Bernadette Peters

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 (1961), 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 the movies she is remembered primarily for the movies she made with Steve Martin; 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".

Off-Broadway Appearances

• Dames at Sea - 1967

Broadway Appearances

• The Girl in the Freudian Slip -1967
• Johnny No-Trump - 1967
• George M! - 1968
• La Strada - 1969
• On the Town - 1971
• Mack & Mabel - 1974
• Sunday in the Park with George - 1984
• Song and Dance - 1985 (Tony Award, Best Leading Actress in a Musical)
• Into the Woods - 1987
• The Goodbye Girl - 1993
• Annie Get Your Gun - 1999 (Tony Award, Best Leading Actress in a Musical)
• Gypsy - 2003

Film Appearances

• Silent Movie - 1976
• The Jerk - 1979
• Pennies from Heaven - 1981 (Golden Globe Award, Best Actress)
• Annie - 1982
• Slaves of New York - 1989

Television Appearances

• Sunday in the Park with George - 1986
• Into the Woods - 1991
• Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella - 1997

External links and references

• Her Stage Mother, Herself, The New York Times, April 27, 2003 - profile by Jesse Green on Peters, her mother, and Gypsy

Referenced By