Threaded Order Chronological Order
| 1979 Best Actress Tony Award (Angela Lansbury) | |
| Posted by: bobby2 11:45 pm EDT 03/20/22 | |
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| This race fascinates me. You have Lansbury the clear winner in the most acclaimed show (Sweeney) and the stars of three flops. Tovah Feldshuh (Sarava), Alexis Smith (Platnum), and Dorothy Loudon (Ballroom). The stars of the other hits that year got left out (Lucie Arnaz) or put in featured due to billing (Carlyn Glynn). Anyone see these shows? Who should have been nominated with Lansbury. I guess Lucie thinks Tovah took her spot. I saw her nightclub act once and after singing a spanish song in tribute to her father during the applause she said ole! and then Sarava! I was close enough to hear her say to the piano player that's a good thing to say at the end of that song. "THAT'S the show that kept me out of the Tonys." |
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| re: 1979 Best Actress Tony Award (Angela Lansbury) | |
| Posted by: NewtonUK 06:18 am EDT 03/21/22 | |
| In reply to: 1979 Best Actress Tony Award (Angela Lansbury) - bobby2 11:45 pm EDT 03/20/22 | |
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| Robert Klein was nominated for THEYRE PLAYING OUR SONG - Lucie was not. There were only 4 spots. They chose. No one else SHOULD have be nominated. Luie COULD have been nominated, but wasn't. In that race that year, it was clear even before nominations came out that Cariou and Lansbury were shoo ins based on the demands of SWEENEY, and how they met those demands. Dorothy Loudon was, IMHO, the next best in the season - her performance in BALLROOM was quite wonderful, and teh show was fine, Just not quite good enough to last. Ballroom lasted around 4 months - with great work from Michael Bennett and Robin Wagner and Theoni V Aldredge and Tharon Musser. | |
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| re: 1979 Best Actress Tony Award (Angela Lansbury) | |
| Last Edit: WaymanWong 05:00 pm EDT 03/21/22 | |
| Posted by: WaymanWong 04:46 pm EDT 03/21/22 | |
| In reply to: re: 1979 Best Actress Tony Award (Angela Lansbury) - NewtonUK 06:18 am EDT 03/21/22 | |
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| ''They chose. No one else SHOULD have [been] nominated.'' But nominations are a subjective call, based on the tastes and the likes (or dislikes) of a given set of nominators. For the record, the Drama Desk DID nominate Lucie for Best Actress, and conversely, did NOT nominate Klein for Best Actor. Lucie also received a Theatre World Award for her Broadway debut, so its nominators certainly thought she stood out. I wasn't around to catch all the 1979 musicals, but the clips I've seen of Lucie lead to believe she'd have been worthy of a Tony nomination. |
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| Link | 1979 Tony Awards: 'They're Playing Our Song' |
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| re: 1979 Best Actress Tony Award (Angela Lansbury) | |
| Posted by: bobby2 07:20 pm EDT 03/21/22 | |
| In reply to: re: 1979 Best Actress Tony Award (Angela Lansbury) - WaymanWong 04:46 pm EDT 03/21/22 | |
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| Plus the had very small nominating committees back then so sometimes more commercial popular things were left out. This all came to a head with the Victor/Victoria year and Julie Andrews declining the nomination. The committee is much bigger now and tends to reflect the general consensus of opinion better. Look at Hamilton. It got three featured actor nods. Sweeney would have got that then too under the new system. |
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| re: 1979 Best Actress Tony Award (Angela Lansbury) | |
| Last Edit: WaymanWong 11:05 pm EDT 03/21/22 | |
| Posted by: WaymanWong 10:50 pm EDT 03/21/22 | |
| In reply to: re: 1979 Best Actress Tony Award (Angela Lansbury) - bobby2 07:20 pm EDT 03/21/22 | |
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| The Drama Desk nominated Ken Jennings and Merle Louise, and they WON for their featured roles (as Toby and Beggar Woman) in ''Sweeney Todd.'' But the Tonys didn't even nominate either of them. ... And sometimes it seems the Tony nominators vote AGAINST something, rather for something. 'Victor/Victoria'' wasn't a perfect show, but I found it entertaining. Rather than give it a slot for Best Musical, the Tonys nominated two short-lived flops instead: ''Swinging on a Star'' and ''Chronicle of a Death Foretold.'' The Tonys gave ''V/V'' only one nomination: for Julie Andrews. The Tonys couldn't even bring itself to nominate Willa Kim's colorful costumes; instead, they nominated the unremarkable clothes in ''A Delicate Balance.'' |
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| re: 1979 Best Actress Tony Award (Angela Lansbury) | |
| Posted by: mermaniac 12:27 pm EDT 03/22/22 | |
| In reply to: re: 1979 Best Actress Tony Award (Angela Lansbury) - WaymanWong 10:50 pm EDT 03/21/22 | |
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| Not nominating Rachel York was criminal. The Tonys lost all credibility years ago. And DON'T get Mermaniac started on "Gypsy" in 1959 !!! | |
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| re: 1979 Best Actress Tony Award (Angela Lansbury) | |
| Last Edit: WaymanWong 07:08 pm EDT 03/22/22 | |
| Posted by: WaymanWong 07:03 pm EDT 03/22/22 | |
| In reply to: re: 1979 Best Actress Tony Award (Angela Lansbury) - mermaniac 12:27 pm EDT 03/22/22 | |
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| That season, the Drama Desk awarded Andrews for Outstanding Actress and York for Outstanding Featured Actress in ''Victor/Victoria.'' Not that the Drama Desk hasn't had its share of questionable calls, but here, I happen to agree with them. (And I'm a former DD voter.) |
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| re: 1979 Best Actress Tony Award (Angela Lansbury) | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 11:12 pm EDT 03/21/22 | |
| In reply to: re: 1979 Best Actress Tony Award (Angela Lansbury) - WaymanWong 10:50 pm EDT 03/21/22 | |
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| Perhaps the committee thought Jane Greenwood deserved at least a nomination for having to deal with Elaine Stritch. | |
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| re: 1979 Best Actress Tony Award (Angela Lansbury) | |
| Posted by: Guillaume 12:29 am EDT 03/21/22 | |
| In reply to: 1979 Best Actress Tony Award (Angela Lansbury) - bobby2 11:45 pm EDT 03/20/22 | |
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| Loudon gave a really wonderful performance that showed she was not just a comic but an actress; the vulnerability Michael Bennett got out of her was amazing and he found unexpected moments to quickly show and hide it that made your heart ache. Alexis Smith got nominated because she was Alexis Smith - her non-role and non-show were besides the point. Tovah Feldshuh gave a one note performance as a sex pot; she served it up with brio. Lucie gave a one and half note performance as a type we were expected to love just because she was coocoo and the one or two supposedly "honest" moments spackled into the script could not be taken seriously because the entire show was pitched with a "Three's Company" School of Dramatic Arts style so we were in sitcom land so who cared. Still, Lucie should have been given the nomination over Feldshuh because Lucie had a lot more material to deliver along with having to grin and bear Robert Klein's nonstop mugging and garbage disposal vocals on his songs. For the fourth Tony nomination I'd have given it to Georgia Brown in Carmelina, who was offbeat funny in a here's my warts and all way, but I suspect they didn't want four middle aged actresses up in front of the cameras when production numbers were shown, and Lansbury and Loudon definitely needed to be honored and Smith is sexier than Brown, so bye bye Brown and let's get one of the younger ladies on camera; and Felshuh looked terrific in those dresses shaking her maracas. | |
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| re: 1979 Best Actress Tony Award (Angela Lansbury) | |
| Last Edit: Delvino 11:26 am EDT 03/21/22 | |
| Posted by: Delvino 11:25 am EDT 03/21/22 | |
| In reply to: re: 1979 Best Actress Tony Award (Angela Lansbury) - Guillaume 12:29 am EDT 03/21/22 | |
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| I saw all of those shows -- my first year in NYC -- including Carmelina (though at the Kennedy Center; ditto, Platinum). Okay, except Sarava! To state the obvious: would the Lansbury Lovett have lost to anyone, any year? Even at the time, the performance seemed for the ages, unlike anything we'd seen. It remains definitive, despite some wonderful subsequent work (including Loudon in the same role, which I much appreciated). Maybe they further fixed Platinum, but in DC it was notable only for the improved Smith singing -- she made great strides post Follies, and I'm not putting down that vocal performance -- and Richard Cox, nude. It was a silly show, and Smith looked elegant and pulled off its songs with great confidence. A strange nomination, when you put it next to Arnaz's triple threat work in Song. For what it's worth, I don't believe there's any "they" parsing such matters as putting middle aged actresses on camera. They just voted, and those performances came out the nominees. Sorry, it's perverse logic to imagine a professional Tony discussion around the age of performers on the telecast. |
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| re: 1979 Best Actress Tony Award (Angela Lansbury) | |
| Posted by: bobby2 02:56 am EDT 03/21/22 | |
| In reply to: re: 1979 Best Actress Tony Award (Angela Lansbury) - Guillaume 12:29 am EDT 03/21/22 | |
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| I so wish I could have seen Loudon in Ballroom. She's stellar in that Tony performance. I saw her in Jerry's Girls as a kid but that was just the antic comic Dorothy. I guess Ballroom was really the only time she did drama (?) except for Sweeney. What about the featured performances that year. So many from flop shows while Sweeney got none. I think nowadays Sweeney's whole cast would have filled out the categories. The New York Times hated Richard Cox in Platnum yet he got in over Ken Jennings and the other Sweeney men. |
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| re: 1979 Best Actress Tony Award (Angela Lansbury) | |
| Posted by: shocktheatre 12:22 am EDT 03/21/22 | |
| In reply to: 1979 Best Actress Tony Award (Angela Lansbury) - bobby2 11:45 pm EDT 03/20/22 | |
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| I loved Lucie in "The Jazz Singer," the movie that kept her out of the Oscars. | |
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