Gertrude Lawrence....

[ljay889]

Posted: 8/8/05 at 1:00am

I never see this woman get any love on here. All these Idina, Cheno, Eden etc threads - and I wonder how many of these people know who this woman is.

I've had such an interest in this woman. If I could only see one performance from the golden age - it would be Gertrude's Tony winning performance as Anna in The King and I. I listen to OBC often, and I mean Gertrude didn't have the best voice, but it's obvious why she was the best Anna and will be. She really knew how to sell the songs. It's so sad she died during the run of the show.

I know there are recordings of her solo stuff, and I really want to get them, and I really want to hear her in LADY IN THE DARK.

So can I get some love for a real Broadway LEGEND like Gertrude.

[chenofan]

Posted: 8/8/05 at 1:05am

Yes you can! I love this woman. One of my relatives worked with her and said that she was a dream, a true,loving star!

[ljay889]

Posted: 8/8/05 at 1:11am

Wow. That is very cool your relative worked with her!

[Unknown User]

Posted: 8/8/05 at 5:44am

I would have loved to see Lawrence, too, especially in LADY IN THE DARK.

Besides her recordings of songs from this show (and KING of course) look for her recordings of Noel Coward material. Locating a recording of their balcony scene in PRIVATE LIVES is worth the hunt. This, and other Coward gems, are out on cd.

Let's hear it for Gertie!

[TheaterBaby]

Posted: 8/8/05 at 9:19am

I didn't really have any interest in her until I saw that Julie Andrews movie "Star" recently.
Makes me want to do a little Gertrude research. She seemed like a very interesting lady.

[best12bars]

Posted: 8/8/05 at 10:00am

A true Broadway legend (isn't that term thrown around a lot these days)! I never got to see her on stage either, but I asked my father what she was like. He had seen quite a few major Broadway shows in his day (beginning as a child in the late 1930s). He saw her performance in The King & I, which was her last show. My father explained it to me this way: It wasn't her voice, which was sweet enough, but nowhere near picth-perfect, or her acting, which was fine and believeable, but not astounding. Instead, it was her magical stage presence and star power that drew you completely in and won you over. She could take over a stage (and a show), and light it up. Charm was her biggest strength as Anna. And in that category, no one could hold a candle to her.

She became very sick during the run, so that might have had something to do with my Dad's personal opinion... I'm not sure when exactly he saw her in it. But to think she stayed with this show, right up until a very short time before her death, is pretty amazing. They don't make stage stars like they used to.

If you get a chance, check her out in a good (if not great) film performance. She made a rare screen turn as Amanda in the movie "The Glass Menagerie." Sadly, it's as close as most of us will ever come to seeing her on stage.

[wildcat]

Posted: 8/8/05 at 10:41am

Her pitch problems were notorious. I knew an actor who toured with her in TONIGHT AT 8.30 and in the finale of one of the short Noel Coward plays, Gertie was to sing the first verse of a song before the rest of the cast joined in. But some nights she was SO far off-key that the cast would rush downstage and join in before she even finished the first line.

But he said her glamour and charm and star quality were without equal.

[ljay889]

Posted: 8/8/05 at 5:47pm

I think her SHALL I TELL YOU WHAT I THINK OF YOU? From TKAI. is amazing.

Her charm and appeal definitely shines through her recording of that song.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 8/8/05 at 5:49pm

I love listening to her sing the songs from Cole Porter's Nymph Errant and wondering what that show must have been like...

[RockabyeHamlet]

Posted: 8/8/05 at 5:58pm

They don't make stage stars like they used to.

-Ill drink to that....

[suddenlyseymour]

Posted: 8/8/05 at 6:06pm

I love this woman, She and Yul Brynner got me interested in the King and I

[sabrelady]

Posted: 8/8/05 at 6:48pm

Reading the Coward/Porter sexual bio ( Name escapes me) She seems to have been quite the sexy little beast too. Cowards wedding telegram suposedly went something like "Legitimate at last! Won't Mother be pleased"

[PalJoey]

Posted: 8/8/05 at 8:25pm

Um, no. That was the telegram Coward sent her when she appeared in her first non-musical play: "Susan and God" in 1937.

[lfae]

Posted: 8/8/05 at 10:16pm

Love her, love love love.