Bette Midler as Dolly — Page 3

Dolly would be spectacular as Dolly!! So would Bernadette!

Patti would be amazing too, but I much rather see her as Mame.

Behindthescenes, I can't let this go "Pearl Bailey when it is all black cast..if you want a Jewish person to play her then everyone must be jewish."

Care to elaborate as to why in your opinion with a black
Dolly the entire cast would have to be black, or why if you had a Dolly who read Jewish you would need to have an entire Jewish cast?

(btw I ask this as someone who is not at all in love with the idea of Bette Midler as Dolly. But that has nothing to do with her being Jewish.)

Can you call for "line" during a song?

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I think the one essential characteristic of a great Dolly is that she has to be absolutely in love with the audience and with everyone onstage. (Or she has to fake that quality brilliantly.) Carol Channing had it, Mary Martin had it, Pearl Bailey had it in .... (bad choice of words, sorry). But I remember sitting in the balcony as a 20-year-old and just being totally in love with Pearl Bailey holding forth on that stage (yep, even through her whole 3rd act shtick). Same thing happened when I saw Carol in one of her revivals. Same thing happened when I saw Betsy Palmer in the round at North Shore Music Theater one youthful summer in Massachusetts.

Folks I don't feel have that quality so much? Barbra Streisand, Bernadette Peters and Patty LuPone. I know I'll catch hell from all you fans of these ladies. It's ok, you can dis my gals too. But Dolly is all about sharing the love. Age doesn't matter, religion doesn't matter, God knows race doesn't matter. And for my money, Bette has the love thing down.

Updated On: 5/21/13 at 08:13 PM

And why single out the "preposterousness" of Bette Midler as Dolly? Why not also lament the appalling audacity of the following Jewish women in their outrageous choice of shikse roles:

Sarah Bernhardt as Phedre

Hedy Lamarr as Joan of Arc

Lauren Bacall as Margo Channing and Tess Harding

Elisabeth Bergner as Rosalind, The Duchess of Malfi, Catherine the Great and, as popularly believed, the real life Margo Channing

Claire Bloom as Ophelia, Gertrude, Clytemnestra, Jocasta, Cleopatra, Blanche DuBois, Katya Ivanovna Verkhovtseva, Catherine Earnshaw, Nora Helmer, Juliet, Roxane, Constance of Brittany, Queen Victoria, Queen Anne, Anna Karenina, The Goddess Hera, The Goddess Athene, Katharine of Aragon, Fanny Nightingale, the Lady Anne, Lady Marchmain, Lady Penwarden, Lady Dunvale, Lady Delamere, Lady Darlington, Lady Chatterley, the Empress Alexandra, Emily Dickinson and even - oy vey! - Elizabeth the Queen Mother

Dame Janet Suzman as Hedda Gabler, Masha Sergeyevna Kulygina, Rosaline, Portia, Ophelia, Rosalind, Beatrice, Kate, Lavinia, Joan of Arc, Cleopatra and the Empress Alexandra

Helena Bonham Carter as Lady Jane Grey, Ophelia, Kate Croy, Miss Havisham, Mrs. Lovett, Mme. Thenadier, Helen Shlegel and Lucy Honeychurch

Natalie Portman as Nina Mikhailovna Zarechnaya

Amy Irving as Masha Sergeyevna Kulygina, Varvara Bakunin, Maria Ogarev, Ellie Dunn and Anna Anderson (the Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanovna?)

Barbra Streisand as Daisy Gamble/Melinda

Barbara Hershey as Madame Merle

Nell Carter as Effie White

Julianna Margulies as Morgaine LaFay

Scarlett Johansson as Catherine Carbone and Maggie "the Cat" Politt

Sophie Okonedo as Winnie Mandela

Emmy Rossum as Christine Daae and that other GALLAGHER, Fiona

Rachel Weisz as Blanche DuBois, Hester Collyer and Isabella of Castile

Oh wait..... Isabella herself, la Reina Catolica, architect of the Expulsion, like most Spanish people and almost all Iberian royals, it has been argued, just might have been partly Jewish. Or as they said in 15th to 18th century Toledo, might not have been entirely "Old Christian", but rather, like Saint Teresa of Avila, Diego Velasquez and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, mas que solamente un poquito Judio.

Then again a great many Irish people, such as GALLAGHERS, have Spanish ancestry (aka "black Irish," that whole Armada shipwreck thing), and who even knows if both of Dolly's parents were Irish anyway.

Just think of us all as one big happy gorgeous mosaic of a family!

Updated On: 5/22/13 at 09:53 AM

There is a serious and shocking racism in this thread.

Would Lea Michelle look odd doing Porgy and Bess?

Irrelevant, since that would influence the story.

It would bother the hell out of me if whites were cast in the leads of Motown.

Very irrelevant, since the leads were real people and Dolly Levi was fictional even in the Wilder version

"If Pearl were to do this with an all caucasian cast, would it not look funny?"

Didn't Pearl tour for a while with the caucasian company before her all black run?

I didn't know Helena Bonham Carter was Jewish. Jewish.. Episcopalean.. Baptist whatever... she stilled ruined Sweeney Todd.

Goldenboy here's more info on HBC; and I agree with you that Sweeney was not her finest hour (to put it mildly).
The Religious Affiliation of HBC

I'm still so bummed the planned Patti revival of Dolly fell through. Does anyone know the changes Jack O'Brien wanted to make that Herman didn't like?

Because people can accept the convention of people suddenly bursting into song and dance but if there's a black person in Hello, Dolly! then all they can do is think of how it's not period appropriate.

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