Rod Taylor: Underrated as an Actor

Giant (1956), The Time Machine (1960), and The Birds (1963) are just a few titles of films that Rod Taylor made throughout his career. Starring in more than 50 films, from romantic comedies to suspense thrillers to action-adventures, (in addition to some television and theatre appearances), he was a very busy actor. But even though his career lasted many years, he never quite got all of the attention he deserved. 

Rodney Sturt Taylor was born in Lidcombe, New South Wales, Australia on January 11th, 1930, the only child of William and Mona Taylor. His dad was a steel construction contractor and a commercial artist while his mom was a writer of more than a hundred short stories and children’s books. After attending Parramatta High School and later the East Sydney Technical and Fine Arts School, he began his career, following in his father William’s footsteps, as a commercial artist. But he was inspired to become an actor when he saw Laurence Olivier in an Old Vic Touring Production of Shakespeare’s Richard III. 

Taylor began his career performing live on an Australian-produced radio show called Blue Hills. In 1951, he starred in a reenactment of Charles Sturt’s (his great-great grand uncle’s) voyage down the Murrumbidgee and Murray Rivers, playing Sturt’s assistant, George Macleay. Taylor also appeared in several theater productions for Australia’s Mercury Theatre, including Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors and Sidney Howard’s They Knew What They Wanted. He made his film debut in the Australian-produced King of the Coral Sea (1954) and the next film he made was a Hollywood produced film shot Sydney called Long John Silver (1954)—an unofficial sequel to Disney’s Treasure Island (1950). (Both films featured Robert Newton as Silver).   

Around this time, Taylor also found work on American television shows, including Studio 57 (1954-1958) and Cheyenne (1955-1962). In 1956, he tested for the role of Rocky Graziano in MGM’s Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), a role that had originally been cast with James Dean shortly before his tragic death. In his audition, he dropped his “Aussie” accent and performed with a Brooklyn accent instead, and although the role ultimately went to Paul Newman, Taylor’s clever use of the Brooklyn accent impressed the studio to give him a long-term contract, and he played supporting roles in the films, The Catered Affair (1956), Raintree County (1957), and Ask Any Girl (1959).

Taylor made his debut as a leading man in MGM’s The Time Machine (1960) playing the role of H. George Wells. The very next year, he was hired by Walt Disney to provide the voice of the Dalmatian family patriarch, Pongo, in One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961). In 1963, he was hired by Alfred Hitchcock to star in “The Birds,” opposite Tippi Hedren, Suzanne Pleshette, Karl Swenson, and Jessica Tandy. This film was Taylor’s second pairing with Suzanne Pleshette, having acted with her in ’61 in the film Hong Kong: Lesson in Fear and later in Fate Is The Hunter (1964). There is a moment in the film in the Tides Restaurant scene where someone says to Rod Taylor “What happened, Mitch?” That is amusing because Rod Taylor’s character is named Mitch Brenner, though the person who says that line in real life is named Mitch Zanich, who owned the restaurant in real life and gave permission to Alfred Hitchcock shoot in his restaurant on the condition that the leading man would be named after him.

Rod Taylor later starred opposite Doris Day in the romantic comedies, Do Not Disturb (1965) and The Glass Bottom Boat (1966). “Glass Bottom Boat,” also reunited him with Edward Andrews, with whom he guest-starred on “Cheyenne.” Next, he was loaned out from MGM to Paramount to make Chuka in 1967, starring opposite Ernest Borgnine and John Mills. Taylor was also a producer on the film. He made The Train Robbers, for Warner Bros., with John Wayne and Ann-Margret, in 1973. 

Throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s, Rod Taylor continued to act primarily on television. He appeared in short-lived series called Masquerade (1983) and Outlaws (1986) as well as several episodes of Murder, She Wrote (1984-1996) and Walker, Texas Ranger (1993-2001). In 1993, he hosted the documentary Time Machine: The Journey Back. The documentary ended with a mini-sequel in which he recreated his role as H.G. Wells, along with former co-star Alan Young who re-created his role as David Filby. He made an Australian-produced comedy called Welcome to Woop Woop in 1997. 

After “Woop Woop,” Taylor went into semi-retirement, but was later called back out of it when Quentin Tarantino personally asked him to portray Winston Churchill. Taylor had been a fan of Tarantino’s, but was reluctant to make another movie, and thought it was a joke when he heard from his business manager that Tarantino wanted him in the movie. When he received Tarantino’s phone number he called thinking that it was one of his drinking buddies, but found out that it was Tarantino himself, and that he had him in mind for the role of Churchill. Stunned, Taylor said, “Well why don’t you use Albert Finney. He lives in England and he’s done Churchill six times.” Tarantino replied “If Rod Taylor turns me down, I’ll call Albert Finney.” Taylor then agreed to do the part. 

Rod Taylor passed away of a heart attack on January 7th, 2015 in Los Angeles, California. He will forever be remembered for his roles in “Time Machine,” and “The Birds,” though his voice-over performance as Pongo helped make “101 Dalmatians,” a classic also. He is a true Hollywood icon whose versatility continues to be overlooked today.  

Jim Dale: The Man of 146 Voices

Long before Hugh Jackman played the role of Phineas Taylor “P.T.” Barnum in the hit movie-musical The Greatest Showman (2017), and before Daniel Radcliffe landed the role of Harry Potter in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001), and before Karl Urban played the greedy Gavin Magary in Disney’s remake of Pete’s Dragon (2016), there was Jim Dale. Dale played the role of P.T. Barnum in the Broadway musical Barnum (produced in 1980), provided the voice of Harry Potter—as well as all the other “Potter” characters for each of the USA audiobook versions of J.K. Rowling’s novels,—and played Elliot the Dragon’s other arch nemesis, the devious Dr. Terminus, in Disney’s original version of Pete’s Dragon (released in 1977). Jim Dale is the originator behind many popular acting roles, but in addition to that, he is a talented musician, stage actor, and television actor, and voice talent. You actually might find his work surprising. 

Jim Dale was born James Smith on August 15th, 1935, in Rothwell, Northamptonshire England. He developed an interest in show business while in school, and by age 10 was training in ballet, tap dancing, and tumbling. He made his debut as a stage comic at the age of 16 in 1951, performing in camp shows. While serving in the Royal Air Force, his comic skills improved, and when he was discharged after two years of service, he took his comedy on tour, becoming one of the youngest British stand-up comedians ever. Ultimately, he got a job as a warm-up comic for a UK musical variety show called “Six-Five Special.” His performing skills on the show were so well-received that the producers promoted him to be a singer on the show. Soon, Dale teamed with George Martin to write the song “Be My Girl,” which reached No. 2 on the UK charts. Dale and Martin also wrote the songs “Just Born (To Be Your Baby),” “Crazy Dream,” and “Sugartime.” He made his film debut in a spin-off of “Six-Five Special” show the following year.

Jim Dale next appeared in the UK-produced film Roommates in 1961 starring opposite James Robertson Justice and Leslie Philips. He then took another bit role in another UK-produced film called Carry On Cabby (1963), which was one in a series of films of the same name which were produced in the UK from 1958-1992. His role in “Cabby” was well-received and he was made an official member of the cast of the film series (which also included Kenneth Williams, Joan Sims, and Charles Hawtrey). During the “Carry On,” films he was hired to write the lyrics for the song “Georgy Girl,” for the film of the same name, released in 1966. He collaborated with Tom Springfield, who wrote the music, and the effort earned the song an Oscar Nomination for Best Original Song. 

While doing his own stunts for “Carry On,” he injured an arm, and as a result had to leave the group until 1992. In 1970, at the invitation of Sir Laurence Olivier, he was invited to join the National Theatre Company in London, and it was here that he played the roles of Scapino in Scapino and Petruchio in Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. After creating some other roles in the theatre and in more UK-produced films, Dale finally made his first appearance in an American-produced film in Disney’s original “Pete’s Dragon.” He was hired by the Disney studios again the following year to star in Hot Lead and Cold Feet (1978) opposite Don Knotts and Darren McGavin. In this film, Dale portrays three different roles: Jasper Bloodshy and his identical twin sons Eli and Wild Billy. He made a third film for Disney the very next year: Unidentified Flying Oddball, starring opposite Ron Moody and Dennis Dugan.

In 1980, Jim Dale made his Broadway debut in Barnum, and won the Tony for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical. In the show, he starred opposite Glenn Close, who played Barnum’s wife, Charity. 26 years after the original show, Dale reunited with Close in the one-night only concert version of a musical called Busker Alley, based on a British film called St. Martin’s Lane (1938) which featured the music and lyrics of legendary Disney film songwriters, Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman. In 2007, he received his third Guinness World Record for creating 146 different voices for the audiobook J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. His first two records were for occupying the first six places in the Top Ten Audiobooks in America and Canada and for creating 134 different voices in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Most recently, he narrated SPIN: The Rumpelstiltskin Musical which was written by Harvel Edelman and Neil Fishman.

Jim Dale is a man of many talents, but the most remarkable of all his talents would undoubtedly be his voice. His vocal range can extend to sounding evil and nasty, as it can to sounding good and tender-hearted and not many other actors can achieve that with their voice.

Marc and Dee Dee: The Choreographers You Never Knew

When Walt Disney began production on Mary Poppins (1964) in the early 1960s, he intended from the very beginning it would be a musical. Disney gave extra attention to each detail of the film, including hiring Julie Andrews to play the title role, Robert Stevenson to direct, Bill Walsh to co-produce, and Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman to write the music. Finding choreographers to stage the musical numbers, however, was a challenge for Walt, although he hired Tom Mahoney to choreograph Babes in Toyland (1961) as well as various episodes of The Mickey Mouse Club (1955-1956) and The Magical World of Disney (1954-1991), Mahoney, at this point, wasn’t available as he was committed to choreographing Bikini Beach (1964), which starred fellow Mouseketeers Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. 

Disney relied on “Poppins,” actor Dick Van Dyke to see if he knew any choreographers, and Van Dyke recommended a husband and wife team, Marc Breaux and Dee Dee Wood, with whom he had worked with on The Andy Williams Show (1962-1963). Prior to television, they had also choreographed the original production of the Broadway musical Do-Re-Mi, which has nothing to do with the song from The Sound of Music (1965). Although both husband and wife had made dancing credits on television and on Broadway, neither had ever choreographed a motion picture but it didn’t stop at Disney. 

In addition to choreographing all the dance numbers in the film, (from “Jolly Holliday,” to “Step in Time,”) both Breaux and Wood made other unique contributions to the film. Wood suggested that during the Jolly Holiday sequence, Mary Poppins’ umbrella and Bert’s cane, do an animatronic dance of their own. She originally thought that that would be impossible, though she was later told by someone “Never say that anything at Disney is impossible!” Breaux also provided the singing voice of the cow in the Jolly Holiday sequence. When they heard the Sherman brothers’ score, they both knew they were a part of something special, as did everyone else who was involved with the movie. 

Helping “Poppins,” become the blockbuster that it became, Breaux and Wood, were then hired to choreograph “The Sound of Music,” which reunited them with Julie Andrews and “Poppins,” conductor Irwin Kostal. In 1967, they were re-hired by Walt Disney to stage the musical numbers for The Happiest Millionaire, which ignited the film career of Lesley Ann Warren, and would also be the last live-action movie that Walt Disney would supervise. (He passed away during the film’s production.) Their next film after that was MGM’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), which also featured Irwin Kostal’s conducting, another score written by the Shermans, and was also a reunion for the two of them with Dick Van Dyke. 

Although their marriage would unfortunately end in divorce, they remained close and also choreographed movies such as United Artists’ Huckleberry Finn (1974), and Universal’s The Slipper and the Rose (1976), both of which also featured songs by the Shermans. In the later 1970s, Marc Breaux had some health issues and went to work as a film editor for Sunset Gower Studios until his retirement in the mid-1990s. Wood choreographed for a while longer and is also known for having choreographed the Touchstone Pictures film, Beaches (1988), which starred Bette Midler, as well as another episode of “Magical World of Disney.” She retired to Mesa, Arizona where she currently lives—and while her former husband remained in Los Angeles, he later rejoined her, where he sadly passed away on November 19th, 2013. Marc Breaux and Dee Dee Wood’s legacy of dance will live on: for most of us it will be in beloved favorites primarily in “Poppins,” “Sound of Music,” and “Chitty Chitty.”     

Disney on Broadway Part II!

This blog continues our tribute to Disney shows launched on Broadway. Starting with (“Beauty and the Beast,” and “The Lion King,”) Disney has become a “force of nature,” drawing huge crowds with their Broadway shows, largely re-working their film masterpieces for the stage. Please feel free to comment on anything you find interesting  

• “Mary Poppins,” opened at the New Amsterdam Theatre on November 16th, 2006. It received seven Tony Nominations, including Best Musical, and won the award for Best Scenic Design, playing a total of 2,619 performances. Gavin Lee originated the role of Bert the Chimney Sweep in “Mary Poppins,” on Broadway, in the first National Tour, and also in London’s Original West End Production which premiered two years prior at the Bristol Hippodrome. In addition to featuring the original film’s Academy-Award-Winning Score by Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman, the show also featured new music written by George Stiles and Anthony Drew.
• In 2007, Disney produced an original stage adaptation tour of the hit movie-musical, High School Musical. It was Disney’s first stage adaptation of a made-for-television movie. The tour started in Chicago, Illinois on August 1st, 2007 and ended in Salt Lake City, Utah on August 3rd, 2008. After closing in Utah, the tour went on to Canada and then the UK, Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, and various other countries. In addition to all the classic songs from the original 2006 film being included in the show, the show also featured new music from a various list of composers.
• Disney’s Broadway Adaptation of The Little Mermaid, opened at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on January 10th, 2008. Starring Sierra Boggess as Ariel, Norm Lewis as King Triton, Eddie Korbich as Scuttle, Titus Burgess as Sebastian, and Brian D’Addario as Flounder, it was a smash success. (Incidentally, I am thrilled to have personally met each of them after seeing a performance in New York.) The show closed on August 30th, 2009 after a total of 685 performances and received Tony Nominations for Best Lighting Design of a Musical and Best Original Score Written for the Theatre for Alan Menken who also won the Best Original Score Oscar for the film version.
• In 2011, Disney collaborated with Whoopi Goldberg and Stage Entertainment to produce Sister Act: The Musical based on the 1992 Touchstone Pictures film of the same name (which starred Goldberg). The show opened at the Broadway Theatre on April 20th, 2010 and closed on August 26th, 2012 after a total of 561 performances. It was nominated for five Tonys, including Best Musical and featured the music of Alan Menken and the direction of Jerry Zaks, who had previously collaborated together in the 2003 Original Broadway Production of Little Shop of Horrors. “Sister Act,” also starred Fred Applegate as the Monsignor—he had previously played Lumiere in the first National Tour of “Beauty and the Beast.” 
• In 2012, Disney produced the play Peter and the Starcatcher, a prequel to the story of Peter Pan. The plot serves as a backstory for the characters of Peter Pan, Mrs. Darling, Tinker Bell, and Captain Hook. Written by Rick Elice, the play was nominated for nine Tonys. It won five, one of which was for Christian Borle who won in the category of Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play, for his performance as Black Stache, who is the character who goes on to become Captain Hook. (Prior to this play, Borle replaced Gavin Lee in the role of Bert in “Mary Poppins.)
• The same year as “Peter and the Starcatcher,” Disney also produced Newsies on Broadway. Opening at the Nederlander Theatre on March 29th, 2012 and closing on August 24th, 2014 after 1,004 performances, the show was nominated for eight Tonys, including Best Musical, and won two: Best Original Score and Best Choreography. Harvey Fierstein was the librettist for the show, and he received a Tony Nomination for his efforts. In addition to being a talented actor and librettist, Fierstein is also known at Disney for being the voice of Yao in Mulan (1998). Jeremy Jordan was also nominated for a Tony for his performance of Jack “Cowboy” Kelly, a role originated by Christian Bale in the 1992 film of the same name.
• In 2014, Disney produced Aladdin on Broadway. The show opened at the New Amsterdam Theatre on March 20th of that year and is still currently playing today. The show starred Adam Jacobs as Aladdin, Courtney Reed as Jasmine, and James Monroe Igelhart as the Genie. Jonathan Freeman, who ironically voiced Jafar in the original 1992 film, reprised his role as Jafar for the Broadway version (and still does). The show was nominated for five Tonys, including Best Musical, and won one for James Monroe Igelhart, which makes him the first actor ever to win a Tony for a performance in a Disney show on Broadway. I also had the blessing of getting to meet Mr. Igelhart and receive his autograph. He even agreed to pose for a selfie with me, along with Adam Jacobs and several other members of the cast. Currently, Adam Jacobs’s sister, Arielle Jacobs is playing the role of Jasmine on Broadway. (Arielle originated the role of Gabriella Montez in the Disney’s tour of “High School Musical.”)
• Most recently, on March 22nd, 2018, Disney produced Frozen on Broadway. The show opened at the St. James Theatre and continues its run, receiving three Tony Nominations, including Best Musical. The live show features a slightly different plot from the film (i.e. the song “Let it Go,” takes place after the songs “Reindeers Are Better Than People,” and “In Summer,” and The Duke of Weselton is credited as just “Weselton” in the show, and he is younger than he appears in the film). The show features music by Robert and Kristin Anderson-Lopez and the librettist is Jennifer Lee who co-directed the original 2013 film with Chris Buck. While the stage version didn’t win, Lee, Buck, and the Lopezes all won Oscars for their contributions to the film (the Lopezes for Best Original Song “Let it Go,” and Lee and Buck for Animated Feature Film, along with Peter Del Vecho as Producer). Each of the above have reunited for Disney’s upcoming sequel to Frozen, Frozen II which will be released on November 22nd, 2019.   

Disney has had a great track record on Broadway for a quarter of a century, and with the development of shows such as Father of the Bride, Alice in Wonderland, and Bambi, more great shows should be on their way soon.  

Disney on Broadway Part 1!

On February 8th 1993, Ron Logan, a former executive vice president of Walt Disney Entertainment, founded the Walt Disney Theatrical Group (now better known as Disney Theatrical Group). In the 26 years since its founding, the group has produced a total of 12 shows on Broadway and numerous national tours, along with some non-Broadway original shows. I thought we could explore interesting facts about what the Great White Way’s adaptations of classic Disney stories. Please feel free to comment on anything you find interesting. 

• The very first Disney film adapted for Broadway was Beauty and the Beast. The show premiered at the Palace Theatre on April 18th, 1994. It played a total of 5,461 performances, from 1994-2007, and won a Tony Award for Best Costume Design. Terrence Mann, Susan Egan, and Gary Beach, who originated the respective roles of the Beast, Belle, and Lumiere, all received Tony Nominations for their performances in the show. (Egan, would later be hired by the Walt Disney Studios again to provide the voice of Megara or “Meg” in Hercules (1997)). 
• Two months after “Beauty and the Beast” premiered on Broadway, Disney released their original film adaptation of The Lion King on June 24th. “Lion King,” would get its Broadway treatment three years later on November 13th, 1997 at the New Amsterdam Theatre and is currently playing today at the Minskoff Theatre. The original company won six Tony Awards, including Best Musical. It also starred Samuel E. Wright in the role of Mufasa, and he received a Tony Nomination for his performance. Ironically, Wright had previously voiced Sebastian in The Little Mermaid (1989) nearly a decade earlier.
• The same year that “Lion King,” premiered on Broadway, Sir Tim Rice, who collaborated with Alan Menken on the film version of Aladdin (1992) as well as the Broadway version of “Beauty and the Beast,” collaborated with Alan Menken on King David, which is a concert—not a fully staged musical—based on the Bible Story of David. The show opened at the New Amsterdam Theatre and played for a total of only nine performances. The cast featured Roger Bart as David’s friend Jonathan, and Judy Kuhn as Michal, David’s first wife. Bart is known at Disney for having been the singing voice of Hercules in Hercules (1997) and Kuhn is known at Disney for being the singing voice of Pocahontas in Pocahontas (1995). 
• The first Disney Theatrical Group show to open outside the U.S. was The Hunchback of Notre Dame. It opened at the Musical Theater Berlin in Berlin, Germany, on June 5th, 1999 and closed in June 2002. A readapted version played at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, California and ran from October 28th-December 7, 2014. Directed by Scott Schwartz, son of Stephen Schwartz, in collaboration with Alan Menken and was later transferred to the Paper Mill Playhouse where it ran from March 4th to April 5th, 2015. In 2017, the Berlin version reopened, transferring to Stuttgart in 2018.
• After Sir Elton John and Sir Tim Rice won well-deserved Oscars and Tonys for the Film and Broadway adaptations of “Lion King,” Disney was eager to rehire the pair for another project and they originally considered producing the opera of Aida as an animated movie-musical. It was Sir John, however, who convinced them to produce it directly as a stage musical, and Rice agreed. “Aida” premiered at the Palace Theatre on March 23rd, 2000 and played a total of 1,852 performances. It won four Tonys including Best Original Musical Score for John and Best Actress in a Musical for Heather Hedley who portrayed the title role in the show, and who had previously originated the role of Nala in “Lion King,” on Broadway.  
• Disney’s Tarzan opened at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on May 10th, 2006. Although the show managed to run over a year, it was critically a flop, failed to sell enough tickets, and only played 486 performances. Despite these failures on Broadway, the show later moved to the Netherlands where it ran for two years, and then Sweden where it played for one year, and then Germany where it played for ten years from 2008-2018. The show was also revived for the Tuachan Center for the Arts in Ivins, Utah where it ran from June-October 2010 and The Muny in St. Louis, Missouri where it ran from June-July 2014.
• In 2004, Disney Theatrical produced On the Record, a musical revue which featured an extraordinary range of music from Disney films, Disney shows on Broadway, and even Disneyland Attractions. The show toured for nine months, premiering in Cleveland, Ohio in 2004 and closing in Denver, Colorado in mid-2005. This wasn’t based on any specific plot, but it did feature two male leads and two female leads, one of whom was Ashley Brown. Brown would later become one of many actresses to succeed Susan Egan in the role of Belle in “Beauty and the Beast,” and after that she originated the title role in Disney’s next theatrical adaptation, Mary Poppins.

This brings us to the intermission of Disney on Broadway! More to come in next week’s blog. 

Roger Bart: He Who Helped Hercules Go the Distance

When filmmakers hire an actor to voice an animated character who also sings, a second actor is often hired to provide the singing voice, and the filmmakers have to make a completely seamless transition between the two different voices on screen. This happened a lot at Disney throughout their “Renaissance Period,” in the 1990s, and in this blog, I wanted to tell you about one of the actors who lent his singing voice to two Disney films: Roger Bart.

Roger Bart was born in Norwalk, Connecticut on September 29th, 1962, though he grew up in Bernardsville, New Jersey. He earned his BFA in Acting from the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University in 1985 and made his Broadway debut two years later in Big River, as Tom Sawyer. (replacing John Short who had originated the role). Next, he starred in touring productions of The Secret Garden (from ’92-’94) and The Who’s Tommy (from ’93-’95), and in 1996 he starred in the very first national tour of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (which also starred Ralph Macchio).

In 1997, Roger Bart made his official film debut when he was hired by Disney to provide the singing voice of the young teenage Hercules in Hercules (1997). Joshua Keaton was the speaking voice of the teenage Hercules and Tate Donovan voiced Hercules as an adult. Keaton originally supplied his singing voice for the character, but Disney decided to use Bart instead. For the film, Bart recorded the song “Go the Distance,” which earned an Academy Award Nomination for Best Original Song, though it lost to “My Heart Will Go On,” in Titanic (1997). 

In 1999, Roger Bart starred in the Broadway revival of the musical You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, which earned him the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his performance as Snoopy. He starred opposite Kristin Chenoweth, who also won a Tony for her performance as Charlie Brown’s sister, Sally Brown. The show played a total of 149 performances at the Ambassador Theater. 

Two years later, Bart was hired by Mel Brooks to originate the role of Carmen Ghia in the first Original Broadway Production of The Producers, starring Nathan Lane as Max Bialystock and Matthew Broderick as Leopold “Leo” Bloom. Bart was later cast as a replacement for Broderick in the role of Leo Bloom, though the role of Carmen Ghia earned him his second Tony Nomination. The show played for a total of 2,502 performances at the St. James Theatre and Roger Bart later reunited with Nathan Lane for revival of a musical called The Frogs in 2004 in which Lane both starred in and co-wrote the book. Bart also reunited with both Lane and Matthew Broderick for the 2005 film version of The Producers again playing the “Ghia” role. (The film was directed by Susan Stroman who had also directed and choreographed the Broadway version.) Two years later, he reunited with Mel Brooks and Stroman for the Broadway musical adaptation of Brooks’s comedy classic, Young Frankenstein, in which he played the role of Dr. Frederick Frankenstein, the role originated by Gene Wilder in the film.   

The same year that he starred in The Frogs, Roger Bart was hired by Disney to sing as Scamp, Lady and Tramp’s rebellious son, in the direct-to-video sequel, Lady and the Tramp 2: Scamp’s Adventure (2004). Scamp has a female love interest in the film, a dog named Angel voiced by Alyssa Milano, (though her singing voice was done by Susan Egan, a reunion of sorts for Bart and Egan since she provided both the speaking and singing voice of Megara or “Meg” in “Hercules.”)

Aside from his many film and theatre credits, Roger Bart also had numerous roles on television: Desperate Housewives (2004-2012), Revenge (2011-2015), Perception (2012-2015), and the Disney Channel Original Movie How to Build a Better Boy (2014). He is currently on the Freeform series Good Trouble (2019-present). 

Roger Bart is a very talented actor and singer, and had it not been for his exceptional voice, “Hercules,” wouldn’t be the underrated classic that it is.                       

Carl and Rob: Like Father, Like Son

When we think about talented show business families, we think the Barrymoores, the Redgraves, the Douglases, or even the Cusacks. One other name that would fit that bill would be the Reiners. Like all show business families, the Reiners have many generations of talent. Carl and Rob, in particular, both have exceptional skills in telling funny stories, though they also have other talented people in their families and in my own personal view, their range of talent hasn’t been given all the attention it deserves, so I thought we could explore that.

Carl Reiner was born in the Bronx, New York City on March 20th, 1922. He started on Broadway in his early 20s, performing in musicals like Inside U.S.A. and Call Me Mister, but ultimately worked his way up to television as one of the regular performers on Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows (1950-1954). (Prior to his career as an entertainer, at 21 years old, Reiner married Estelle Lebost, who was eight years his senior.) Five years after “Your Show of Shows,” he developed a television pilot titled Head of the Family which was to be sit-com that parodied his real life with himself in the lead role of Rob Petrie. But CBS, who was to distribute it, disliked him in the leading role and suggested that he find someone else to play himself. Reiner then discovered Dick Van Dyke, and cast him along with Mary Tyler Moore as Laura, and Head of the Family was renamed The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961-1966). Reiner cast himself as Rob, and his writing buddies, Buddy and Sally’s prima donna of a boss, Alan Brady on “Dick Van Dyke.” 

During and after “Dick Van Dyke,” aired on television, Carl Reiner also wrote and starred in the Doris Day/James Garner film The Thrill of It All (1963), and began a career in directing with the romantic comedy Enter Laughing (1967) based roughly on an autobiographical play that he wrote for Broadway in ’63. He also starred in the war comedy, The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! (1966). Reiner also directed Steve Martin in four movies, The Jerk (1979), Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982), The Man with Two Brains (1983), and All of Me (1984), the middle two of which he also wrote with Martin. Reiner is also an accomplished author having written 16 books. He announced his 17th book, Too Busy to Die in 2017. 

Rob Reiner was born on March 6th, 1947 in New York City, New York. Rob made his acting debut in “Enter Laughing,” though the role that made him a household name was that of Michael “Meathead” Stivic in the sit-com All in the Family (1971-1978). Though he was talented as an actor, Rob Reiner aspired to follow in his father’s footsteps to be a director, and he became a true revolutionary of a director when he directed the very first film ever that defined the genre known as the mock-documentary or “mockumentary,” when me made This Is Spinal Tap in 1984. He followed that film with The Sure Thing (1985) and then the cult classic The Princess Bride (1987) and When Harry Met Sally (1989). Although his career as a director skyrocketed throughout the ‘80s, he never completely went away from appearing in front of the camera, alongside good friend Billy Crystal in Danny Devito’s Throw Momma From the Train (1987) and in Sleepless in Seattle (1993) which was written and directed by Nora Ephron (who also wrote “When Harry Met Sally.”) He achieved the highest honor of his career when A Few Good Men (1992), a film that he directed and co-produced was nominated for the Oscar for Best Picture. 

Both “Princess Bride,” and “When Harry Met Sally” were special projects for Reiner because “Bride,” was based on his all-time favorite book and he was more eager to make it than any of his other movies. “When Harry Met Sally,” was also special because he identified with the character of Harry Burns in the sense of what it was like to be a bachelor after his divorce from Penny Marshall. He cast both his mother, Estelle, and his adopted daughter from his marriage to Marshall, Tracy Reiner, in small roles in “When Harry Met Sally.” Estelle is the woman in the Katz Deli scene where Meg Ryan “fakes it” and the woman next to her says “I’ll have what she’s having,” and Tracy plays the woman who is dating Harry in the “Pictionary.” Ironically, while making the film, Rob Reiner met his second wife, Michele Singer, which inspired he and Nora Ephron to have Harry and Sally get together by the end of the movie. He and Singer were married on May 19th, 1989, two months before “When Harry Met Sally,” was released to theaters.

The Reiners have a special legacy of humor in the entertainment industry. No doubt film and television audiences will continue to benefit from it.