Grizabella Memories

[clarky]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 2:53pm

So folks, here is a question for all CATS-Fans. I hope there are still some out there.

Who is the best Grizabella and why...

[DottieD'Luscia]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 2:56pm

I only saw Betty Buckley and Laurie Beechman, but I definitely preferred Laurie.

[EponineThenardier]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 3:18pm

i honestly don't remember who i saw

[Jimmcf]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 3:36pm

Elaine Paige. The first and the best.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 3:40pm

Actually Judi Dench was the first.

[ShbrtAlley44]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 3:42pm

I'm sorry, but I think Betty Buckley puts Elaine Paige to shame. She actually looked like a passable cat, while Elaine strongly resembled a drug-addicted mouse.

[Sant]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 3:54pm

Chrissie Hammond. She was the last Grizabella in the London production. She has this Bonnie Tyler/Alannah Myles/Rod Stewart/Bruce Springsteen kind of voice, husky and broken. I didn't think Memory would sound good with a voice like that but man was I wrong!!

[KMF_NYC]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 4:00pm

Betty Buckley (far and away the best) and then Liz Calaway.....

[Jimmcf]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 4:22pm

Did Judi actually make it on stage for a performance?

[Sant]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 4:27pm

No. She injured her foot and had to leave the show only about two weeks before the first preview.

She injured her foot dancing. Not only was she supposed to play Grizabella, but Gumbie Cat as well. And the accident happened when she was rehearsing Gumbie Cat's tap dance number.

There were also two lyrics for 'Memory' - one by Trevor Nunn and one by Tim Rice. They tried both in the previews and even a mixed version, but eventually used T.Nunn's lyrics.

[clarky]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 5:28pm

I saw Liz Callaway and I was so dissapointed. I am a huge fan of her recordings, but her live performance was so cold. And I think for Grizzi you need to have more power in the voice.

Did anyone see Lillias White do Grizzi?

[Rose_MacShane]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 5:57pm

The first two times I saw it (a tour and on Broadway) I saw Linda Balgord, and she was amazing. I think she could sing "Memory" without a mic and be heard everywhere in the house. Unfortunately, I don't remember who was in the tour when it came by last year. Couldn't have been that memorable, huh?

[Princeton78]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 7:37pm

Alright, I've seen "Cats" a lot...lets see if I can remember.
BROADWAY:
Lilias White...powerful, but not as great as you'd think.
Liz Callaway...Ok acting, but her "Memory" was thrilling.
LONDON:
Stephanie Lawrence....RIP-she passed away about a year ago-so I won't say anything unkind except, she wasn't my fave.
TOUR:
Donna Lee Marshall: THE BEST..brilliant acting, and her "Memory" almost tore the roof off the theatre. The audience actually clapped while she was belting her last verse.
Natalie Torro...singing was as good as Marshall, but she was too young
Jeri Sager: Blahhh....
REGIONAL:
Linda Balgord....Blahhh.....

[Glebb]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 7:58pm

I saw Betty (Lynn) Buckley and she was good, but the show was so bad.

[clarky]

Posted: 10/15/04 at 12:53pm

when I saw the show with Liz Callaway, it was pretty boring.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 10/15/04 at 1:49pm

Ooo... Tim Rice's lyrics are freaky!!! I think I can post it cuz' it's an unpublished lyric so there should be no copyright issues... this is actually the version Elaine performed on the first night of previews before switching to the Trevor Nunn/T.S. Eliot "Rhapsody on a Windy Night" version for night two...

Memory
LYRICS BY TIM RICE

Street lights
And the darkness between them
Like the good and the bad sides
Of a life almost done.
Shake the memory
All my passions returning to me
None forgotten
No, not one.

One life
Is there only the one life
That we lose in the living
In an endless decline?
No complaining
For no one else has seen what I've seen
One existence
Only mine

Don't look back no don't look back
So hard to heed that warning
Such temptation but the past is past
And the night makes way for morning

Daylight
I won't care if it finds me
With no breath in my body
With no beat in my heart
For I'm certain
That now I know what happiness is
Wish I'd known that
From the start

Touch me
Is there no one to touch me
It was easy to love me
In my glamorous past
As I leave you
A shadow of the light I once was
May my memory
Sleep at last

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 10/15/04 at 2:00pm

I didn't live here at the time, but I remember when Betty was all over promoting the show on TV all the time. The first time I saw it, I got chills when that tear came down her cheek. I thought wow she's REALLY into it!! Then every time I saw her after that, the tear fell at the EXACT same time. I was so disillusioned...

[fae]

Posted: 10/16/04 at 1:04am

rose-macshane... you saw linda balgord? i'm so jealous. i saw her in the national tour of sunset boulevard as norma desmond. although her vibrato is insanely bumpy, her performance was flawless for the role. her norma stands as the single most moving performance i have ever seen. when i saw the show again on broadway with elaine paige i was dissapointed beyond reason.

where IS that woman anyway? has she retired?

Updated On: 10/16/04 at 01:04 AM

[judy_in_disguise]

Posted: 10/16/04 at 1:19am

Barbara Fulton.
She's Canadian and works at the Stratford Festival, but she did the Toronto cast and NA tour of Cats way back in the day. She's simply wonderful, and really makes you believe she IS a cat.

[Jon]

Posted: 10/16/04 at 8:56am

Linda Balgord is going to play the girl's mother in the revival of LA CAGE AUX FOLLES this season.

I saw the worst Grizzabella ever - Loni Ackerman. She absolutely massacred "Memory" with her screeching.