Patti LuPone

At 75 years old, Patti LuPone has this physical status:

Patti Ann LuPone (born April 21, 1949) is an American actress and singer best known for her appearances in stage musicals.

She has received two Grammy Awards, two Tony Awards, and two Olivier Awards.

She joined the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2006 and made her Broadway debut in Three Sisters in 1973.

She was one of seven Tony Award nominations for the 1975 film The Robber Bridegroom.

Eva Perón was named Best Actress in a Musical by the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical in the 1979 Broadway revival of Evita.

She appeared in The Cradle Will Rock's original London cast, winning the 1985 Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her role in both.

She received her second Tony Award for her role as Rose in the 2008 Broadway revival of Gypsy and her second Olivier Award in a Musical for her role as Joanne in the West End revival of Company. Other theatre appearances include Tony-nominated appearances in Anything Goes, Reno Desmond's 1993 Broadway revival of Anything Goes, her Olivier-nominated role as Norma Desmond in the upcoming Broadway revival of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, and Helena Rubenstein's Tony-nominated role as Helena Rubenstein in the 2017 Broadway revival of War Paint.

She also received two Grammy Awards for the recording of the 2007 Los Angeles Opera production of Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, which included Best Classical Album and Best Opera Recording. She appeared in the television series Life Goes On (1989–1993) and appeared in Emmy Award-nominated television drama The Song Spinner (1995) and her guest appearance in the sitcom Frasier (1998).

She appeared in the third season of the FX thriller series American Horror Story: Coven (2013–2014) and a guest star appeared in Penny Dreadful (2014–2016) before returning in a lead role.

In the animated film Steven Universe (2013–present), she plays the character Yellow Diamond.

Rabbi Shari also appeared on The CW comedy Crazy Ex-Girlfriend as Rabbi Shari (2017).

Witness (1985), Driving Miss Daisy (1989), State and Main (2000), Parker (2010), and The Comedian (2016) were among her film appearances.

LuPone has a mezzo-soprano vocal range.

Early life and training

LuPone was born on Long Island, New York, the daughter of Italian-American parents Angela Louise (née Patti), a library administrator at the C.W., was born on April 21, 1949. Long Island University's Post Campus and Orlando Joseph LuPone, a school administrator and English tutor at Walt Whitman High School in Huntington, Long Island, is a newspaper distributed in the United States. Adelina Patti, a 19th-century Italian opera singer, was her great-great aunt. Her father's family came from Abruzzo, but her mother's side is Sicilian. Robert LuPone, the older brother of A Chorus Line, was a Tony-nominated actor, dancer, and producer who conceived Zach, the director. She grew up Roman Catholic.

LuPone was a member of Juilliard's Drama Division's first graduating class (1968-1972: Group 1), which also included actress Kevin Kline and David Ogden Stiers. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Juilliard in 1972. LuPone has a mezzo-soprano vocal range, and she is known for her "Broadway" belt singing voice. In a 2008 interview, she said she was "an actor who sings" and grateful she "had a voice."

Personal life

LuPone is married to Matthew Johnston. After shooting the TV show LBJ, Johnston was a cameraman at the couple's wedding reception on December 12, 1988; after filming the TV movie LBJ, the couple's wedding reception was held on the stage at the Lincoln Center on December 12, 1988; he was a cameraman. They have one child. They live in Edisto Beach, South Carolina, and Kent, Connecticut.

LuPone was positive for COVID-19 in February 2022.

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Career

LuPone was one of the first members of The Acting Company, which was founded by John Houseman in 1972. The Acting Company is a nationally touring repertory theater company. LuPone's tenure with the company spanned decades, and she appeared in many of their productions, including The Cradle Will Rock, The School for Scandal, The Beware Women, The Beggar's Opera, The Time of Your Life, The Beggar's Opera, The Woman In Her Own, Love's Labor, and The Way of the World. In 1973, she appeared in The Three Sisters as Irina. She received her first Tony Award nomination in 1975 for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. LuPone was honored by the Acting Company on March 12, 2012, at the Kaye Playhouse, as part of the "Patti's Turn" celebration.

David Merrick, a theater actor from 1976, recruited LuPone to act Genevieve in the title role of The Baker's Wife's struggling pre-Broadway production. The performance lasted for a long time, but Merrick considered it unworthy of Broadway and pulled it out of town.

LuPone has frequently collaborated with David Mamet, including appearances in his films The Woods, All Men Are Whores, The Blue Hour, The Water Engine (1978), Edmond and The Old Neighborhood (1997). "Those who know Ms. LuPone only as a musical comedian will be stunned by the naturalistic fire she delivers here," a New York Times reviewer said of her in The Old Neighborhood. Ms. LuPone finds multiple facets of past and present in practically every line, as Jolly, a part of Mr. Mamet's real-life sister and his realized female persona. She emerges as both a loving matriarch and a wounded adolescent, sentimental, and devastatingly clear-eyed. She appeared in Studs Terkel's Working's Broadway musical version in 1978, which had only 24 performances.

LuPone appeared in the first Broadway performance of Evita, the musical based on Eva Perón's life and directed by Harold Prince in 1979. Despite being lauded by commentators, LuPone has since stated that her stay in Evita was not enjoyable. "Evita was the worst experience of my life," she said in a 2007 interview. "I was screaming my way through a section that should not have been written by a man who despis women." And I had no money from the producers, who wanted a celebrity appearance onstage but treated me as an unknown backstage. It was like Beirut, and I fought like a banshee." Despite the hardship, LuPone received her first Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. It wasn't until she had revived her role in a Sydney production that she had finally loved the role and felt confident singing the score that she had been able to sing. Both LuPone and her co-star, Mandy Patinkin, remained close friends both on and off the stage.

The Founding Company's founding alumni of The Acting Company revived for an off-Broadway revival of Marc Blitzstein's epic labor comedy The Cradle Will Rock at the American Place Theater in May 1983. In the roles of Moll and Sister Mister, John Houseman with LuPone narrated it. The production debuted at The Acting Company's summer residence at Chautauqua Institution in Chicago, Illinois, including an appearance at the Ravinia Festival in 1984 and London's West End.

When the period came to an end, LuPone remained in London to perform Fantine in Cameron Mackintosh's original London production of Les Misérables, which premiered at the Barbican Theatre in 1985, the Royal Shakespeare Company's London home. LuPone had previously worked with Mackintosh in a short-lived Broadway revival of Oliver! Nancy Moody was the face of Nancy Jones in 1984, who played Nancy opposite Ron Moody as Fagin. LuPone received the 1985 Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her roles in both The Cradle Will Rock and Les Misérables.

Reno Sweeney, a nightclub singer in Cole Porter's Anything Goes, returned to Broadway in 1987 to appear in Reno Sweeney's revival. Howard McGillin played her opposite Howard McGillin, and both of them received Tony awards for their work. In 2002, the Lincoln Center cast members reassembled in New York for a one-night concert appearance of Anything Goes.

LuPone's 1993 return to London to play Norma Desmond in Andrew Lloyd Webber's original production of Sunset Boulevard at the Adelphi Theater. LuPone's debut in another Lloyd Webber musical was a big deal, first since her appearance in Evita. Her time in the show was difficult, and she was immediately dismissed by Lloyd Webber and replaced by Glenn Close, who opened the show in Los Angeles and later on Broadway.

LuPone appeared on Broadway in Patti LuPone, a one-woman performance at the Walter Kerr Theatre in November 1995. She was given an Outer Critics Circle Award for her lifetime. Robert Whitehead selected Zoe Caldwell to replace his wife in Terrence McNally's production Master Class, based on the master classes taken by operatic diva Maria Callas at Juilliard. LuPone received positive feedback, with Vincent Canby saying "Ms. LuPone is in danger here in a way that wasn't anticipated: she's in the process of establishing a position for which she isn't ideally suited, but she's doing it well." She appeared in the West End of a play. She appeared on Noises Off's Broadway revival in November 2001, with Peter Gallagher and Faith Prince.

LuPone has appeared in many New York concert performances, including Pal Joey and Bebe Neuwirth, Annie Get Your Gun with Peter Gallagher, Sweeney Todd with George Hearn, and City Center Encores with Michael Nouri, Whatever Goes with Michael Nouri, City Center Encores with Michael Nouri. Sweeney Todd and Candide were both recorded and broadcast on PBS Great Performances and were released on DVD. Passion's concert performance was televised as part of Live from Lincoln Center.

LuPone has been a regular performer at the Chicago Ravinia Festival since 2001. She appeared in a six-year series of Stephen Sondheim musicals, which started in honor of his seventieth birthday. Mrs. Lovett of Sweeney Todd, Fosca in Passion, Cora Hoover Hooper in Anyone Can Whistle, Rose in Gypsy, and two others in the Park with George on Sunday.

Mrs. Lovett, a young actress who appeared in John Doyle's latest Broadway production of Sweeney Todd, returned to Broadway in October 2005 to appear as Mrs. Lovett. In this somewhat different interpretation of the musical, the ten actors on stage also served as the show's orchestra, and LuPone played the tuba and orchestra bells as well as the score vocally. She was nominated for her role in Tony Awards as well as the Golden Icon Award for Best Female Musical Theater Performance. LuPone took a three-week break from Sweeney in August to appear in Lonny Price's production of Gypsy at Ravinia. In September 2006, Sweeney Todd was the first to leave the household.

LuPone appeared with Audra McDonald in Kurt Weill's opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny starring John Doyle on February 10, 2007. In February 2009, the cast recording of Rise and Fall of Mahagonny was honoured as Best Classical Album and Best Opera Recording at the 51st Grammy Awards as Best Classical Album and Best Opera Recording.

Arthur Laurents, a decade-long absence, was mended by the City Center Encores after the Ravinia Festival performance. The show's production was directed by the Summer Stars. LuPone in Gypsy was directed by Laurents for a 22-performance run (July 9, 2007 – July 29, 2007) at City Center. This production of Gypsy then went to Broadway, opening at the St. James Theatre on March 27, 2008. LuPone received the Outer Critics Circle Award, Drama League Award, Drama Desk Award, and Tony Award for her role in Gypsy. It was closed on January 11, 2009.

LuPone appeared in a three-day run of Irving Berlin's Annie Get Your Gun, where she played the title role opposite Patrick Cassidy at the Ravinia Festival, directed by Lonny Price. Lucia in the original Broadway production of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, which opened at the Belasco Theater on November 4, 2010 and closed on January 2, 2011. LuPone was nominated for a Tony and Drama Desk Award as well as an Outer Critics Circle Award for her role.

Patti LuPone: A Memoir, a memoir by LuPone recounting her life and work from childhood to present, was published in September 2010.

LuPone appeared in Joanne in a limited engagement concert at the New York Philharmonic conducted by Paul Gemignani in 2011. Neil Patrick Harris played Bobby on the film. Harris appeared in the 2000 and 2001 concert performances of Sweeney Todd. At the 65th Tony Awards on June 12, 2011, the cast of Company performed "Side by Side by Side."

LuPone made her New York City Ballet debut in May 2011 in a production of The Seven Deadly Sins directed and choreographed by Lynne Taylor-Corbett. LuPone played Anna in the Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht score, a work she had never performed.

LuPone's 63-performance Broadway appearance of her show An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin came to an end. The show began on November 21, 2011, at the Ethel Barrymore Theater, and ended on January 13, 2012.

LuPone appeared with Debra Winger in the premiere of David Mamet's play The Anarchist in the fall of 2012. Despite receiving less than positive reviews from critics, LuPone's work as Cathy was lauded often.

She returned to Los Angeles in early 2015 to play Samira in a new version of John Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles, receiving rave reviews. Pentatone's PTC 5186538, a 2-SACD album), released an audio recording of the performance in April 2016. It was named as Best Classical Album and Best Opera Recording in the 2017 Grammy Awards for Best Classical Album and Best Opera Recording.

LuPone appeared in the Douglas Carter Beane play Shows for Days at Lincoln Center Theater in June 2015. LuPone, as well as the new Fantine on the West End, joined her castmates in October 2015 to commemorate Les Misérables' 30th anniversary.

Helena Rubinstein appeared in War Paint on Broadway in 2017, the first performance at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago in the summer of 2016. Elizabeth Arden, Rubinstein's longtime rival, stayed with the Nederlander Theatre from March 7 to November 5, 2017. The show ended prematurely to allow LuPone to recover hip surgery. In an interview with LuPone, War Paint will be her last musical on stage: "I'm too old." It's been tough, it's been more challenging than it's ever been. I can't do it anymore."

Nonetheless, LuPone would appear in the 2018 London revival of Company alongside Rosalie Craig as Bobbie in a gender-swapped production directed by Marianne Elliot. Laurence Olivier Award for her role in a Musical, this time for Outstanding Actress in a Supporting Role. It was announced in August that the production would be returning to Broadway, with LuPone and Katrina Lenk as Bobbies.

On March 22, 2020, a transfer of the company's highly acclaimed West End production was set to open at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, but it was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The film was revived, with LuPone's appearance opposite Katrina Lenk as the first director, before opening on December 9, 2021. LuPone received her third Tony Award for her role.

LuPone resigned from Actors' Equity Association, the union for professional stage managers and actors in the United States, following the company's closing.

LuPone appears in her solo shows Matters of the Heart; Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda; and The Lady With the Torch; all three of whom sold out at Carnegie Hall. In September 2010, she performed her one-woman show The Gypsy In My Soul at the Caramoor Fall Festival, New York, for example.

She has appeared at concerts around North America with Mandy Patinkin, as well as at such venues as the Mayo Center for the Performing Arts in September 2010.

In June 2012, she appeared as the inaugural act of a new cabaret space, 54 Below, in New York City. "Nowadays Ms. LuPone ignites more raw energy than any other performer on Broadway and cabaret axis, with the possible exception of Liza Minnelli." According to a New York Times reviewer, her brilliant show, as well as a Broadway revival in a redesigned version, deserving many lives. Ms. LuPone's position is solidified in the lineage of eccentric international chanteuses such as Lotte Lenya, Marlene Dietrich, and Edith Piaf, who, like Ms. LuPone, ruled show business with strong, outspoken personalities who followed their own musical laws."

She appeared in the inaugural act at the Sharon L. Morse Entertainment Center in The Villages, Florida, on April 30, 2015, to a sold-out audience of people of mainly 55 years old and older.

Among LuPone's film credits are: Fighting Back, Witness, Steven Universe: The Movie, Just Looking, The Victim, Summer of Sam, King of the Gypsies, 1941, Wise Guys, Nancy Savoca's City by the Sea, and City by the Sea. She has also worked with playwright David Mamet on The Water Engine, the highly acclaimed State and Main and Heist. The feature film Union Square, written and directed by the Sundance Film Festival's Grand Jury Award Laureate, Nancy Savoca, was premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2011. LuPone co-starred with Mira Sorvino, Tammy Blanchard, Mike Doyle, Michael Rispoli, Michael Rispoli, and Daphne Rubin-Vega in this film.

Lady Bird Johnson appeared in LBJ's "The Early Years (1987). On ABC's Life Goes On, LuPone portrayed Libby Thatcher on the television series Life Goes On, which aired from 1989 to 1993. Ruth Miller, a recurring defendant on Law & Order, appeared on Law & Order in the 1990s. She has twice been nominated for an Emmy Award, including for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series on Frasier in 1998. On an episode of Saturday Night Live hosted by Kelsey Grammer, she made a cameo as herself that year.

LuPone's television appearances on her cousin Tom Fontana's HBO series in its last season, Oz (2003). On a February 2005 episode of Will & Grace, she appeared as herself. She appeared on Ugly Betty in March 2007 as the mother of Marc St. James (played by Michael Urie). On 30 Rock, LuPone appeared as Frank Rossitano's mother. In the season two finale of the television series Glee, LuPone appeared as herself.

On July 8, 2012, a LuPone guest appeared on Army Wives. She and fellow guest star Kellie Martin as her mother for the first time. LuPone appeared in the 2013 film Parker, an action-thriller.

Joan Ramsey, a religious mother with a mysterious past, and a participant of HBO's Girls, 2013, was cast in the third season of the FX series American Horror Story. She appeared in several episodes of the Showtime horror film Penny Dreadful as a tankerous yet strong white witch in 2015. She appeared onstage in 2016 as Dr. Seward, an alienist aiding Eva Green's story. Seward is a revival of John Seward from Bram Stoker's Dracula, and it appears to be a descendant of Joan Clayton, the character LuPone played in the second season. She first appeared in Steven Universe as the voice of Yellow Diamond in the film and the epilogue series Steven Universe Future. LuPone appeared in Pose's second season in 2019. She and social media sensation Randy Rainbow teamed up with social media star Randy Rainbow to perform a duet song criticizing Donald Trump three weeks before the 2020 US election.

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