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Barbara Cook
Recently inducted into the Broadway Hall of Fame, Tony, Grammy, and Drama Desk Award winner Barbara Cook was considered "Broadway's favorite ingenue" during the heyday of the Broadway musical. Cook made her Broadway debut in 1951 as the lead in the musical Flahooley. She went on to create the role of Cunegonde in the original production of Leonard Bernstein's Candide, a part she followed up with her interpretation of Marian the Librarian in the premiere production of Meredith Willson's The Music Man. Cook earned a Tony Award for this performance. In 1974 Cook began a creative 25-year partnership with musical arranger, accompanist, composer, dance arranger, and conductor Wally Harper. She launched a second career in subsequent years, as concert and cabaret artist.
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Last year with composer-conductor Marvin Hamlisch, Cook performed at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic as well as at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. And she was one of the only American performers chosen to perform at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Arts Festival in the fabled Sydney Opera House. Cook's studio recordings include eight original cast albums; two Ben Bagley albums of songs by Jerome Kern and George Gershwin; an album called Songs of Perfect Propriety, featuring poems by Dorothy Parker set to music by Seymour Barab; and As Of Today on the Columbia label. Cook can also be heard as the voice of Thumbelina's mother in the Warner Bros. animated film Thumbelina, with music by Barry Manilow, now available on videocassette.
