Bebe Neuwirth
Bebe Neuwirth | |
|---|---|
 at the Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS Annual Grand Auction and Flea Market, September 2006 | |
| Born | Beatrice Neuwirth |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1980–present |
| Spouse(s) | Chris Calkins (2009-present), Paul Dorman (1984-1991) |
Beatrice "Bebe" Neuwirth (born December 31, 1958) is an American actress, singer and dancer. She is probably best known for her portrayal of Dr. Lilith Sternin, Dr. Frasier Crane's wife and ex-wife, on both the TV sitcom Cheers (in a starring role), and its spin-off Frasier (in a recurring guest role).
Early life
Neuwirth was born in Princeton, New Jersey, the daughter of Sydney Anne, an artist, and Lee Paul Neuwirth, a mathematician.[1] Neuwirth is Jewish and attended the Princeton Day School (New Jersey) of Princeton, but graduated from Princeton High School (a public school) in 1976.[2] She began to study ballet at the age of five, and chose it as her field of concentration when she attended Juilliard in New York City in 1976 and 1977. During this period, she performed with the Princeton Ballet Company in Peter and the Wolf, The Nutcracker, and Coppélia and appeared in community theater musicals.
Career
Early work
Neuwirth, famously associated with Bob Fosse, made her Broadway debut in the role of Sheila in A Chorus Line in 1980. She has been featured in revivals of Little Me (1982) Sweet Charity (1986), for which she received a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical, and Damn Yankees (1994). It was with the 1996 revival of Chicago, in which she starred as showgirl and killer Velma Kelly, that she gained her greatest stage recognition. Her performance garnered her Tony and Drama Desk Awards as Best Lead Actress in a Musical. In 2004 she mounted a show, Here Lies Jenny, that featured songs by Kurt Weill, sung and danced by Neuwirth and a four-person supporting cast, as part of an unspoken ambiguous story in an anonymous seedy bar possibly in Berlin in the 1930s. This show was performed in the Zipper Theater on W. 37 St. in New York, initially only at 11 p.m. on weekends. It was eventually expanded to include an earlier show. Here Lies Jenny was also presented by Ms. Neuwirth in San Francisco in 2005. On December 31, 2006, her 48th birthday, Neuwirth returned to the still-running Broadway production of Chicago, this time in the role of Roxie Hart.
Film and television credits
Her screen credits include Green Card, Bugsy, Say Anything..., Jumanji, Summer of Sam, Liberty Heights, Tadpole (for which the Seattle Film Critics named her Best Supporting Actress), The Associate, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Malice, The Big Bounce, The Faculty and Woody Allen's Celebrity.
On television, Neuwirth had a role from 1986 to 1993 as Dr. Lilith Sternin, the conservatively dressed and emotionally repressed psychiatrist who married Dr. Frasier Crane on the hit comedy series Cheers. From the fourth to the seventh season Neuwirth portrayed Lilith in a very regular recurring capacity, and she appeared on the show as a main star from season eight to the final season, season eleven. Like Kelsey Grammer when he started on the show as Frasier Crane, she was not immediately given star billing in the opening credits, but at the end for seasons eight and nine; she appeared in the opening credits with her own portrait in seasons ten and eleven. She auditioned for this role with her arm in a sling, following a fall a week earlier. She won two Emmy Awards for the role, in 1990 and 1991. The character also made an appearance in the series Wings and 11 episodes of the Cheers spin-off Frasier, which earned her a 1995 Emmy Award nomination as Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series. Her additional small screen credits include a small role on The Adventures of Pete and Pete (episode: The Call), Deadline (2000), Hack (2003), Law & Order: Trial by Jury in (2005), Law and Order: Special Victims Unit in 1999 as a modeling agent/suspect, and again in 2005 as A.D.A Tracey Kibre, as well as the miniseries Wild Palms and an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. She has appeared as herself in episodes of Will and Grace, Strangers with Candy and Celebrity Jeopardy!. She voiced as Widow Tweed in The Fox and the Hound 2. In 2009 she co-starred as Ms. Kraft in the remake of Fame.
Stage work
In 2009, Neuwirth toured a one-woman cabaret show titled: Bebe Neuwirth: Stories with Piano accompanied by pianist Scott Cady. Neuwirth performed songs by Kurt Weill, Stephen Sondheim, Tom Waits, John Lennon & Paul McCartney and John Kander & Fred Ebb. A partial list of the songs performed are: Kurt Weill's "Here Lies Jenny," "Bilbao Song, "Susan's Dream,” "Surabaya Johnny," and "Je Ne T'Aime Pas," Herman Hupfeld’s "As Time Goes By," Stephen Sondheim's "Another Hundred People," (from “Company”), John Kander and Fred Ebb's "And the World Goes 'Round," and “Ring Them Bells” (from “Liza with a Z”), Edith Piaf's "Simply a Waltz," Weill-Ogden Nash "How Much I Love You," Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane’s "The Trolley Song," Frank Loesser "On a Slow Boat to China," Tom Waits' "A Foreign Affair" and "Shiver Me Timbers," Lennon & McCartney’s “Black Bird,” Irving Berlin's "It Only Happens When I Dance With You," and Sammy Fain & Irving Kahal’s "I'll Be Seeing You."
In 2010, she starred on Broadway as Morticia Addams in The Addams Family musical, opposite Nathan Lane who played her husband Gomez.[3]
Marriage
Her 1984 marriage to Paul Dorman ended in divorce.[4] In May 2009 she married Chris Calkins.[5]
References
- ^ "Bebe Neuwirth Biography". filmreference. Retrieved July 4, 2008.
- ^ Bloom, Nate (June 25, 2004). "Celebrity Jews: Bebe and Lilith". Jewish News Weekly. Retrieved July 4, 2008.
- ^ Broadway Musical The Addams Family Lands Bebe Neuwirth And Tempts Nathan Lane New York Post
- ^ Bebe Neuwirth Biography TV.com
- ^ Mary Green (May 5, 2009). "Frasier's Bebe Neuwirth Ties the Knot". People magazine. Retrieved October 1, 2009.
External links
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- Bebe Neuwirth at Memory Alpha
- Template:Tv.com person
- Bebe Neuwirth - Downstage Center interview at American Theatre Wing.org
- Star File: Bebe Neuwirth at Broadway.com