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By Ligia Fernandez
To access past Entertainers columns, click on the Entertainers archive
link to the left.
Barbara Cook is like a rare vintage wine that gets better
with age. Most of her contemporaries are long-dead or retired, but she
continues an active concert schedule that shows no signs of stopping.
Considered one of the 1950s leading musical theatre ingenues,
she made her Broadway debut in the short-lived musical FLAHOOLEY. She
starred in the original companies of CANDIDE (Cunegonde) and PLAIN AND FANCY
(Hilda Miller) before landing her best-known role -- Marian the Librarian in
THE MUSIC MAN. Both she and her co-star, Robert Preston, won Tony
Awards for their performances.
Her other musical roles include Ado Annie (OKLAHOMA),
Julie Jordan (CAROUSEL), Liesel (THE GAY LIFE), Amalia (SHE LOVES ME) and
Dolly (THE GRASS HARP).
She was recorded many best-selling albums largely
comprised of tributes to musical theatre giants such as Oscar Hammerstein,
Dorothy Fields and Stephen Sondheim.
In addition to performing in concert throughout the world,
she also hosts the live cabaret series Barbara Cook's Spotlight at
the Kennedy Center's Terrace
Theatre in Washington D.C. Performers scheduled to join Cook this
season include Betty Buckley, Victoria Clark, Liz Callaway, Marin Mazzie and
Jason Danieley.
Funnyman Phil Silvers, known to vintage TV audiences as
loveable Army con man Sgt. Bilko, was an established movie and stage star
before hitting the small screen.
He appeared on
Broadway in the original companies of the musicals YOKEL BOY, HIGH BUTTON
SHOES, and DO RE MI. He won a Tony Award playing egotistical TV star
Jerry Biffle in TOP BANANA with Rose Marie (who went on to play Sally Rogers
in the classic sitcom THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW).
Notable film roles include Herb Blake in SUMMER STOCK,
Otto Meyer in IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD and Marcus Lycus in the film
version of Sondheim's A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM.
One of his last TV roles was playing Roscoe Piccolo on the
sitcom HAPPY DAYS opposite his real-life daughter, Cathy Silvers (Jenny
Piccolo).
