Barbara Cook has Died

[actor61]

Probably the best soprano in musical theatre history. More than what she did vocally with a song is how she interpreted the song. She could pack more genuine emotion and meaning into 1 phrase than most singers get through 2 choruses and a verse. True greatness.

[nynakedtop]

wow...

 

this truly saddens me...

[N13]

Not a very nice person.....but OH THAT VOICE!!!!!

[bostonman]

So very sad. She led a very difficult life, but came through it all so wonderfully. And yes - if having that beautiful voice weren't enough, she really was one of the great interpreters of song. Glad that we have a rich recorded legacy of her.

 

On a upbeat note, the AP obituary claims that her last meal included "vanilla ice cream." I'm hoping that's true. Certainly her rendition of that song is one of her classics.

[+ WilliamM]

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

On a upbeat note, the AP obituary claims that her last meal included "vanilla ice cream."

 

That's a pretty cool 'inside bit' to put into her obit.

 

I know this is Benanti, but I honestly think she does the definitive version:

 

[+ sync]

I was surprised to read that Barbara Cook was one of the fine singers who did not read music.

[body2body]

She had a remarkably long career. She was on television in the early 50s, did Candide in 56, and The Music Man in 57. I saw her in Sondheim on Sondheim 2010. At the age of 83 her voice was missing the brilliant top of her range, but she was still a master of the art of singing. In an interview on NPR a couple of years ago she discussed how lucky she was to still be singing, and possess such a capable, flexible voice. We have lost a great artist.

[edjames]

Sad, absolutely saddened..one of the greats!

Acclaimed singer and actress Barbara Cook has died at 89

Associated Press

 

http://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/AApIO0M.img?h=2186&w=1456&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f&x=868&y=532© JIMI CEL

Barbara Cook attends 2010 TONY AWARDS at Radio City Music Hall on June 13, 2010 in New York City.NEW YORK (AP) — Barbara Cook, whose shimmering soprano made her one of Broadway's leading ingenues and later a major cabaret and concert interpreter of popular American song, has died. She was 89.

 

Cook died early Tuesday of respiratory failure at her home in Manhattan, surrounded by family and friends, according to publicist Amanda Kaus. Her last meal was vanilla ice cream.

 

Throughout her nearly six decades on stage, Cook's voice remained remarkably supple, gaining in emotional honesty and expanding on its natural ability to go straight to the heart.

 

On Broadway, Cook was best known for three roles: her portrayal of the saucy Cunegonde in Leonard Bernstein's "Candide" (1956); librarian Marian opposite Robert Preston in "The Music Man" (1957); and Amalia Balash, the letter-writing heroine of "She Loves Me" (1963).

 

Yet when Cook's pert ingenue days were over, she found a second, longer career in clubs and concert halls, working for more than 30 years with Wally Harper, a pianist and music arranger. Harper helped in shaping her material, choosing songs and providing the framework for her shows.

 

To celebrate her 80th birthday, she appeared with the New York Philharmonic in two concerts in November 2007 and then had a similar birthday salute in London. In 2011, she was saluted at the Kennedy Center Honors and remained a singer even in her 80s.

 

"Of course, I think I've gotten better at it," she said in an interview with The Associated Press in her Manhattan home in 2011. "I still think this is a work in progress. I do. Seriously. As the years go by, I have more and more courage to go deeper and deeper and deeper."http://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/AApIOhE.img?h=972&w=1456&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f&x=570&y=502© The Associated Press FILE -

In this Dec. 4, 2011 file photo, actress-singer Barbara Cook, left, reacts to remarks from President Barack Obama, next to fellow 2011 Kennedy Center Honors recipient singer and songwriter Neil Diamond, during at a reception for the honorees…

 

Born in Atlanta in 1927, Cook always hated vocal exercises, never had a vocal coach and had an effortless skill of creating beauty by just opening her mouth. "I don't remember when I didn't sing. I just always sang," she said in 2011. "I think I breathed and I sang."

 

Her father was a traveling salesman who sold hats; her mother worked for Southern Bell. Her baby sister died of pneumonia when she was 3 and her father left when she was 6. She was raised by her far-too-clingy mother, who blamed young Barbara for both the death and the abandonment.

 

Cook made her Broadway debut in "Flahooley" (1951), a short-lived musical fantasy about a mass-produced laughing doll. The show became a cult classic for musical-theater buffs, primarily because it was recorded, keeping its memory alive long after the production closed.

 

Cook then appeared in a pair of Rodgers and Hammerstein classics, playing Ado Annie in a City Center revival of "Oklahoma!" and then on tour in 1953. She followed that by portraying Carrie Pipperidge in a 1954 revival of "Carousel." It led to Cook's first original musical success, a yearlong Broadway run in "Plain and Fancy" (1955), in which she portrayed an innocent, unworldly Amish girl.

 

The following year, she starred in "Candide," which ran only 73 performances but later became a staple of opera houses around the world. In the musical, Cook got to sing "Glitter and Be Gay," a fiendishly difficult coloratura parody of the "Jewel Song" from Charles Gounod's "Faust."

 

Meredith Willson's "The Music Man" was Cook's biggest Broadway hit, opening in December 1957 and running for more than 1,300 performances. She won a Tony Award for her portrayal of the prim librarian who realizes Professor Harold Hill (Preston) is a con man selling band instruments and uniforms to the gullible residents of a small Iowa town.

 

Cook scored a personal triumph in "She Loves Me," a Jerry Bock-Sheldon Harnick-Joe Masteroff musical based on the film "The Shop Around the Corner." It told of two squabbling employees in a Budapest perfume shop who, unknown to each other, are romantically inclined pen pals. In the show, Cook sang a number extolling a gift of "Vanilla Ice Cream," which became a signature number for the performer when she began appearing in cabaret.

 

That turn began after her Broadway career withered in the late 1960s as Cook battled alcoholism and weight gain. In her 2016 memoir "Then & Now," Cook describes hitting rock bottom as a drunk: "I was so broke that I was stealing food from the supermarket by slipping sandwich meat in my coat pocket."

 

But she gave up drinking in the 1970s and, with the help of Harper, reinvented herself as a solo artist, working in small New York clubs and finally Carnegie Hall. Her first concert album, "Barbara Cook at Carnegie Hall" (1975), became a classic.

 

Cook and Harper, who died in 2004, worked methodically and carefully on her shows, mixing show tunes with standards not from musical theater. Often the programs were constructed around themes, specific composers such as Stephen Sondheim, lyricists such as Dorothy Fields, or directors such as Harold Prince and Gower Champion.http://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/AApJ04z.img?h=1130&w=1456&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f&x=988&y=746© The

In this Dec. 7, 2013 file photo, Barbara Cook arrives at the State Department for the Kennedy Center Honors gala dinner in Washington. Cook, whose shimmering soprano made her one of Broadway's leading ingenues and later a major cabaret…

 

Sondheim became one of her biggest champions. Cook starred, along with Lee Remick, Mandy Patinkin and George Hearn, in a legendary 1985 concert version of "Follies" at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall.

 

And Cook was equally celebratory of Sondheim's work. In "Mostly Sondheim," her critically acclaimed revue of songs by the composer, the singer interspersed his own compositions with numbers he admires — everything from Harold Arlen tearjerkers to the earthy, jazz-flecked "Hard-Hearted Hannah."

 

Among Cook's other Broadway musicals were "The Gay Life" (1961), "Something More!" (1964) and "The Grass Harp" (1971), based on the Truman Capote novel. She also appeared in several plays on Broadway, most notably "Any Wednesday" in 1965 (as one of Sandy Dennis' replacements), Jules Feiffer's "Little Murders" (1967) and Maxim Gorky's "Enemies" with the Repertory Theatre of Lincoln Center in 1972.

 

Her marriage to acting teacher David LeGrant ended in divorce. Cook is survived by a son, Adam LeGrant.

 

When asked what her advice usually was to aspiring singers, she said it boiled down to three words that she learned early on herself and have been her guide.

 

"You are enough. You are always enough. You don't ever have to pretend to be anything other than what you are. All you have to do is deeply embrace who you are and you'll be fine," she said. "In life, aren't you drawn to the more authentic people? Of course. You're not drawn to phonies."

[BasketBaller]

[actor61]

Not a very nice person.....but OH THAT VOICE!!!!!

I've heard from various theatre people that part of the reason she went into cabaret singing was that people just wouldn't work with her in a show anymore. She was difficult, demanding and could be rather nasty with colleagues. Perhaps this was due to her horrendous childhood, her alcoholism or her genius. There is never a simple answer. The one truth, though, was her talent.

[hornytwells]

I've heard from various theatre people that part of the reason she went into cabaret singing was that people just wouldn't work with her in a show anymore. She was difficult, demanding and could be rather nasty with colleagues. Perhaps this was due to her horrendous childhood, her alcoholism or her genius. There is never a simple answer. The one truth, though, was her talent.

She was always very nice to me when I met her, but we had mutual friends which may have been why. Her memoir/autobiography which came out last year didn't endear me to her, something rather chilly about it. However I think she was sublime as an artist, and that is her legacy

[+ WilliamM]

Her memoir/autobiography which came out last year didn't endear me to her, something rather chilly about it.

 

For me, her autobiography was occasionally a nasty way to get back at people who are no longer living.

[+ WilliamM]

I didn't find her nasty so much as rather chilly and a bit defensive

 

I read the book again recently. Having already mentioned her comments about Wally Harper in another tread, I'll write here about her self-described relationship with Mary Martin.

 

There is obviously much more going on than Cook forgetting Martin's husband's name when Barbara had to introduce him to her mother. Martin could also be rather chilly, but I do not believe she never spoke to Cook again.

[bostonman]

There is obviously much more going on than Cook forgetting Martin's husband's name when Barbara had to introduce him to her mother. Martin could also be rather chilly, but I do not believe she never spoke to Cook again.

 

I'll have to get the book, which I haven't read. Out of context, though, this sounds very very very petty, and the kind of puerile gossip that I really care nothing about. (So maybe I shouldn't read the book?)

[edjames]

I am going to another website to order the book. I met Barbara only once and was disappointed that my image of her did not live up to the reality. She was curt and very unfriendly. However, no one really knows what her day might have been like, or how she was feeling. However, she was talented and a wonderful performer. I saw her "comeback" at a small HK cabaret on 46th St back in the seventies, and of course, saw her in concert and on Broadway. RIP Barbara.

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

She was always very nice to me when I met her, but we had mutual friends which may have been why. Her memoir/autobiography which came out last year didn't endear me to her, something rather chilly about it. However I think she was sublime as an artist, and that is her legacy

 

Having mutual friends with someone who's known to be difficult always helps: I met Stritch on a few occasions, usually before or after one of her shows at Cafe Carlyle. She seemed gruff to everyone around her until my friend walked up and then she was all sunshine and smiles.

 

I took advantage of that. Frankly, Stritch frightened me a little.

[actor61]

I'll have to get the book, which I haven't read. Out of context, though, this sounds very very very petty, and the kind of puerile gossip that I really care nothing about. (So maybe I shouldn't read the book?)

I generally don't like star autobiographies at all. I read Patti Lupone's last year and it's just a bitch fest - was there ANYBODY she liked working with? Was anything EVER her fault? So, I probably won't read Cook's bio either. The "I I I, Me Me Me...And the I sang" aspects of these books turns me off.

[actor61]

Having mutual friends with someone who's known to be difficult always helps: I met Stritch on a few occasions, usually before or after one of her shows at Cafe Carlyle. She seemed gruff to everyone around her until my friend walked up and then she was all sunshine and smiles.

 

I took advantage of that. Frankly, Stritch frightened me a little.

I knew her well in the 1970s when she was working in London. A bitch on skates.

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

I generally don't like star autobiographies at all. I read Patti Lupone's last year and it's just a bitch fest - was there ANYBODY she liked working with? Was anything EVER her fault? So, I probably won't read Cook's bio either. The "I I I, Me Me Me...And the I sang" aspects of these books turns me off.

 

But to be fair, they're memoirs. That's the point. It's their spotlight on their life.

[bostonman]

I generally don't like star autobiographies at all. I read Patti Lupone's last year and it's just a bitch fest - was there ANYBODY she liked working with? Was anything EVER her fault? So, I probably won't read Cook's bio either. The "I I I, Me Me Me...And the I sang" aspects of these books turns me off.

 

I'm assuming that a Sondheim autobiography won't be happening, as he's already put so much into his 2-volume lyric collection (with lots of commentary) - Finishing The Hat and Look, I Made A Hat. Both volumes are required reading, IMO. But boy, does he lay into many of his contemporaries. He's incredibly opinionated about them, and I don't always agree with him by far. But I appreciate that he generally tries to back up his opinions - it's not just a "bitch fest."

 

He's also careful to say that he's only criticizing colleagues who have passed away. Except for one - and in that one case, his choice comments for Robert Brustein in terms of the original production of The Frogs are PRICELESS.

[bostonman]

I met Stritch on a few occasions, usually before or after one of her shows at Cafe Carlyle. She seemed gruff to everyone around her until my friend walked up and then she was all sunshine and smiles.

 

I took advantage of that. Frankly, Stritch frightened me a little.

 

I knew her well in the 1970s when she was working in London. A bitch on skates.

 

I met her briefly after a performance of At Liberty on Boston. She must have felt good about the performance, because she seemed to be in a great mood, and seemed happy to be signing autographs and chatting with people. But still, she was very much the "salty" persona I tend to identify with her iconic Joanne in Company. Which did make it fun. But yes, I can imagine she could also be a bitch, lol.

[hornytwells]

But to be fair, they're memoirs. That's the point. It's their spotlight on their life.

Exactly-why complain that a bio of someone's life is all about them? That's what most fans are interested in, and if you are not then why read the book? The art is to make it interesting-talking about nasty, Frank Langella's book is the worst of all-so many nasty stories about dead stars who cannot defend themselves and such coy and unbelievable references to his "close friendships" with men. One of the most ironic parts is where he accuses Yul brynner of pulling focus from carol Channing on her opening night, and in his retelling he mentioned that there was a reference to Yul brynner being in the audience, and then adds...."but no mention of the prince of Darkness" ie himself!?

[hornytwells]

The book of showbusiness vitriol to end all tho is Arthur Laurents book. I have not met one person in the business who ever had a good thing to say about him and when you read his book you will see why-marvellously entertaining tho if you can stomach that much bile!!

[+ sync]

Having mutual friends with someone who's known to be difficult always helps: I met Stritch on a few occasions, usually before or after one of her shows at Cafe Carlyle. She seemed gruff to everyone around her until my friend walked up and then she was all sunshine and smiles.

 

I took advantage of that. Frankly, Stritch frightened me a little.

 

Several years ago in NYC she and I were crossing a street in opposite directions, and for just an instant we made eye contact...I thought Medusa had me.