and so on. I liked that it wasn't all 'wonderful' and 'thrilling' ... the hard work and disappointments are here, too. (Patti Lupone was replaced without even so much as a phone call when Sunset Boulevard moved from London to New York). (She'd been hired for both). How Betty Buckley made "Memories" from Cats into the show stopper it is/was made for spine tickling reading. My take is that if you know the person you are reading about, you will enjoy this book. I sure did. :-)

No one is sure where that remarkable voice came from (it was her step-father that was the singer, not her biological father), but what a voice it was! She started on stage, officially, at age 12, but had performed with her vaudevillian parents before then. She was in the original Broadway production of My Fair Lady, but when it became a movie, someone with a better name was wanted so she went on to do this little movie called Mary Poppins (and winning the Academy award for doing so). There were other successes, and failures (both professionally and personally) and in Julie Andrews: a Life on Stage and Screen, by Robert Windler you may read about all of them (up to about age 60 or thereabouts). A nice, well-balanced read.

It was late at night when the thought came to me that Heroine of the Titanic: the Real Unsinkable Molly Brown, by Elaine Landau would fit here nicely ... it's about a 'brazen broad' who became a Broadway character! She was never called Molly while she was alive. The popular Broadway musical and movie got most of it wrong, although she was on the Titanic, and did live in Leadville, she was actually well educated, spoke several languages, and never hid paper money in the stove. She was strong and out spoken on issues such as miner's rights, education for all, and equal rights. All in all a most interesting woman.

And to close this post, a 'snippet' type book, one with lots of short entries. The Untold Stories of Broadway: Tales From the World's Most Famous Theaters, by Jennifer Ashley Tepper. Since the title page also includes "Volume 1" there must be (or will be) others. A nice collection of 'first times at the theater', or what musical inspired someone to become an actor, dancer, set designer, etc. I especially enjoyed the ones about what the old theaters were like to work in ... from the musicians, stage hands, or the guy who worked on the door. It did seem like it needed one more proofing, though, as there are some jarring errors every now and then.

Reading Hermit with Dog