[matonad44]

Who is your favorite Mama Rose based on whatever you have seen or heard? Here are some choices: (please add if you're favorite is not on here)

Bernadette Peters
Ethel Merman
Tyne Daly
Angela Lansbury
Patti LuPone
Bette Midler
Joyce Dewitt
Betty Buckley
Andrea McArdle
Rosalind Russell
Mary Louise Wilson
Linda Lavin
Betty Buckley
Maureen Moore
Linda Lavin

[Salome]

Angela Lansbury. hands down.

my next 3 would be Mrman,Russell, and Buckley.
e

Lavin,Peters and DeWitt have no business playing the role.

[dramaluvergurl92]

Patti Lupone

freaking duh?

[Sweeney Hyde]

My favorites are Merman, LuPone, Lansbury, and Peters...in this order:

I don't know...

[shakalakababy]

I favorite would probably be lansbury, followed by merman

[actionjaxson91]

LuPone, Midler, Lansbury, Merman. Peters was good but her voice was not for this musical

[Salome]

Lansbury was theo ne who made the role real and defined it. no one can top her. Lupone actually did well in the role..i'd put LuPone behind russell but ahead of midler.

Peters was totally miscast.

[actionjaxson91]

[actionjaxson91]

I change my mind. Best Roses: Midler, Lansbury, LuPone, Peters

[Salome]

Midler and Peters were totally awful in the role.

[actionjaxson91]

[Salome]

Midler had potenti\al. she destroyyed it by overacting....she peaked waaayy too early in the script. she built her whole performance up to "Everythings Coming Up Roses" and had nowhere to go in act II.

She yelled and overacted throughout the whole second half. it was bad.

unlike Roz Russell who properly peaked at Roses Turn in the original film.

[musicalfan07]

Bernadette Peters, no doubt about it.
mf07

p.s. this is based completley off the recording.

[Salome]

Peters is even worse live in the role than she is on the recording. ugh terrible piece of miscasting.

[stevek78]

I am about to see Patti...I am sure she will be my favorite. Come on...

Other than that -

1. Peters
2. Midler
3. Daly

[Salome]

No one can beat Angela Lansbury. its simply a fact.

[what_the_heck013]

[ClaraNaccarelli]

I saw Bernadette as Rose three times and she was truly flawless.

[Salome]

[Matthew]

Dawn is just jealous.

[Salome]

Seriously...Tyne Daly was 10 times the mama rose Peters was...and so was Roz Russell in the film. I even saw an amazing regional actress as Rose that blew the pants of Peters.

and based solely on the cast recordings..Angela Lansbury is the Rose to judge all others by.

[ClaraNaccarelli]

[Salome]

well she wasnt flawless. accept it and move on.

[ClaraNaccarelli]

I don't think she was flawless in everything. I think she was horribly miscast in Annie Get Your Gun. But in Gypsy, she was perfect (in my opinion). It's my opinion. Accept it and move on.

[Salome]

Annie was the other role she was awful in. she can't be touched in Sondheim roles though.

[actionjaxson91]

[Salome]

no comments from the peanut gallery.

[Sweeney Hyde]

[Salome]

actionjaxson is blinded by his misguided worship of Patti.

[The REAL Ciaron]

I was lucky enough to see a ton of Roses live. The list of my favorites are...

1. Lansbury. I give her this credit because she was the first woman to give the character life. Merman was a terrible actress and never really understood this complicated character.

2. Tyne Daly. I saw her in this show. The recording does her no justice as she was deathly ill while recording it. She was amazing!!

3. Peters. She played the most true to form Rose (or so they say). The real Rose was more like Peters than any of the other previous ones. I have said this before and I will say it again. Bernadettes health problems early on in the run really hurt her chances of ever making her Rose a legend. It's a shame because she was really wonderful.

[rcs]

Could we please make this a poll?

[Sweeney Hyde]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRaxcgpr65M

I think she did absolutely wonderful.

[pish123c]

Bernadette.

[Joshua]

[rcs]

Midler was my overall favorite.
Merman was probably next best.
Lansbury was good (not as good as Midler or Merman, but good), but brought down by a weak supporting cast (particularly Zan Charisse as Louise)
Bernadette Peters and Roz Russell were horrendously miscast (in my opinion)
I haven't seen enough of Patti LuPone or Tyne Daly to pass judgment on them, and I haven't seen or heard Betty Buckley or anyone else do the role.

[Dots Parasole]

Please watch the following clip and tell me Angela is not the best Rose there has ever been:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLvvBjOkeCQ

[Salome]

exactly. Lansbury is the chamep.


midler was by far the worst.

[Dots Parasole]

The clip I posted is all the proof anyone could possibly need. Lansbury was incredible as Rose. Only Tyne Daly has come close.

[rcs]

[Salome]

Peters was miscast as well but Midler peaked way too early she peaked at everythings coming Up Roses and had no where to go..she over acted Acyt II horribly. she never develed the depths of the role. and she wound up being Bette not Rose. and she screamed alot as an excuse for acting.

[Dots Parasole]

Midler was certainly and entertaining Rose but she really had no insight to the character at all. She was way too camp.

Lansbury was the best.

[Salome]

Dot,
Ive been noticing alot of your posts. you are becoming my favorite newbie here!

[musicalfan07]

Having now aqquired the Original London Recording, I can officially say Lansbury's my favourite Rose. The clips on Youtube are amazing!

[blackbird_fly]

[DanUSGS]

So, Salome, even if you're ever able to convince everyone on this forum that your word is solid law on theater (which is very obviously your goal and dream) what will you actually have accomplished with your life?

Christ, people have differing opinions. Get over it that not everyone agrees with you.

[Salome]

still Bernadette was horribly miscast.

[blackbird_fly]

[pish123c]

After some reflection, Tyne Daly has quickly become my favorite Rose.

[lanilovesyew]

[Salome]

you didnt hear Lansbury though..the mama Rose that blows everyone else out of the water..or Tyne Daley...a close 2nd.

[Mistress]

ooooooooooooh...samples please...this I HAVE to hear...

[Anno_Domini]

In this order:

Peters, Lansbury, Daly, and Russell


It should be noted that I've only seen and heard pieces of their respective performances (with the exception of Russell in the film version, seen the whole thing).

I saw Bernadette's performance of "Rose's Turn" at the Tony's. Outstanding. The best version I've seen/heard.

[Salome]

Peters was the worst Rose ive ever seen...wait...2nd worst next to Bette.

[teapot]

Lansbury, though immensely talented, did not give off the air of desperation and edge of crassness that is necessary for Rose. Watching her is a pleasure, but it is not Rose. She is way too warm and fuzzy in "Together." Peters was too cute for words and it hurts to watch her. Daly was amazing. Merman was all bombast; if Rose had only been a stage mother and not a monster as well, Merm would have it nailed, but she misses the nuances. Midler had her moments, but the way she played the character, Rose would never have had a moment of defeat, and would never have teetered on the edge as she must. Lupone I haven't seen. Buckley was too mannered. And although she's never played the role in full that I know of, and there are dead spots and clunkers all through her concert rendition, NOBODY has ever delivered the line "Get off of my runway" like Liza Minelli...it will chill your soul. So my favorites are Daly and Russell. Read Lee's and Havoc's books to know the real Rose...Daly and Russell give the best hints at the warped and obsessive creature that was Rose.

[JIJane]

Agree about Lansbury although we can obviously only judge by the Tony performance and the cast recording - unless someone here was lucky enough to see her live? If not, we can't really fully judge. But from what I have heard and seen I agree with you re Lansbury. Didn't see Peters but can't picture her in the role at all and didn't like what I heard.

[Salome]

based on the video ciaron has, plus all the critics and the cast recording. Lansbury was by far the most nuanced and realistic rose. She was a viper! Warm and Fuzzy? youre nuts people.

[lanilovesyew]

However, I have a feeling that Patti LuPone will be the best Rose ever. I am probably going to go see it in the summer.

[Salome]

LuPone will probably be very good but she isnt half the actress Lansbury is.

[teapot]

I saw Landsbury do the part. When she sang "Together" she was all soft eyes and soft edges. That Rose was maternal. She stole the focus of the scene...it was all about a real talent that had been submerged, and frankly, Rose is only a real talent in her mind. Landsbury is a fantastic actress, but her Rose was NOT a viper. And Landsbury can do a viper better than the best of them as she showed in Manchurian Candidate. Lansbury's Rose had almost no touch of madness, that disconnect from reality that led Rose to drag the children through vaudevillian hell. Landsbury's Rose was off kilter, because it looked like she COULD have been a star; and Rose shouldn't.

[Salome]

you misunderstood her whole performance.

[teapot]

Sorry, but I'm not one of the little high schoolers or college thespians on these boards who are unduly impressed by a little theater middle level actress with delusions of grandeur, so Salome's pronouncements don't mean much to me. I've seen more theatre than she'll ever experience, and I have 20 years or so on her... judging from her aging photobucket shots. As I am the ONLY one here who has seen the Merman, Lansbury, Buckley, and Daly performances LIVE and complete, as well as the filmed Russell and Midler, and innumerable other amateurs as well as selected video bits of Peters and various vocalists, I feel much more qualified to compare the artists than someone going on isolated moments culled from less than perfect videos alone. As far as the critics were concerned, a closer reading of the reviews shows that, while Lansbury was praised for her voice and her professionalism, her portrayal of Rose was also labelled "elegant", "maternal", "affectionate", and "charming". the very things that, in my opinion, detracted from the essence of Rose. Having read Lee's memoirs, Preminger's fond recollection of travelling with his mother, and Havoc's two harrowing autobiographies, I have some insight into the character of Rose. Listening to Gypsy Rose Lee talk about her mother in the last years before Gypsy died of cancer confirmed my impressions of what Gypsy tried to give Laurents with which to work. While Lansbury was the best musically, she was also relying on the mannerisms she used in Mame when she appeared as Rose: there were raised eyebrows, twinkling eyes, flitation half-smiles with a tinge of wistfulness. While it made her Rose sympathetic, it also undercut the character. She NEVER seemed like a viper, and anyone who says she did is reading way more into the performance than ever existed in it. While this is strictly an opinion, it is not one I hold by myself, and it is certainly based on a first hand observation of the actress in the role. I believe that Lansbury was feeling burned by the economic failure of Dear World, and had determined to win her audience in London with her Rose, re-establishing herself securely. She deserved the Tony she got for the role, because it was an amazing performance by a consummate professional, but it was NOT the best portrait of Rose.

[Salome]

tell that to Sondheim,Laurents and Clive Barnes. They all agree Lansbury is the one to beat as Rose to tihs day

[teapot]

Obviously, you miss the point. Had you bothered to read carefully WHY they think Lansbury is one of the best Roses, you would see that their opinions fit EXACTLY with my criticisms, and that their rationale has to do with her singing ability and dancing ability coupled with her acting talent, NOT with the interpretation of the role. In that I completely agree. There is no more capable actress/singer/performer, but in her interpretation of Rose as a mother tigress, which is what all three see Lansbury as, she is NOT as good as Daly's viper. (And Laurent thinks each of his Rose's is the best at opening night, then flipflops later, so he is unreliable.) But I do not expect such subtleties to get through to one such as you, since I have seen your myopic and dogmatic discussions before. They lack finesse..

[teapot]

Oh, and if you intend to use Barnes' opinion to bolster your own, then the rest of YOUR list is baseless as far as a ranking, since Barnes clearly says that Lupone is EQUAL to and mayhap surpasses Lansbury, yet you have ranked her just above Midler. Furthermore, Barnes' opinion of Lansbury is that her Rose is "bewitching" and "bewildered", two words that do not fit the image of Rose that has since been the benchmark of the interpretation. But I forget, you must base your opinions piecemeal on others' reviews, because you have NOT seen the performances. What was it you said, something about basing your opinion only on the OBC recordings? Ah, yes, that will give you ALL the nuances of the roles.

[Salome]

I have seen all the roses except lansbury and merman but ive seen a bootleg of lansbury with rex robbins in the broadway transfer of her london portrayal.

[teapot]

For those of you not blinded by your own myopia, here's an interesting article with thoughts on the revival with Lansbury.
Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Best Damn Musical
by Ken Mandelbaum
4/16/2003

We begin the second of three pieces on the performance history of Gypsy on May 21, 1959, the night Gypsy opened at the Broadway Theatre to unanimously favorable reviews. It's interesting to note that some of the critics felt that the show worked mainly because of its star. In The New York Times, Brooks Atkinson wrote, "Since Ethel Merman is the head woman in Gypsy, nothing can go wrong. She would not permit Gypsy to be anything less than the most satisfying musical of the season....Gypsy is Miss Merman's show....There are some sticky scenes toward the end when Gypsy abandons the sleazy grandeur of show business and threatens to become belles-lettres. It deserts the body and starts cultivating the soul. Things look ominous in the last ten minutes. But trust Ethel...Not for the first time in her fabulous career, her personal magnetism electrifies the whole theatre....Gypsy is a good show in the old tradition of musicals. For years, Miss Merman has been the queen."

Everyone loved Merman and declared the show a hit, but only a few critics saw greatness in Gypsy. Walter Kerr in the Herald-Tribune declared, "I'm not sure whether Gypsy is new-fashioned, or old-fashioned, or integrated, or non-integrated. The only thing I'm sure of is that it's the best damn musical I've seen in years...Gypsy has one of the greatest musical-comedy finishes I ever saw--and it doesn't even need it. Its generous authors have already provided it with a great beginning, a great middle, and a great future." And while Kenneth Tynan felt the second half wasn't as strong as the first, he wrote in The New Yorker, "So smooth is the blending of skills, so precise the interlocking of song, speech, and dance, that the sheer contemplation of technique becomes a thrilling emotional experience....the result is art."

In August, Merman burst a blood vessel in her throat, and her standby, Jane Romano, went on, marking one of the few times in her career that Merman missed performances. Merman won the New York Drama Critics' poll as Best Actress in a Musical. But Gypsy failed to win a single 1960 Tony Award, with Merman losing to Mary Martin in The Sound of Music, and Gypsy bested by a tie between The Sound of Music and Fiorello!. (The latter show was the first title presented by Encores!; wonderful in its day, Fiorello! is unlikely to get a Broadway revival.)

Gypsy layed off from July 11, 1960 to August 13, 1960, at which time it moved to the Imperial Theatre, running a total of 702 performances. Merman found Sandra Church's replacement, Julienne Marie (who went on to The Boys from Syracuse, Foxy, Do I Hear a Waltz?, and Charlie and Algernon), "much more professionally compatible" than Method-actress Church.

Because she tended to play the entire Broadway run of her hits and had gone from show to show for thirty years, Merman had never done a post-Broadway tour. But Rose was her favorite role (and the last she would create on Broadway), so she chose to take Gypsy on tour, beginning in Rochester, New York in March 1961. The New York version had made a profit of about $500,000, but had not been a box-office blockbuster, with the latter part of the run on cut-rate "twofers." But Merman's tour cleaned up. A second national company starred Mitzi Green, who was succeeded by Mary McCarty. (McCarty would go on to introduce "Who's That Woman?" in Follies and create the role of Mama Morton in Chicago.) The Green/McCarty '61-'62 tour is the one that had Bernadette Peters playing a "Hawaiian Girl" at Uncle Jocko's Kiddie Show, and Thelma, one of the "Hollywood Blondes." Peters also understudied the role of Dainty June.

In the '60s and '70s, Gypsy received numerous stock mountings, headed by such stars as Vivian Blaine, Yvonne De Carlo, Jane Morgan, Susan Johnson, Kaye Ballard, Margaret Whiting, Gisele MacKenzie, and Julie Wilson. Ann Sothern was a sensational Rose in a stock tour that played Westbury Music Fair.

Rosalind Russell and her husband, Frederick Brisson (referred to by Elaine Stritch in At Liberty as "the lizard of Roz" , had attended the opening-night party for Gypsy. Just as she was about to open Gypsy in Los Angeles, Merman found out that Russell would be playing Rose in the screen version. In her autobiography, Russell states that producer Jack Warner chose her for Gypsy because Merman was not a movie name. Much as one may hate to admit it, Russell was correct about that, and also very right for Rose. The film retained Paul Wallace (the perfect Tulsa) and Faith Dane (a sublime Mazeppa) from the original Broadway cast, with Betty Bruce repeating the role of Tessie Tura that she had taken over on Broadway.

Like Gwen Verdon and Bernadette Peters, Merman never repeated any of her Broadway roles in London. Merman was announced again and again for a West End Gypsy, but it somehow failed to materialize. For years, London critics and fans wondered why Gypsy hadn't been staged there, while Broadway shows like Plain and Fancy, Do Re Mi, Fiorello!, and 110 in the Shade had been brought over. (The Gypsy film was far better regarded in the U.K. than in the U.S.)

In the early '70s, two young producers, Barry Brown and Fritz Holt, decided to get Gypsy to London. The production was first announced to star Elaine Stritch, with whom Holt had worked as stage manager on Company. (Stritch was utterly wrong for Rose.) But after initially turning the show down, Angela Lansbury decided to make Gypsy the occasion of her first West End musical appearance. At this time, Lansbury was unable to find a good new musical role, having recently come off the flops Dear World and Prettybelle.

Almost exactly fourteen years after the opening of the Broadway production, Gypsy opened at the Piccadilly Theatre on May 29, 1973. Directed by librettist Arthur Laurents, both the star and the show won raves, but Lansbury departed in December to take Gypsy on a U.S. tour that would end on Broadway. Dolores Gray, known in London from Annie Get Your Gun, took over, and, if she lacked Lansbury's vulnerability, she offered a convincing performance with powerhouse vocals. But the London production closed at a financial loss after 300 performances. (It should be noted that no production of Gypsy since the original has had a particularly long run.)

Lansbury played the lighter scenes with a manic giddiness that earned huge laughs. The more dramatic sections were carried off with complete authority. Her Rose was an innocent, lovable but deluded, and Lansbury's singing was powerful and full of character. In "Everything's Coming Up Roses," her euphoric delivery was belied by the tears streaming down her face. For "Rose's Turn," she pulled out all the stops, and received perhaps the longest ovation I've ever witnessed for a single musical number. Director Laurents had Lansbury introduce the notion of Rose continuing to bow after the applause for "Rose's Turn" has stopped, making it seem as if Rose is hearing an imaginary audience, giving her the recognition she has sought all evening. (Tyne Daly and Bernadette Peters have continued to employ this notion.)

Lansbury toured America for six months, then opened at the Winter Garden on September 23, 1974 for a limited engagement (once extended) of 120 performances. This time around, critics recognized the strength of the show as well as the star. In The New York Times, Clive Barnes called Gypsy "one of the best of musicals, and it improves with keeping." In the Post, Martin Gottfried called the show "one of the landmarks in the American musical's growth to maturity." And Walter Kerr, who had appreciated Gypsy the first time around, called it "mysteriously perfect" in the Sunday Times, going on to say that "as entertainment and as craftsmanship, it remains as dazzling as it was on the day it was so felicitously born."

The production's amusing Tessie Tura, Mary Louise Wilson, also understudied Lansbury. Its Dainty June, Maureen Moore, is standing by for Bernadette Peters in the current revival. Lansbury won the Best Musical Actress Tony that Merman was denied; in her acceptance speech, Lansbury graciously gave her final thank-you to Merman. Two other productions were modeled on the London/Broadway revival: Gloria Dawn and Toni Lamond starred in Australia (1975), and Libby Morris headed a South African mounting (1976).

When Dolores Gray repeated her Rose at Paper Mill Playhouse (1976), her June was Jacqueline Mayro, who had created the role of Baby June with Merman in 1959. And playing Louise at Paper Mill was Jana Robbins, who would go on to play Mazeppa and understudy Tyne Daly in the second Broadway revival.

In 1980, Debbie Reynolds was announced for Rose in a Los Angeles Civic Light Opera revival; Reynolds might have been fascinating in the part, but the production was cancelled. Later in the '80s, Carol Burnett, Liza Minnelli, Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, and, yes, Bernadette Peters, were mentioned for various stage or film revivals. At the end of the decade, Gypsy would get its third Broadway production.

[teapot]

Article two:
Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thirtieth Anniversary
by Ken Mandelbaum
4/21/20033

Even though Gypsy had returned to Broadway just fourteen years earlier, Barry and Fran Weissler decided to mount a thirtieth-anniversary revival in 1989. And their choice for a star came as a surprise. Tyne Daly was a highly respected, award-winning television and stage actress. But wasn't it risky, not to say foolhardy, to ask a performer who had never done a major musical to be Broadway's next Rose?

Co-produced by Barry Brown, who had co-produced
the Angela Lansbury revival, the new Gypsy was sent on a seven-month, fourteen-city pre-Broadway tour, allowing Daly the chance to become accustomed to the demands of the role. As was the case with the Lansbury production, librettist Arthur Laurents directed, and Jerome Robbins' choreography was recreated.

With "You Gotta Get a Gimmick" also being sung nightly at the Imperial Theatre in Jerome Robbins' Broadway, the new Gypsy opened at the St. James Theatre on November 16, 1989. Whatever her problems on the road, Daly's Broadway Rose was funny, sexy, and sad, warm but deluded, a lovable but desperate, sometimes embarrassing loser. She was unforgettable in "Everything's Coming Up Roses," so caught up in a world of her own that, after embracing daughter Louise, she hurled her aside and halfway across the stage into Herbie's arms. Daly's "Rose's Turn" was a gloriously vulgar spectacle. Never before had the Rose-Herbie relationship been explored as deeply as it was with Daly and Jonathan Hadary. The production was also blessed with a fine Louise in Crista Moore, an apt Tulsa in Robert Lambert, and a funny Baby June (Christen Tassin).

It was at this stage of Gypsy's life that a couple of lines began to disappear from the script, lines that don't seem to be in the current revival either. When Herbie walks out on Rose, Rose no longer exclaimed, "You think I got a bullet-proof vest?" More significantly, just before admitting to Louise in the final scene, "I guess I did do it for me," Rose no longer said, "About that school-for kids, like you said. I could open one. Only-kids grow up. And twice is enough." (When I asked Laurents about the omission of the latter line, he didn't seem to know what I was talking about.)

Admitting that Gypsy was his favorite musical, New York Times critic Frank Rich called the new production "a scorching revival." Noting that the show "cannot be done without a powerhouse performance in its mammoth parental role," he said that Daly "tears into--at times claws into--Mama Rose...with a vengeance that exposes the darkness at the heart of Gypsy as it hasn't been since Merman." Walter Kerr, the show's strongest champion in 1959, got to review its third Broadway production just prior to his retirement. He lauded the piece once again, and added, "I remain staggered by the monumental powers of Miss Daly, who may be ready for Rushmore....She's a lusty, intelligent, hard-driving performer, and she can probably play Gypsy for as long as she likes."

There were dissenters: Howard Kissel (Daily News), Clive Barnes (Post), and John Simon (New York Magazine) did not care for Daly's performance. Interesting to note that, in his review, Kissel said he looked forward to seeing Bernadette Peters play Rose in some future revival.

The thirtieth-anniversary production took the musical-revival Tony Award, and Daly became the second Rose to win a Tony. The 1989 production was the first Broadway Gypsy to star more than one Rose. The Weisslers tend to keep their shows running with replacements, so to follow Daly's triumph, the producers invited Linda Lavin to take over in August 1990.

Lavin, who had done such musicals as A Family Affair, ...It's Superman, The Mad Show, and On a Clear Day..., offered a daring but ultimately unworkable interpretation. Her Rose was bitter, edgy, and astringent. There were some fascinating moments and a successful "Rose's Turn." But Rose must be lovable, and Lavin wasn't the warm, larger-than-life presence that Daly had been. Even her singing was wiry and often unpleasant. Frank Rich described her performance as "a washout," and David Richards in the Sunday Times also panned her. Lavin won favorable reviews from Kissel and
Business fell sharply with Lavin, and the production closed after 476 performances; it had turned a profit, helped by that pre-Broadway tour. But this Gypsy returned for a limited engagement at the Marquis Theatre in the spring of 1991, with Daly better than ever, particularly in the music. Most of the original '89 cast joined her for 105 performances.

While such performers as Dora Bryan and Josephine Blake headed U.K. regional productions in the '80s, Gypsy had not been seen in London since its 1973 premiere. Daly was known in the U.K. from her television work, and she was announced for a West End run in Gypsy. But the production was cancelled, as was an Australian revival starring Geraldine Turner. The Bernadette Peters-Sam Mendes Gypsy was to have been mounted in London, but went to Broadway instead.

Just before the '89 Gypsy opened on Broadway, an article appeared in The Los Angeles Times reporting that Laurents, Jule Styne, and Stephen Sondheim had vetoed two potential film remakes of Gypsy. The first would have starred Barbra Streisand and Madonna as mother and daughter. (Hard to imagine, I know, but the package had apparently been fully assembled.) The other was proposed as a vehicle for Bette Midler.

In that article, Laurents spoke of his dislike for the '62 film, and Laurents and Styne maintained that the show worked best on stage. Laurents summed it up by stating, "Not for all the money in the world will we let them make another film version of Gypsy." But Laurents was to soon change his mind, as Midler did get to star in a 1993 made-for-TV remake. Positioned as a major television event, the three-hour production received fine reviews and strong ratings, and was the first salvo in the movie-musical comeback engineered by the team of Craig Zadan and Neil Meron. Leonard Spigelgass's script for the '62 film altered much of the stage dialogue. The TV film stuck closely to Laurents's script. (A bit of trivia: Robert Morse and Barbara Harris were hired to play Uncle Jocko and Tessie Tura, but neither worked out.)

In 1998, Betty Buckley's Rose at Paper Mill Playhouse won acclaim from several New York critics, including Ben Brantley in The Times. While she provided some exciting vocals, Buckley was essentially miscast, too patrician and lacking humor and charm. Other actresses who have starred in regional mountings of Gypsy in recent years include Karen Morrow, Lainie Kazan, Karen Mason, Judy Kaye, and three Company ladies, Donna McKechnie, Pamela Myers, and Teri Ralston. And now, Bernadette Peters.

[teapot]

And Salome, remember when you said this: "and based solely on the cast recordings..Angela Lansbury is the Rose to judge all others by."? But do tell us more about this bootleg video upon which you now rely.

[teapot]

According to Frank Rich's article, while Sondheim felt Lansbury understood the underlying pscychology that was required for the role of Rose far better than Merman ever could, Sondheim still listed Merman as his favorite Rose. Sorry, Salome.
From Conversations with Sondheim March 12, 2000 by Frank Rich
Sondheim is too young to have met Gershwin, but vividly remembers meeting Cole Porter in the late 50's, near the bitter end for Porter, whose leg had recently been amputated. "Gypsy" was in preparation, and Ethel Merman corralled Sondheim and Jule Styne to pay a cheer-up visit to Porter's apartment at the Waldorf Towers and play some songs. "Cole was very depressed," Sondheim says. "He was carried in like a sack of potatoes by a burly manservant. But he couldn't have been more charming. On that line in 'Together' -- No fits, no fights, no feuds and no egos, amigos' -- he chortled, and I knew I got him. He didn't see the last rhyme coming. It was a real Cole Porter rhyme -- he inserts foreign words into lyrics -- an homage to Cole Porter without meaning to be. He got such a moan of pleasure, it was absolutely sexual. It was great! It was a great moment!"
I could listen to these stories all night, so I prod Sondheim to dish Merman, the star whose career was bookended by Porter's "Anything Goes" in the 30's and "Gypsy" a quarter-century later. He doesn't demur: "I've made a joke that is both glib and I suppose slightly tasteless about her being an illustration of the old anecdote that it isn't remarkable that the dog lost playing chess -- it's the fact that the dog plays chess. What was remarkable was watching a woman who everybody assumed couldn't act, act. Now, it's a limited kind of acting. She didn't quite understand what 'Rose's Turn' was about."
In a key moment in that legendary "Gypsy" finale, a musicalized nervous breakdown, Rose is supposed to stutter over the word "mama" to indicate "you were seeing a mind crack" -- a device Sondheim says he stole from Jessica Tandy's Blanche DuBois in the last scene of "A Streetcar Named Desire." But as he tells it, no matter how elaborately Merman was invited to ride the moment emotionally, she had only one question about the stutter: "Does it come in on the downbeat?" Speaking of the 1974 Broadway revival with Angela Lansbury, Sondheim says: "That's the kind of moment Angie understands exactly. Ethel never did."
We can't let Merman go: "She performed the hell out of the show when the critics were there. Or if she thought there was a celebrity in the audience. So we used to spread a rumor that Frank Sinatra was out front. That whoever, Judy Garland was out front." Josh Logan, who had directed Merman in "Annie Get Your Gun," warned Sondheim that Merman could become mechanical, but "I was smug enough to think, Well, 'Gypsy,' compared to 'Annie,' is one of the great roles, it's great literature, blah blah blah blah. And of course she did exactly to us what she'd done to 'Annie.'
"I'll tell you one thing she did do, she steadily upstaged everybody. Every night, she would be about one more foot upstage, so finally they were all playing with their backs to the audience. I don't think it was conscious. Ethel was not big on brains. But she sure knew her way around a stage, and it was all instinctive."
Sondheim thinks "stars are great" for the theater, but doesn't believe the theater has any stars now except itinerant visitors from movies and TV. Bernadette Peters comes closest, he says, but when "she does a show that's a hit like 'Annie Get Your Gun,' she has to stay with it for two years. In the old days, Bernadette would have done at least as many shows as Merman, a couple of dozen. She's done maybe 10 shows."
Sondheim's own favorite star performances in musicals, his or others? Among male performances, he unequivocally cites two: Alfred Drake in "Kismet" and John McMartin in "Follies." The list of women is longer, including Peters in "Sunday in the Park," Lansbury in "Sweeney Todd" and "obviously, Ethel was thrilling in 'Gypsy."'

[teapot]

And because I DO admire Lansbury immensely, here's a snippet from an interview, with her thoughts on Rose:
Q: It seems Rose in Gypsy is the one role that serious musical theatre actresses want to play. Why do think that is, and what was your experience like playing that part?
Lansbury: Well, I always saw it as an acting-singing role . . . the quantity that's inherent in the lyrics drives the music, drives the voice. It's terribly important that you hear what the actor or actress is singing — in Gypsy it's vital. You are singing a scene. And when you're doing "Rose's Turn," you're telling the story of this woman, the horrific kind of loss of the opportunity to make something of her life. She never made it. She never got the applause. She never arrived at the point that her daughter has. She never got the ovations. And that's why that moment at the end where she is acknowledging an unseen audience and there is total silence [is so important]. To her that is the moment where she is accepted and given the ovation that she has been living for all her life. So that is one of the great, great moments in musical theatre. . . . That moment — of the unseen audience, the silent audience — was nonexistent in the original production with Ethel Merman.
Q: That was something you added . . .
Lansbury: No, that was something that really was arrived at by — well, Arthur Laurents wanted that, but he couldn't do it to his satisfaction until we did it in London.