Beatrice "Bebe" Neuwirth
(born December 31, 1958) is an American actress, singer and dancer. She is probably best known for her portrayal of Dr. Lilith Sternin, Dr. Frasier Crane's ex-wife both on the TV sitcom Cheers
, and its spin-off Frasier
.
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BEBE NEUWIRTH TICKETS
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Early life
Neuwirth was born in
Princeton, New Jersey, the daughter of Sydney Anne, an artist, and Lee Paul Neuwirth, a
mathematician.
[1] Neuwirth is
Jewish and attended the
Chapin School of Princeton, but graduated from Princeton High School (a public school) in 1976.
[2] She began to study
ballet at the age of five, and chose it as her field of concentration when she attended
Juilliard in New York City in 1976 and 1977. During this period, she performed with the
Princeton Ballet Company in
Peter and the Wolf
,
The Nutcracker
, and
Coppélia
and appeared in community theater musicals.
Career
Early work
Neuwirth, famously associated with
Bob Fosse, made her
Broadway debut in the role of Sheila in
A Chorus Line
in 1980. She has been featured in revivals of
Little Me
(1982)
Sweet Charity
(1986), for which she received a
Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical, and
Damn Yankees
(1994). It was with the 1996 revival of
Chicago
, in which she starred as showgirl and killer Velma Kelly, that she gained her greatest stage recognition. Her performance garnered her Tony and
Drama Desk Awards as Best Lead Actress in a Musical. She voiced
Binky in the series
CyberChase. In 2004 she mounted a show,
Here Lies Jenny
, that featured songs by
Kurt Weill, sung and danced by Neuwirth and a four-person supporting cast, as part of an unspoken ambiguous story in an anonymous seedy bar possibly in Berlin in the 1930s. This show was performed in the Zipper Theater on W. 37 St. in New York, initially only at 11 p.m. on weekends. It was eventually expanded to include an earlier show.
Here Lies Jenny
was also presented by Ms. Neuwirth in San Francisco in 2005. On December 31, 2006, her 48th birthday, Neuwirth returned to the still-running Broadway production of
Chicago
, this time in the role of
Roxie Hart. Neuwirth recently did a reading for the upcoming musical adaption of
The Addams Family
as Morticia opposite
Nathan Lane. The show is currently scheduled to debut next year with a 2010 Broadway opening.
[3]
Film and television credits
Her screen credits include
Green Card
,
Bugsy
,
Say Anything
,
Jumanji
,
Summer of Sam
,
Liberty Heights
,
Tadpole
(for which the
Seattle Film Critics named her Best Supporting Actress),
The Associate
,
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
,
Malice
,
The Big Bounce
,
The Faculty
and
Woody Allen's
Celebrity
.
left Annual Grand Auction and Flea Market, September 2006
On television, Neuwirth had a recurring role from 1986 to 1993 as Dr.
Lilith Sternin, the conservatively dressed and emotionally repressed
psychiatrist who married Dr.
Frasier Crane on the hit comedy series
Cheers.
She auditioned for this role with her arm in a sling, following a fall a week earlier. She won two
Emmy Awards for the role, in 1990 and 1991. The character also made an appearance in the series
Wings
and 11 episodes of the
Cheers
spin-off
Frasier
, which earned her a 1995
Emmy Award nomination as Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series. Her additional small screen credits include
Deadline
(2000),
Hack
(2003),
Law & Order: Trial by Jury
in (2005),
Law and Order: Special Victims Unit
in 1999 as a modeling agent/suspect, and again in 2005 as A.D.A Tracey Kibre, as well as the miniseries
Wild Palms and an episode of
Star Trek: The Next Generation.
She has appeared as herself in episodes of
Will and Grace
,
Strangers with Candy
and
Celebrity Jeopardy!
. She voiced as Widow Tweed in
The Fox and the Hound 2.
Stage work
In 2009, Neuwirth toured a one-woman cabaret show titled: Bebe Neuwirth: Stories with Piano accompanied by pianist Scott Cady. Neuwirth performed songs by Kurt Weill, Stephen Sondheim, Tom Waits, John Lennon & Paul McCartney and John Kander & Fred Ebb. A partial list of the songs performed are: Kurt Weill's "Here Lies Jenny," "Bilbao Song, "Susan's Dream,” "Surabaya Johnny," and "Je Ne T'Aime Pas," Herman Hupfeld’s "As Time Goes By," Stephen Sondheim's "Another Hundred People," (from “Company”), John Kander and Fred Ebb's "And the World Goes 'Round," and “Ring Them Bells” (from “Liza with a Z”), Edith Piaf's "Simply a Waltz," Weill-Ogden Nash "How Much I Love You," Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane’s "The Trolley Song," Frank Loesser "On a Slow Boat to China," Tom Waits' "A Foreign Affair" and "Shiver Me Timbers," Lennon & McCartney’s “Black Bird,” Irving Berlin's "It Only Happens When I Dance With You," and Sammy Fain & Irving Kahal’s "I'll Be Seeing You."
In 2010, she will star on Broadway as Morticia Addams in
The Addams Family
musical, opposite
Nathan Lane who will be playing her husband Gomez.
Marriage
In May 2009 she married Chris Calkins. Her 1984 marriage to Paul Dorman ended in divorce.
[4]
References
- Bebe Neuwirth Biography
- Celebrity Jews: Bebe and Lilith
- Broadway Musical The Addams Family Lands Bebe Neuwirth And Tempts Nathan Lane - New York Post
- http://www.tv.com/person/843/summary.html