Bernadette Peters is an American actress, singer, and children's book author.
93 Facts About Bernadette Peters
2.
Bernadette Peters is a critically acclaimed Broadway performer, having received seven nominations for Tony Awards, winning two, and nine Drama Desk Award nominations, winning three.
3.
Bernadette Peters first performed on the stage as a child and then a teenaged actress in the 1960s, and in film and television in the 1970s.
4.
Bernadette Peters was praised for this early work and for appearances on, among other programs, The Muppet Show and The Carol Burnett Show, and for her roles in films including Silent Movie, The Jerk, Pennies from Heaven and Annie.
5.
Bernadette Peters has recorded six solo albums and several singles, as well as many cast albums, and performs regularly in her own solo concert act.
6.
Bernadette Peters continues to act on stage, in films and on television in such series as Smash and Mozart in the Jungle.
7.
Bernadette Peters has been nominated for four Emmy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards, winning once.
8.
Bernadette Peters was born into a Sicilian-American family in Ozone Park in the New York City borough of Queens, the youngest of three children.
9.
Bernadette Peters's siblings are casting director Donna DeSeta and Joseph Lazzara.
10.
Bernadette Peters appeared on the television shows Name That Tune and several times on The Horn and Hardart Children's Hour at age five.
11.
In January 1958, at age nine, she obtained her Actors Equity Card in the name Bernadette Peters to avoid ethnic typecasting, with the stage name taken from her father's first name.
12.
Bernadette Peters made her professional stage debut the same month in This Is Goggle, a comedy directed by Otto Preminger that closed during out-of-town tryouts before reaching New York.
13.
Bernadette Peters then appeared on NBC television as Anna Stieman in A Boy Called Ciske, a Kraft Mystery Theatre production, in May 1958, and in a vignette entitled "Miracle in the Orphanage", part of "The Christmas Tree", a Hallmark Hall of Fame production, in December 1958, with fellow child actor Richard Thomas and veteran actors Jessica Tandy and Margaret Hamilton.
14.
Bernadette Peters first appeared on the New York stage at age 10 as Tessie in the New York City Center revival of The Most Happy Fella.
15.
Bernadette Peters had appeared in an earlier 1966 version of Dames at Sea at the Off-Off-Broadway performance club Caffe Cino.
16.
Bernadette Peters played Mabel Normand in Mack and Mabel, receiving another Tony nomination.
17.
Bernadette Peters moved to Los Angeles in the early 1970s to concentrate on television and film work.
18.
Bernadette Peters has appeared in 33 feature films or television films beginning in 1973, including the 1976 Mel Brooks film Silent Movie, the musical Annie, Pink Cadillac, in which she co-starred with Clint Eastwood, and Woody Allen's Alice.
19.
Bernadette Peters starred opposite Steve Martin in The Jerk, in a role that he wrote for her, and again in Pennies from Heaven, for which she won the Golden Globe Award as Best Motion Picture Actress in a Comedy or Musical.
20.
Bernadette Peters appeared with three generations of the Kirk Douglas family in the 2003 film It Runs in the Family, in which she played the wife of Michael Douglas's character.
21.
Bernadette Peters starred in a 2012 film titled Coming Up Roses, playing a former musical comedy actress with two daughters.
22.
In 1982, Bernadette Peters returned to the New York stage after an eight-year absence, in one of her few non-musical stage appearances, the Off-Broadway Manhattan Theatre Club production of the comedy-drama Sally and Marsha, for which she was nominated for a Drama Desk Award.
23.
Bernadette Peters recorded the role for PBS in 1986, winning a 1987 ACE Award.
24.
Bernadette Peters then created the role of the Witch in Sondheim-Lapine's Into the Woods.
25.
Bernadette Peters is "considered by many to be the premier interpreter of [Sondheim's] work," according to writer Alex Witchel.
26.
Raymond Knapp wrote that Bernadette Peters "achieved her definitive stardom" in Sunday in the Park With George and Into the Woods.
27.
Bernadette Peters next starred in the musical adaptation of Neil Simon's The Goodbye Girl with music by Marvin Hamlisch.
28.
Bernadette Peters won her second Tony for Best Leading Actress in a Musical for her performance as Annie Oakley in the 1999 Broadway revival of Annie Get Your Gun.
29.
In 2003, Bernadette Peters starred as Mama Rose in the Broadway revival of Gypsy, earning another Tony nomination.
30.
Bernadette Peters has created the most complex and compelling portrait of her long career, and she has done this in ways that deviate radically from the Merman blueprint.
31.
Bernadette Peters starred in the Broadway revival of Sondheim's A Little Night Music, succeeding Catherine Zeta-Jones in the role.
32.
Bernadette Peters starred in the Sondheim and Wynton Marsalis staged concert revue titled A Bed and a Chair: A New York Love Affair at New York City Center in 2013.
33.
Bernadette Peters reminds us here of her considerable and original comic gifts.
34.
Bernadette Peters has been cast to make her West End debut alongside Lea Salonga in the Stephen Sondheim tribute revue Old Friends, which was scheduled to run at the Gielgud Theatre from September 16,2023 to January 6,2024.
35.
Bernadette Peters has been nominated for the Tony Award seven times, winning twice, and has received an honorary Tony Award.
36.
Bernadette Peters has been nominated for the Drama Desk Award nine times, winning three times, for Annie Get Your Gun, Song and Dance and Dames at Sea.
37.
At the 66th Tony Awards in 2012, Bernadette Peters was presented with the honorary Isabelle Stevenson Award for "making a substantial contribution of volunteered time and effort on behalf of one or more humanitarian, social service or charitable organizations, regardless of whether such organizations relate to the theatre", specifically for her work with Broadway Barks.
38.
Bernadette Peters' efforts are held in the highest regard on Broadway and beyond.
39.
Bernadette Peters was nominated for Emmy Awards for her guest starring roles on The Muppet Show, Ally McBeal and Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist.
40.
Bernadette Peters was one of the Muppets' guests when they hosted The Tonight Show in 1979, again singing "Just One Person" to Robin, and she appeared in other episodes with the Muppets.
41.
Bernadette Peters was nominated for a 2003 Daytime Emmy Award, Outstanding Performer in a Children's Special, for her work in the 2002 television film Bobbie's Girl.
42.
Bernadette Peters won the 1987 "CableACE Award" for her role as Dot in the television version of Sunday in the Park with George.
43.
Bernadette Peters performed and presented at the Academy Awards broadcasts in 1976,1981,1983,1987 and 1994.
44.
Bernadette Peters has been a presenter at the annual Tony Awards ceremony and co-hosted the ceremony with Gregory Hines in 2002.
45.
Bernadette Peters has appeared on many TV variety shows, with stars such as Sonny and Cher and George Burns.
46.
Bernadette Peters made 11 guest appearances on The Carol Burnett Show as well as appearing with Burnett in the made-for-television version of Once Upon a Mattress and the 1982 film Annie.
47.
Bernadette Peters performed at the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony for Burnett in 2003.
48.
Bernadette Peters appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and on the day-time talk show Live with Regis and Kelly, both as a co-host and a guest.
49.
Bernadette Peters voiced Rita the stray cat in the "Rita and Runt" segments of the animated series Animaniacs in the 1990s.
50.
Bernadette Peters appeared on Inside the Actors Studio in November 2000, discussing her career and craft.
51.
Bernadette Peters has appeared in such television films as The Last Best Year, Cinderella, and Prince Charming.
52.
Bernadette Peters played a young, liberal photographer, who becomes romantically involved with an older, conservative columnist.
53.
Bernadette Peters appeared in the Lifetime television film Living Proof, which was first broadcast on October 18,2008.
54.
Bernadette Peters played the role of Barbara, an art teacher with breast cancer, who is initially reluctant to participate in the study for the cancer drug Herceptin.
55.
Bernadette Peters first appeared in the NBC series Smash in the March 2012 episode "The Workshop", as Leigh Conroy, Ivy's mother, a retired Broadway star, who feels competitive because of her daughter's blossoming career.
56.
From 2014 to 2018, Bernadette Peters played Gloria Windsor, the chairwoman of the orchestra board in Mozart in the Jungle, a web video series by Amazon Studios based on Blair Tindall's memoir of the same name.
57.
Bernadette Peters played the recurring role of Lenore Rindell, a financial scammer, in the CBS television series The Good Fight, in 2017 and 2018.
58.
Bernadette Peters next played Deb in Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist and the television film Zoey's Extraordinary Christmas.
59.
Bernadette Peters has recorded most of the Broadway and off-Broadway musicals she has appeared in, and four of these cast albums have won Grammy Awards.
60.
Bernadette Peters was re-released on CD in 1992 as Bernadette, with the 1980 Vargas cover art, and included some of the songs from Now Playing.
61.
Peters's next studio album, in 2002, Bernadette Peters Loves Rodgers and Hammerstein, consisted entirely of Rodgers and Hammerstein songs, including two that she often sings in her concerts, "Some Enchanted Evening" and "There Is Nothin' Like a Dame".
62.
Additionally, Bernadette Peters has recorded songs on other albums, such as "Dublin Lady" on John Whelan's Flirting with the Edge.
63.
Miss Bernadette Peters has always oozed a cuddlesome Shirley Temple-like sweetness and vulnerability.
64.
The performance on the CD is compelling; either this is simply the magic of the recording studio or Bernadette Peters has changed what she does and how she does it.
65.
Bernadette Peters has been performing her solo concert in the United States and Canada for many years.
66.
Bernadette Peters made her solo concert debut at Carnegie Hall in New York City in 1996, devoting the second half to the work of Stephen Sondheim.
67.
Bernadette Peters performed a similar concert in London, which was taped and released on video, and aired on US Public Television stations in 1999.
68.
Bernadette Peters continues to perform her solo concert at venues around the US, such as the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami, and with symphony orchestras such as the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Dallas Symphony, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Hall.
69.
Bernadette Peters was the headliner at the 2009 Adelaide Cabaret Festival in Adelaide, Australia.
70.
Bernadette Peters was one of the performers to help celebrate the center's grand opening in 2006.
71.
Bernadette Peters headlined The Alliance of The Arts Black Tie Anniversary Gala at Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza in Thousand Oaks, California, on November 21,2009.
72.
Bernadette Peters had helped to celebrate the opening of the Arts Plaza with concerts fifteen years earlier.
73.
In 2015, Bernadette Peters performed in the concert Sinatra: Voice for a Century at Lincoln Center, a fundraiser for the new David Geffen Hall in celebration of Frank Sinatra's 100th birthday.
74.
Whatever the case, it is easy to see and hear why, for 30 years, Bernadette Peters has probably been musical theatre's finest performer.
75.
Bernadette Peters even breathed new life into 'Send In the Clowns'.
76.
Rather than make it emotionally swollen, Bernadette Peters contracted it, delicately squeezing out its essence like toothpaste from a near-empty tube.
77.
Bernadette Peters wrote the words and music to a lullaby, titled "Kramer's Song", which is included on a CD in the book.
78.
Also in support of Broadway Barks, Bernadette Peters has appeared on the daytime talk show Live With Regis and Kelly.
79.
In 2018, Bernadette Peters received the Brooke Astor Award from the Animal Medical Center for her lifelong commitment to animal welfare, including the "over 2,000 adoptions" to date at Broadway Barks events.
80.
Bernadette Peters is a member of the Board of Directors of Standing Tall, a non-profit educational program offering an innovative program for children with multiple disabilities, based in New York City.
81.
In 2007, Bernadette Peters helped the Broadway community celebrate the end of the stagehand strike in a "Broadway's Back" concert at the Marquis Theatre.
82.
On February 8,2010, Bernadette Peters was one of the many to honor Angela Lansbury at the annual Drama League of New York benefit, singing "Not While I'm Around".
83.
In March 2010, Bernadette Peters helped Stephen Sondheim celebrate his 80th birthday in the Roundabout Theatre Company "Sondheim 80" benefit.
84.
Bernadette Peters had been part of the Roundabout Theatre's Sondheim gala for his 75th birthday.
85.
In 2012, Bernadette Peters became a Patron of The Stephen Sondheim Society.
86.
Bernadette Peters performed at the Olivier Awards ceremony in 2014, singing the song "Losing My Mind".
87.
Bernadette Peters married investment adviser Michael Wittenberg on July 20,1996, at the Millbrook, New York, home of long-time friend Mary Tyler Moore.
88.
Bernadette Peters has adopted all of her dogs from shelters.
89.
Bernadette Peters has received many honorary awards, including a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1987.
90.
Bernadette Peters was named the Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year in 1987.
91.
Bernadette Peters was the recipient of the Sondheim Award, presented by the Signature Theatre in 2011.
92.
Bernadette Peters received the 2016 John Willis Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, presented at the Theatre World Awards on May 23,2016.
93.
Bernadette Peters was the honoree at the Manhattan Theatre Club 2018 Fall Benefit in November 2018.