Patti LuPone life and biography

Patti Ann LuPone is an American singer and actress, known for her Tony Award-winning performances as Eva Perón in the 1979 stage musical Evita and as Madame Rose in the 2008 Broadway revival of Gypsy, and for her Olivier Award-winning performance as Fantine in the original London cast of Les Misérables as well as her similarly nominated portrayal of Norma Desmond in the first production of Sunset Boulevard.

Her resume includes work on Broadway, performances with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and appearances in films and on television. She has received recognition for her achievements in the form of a Tony--in addition to three other nominations for the award--a Drama Desk Award, and a Laurence Olivier Award, the British equivalent of the Tony.

Patti LuPone grew up in a musical family. An amateur pianist and opera buff, her mother, Angela LuPone, named her for her great aunt, the famous soprano Adelina Patti. The young LuPone took private lessons in voice, piano, drama, and dance. With her two brothers she formed a dance troupe and performed locally. Her brother Robert also sang and danced and would go on to win a Tony for his role in A Chorus Line. In high school Patti played tuba in the marching band and cello in the orchestra and sang in both the madrigal group and concert choir. As she explained in an interview with Linda Winer for New York Newsday, she decided at a very early age that she wanted to perform: "[When I was four] I did a tap number [in a show], looked down at the audience and said, 'Hey! They're all smiling at me! I can do whatever I want!' I was hooked ... and [have] never looked back."

After high school LuPone applied for admittance to the opera program at the Juilliard School but was not accepted. Her brother Robert, who was at Juilliard studying dance, convinced her to audition for the newly formed drama program under the direction of famed actor and director John Houseman. In 1968 she was admitted into the first class, and in 1972 she was one of only 14 students out of 36 who graduated on time.

Houseman organized the graduates into a professional repertory troupe called the Juilliard Acting Company, later called the City Center Acting Company, then simply the Acting Company. LuPone was a member of the troupe for several years. In 1975 she appeared with the company in an adaptation of Eudora Welty's Robber Bridegroom and received a Tony nomination. After leaving the group in 1976, she performed primarily in musicals, including the 1976 Off-Broadway production of The Baker's Wife, by David Merrick, as well as the Broadway production of David Mamet's Water Engine and Studs Terkel's Working, both in 1978.

In 1979 LuPone won the role that thrust her into the national spotlight: that of the Argentine first lady Eva Peron in Evita, by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. From the initial 200 women who auditioned for the role, 30 finalists were chosen and all were asked to sing the same two songs from the show. When LuPone's rendition of "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" brought tears to the eyes of the audience, the producer, Harold Prince, hired her.

Prince's decision surprised many, for such stars as Raquel Welch, Faye Dunaway, and Meryl Streep were said to have wanted the role. People announced, "Acting nobody Patti LuPone set her cap to be Evita and beat out Faye and Raquel." The show opened in the spring of 1979 in Los Angeles and San Francisco and hit Broadway in the fall. While the show received mixed reviews, critics praised LuPone's work. Walter Kerr commented in the New York Times, "Miss LuPone does sufficient justice to the score (almost everything is sung); but little justice is done her [by the show]." In the spring of 1980 she won both a Tony and a Drama Desk Award for best featured actress.

After two years LuPone decided she had been Eva Peron for long enough; she needed a rest and new roles. But her fame seemed to work against her and finding good parts was difficult. As she maintained in a New York Times interview, playing in Evita had typecast her: "Casting directors forget what you did in the past. They think I'm blond and much older, so unless they need a blond fascist dictator, I won't get a call." However, parts did eventually come her way, and while pleased with her work, she later lamented the lack of public response. "I did some of my best work after Evita but it wasn't in the public eye, and it didn't command a lot of notice, therefore I was nothing," she informed David Sacks of the New York Times Magazine. Among her work from that period was a 1981 production of Shakespeare's As You Like It and singing roles in such revivals as the 1937 musical The Cradle Will Rock, by Marc Blitzstein, in 1983 and Lionel Bart's Oliver! in 1984. She also performed in a solo cabaret show that palyed at different New York supper clubs from 1980 to 1982 and met with disappointing reviews.

In 1985 LuPone won the role of Fantine in Les Miserables, by Claude-Michel Schonberg. Although her character dies early in the play, her performance--and the Laurence Olivier Award for best actress she received--bounced her back into the spotlight. She rejected the offer to reprise the role on Broadway, however, and did not join the American cast production. She elaborated on her decision in an interview for the New York Times Magazine: "I'm very possessive about my theatrical memories. Two weeks after I opened at the Barbican in London, I knew I couldn't do it in New York. I was having a theatrical dream come true. I was with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the only American who has ever played a principal part, a fantastic part.... The issue was: I am a part of the English company."

In 1987, director Jerry Zaks invited LuPone to audition for his revival of the 1934 Cole Porter musical Anything Goes. "I was struck by the fact that she was very upfront," Zaks commented to the New York Times Magazine' s David Sacks. "She had vitality, a sense of humor, and a willingness to try things." After the show opened in October of that year, critics agreed with his choice. As William A. Henry III declared in Time: "If Porter really were to lend approval, it would be chiefly for Patti LuPone. As nightclub belter Reno Sweeney, she rivals the role's originator, Ethel Merman, in volume and clarity of voice, and far outdoes her in intelligence and heart."

After leaving the cast of Anything Goes LuPone moved to Los Angeles to pursue television work "because there is so little work in New York now, and an actor has to go where the work is," she disclosed to a correspondent for the New York Times. In the fall of 1989 she joined the series Life Goes On, portraying the mother in a family that includes a teenage boy with Down Syndrome. Her character, a Broadway singer who gave up the stage to raise a family, still performs for some private and public occasions, giving LuPone occasional singing opportunities.

Patti LuPone is, as writer David Sacks noted in the New York Times Magazine, "a born performer, extroverted, impetuous. And mischievous--you sense in her a wayward enthusiasm that can hardly be contained." But she is uncomfortable with the trappings of fame and success. She recounted to Sacks in the same article, "During Evita I was constantly harassed--by my dance captain, my wardrobe mistress, and everyone else--to dress up. I was a star. There is an illusion you're expected to present. But I don't feel easy with that, because I don't think it's my responsibility to [be what I am not.]" She did admit in an interview for Harper's Bazaar, however, that fame has some advantages: "It does get you seated at the best restaurants."

While she is certainly successful in television, she may eventually go back to the musical stage. "I'll be able to retire from the theater," she proclaimed in Harper's Bazaar, "when I can finally sing in a Steven Sondheim musical that is directed by Harold Prince. That is my ultimate dream."

She returned to Broadway in October 2005, to star as Mrs. Lovett in John Doyle’s new Broadway production of Sweeney Todd. In this radically different interpretation of the musical, the ten actors on stage also served as the show’s orchestra, and LuPone played the tuba and the orchestra bells as well as vocally performing the score. For her performance, she received a Tony Award nomination as well as a Golden Icon Award for Best Female Musical Theater Performance.

In 2010, LuPone created the role of Lucia in the original Broadway production of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, which opened at the Belasco Theatre on November 4, 2010, and closed on January 2, 2011, after 23 previews and 69 regular performances. LuPone was nominated for a Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, and an Outer Critics Circle Award for her performance (but did not win).

The Associated Press reported on August 1, 2011 that Lupone will team up with her former Evita co-star Mandy Patinkin to bring their concert "An Evening with Patti Lupone and Mandy Patinkin" to Broadway for a limited 63 performance run starting November 21, 2011 at the Barrymore theatre. This teaming will mark the first time the pair will perform on a Broadway stage since Evita.

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