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Nancy
Walker (1922-1992) is best remembered today as the
television mother of Rhoda Morgenstern. When Anna Myrtle Swoyer
auditioned for Best Foot Forward (1941), director George
Abbott mistook her for an another actress named Helen Walker, who
had auditioned for the bit part of "Blind Date." Swoyer
got the role and kept the name "Walker."
"Blind Date" was subsequently beefed-up into a star-making
turn-- one which she got to repeat in 1943 film version-- and thanks
to it, Walker won the role of Hildy Esterhazy in
Leonard Bernstein's On the Town (1944). In true diva
form, she proved that she could rise above the ashes of any flop,
when her big voice and comedic skills garnered her a 1956 Tony Award
nomination as Best Actress in a Musical for her performance in the
revue Phoenix ’55 (1955). Unfortunately, one of those
many flops included the only leading role vehicle that was ever written
for her, as "lady cop" Katey O'Shea in Copper and Brass
(1957). She received her second Tony Award nomination in 1960,
when she played opposite Phil Silvers in Jule Styne's Do Re Mi
(1960). Despite appearances in revues such as Along Fifth
Avenue (1949) and The Girls Against the Boys (1959),
Walker was more than just a funny song-and-dance lady, and she proved so
with several forays into non-musical plays, most notably as
Julia Starbuck in a revival of Noël Coward's Fallen Angels
(1956), Mrs. Shuttlethwaite in T.S. Eliot's The Cocktail Party
(1968), and Sharlotta Ivanovna (opposite Uta Hagen's Ranevskaya) in
Anton Chekov's The Cherry Orchard (1968). Her last
appearance live on stage was in the 1973 benefit concert Sondheim: A
Musical Tribute, where her rendition of "I'm Still Here"
(from Follies) is considered by many Sondheim connoisseurs
to be the best... ever. |
