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Bernadette PetersBernadette Peters is the stage name of Bernadette Lazzara (born February 28, 1948 in Ozone Park, Queens, New York City), an actress and singer.
Her mother started her off in show business by putting her on the television show Juvenile Jury at the age of three and a half years. She later appeared on Name That Tune and The Horn And Hardart Children's Hour. She took tap lessons, and at the age of nine got her Equity Card (under the name of Bernadette Peters, to avoid ethnic stereotyping).
In her teen years she appeared in The Most Happy Fella (1959), was an understudy for Dainty June in the touring company of Gypsy, and was in The Penny Friend (1966) and The Girl In The Freudian Slip (1967).
She first attracted critical notice in the Off-Broadway spoof of 1930s musicals, Dames at Sea.
In films she is remembered mainly for the 1979 comedy classic The Jerk co-starring Steve Martin, whom she apparently briefly dated. In theatre, she has come to be associated with Stephen Sondheim's music, appearing in his Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, and, in 2003, returning to Gypsy as Mama Rose (the role made legendary by Ethel Merman).
She has won a Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Musical twice: 1985 for Song and Dance and 1999 for a revival of Annie Get Your Gun opposite Tom Wopat.
However, she was nominated several times: Mack and Mabel (1975), Sunday in the Park with George (1984), The Goodbye Girl (1993), and Gypsy (2003), as well as 1972 as Best Featured Actress in a Musical for On the Town. In 1994, she earned the Sarah Siddons Award for dramatic achievement in Chicago theatre.
On the cover of Playboy, December 1981In the 1970s, her guru was the cult-leader Oric Bovar, who seems to have gone insane in the succeeding years. She left when Oric--who began to refer to himself as "my son, Oric Bovar" and changed Christmas to his birthday--attempted to resurrect an acolyte who had died of cancer in 1976.
In 1985 in an otherwise negative review of Song and Dance, critic Frank Rich remarked that "she has no peer in the musical theater right now." The difficult-to-please John Simon also raved about her performance in that show.
She is frequently named one of the four greatest living musical divas alongside Betty Buckley, Patti LuPone and Elaine Paige. Of these, she is the only one who has not played Norma Desmond in Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical version of Sunset Boulevard.
Bernadette Peters was married to Michael Wittenberg, who died, at age 43, on September 26, 2005 in a helicopter crash in Montenegro. Wittenberg married the Tony-Award-winning actress in July 1996. They wed at the bucolic upstate home of Mary Tyler Moore, a longtime friend of Peters.
She is also a good friend of Carol Burnett, and has made guest appearances on all of Burnett's series.
The Land Before Time X: The Great Longneck Migration (2003) (V) (voice) .... Sue
It Runs in the Family (2003) .... Rebecca Gromberg
Bobbie's Girl (2002) (TV) .... Bailey Lewis
Prince Charming (2001) (TV) .... Margo/'Titania'
"Ally McBeal"
- The Obstacle Course (2001) TV Episode .... Cassandra Lewis
- The Getaway (2001) TV Episode .... Cassandra Lewis
"Frasier"
- Sliding Frasiers (2001) TV Episode .... Rachel
"Teacher's Pet"
... aka Disney's Teacher's Pet (USA: complete title)
- Fifi (2000) TV Episode (voice) .... Fifi
Snow Days (1999) .... Elise Ellis
... aka Let It Snow (USA: new title)
Wakko's Wish (1999) (V) (voice) .... Rita
... aka Steven Spielberg Presents Animaniacs: Wakko's Wish (USA: complete title)
"The Closer" (1998) TV Series
Holiday in Your Heart (1997) (TV) .... Faith Shawn
What the Deaf Man Heard (1997) (TV) .... Helen Ayers
Anastasia (1997) (voice) .... Sophie
Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas (1997) (V) (voice) .... Angelique
... aka Beauty and the Beast 2 (USA: promotional title)
Cinderella (1997) (TV) .... Cinderella's Stepmother
... aka Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella (USA: complete title)
The Odyssey (1997) (TV) .... Circe
... aka Abenteuer des Odysseus, Die (Germany)
... aka Homer's Odyssey
... aka Odissea
"Animaniacs" (1993) TV Series (voice) .... Rita
... aka Animaniacs (UK)
... aka Steven Spielberg Presents Animaniacs (USA: complete title)
The Last Mile (1992) (TV) .... The Soprano
"The Carol Burnett Show" (1991) TV Series .... Skit characters
Impromptu (1991) .... Marie D'Agoult
Into the Woods (1991) (TV) .... The Witch
Alice (1990) .... Muse
The Last Best Year (1990) (TV) .... Jane Murray
Fall from Grace (1990) (TV) .... Tammy Faye Bakker
Pink Cadillac (1989) .... Lou Ann McGuinn
Slaves of New York (1989) .... Eleanor
David (1988) (TV) .... Marie Rothenberg
Sunday in the Park with George (1986) (TV) .... Dot/Marie
"Faerie Tale Theatre"
... aka Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre (USA)
- Sleeping Beauty (1983) TV Episode .... Sleeping Beauty
Annie (1982) .... Lily St. Regis
Lights, Camera, Annie! (1982) (TV) .... Lily St. Regis
Heartbeeps (1981) .... Aqua
Pennies from Heaven (1981) .... Eileen, aka 'Lulu'
"Saturday Night Live"
... aka NBC's Saturday Night (USA: original title)
... aka SNL
... aka SNL 25 (USA: new title)
... aka Saturday Night Live '80 (USA: new title)
- Episode #7.6 (1981) TV Episode .... Host
Tulips (1981) .... Rutanya Wallace
"The Martian Chronicles" (1980) (mini) TV Series .... Genevieve Selsor
The Jerk (1979) .... Marie Kimble Johnson
The Islander (1978) (TV) .... Trudy Engles
"All's Fair" (1976) TV Series .... Charlotte (Charley) Drake
Vigilante Force (1976) .... Little Dee
W.C. Fields and Me (1976) .... Melody
Silent Movie (1976) .... Vilma Kaplan
"McCloud"
- The Day New York Turned Blue (1976) TV Episode .... Bebe Murchison
"All in the Family"
... aka Those Were the Days (USA: pilot title)
- Gloria Suspects Mike (1975) TV Episode .... Linda Galloway
"Maude"
- Rumpus in the Rumpus Room (1975) TV Episode .... Kathy Griffith
The Longest Yard (1974) .... Miss Toot, Warden's Secretary
... aka The Mean Machine (UK)
Paradise Lost (1974) (TV) .... Libby
"Love, American Style"
- Love and the Cozy Comrades/Love and the Flunky/Love and the Hoodwinked Honey/Love and the Secret Spouse (1973) TV Episode .... (segment "Love and the Hoodwinked Honey")
Ace Eli and Rodger of the Skies (1973) .... Allison
Once Upon a Mattress (1972) (TV) .... Lady Larken
George M! (1972) (TV)
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