


It’s Tonys time soon. June 8. More exciting news than the bulletins at Newark.
I haven’t been this moved since Sutton Foster told me in 2022 that she’d been picked to work with Hugh Jackman in Broadway’s “The Music Man.” Not knowing him so well before, she was therefore very excited. Now 2025, getting divorced from his wife of decades. New lady friend — Sutton Foster.
The first Tonys were 1947. At the Waldorf Astoria, which may reopen when the Statue of Liberty goes co-op. Tickets, $7. Now Radio City. Price? $795 plus whatever’s an $8 venue fee.
The first winners? Arthur Miller, Ingrid Bergman, Agnes de Mille, Helen Hayes.
1947 was a good year. Its aging musicals of that time still get rejuiced — “Oklahoma!,” “Brigadoon,” “High Button Shoes.”
The hotshot drama later that year: “A Streetcar Named Desire,” with Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, Jessica Tandy, Karl Malden.
It was names like Orson Welles, Ethel Merman, Victor Moore, William Gaxton, Ray Bolger, Arthur Godfrey, Walter Huston, Bert Lahr, Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, Basil Rathbone, Uta Hagen, Anthony Quinn, Katharine Cornell, John Gielgud, James Mason, Bobby Clark, Maurice Evans and Tallulah Bankhead — all became biggies.
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My Tallulah story: Trying to be a reporter I got myself to the Waldorf. In the ladies’ room, next stall over, separated only by a thin wall — the superfamous thick throaty-voiced Bankhead came at me with: “Little girl, have you any paper in there?”
“N-n-no, Miss Bankhead.”
Sounds of a purse opening, scrabbling around, closing, then: “Have you two fives for a ten?”
So, who’s going to schlep home the Tony? It is the quickie show “Oh, Mary!” The star, writer, creator, costumer Cole Escola. Nobody else. Forget anybody else. If Shakespeare himself showed up onstage live and inhaling a ham sandwich — he’d blow it. It’s Cole. Cole Escola!
Two years ago, it was another one-of-a-kind: Alex Newell. In a cornball musical about growing corn. The title was “Shucked.” He won. Where is he now, what’s he doing, why isn’t he starring someplace in some musky theater?
Is this the power of the famous fabulous Antoinette Perry Award? That after you sweat and strain and slave and worry and borrow a shmatta and rent jewels and rehearse your speech and try not to flop lumbering up the stairs — you end up the following year — where? It brings you nothing? Borscht?
I know he’s working. He’s done concerts. He’s done a movie. But is he on a Broadway stage right now grabbing another Antoinette Perry Award? No.
Talent has its difficulties. Michelangelo spent four years daubing the Sistine Chapel. He didn’t mind because he was union. What bugged him was that the Vatican then asked for a second coat.
Watch the Tonys, kiddies, watch the Tonys.