This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] ♪ Musical number: "If the Lady's Naughty" — performed by Unknown ♪

[0:23] David Armstrong: Welcome to the 100th episode of Broadway Nation, the podcast that tells the remarkable story of how immigrants, Jews, queers, African-Americans, and other outcasts invented the Broadway musical and how they changed America in the process. I'm David Armstrong, and I call this episode WHO'S THE GREATEST STAR?

[1:12] David Armstrong: To celebrate this 100th episode, I've invited my frequent co-host and good friend, Albert Evans, to join me to discuss, debate, and by the end of the episode, determine definitively who is the greatest Broadway musical star of all time. As you will hear, we had a lot of fun with this one, and I have no doubt that it will spark a lot of comments, conversation, and complaints, and we look forward to hearing from you. And for those of you who are wondering what happened to the third part of my conversation with Barry Kester regarding his book Round in Circles, never fear, Barry and I will be back next week with the final episode in that series. This episode is made possible in part through the generous support of Patron Club members Ruth Oberg, Neil Hoyt, and Judy Hucka.

If you would like to help support the work of Broadway Nation, I'll have information at the end of the podcast about how you too can become a patron. Here we go! So welcome, Albert Evans. It is my great pleasure to have you back on Broadway Nation where you belong for the 100th episode.

[2:20] Albert Evans: Oh my god, I should have dressed up.

[2:26] David Armstrong: We're not doing video, right?

[2:31] Albert Evans: No video, so we can't see your tuxedo or your top hat. Well good, I'll just wear my farm clothes. Can you believe it's been 100 episodes?

[2:39] David Armstrong: No, I can't. It's really more than 100. I've only numbered the new episodes. I haven't given numbers to any encore episodes, so that's 100 brand new episodes. Wow. And it has been my great pleasure to have you on as my partner on so many of them because there are very few people who know the history of the Broadway musical as well as you do.

[3:03] Albert Evans: Well, and there are also very few people who know each other as well as we do. We've been friends for over 30 years, starting in New York City, and we're certainly very comfortable talking to each other, which is great.

[3:17] David Armstrong: Today I have a very easy task for us.

[3:24] Albert Evans: Okay, what's that, David?

[3:31] David Armstrong: I thought that in celebration of the 100th episode, you and I would determine once and for all who was the greatest Broadway star of all time.

[3:44] Albert Evans: That doesn't seem so easy to me, but later on.

[3:49] David Armstrong: Maybe not so easy, but I'm sure our answer will be definitive and no one will have any quibbles or objections. Just once and for all, this is it. We're going to determine it today.

[4:00] Albert Evans: Yeah. However, I did make some notes, and I thought if we're going to determine this successfully, if we're going to decide who was the greatest Broadway star of all time, what qualifications are we going to use for this? Who even goes into the nomination pool? Let's talk about that first.

[4:12] Albert Evans: Okay. Well, I think that with a few exceptions, there have been some people who did one Broadway show and you think of them as Broadway stars, but I think in general they have to have a body of work.

[4:18] David Armstrong: I agree. I think they have to have a substantial career, a significant and substantial career on Broadway.

[4:24] Albert Evans: Both of those things. Significant could be somebody like Rex Harrison, who is certainly a significant Broadway star in the history of Broadway. And if you count all the plays he did, he's a giant Broadway star. But we're talking about musical theater here. I think we're talking about the greatest Broadway musical star of all time. Maybe we should make that clear.

[4:40] David Armstrong: So I think Rex Harrison is out.

[4:45] Albert Evans: Yeah, I think he's out, although he did certainly have an enormous influence on how musicals were written. After his success in My Fair Lady, that style of sort of speak singing, luckily he had a very musical voice. It was one of those British voices that goes, oh yeah, and then really down low. So in a sense, he was playing his voice the whole time. It's just he wasn't often singing notes.

[5:01] David Armstrong: And I think I've heard you mention that if you listen to the two albums, the Broadway cast album and then the London cast album, he sings a lot more by the time he's recording the London cast album.

[5:15] Albert Evans: Yeah, I think he must have accepted it as a personal challenge or something, because there was no reason to do that to satisfy the public. We can talk more about who's in and who's out in a moment, but I think we're agreed on that, that they have to have both a significant and a substantial career on Broadway. Is there a minimum number of shows that they need to have starred in to be on our list?

[5:32] David Armstrong: Well, three? I don't know.

[5:38] Albert Evans: Yeah, I was sort of thinking the same thing. If they starred in three Broadway shows.

[5:44] David Armstrong: Yeah, we can get Julie Andrews, although actually she did four. The Boyfriend, My Fair Lady, Camelot, and then Victor Victoria. And again, how do we parse this? Yul Brynner might seem like he falls in that Rex Harrison category, but he actually, if you count the two revivals of The King and I, he did four musicals on Broadway. He was a big enough star that he got to come back twice in The King and I, but the only two new shows he did were The King and I and then Home Sweet Homer.

[6:12] Albert Evans: They must have been freaking tough. Everyone else has, why shouldn't we? So three, which opens the door to a lot of people, but unfortunately cuts out some people, even some of our favorites like Rosalind Russell, who I think is clearly a significant Broadway star, but doesn't fit both those categories.

[6:29] David Armstrong: Well, I think another criterion is do they sell tickets?

[6:36] Albert Evans: Absolutely. In that respect, because Rosalind Russell was so popular, she sold tickets to Wonderful Town, so she was the star of that show in that sense. Not just was she playing the lead, but she was bringing in the money.

[6:47] David Armstrong: I agree with that and I think that that is one of the qualifications to be in our nominating pool.

[6:52] Albert Evans: Yeah. Significant, substantial, and they have to be an above the title star who sells tickets, who the audience shows up for to see almost no matter what the show is. And that will eliminate a lot of people. A lot of great, incredibly talented people probably don't rise to that level of stardom. So Ros fits two of the three, but I think because she doesn't have the substantial career, she is not going to end up on our list.

[7:23] David Armstrong: Yeah. All right. So I think those are the three qualifications. If you don't have all three of those things, the nominators will not nominate you.

[7:30] Albert Evans: Right. Namely, Albert Nye will not nominate you to be considered for this honor.

[7:36] David Armstrong: Okay. So now we move on to once a star has qualified, what are the criteria we're going to use for determining who was the greatest or who is the greatest? Can someone alive be eligible for this award?

[7:50] Albert Evans: They could be eligible. I don't know if they'll reach the top position. I mean, Audra McDonald is an incredible star. Has won, what, six Tony Awards? I mean, she definitely is someone at the top of her profession and someone that people come to see.

[8:04] David Armstrong: Which brings up a point. We're talking about the greatest Broadway musical star of all time. How long of a career do you have to have to be in that? When we talked before about a substantial career, I think that that indicates that it's fairly long and certainly anything over 20 years, I think, would probably qualify.

[8:23] Albert Evans: Yeah, I definitely agree. Another problem is that some of the greatest stars of Broadway, first of all, we never saw them because, you know, they were from the twenties and thirties. They didn't leave a record really of the parts that made them stars. But I think when you're like David and like me, you have constructed in your mind exactly like what it would have been like to see, say, Eddie Cantor on stage because we've listened to their records, we've seen them in movies, we know their persona and their personas tended to be fairly fixed. You didn't get points for playing a really wide range of different characters. You were a star because you were a star, not you were someone who was playing star roles. So I just want to stir that in as we go along, because I think a lot of my very favorite stars were people I never actually saw on stage.

[9:12] David Armstrong: Well, and that's one of our problems that we'll have today is we'll be talking about, as you said, a lot of people, not only from the past, but even more recent past that we never saw because we're not old enough to have seen them.

[9:26] Albert Evans: We're not old enough. And some of my friends call me Mr. Last Nighter. I tend to not show up at the beginning when the stars are in the show, but then I come for like the last two or three performances with the replacements. And sometimes they were absolutely great, but it wasn't their show.

[9:41] David Armstrong: Now that we had determined the minimum qualifications that candidates needed to have, Albert and I then spent about 20 minutes determining the criteria that we would use to narrow those qualifying candidates down. In the interest of time, I've moved that conversation into our Patron Club stream, where it is definitely worth checking out. To summarize, we decided that the following criteria would guide us in determining which stars are the greatest. One, how many Broadway musicals they had starred in. Two, how many of those musicals had been created specifically for them. Three, how talented and versatile they were. Were they triple threats? Could they do it all? Four, how legendary and renowned and talked about they are.

Five, and this one's to a lesser extent, how many Tony Awards they had won. And finally, the it factor. How captivating and charismatic they were. How much star quality did they possess? With those guidelines established, it was time to get down to business. And you may want to get out a pen and paper and play along.

[10:45] David Armstrong: All right, let's start narrowing this down. Let's first talk about people who are alive.

[10:51] Albert Evans: Okay. And whether they are going to get bumped into our final selection pool.

[10:58] David Armstrong: And here's where we're going to get angry responses.

[11:01] Albert Evans: I'm sure we are.

[11:02] David Armstrong: Because this is when you finally say, well, this is what I like.

[11:05] Albert Evans: Yeah.

[11:05] David Armstrong: And, you know, I'm not saying that you have to like it. You don't have to like this person, but I sort of worship them.

[11:12] Albert Evans: Well, but first, we're going to use our criteria to.

[11:16] David Armstrong: So let's start with Lea Salonga, who's been in six musicals, which is a substantial amount. And she's won one Tony Award. A couple of questions here. Does she qualify in our three categories? Does she have a significant and substantial career?

[11:32] Albert Evans: I would say yes.

[11:33] David Armstrong: Yes.

[11:34] Albert Evans: Is she a box office star?

[11:36] David Armstrong: I don't think so.

[11:37] Albert Evans: Yeah, I would say maybe at the most. Yeah, I don't know. I side with you there. I think that she's probably not on that category of people are drawn to see whatever Lea Salonga is doing. She always delivers. She always delivers a really good performance.

[11:51] David Armstrong: Yeah, she's great. And maybe she will achieve that.

[11:56] Albert Evans: Yeah, that's going to be the issue with a lot of 21st century stars or late 20th century stars. Their career just isn't long enough yet for us to put them in this category.

[12:06] David Armstrong: I'm glad you didn't say their career isn't Salonga yet.

[12:11] Albert Evans: Cut that out.

[12:12] David Armstrong: We're not cutting that out. There's no way you're getting away without having to hear yourself say that again.

[12:18] Albert Evans: Oh, great.

[12:19] David Armstrong: So let's move up to Sutton Foster. These are in no particular order. But again, these are 20th, 21st century stars. Sutton Foster starred in eight musicals on Broadway, and she's won two Tony Awards.

[12:31] Albert Evans: And what were they for?

[12:32] David Armstrong: For Thoroughly Modern Millie and for Anything Goes, I believe.

[12:37] Albert Evans: Oh, of course. Yeah.

[12:38] David Armstrong: She's a tough one for me because I'm just so out of her generation. I think she's a very popular star with a younger cohort than I'm in. To me, she always just seems like the best, gosh darn, student in the world. But she must be like pushing 50 by this point.

[12:54] Albert Evans: Yeah, I think she's certainly in her 40s.

[12:57] David Armstrong: Yeah, I mean, but she's terrific. She certainly gives everything her all. But I never sense, I never understand who she is. I don't get her persona. I don't get who she is other than a really, really good performer.

[13:10] Albert Evans: And she's a triple threat. She can do it all.

[13:12] David Armstrong: Yeah, she's amazing.

[13:14] Albert Evans: I'm going to say that it's too early for Sutton Foster to be called the greatest Broadway musical star of all time.

[13:20] David Armstrong: Yeah, but I do think she sells tickets. I think she's a box office presence.

[13:25] Albert Evans: That's interesting, because I would think that Lea Salonga may be just as much of a box office presence as Sutton Foster is.

[13:30] David Armstrong: Maybe.

[13:31] Albert Evans: And certainly all of these people have fans who will show up for them. There's no two ways. And they deserve them. It's just when we talk about a box office star, we're talking about selling a massive amount of tickets just based on who you are.

[13:44] Albert Evans: Yeah, I was just saying, you do hear her name mentioned a lot if you frequent the same obscure chat rooms that I do. She's very, very popular.

[13:56] David Armstrong: Absolutely. So in that same category would be Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, who are tied together, obviously, because of WICKED. Kristin has been in six musicals on Broadway and one play and won a Tony Award. Idina Menzel has been in four musicals, one of which was written for her. And that was IF THEN, which she starred in on Broadway. But again, and to cut to the chase, because they're both incredibly talented, they both have incredible range and are able to sing and act and move really well. I think it's, again, too early. The jury is out whether they can be called the greatest Broadway star of all time and probably needs to wait 20 years before they're in that category. And I'm sure some people will disagree with us because we're going to side with longevity to a certain extent.

[14:45] Albert Evans: But I think you have to. How do you call somebody the greatest anything of all time if their career is so present and so now and hasn't stood up to the test of time, I guess?

[14:56] David Armstrong: Well, I think Kristin actually saw one of the first things she did. She was in Animal Crackers at Paper Mill Playhouse, which is where I think she got her equity card. Don't quote me on that. And I was working at Paper Mill at the time. And it was startling. She just came out with what she does fully formed. I mean, she has refined her talent somewhat, but she was Kristin Chenoweth on that stage and she definitely got the buzz. I think it would be interesting to see her go beyond that persona and do something that really surprised us, because I think she's not surprising us anymore.

[15:30] Albert Evans: And in a way, that goes back to the Vaudeville stars who were in those early musicals. They didn't want to surprise you. They wanted here I am. Enjoy me.

[15:39] David Armstrong: So maybe I'm contradicting myself.

[15:40] Albert Evans: I don't think you are, because I think it's one of the challenges and the conundrums of being a star is you become a star because people love what you do so much. Right. And then how do you continue to do what you do that people love and not have it be just the same thing over and over again? And I think every star faces that the longer their career is, especially as they age, they face that because they're no longer who they were when they first became a star. I don't know. I wish her all the best. I don't need to wish her the best because she's achieved so much. I hope that someday she can really surprise us with an acting performance or even something that incorporates her persona. But as an older woman, like something that Tennessee Williams might write, you know, that you suddenly go, oh, my God, I never realized that could take on these shades.

[16:28] Albert Evans: I also think it's also hard when you've worked with people or know them when they're starting out. And I'll admit I went to college with Faith Prince. And as you just said with Kristin Chenoweth, the first day Faith Prince walked into CCM, she was Faith Prince. She was something special. She learned a lot, benefited a lot from that program, but it was clear she was special from day one. So it never surprised me that she has become a Tony Award winning star. But because I went to college with her, I'm not sure I'm ready to put her in the category of the greatest Broadway stars of all time.

[17:05] David Armstrong: Yeah. Well, again, there's something in her future that is going to knock us over. Right. Because she's so good at what she's doing. But again, I want to be surprised by her one more time. And I think that may be a great point, is that all of these people are not getting to that category for us because we still feel like there's something out there. Their gypsy is still out there. Their thing that locks them into this category or into this stratosphere that locks them, sends them into the firmament.

[17:32] Albert Evans: What does she say in Singing in the Rain? Like a dazzling star in the cinema firmament.

[17:39] David Armstrong: That's not the exact words.

[17:40] Albert Evans: Yeah, we have to look that up. A shimmering, glowing star in the cinema firmament. It says so.

[17:50] Albert Evans: Vanessa Williams is one of my favorite performers. I think she's dazzling and sensational. And she starred in four musicals, won the Tony Award. She's also been in two plays. So I think that sort of points to that versatility that we see.

[18:04] David Armstrong: Yeah. She is really able to do it all on top of film and television and everything. And personally, I would put her at the top of this list that we're talking about. But still in this list of it's too early to crown her with this.

[18:17] Albert Evans: Yeah, I agree. She's always really, really good and skilled at what she does. But there's almost like a like she's almost too classy for me. It seems like she's just slightly removed from whatever she's in. And for me as an audience member, I always feel like what a privilege it is to see Vanessa Williams.

[18:35] David Armstrong: I love that part of her. I see that as even more of a positive. We're moving up this list. Audra McDonald. I sort of feel even though she's in a similar age range to some of these other people that we've been talking about, I will bump her into the pool of possibilities.

[18:51] Albert Evans: Yeah, I certainly would, too. Six musicals on Broadway, seven plays on top of those six musicals, six Tony Awards. She's jumped ahead, I think. We talked a little bit about Liza. Five musicals, two Tonys. Certainly nobody is more Broadway than Liza in a certain extent, sort of the epitome of Broadway, both the old fashioned feel of it and the more modern feel of it. She really was a crossover figure. So I think I will bump her into that category.

[19:20] David Armstrong: I feel a little bit like she mostly abandoned Broadway for Hollywood and then just abandoned everything in recent years for health reasons and things like that. So I'm not sure that she was active enough for enough of the time to really get to the final list.

[19:36] Albert Evans: Yeah, I agree. I think she certainly is a star, but I think she's a star who has never been in her final defining acting, singing, dancing moment. And probably won't be at this point.

[19:48] David Armstrong: Yeah, probably won't be because, you know, she's having mobility issues.

[19:52] Albert Evans: Yeah. But she seems to be someone who could really play. When I say Sunset Boulevard, I don't mean the musical. I mean, she could be Norma Desmond in the movie Sunset Boulevard.

[20:03] David Armstrong: Yeah. Because everything about what she was when she was young is still there. And it could really be it could break our hearts if we got her final valedictory moment.

[20:14] Albert Evans: I agree with that. Patti LuPone obviously ticks off all the boxes. Eight musicals on Broadway. Six plays on top of that. So one of those shows, War Paint, was written for her with her in mind. I believe somebody might correct me on that. And three Tony Awards. And I think is a box office star.

[20:33] David Armstrong: Oh, she absolutely is. She sells tickets even though she keeps leaving and saying, I'm never coming back. So I don't know that we need to talk more about Patti at this moment. I think we're bumping her into this category of she's in the running.

[20:45] Albert Evans: Bernadette Peters was the first person I saw in a New York show, which was Dames at Sea at the Bowery Lane Theater. And she's my exact same age, by the way. And I was a student in college and I went and saw her in Dames at Sea. And I honestly thought I was going to die laughing. And partly because she was heartbreaking at the same time as being enormously funny. So I cannot be really objective about her. But I have seen her in certain things I didn't like her in. But I've always thought of her as a star. And she truly is her own persona. She has her own unique skill set. And when she's good, she is very, very good.

[21:24] David Armstrong: And certainly she ticks off all the boxes. Thirteen musicals she starred in on Broadway, plus Dames at Sea off Broadway and two Tony Awards. And like you, the very first show I ever saw on Broadway was Mac and Mabel, which was a very complicated experience because, number one, you had Bernadette Peters and Robert Preston giving two of the greatest performances I've ever seen. I can still feel what it was like when they turned this little train unit around. They had a scene with the two of them in the train and they turned it around. So you're seeing the exterior of the train unit. And she raises the window shade and she sat there leaning on the windowsill and sang that reprise of I Won't Send Roses.

[22:09] ♪ Musical number: "I Won't Send Roses" — performed by Bernadette Peters ♪

[23:48] David Armstrong: And it's, you know, not even two minutes of song, but it was sensational. And like you, I've seen her in, I think, everything she's done for the most part. And I've seen her be sensational. And I've also seen her be not healthy enough to be on the stage when she was doing it. Not in good voice at times. She walked through Song and Dance with a teacup, sipping tea the whole time and where she was the only singer in the show. But I think, again, it's part of that obligation of she was a star and she felt she had to be there. And we weren't coming to see Bernadette Peters. And certainly in terms of longevity, what year was Dames at Sea? Like 68 or 69.

[24:29] Albert Evans: It was exactly, yeah, late 60s. But right there with her is Chita Rivera.

[24:37] David Armstrong: Yeah. Thirteen musicals she starred in on Broadway, three of them written for her. Two Tony Awards. I just think that Chita is, and I've talked about performers to go on stage and you don't know who they are. She is the opposite. You get a sense of there's a living, breathing person inside this star. I mean, it just seems like she is present and ready to work. I had the privilege of being, when I first moved to New York, I was an observer on the rehearsal process of Bring Back Birdie, which was fascinating because you got to see some of the greatest professionals in the world completely fail at creating a musical. That seemed like a pretty good idea, but just one thing after another. But what I will never forget, and it was a privilege just to be in that room and see Chita every day, and even Donald O'Connor, who didn't turn out to be so great in the performances, but there were moments in that rehearsal where he was just sensational and amazing.

You felt like you were back at MGM with him. But the thing that I'll never forget is that show just sat there. It was almost impossible to get any momentum and any effect out of that show. But Chita came out every night and stopped the show three times with not the best material, just sort of on sheer willpower.

[26:01] Albert Evans: Thinks I'm gonna cry? Well, I'm not. Thinks I'm gonna die? Well, I'm not. Thinks I'm gonna mope around until I rot? Well, I'm not. Not a chair? Well, I'm not. He thinks that I feel small? Well, I don't. Thinks I'm gonna crawl? Well, I won't. Thinks that I think he's the only life I've got? Well, I don't. And I won't. Cause he's not.

[26:33] David Armstrong: She came out on that stage, and I was backstage one night and I sort of saw her like, I've made up what she did, but I felt like she stood in the wing and went, OK, got to go out there and stop the show. Someone's got to do it. And she walked out on that stage and literally just blew it away. And you thought it was, for those three numbers, you thought it was the greatest show you'd ever seen.

[27:03] Albert Evans: I've got a few new tricks left. Got a few hot kicks left. Gonna turn my thermostat from cool to hot. That's a star. That, to me, is a star. They just can, in that case, elevate the material through their sheer talent and sheer willpower and charisma to that level. So she's absolutely, for me, getting bumped up to this list. Let's talk about The Man. It'll be quicker, but it's one of the interesting things about Broadway, is unlike the movies, it's the women that dominate.

[27:29] David Armstrong: So, let's start with Lin-Manuel Miranda. Obviously, incredibly talented, but he's not reaching our criteria. He's only been in two musicals. So, as a Broadway star...

[27:40] Albert Evans: He's such a good writer, and he's a very good performer, but I think, actually, his material shines more with other people doing it.

[27:47] David Armstrong: As good a performer as he is, that's probably the lesser of his talents. So, we're moving him to the side for when we come back and do this again 20 years from now.

[27:56] Albert Evans: He has plenty of career left in him.

[27:58] David Armstrong: So, Hugh Jackman, same thing. Only two shows, also two plays, and has won a Tony Award, but our establishing criteria is three musicals, and hopefully we'll see that and more from him.

[28:12] Albert Evans: So, now moving into people who definitely qualify. Matthew Broderick has starred in three musicals, also nine plays, won two Tony Awards.

[28:23] David Armstrong: I think of Matthew Broderick as fantastic, but for some reason, and this could be just my personal taste, as a musical star, he's not in the running.

[28:33] Albert Evans: Even though he was, of course, amazing in The Producers, and he was amazing in those Neil Simon plays when he first became a star. Just outstanding.

[28:41] David Armstrong: I think of him as a reactor. He's best at reacting to what other people are doing. He's great at it. He's hysterical at it.

[28:49] Albert Evans: Which is why he was so great with Nathan Lane.

[28:52] David Armstrong: Yeah, I never feel like he's initiating the beat, and I think the star is the person who initiates the beat, generally.

[28:59] Albert Evans: I think that's right. Clearly, he qualifies in all the categories. He is a money star.

[29:04] David Armstrong: Yeah.

[29:05] Albert Evans: I mean, we just saw that with that revival of Plaza Suite, which just was sold out, even in spite of terrible reviews.

[29:12] David Armstrong: I mean, that shows you what star power is, is you can get the worst reviews in the world, and people will still show up and sell it out for the run.

[29:19] Albert Evans: Yeah.

[29:20] David Armstrong: Now, he had his wife there to help him with that, but the two of them together were a sensation.

[29:24] Albert Evans: Ben Vereen, six musicals, one play, one Tony Award.

[29:29] David Armstrong: Ben Vereen always seems like—and this is not a bad thing—he seems like a vaudevillian.

[29:34] Albert Evans: He comes out, he shows off his skills, and he knocks them dead, and then he leaves the stage, and the show either continues or it doesn't.

[29:42] David Armstrong: That's just my impression. I haven't seen everything that he's done.

[29:46] Albert Evans: I think that's right. I think that may be part of a system that didn't give him the parts he might have had otherwise.

[29:54] David Armstrong: We didn't get to see Ben Vereen play the music man.

[29:57] Albert Evans: Right.

[29:58] David Armstrong: And maybe he would have been sensational in that part or some other part like that.

[30:03] Albert Evans: Mandy Patinkin, five musicals, one Tony Award, and several plays as well.

[30:09] David Armstrong: He is just the greatest loose cannon I think we've ever had.

[30:12] Albert Evans: I mean, I think he can be so incredibly entertaining, and then he can also just go away off the charts, and you go, stop it. Stop what you're doing.

[30:21] David Armstrong: But, I mean, he, I think, is a person who knows what he loves.

[30:24] Albert Evans: He knows what he loves about himself.

[30:26] David Armstrong: He likes to take risks.

[30:27] Albert Evans: I really admire him, and sometimes he's absolutely great, great, great.

[30:31] David Armstrong: His performance in Sunday Night Park with George was one of the great performances of all time, and Bernadette as well.

[30:37] Albert Evans: The two of them together were phenomenal.

[30:39] David Armstrong: Yeah, that was the show of stars.

[30:41] Albert Evans: So I think he's in the running.

[30:43] David Armstrong: We didn't sort of decide whether Ben Vereen was in that running.

[30:46] Albert Evans: He's on the cusp, I guess.

[30:47] David Armstrong: He's on the edge, I think.

[30:48] Albert Evans: Yeah, somebody who I should have mentioned earlier was Joel Grey.

[30:52] David Armstrong: Oh, yeah.

[30:53] Albert Evans: Who starred in eight musicals and has won one Tony Award.

[30:57] David Armstrong: I would say with Joel Grey, as great as he is, as talented as he is, and he's been in three significant shows, Cabaret, George M., and then Wicked in the original cast of all those.

[31:09] Albert Evans: And then he had other shows where he was the star, but the shows didn't run.

[31:14] David Armstrong: Good Time Charlie didn't run.

[31:15] Albert Evans: Grand Tour.

[31:16] David Armstrong: Yeah, yeah.

[31:18] Albert Evans: Both of which could have sent him into the stratosphere because he was at the center of those shows, but he didn't have that luck.

[31:25] David Armstrong: He's a quirky person. Let me put it that way.

[31:28] Albert Evans: And he's delightful when he comes out and does his quirky thing.

[31:31] David Armstrong: But I don't know if I want to follow him unless someone really finds the right role for him.

[31:36] Albert Evans: I don't know if he'll ever be the center of a story.

[31:39] David Armstrong: Well, and that's interesting because I forgot the other show he's very noted for was the revival of Chicago.

[31:44] Albert Evans: But he played a supporting part in all of his most memorable shows except for Georgia.

[31:49] David Armstrong: But he's like one of those great Warner Brothers supporting character actors.

[31:53] Albert Evans: Yeah.

[31:54] David Armstrong: OK, here's the biggie.

[31:55] Albert Evans: Nathan Lane, six musicals, 14 plays, four Tony Awards.

[32:00] David Armstrong: I would say the biggest male star of the modern era.

[32:05] Albert Evans: He certainly qualifies and he certainly has many of the criteria that we've talked about.

[32:10] David Armstrong: Incredibly versatile, can play all different kinds of things.

[32:14] Albert Evans: He's one of those stars who's able to take his persona and move it into a lot of different ways.

[32:19] David Armstrong: So he could do everything from the Lisbon Traviata to The Producers or Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

[32:25] Albert Evans: Tremendous range and talent and versatility.

[32:28] David Armstrong: I think he has to move into that category.

[32:32] Albert Evans: But in just a minute, he's going to be confronted by a bunch of stars who came before him.

[32:38] David Armstrong: And that will be challenging for everybody that we just talked about.

[32:42] Albert Evans: And the other person on this list is Brian Stokes Mitchell.

[32:45] David Armstrong: Ten Broadway musicals and one play, one Tony Award.

[32:50] Albert Evans: Again, clearly at the top of the current male stars of Broadway.

[32:55] David Armstrong: My only question, is he a money star?

[32:58] Albert Evans: I think Nathan Lane is a money star is Brian Mitchell.

[33:01] David Armstrong: And how do you define a money star?

[33:03] Albert Evans: How many weeks of tickets need to be sold just on that person's name?

[33:08] David Armstrong: And I'm sure the producers must have some kind of calculation for this.

[33:11] Albert Evans: It's all guesswork. But if Bernadette Peters is going to be the star of your show,

[33:15] they figure she's bringing these number of people to the table just because it's her on top of whatever the show is.

[33:22] David Armstrong: And I'm not certain.

[33:24] Albert Evans: Same thing with Donna Murphy.

[33:26] I sort of feel like Donna Murphy and Brian Stokes Mitchell are in this category of they are Broadway stars,

[33:32] but not money stars to the level that will put them into the greatest stars of all time.

[33:37] David Armstrong: I think that's fair. Yeah.

[33:41] Albert Evans: Stick around. Things are going to happen.

[33:45] ♪ Musical number ♪

[35:03] David Armstrong: I want to make sure we give some attention to a list of people who do not qualify for this,

[35:21] but I think it's because of, unfortunately, the way the world worked at the time and still works to a great extent.

[35:28] I think they would be on this list if they were given more opportunity.

[35:32] And that's people like Lena Horne and Pearl Bailey and Sammy Davis, Jr.

[35:36] And going back, Bill Robinson and Burt Williams, they had more opportunity than the later stars did.

[35:43] Bill Robinson was in five musicals on Broadway and Burt Williams was in 16 musicals on Broadway.

[35:49] But they're in that category. It's hard for us to assess them, even though we've seen Bill Robinson quite a bit in the movies.

[35:56] I think it's still hard to definitively say he's the greatest Broadway star of all time, but I certainly would put him in the running for it.

[36:03] Albert Evans: But with the others like Lena Horne and Pearl Bailey and Sammy Davis, Jr., who only got to do a few shows,

[36:10] there's no doubt that they're of equal talent and equal star power to many of the other people we're talking about.

[36:16] David Armstrong: Absolutely.

[36:17] Albert Evans: So I think, unfortunately, they're being discriminated against once again because they were not provided with the opportunity to jump into this category.

[36:28] But, you know, Sammy Davis, Jr. is somebody, all three of them actually, three people I would put among the greatest entertainment stars of all time.

[36:36] David Armstrong: I definitely agree. And we're just lucky that we have as much of them as we do have.

[36:41] Albert Evans: And how could I forget Ethel Waters?

[36:43] David Armstrong: Oh, my God. Yeah.

[36:44] Albert Evans: And she actually had a significant Broadway appearance. She was in eight musicals and two plays.

[36:50] But again, is in an early enough period, although she crosses over because I know when we were kids, she was on TV quite a bit and we got to see her do things.

[36:59] But it was 40 years after her heyday.

[37:02] David Armstrong: Right. I saw her in a Billy Graham crusade in Columbus, Ohio, because for a while she toured with the Billy Graham crusade and she sang a couple of songs and she still sounded great.

[37:13] I assume she was doing it out of belief that she had something to tell us about spiritual matters.

[37:19] But she just sounded phenomenal. But in a way, I felt like the crowd was being like, oh, isn't she wonderful?

[37:25] You know, there's, you know, someone we can really like. There was a kind of creepy feeling in the crowd.

[37:30] Albert Evans: That's a story you've never told me. Really? I had no idea you'd seen Ethel Waters in person.

[37:35] David Armstrong: Oh, yeah. It was like at the Veterans Memorial, this gigantic auditorium with friendly players did their shows.

[37:42] Albert Evans: OK, so let's get down to it. We're going to talk about the most legendary people. Let's go to that list now.

[37:48] ♪ Musical number ♪

[38:28] David Armstrong: OK, so let's get down to it. We're going to talk about the most legendary people. Let's go to that list now. OK, Al Jolson.

[38:31] Albert Evans: I think Al Jolson, you had to be there to understand what his power was.

[38:35] And most people who talked about him said he was the world's greatest entertainer.

[38:39] Not only something he made up, but something everybody did say about him.

[38:43] David Armstrong: Yeah, but I can't put him there because I haven't seen it.

[38:46] And what we have seen is often problematic and hard to watch.

[38:50] Albert Evans: Exactly. But he did sort of invent a new kind of singing.

[38:54] I don't think we can forget that, that he exploded from those Victrolas.

[38:58] David Armstrong: Yeah. You know, it was just something that had no relationship to what you normally heard.

[39:04] Albert Evans: Yeah. And certainly if the category is biggest, most successful stars of all time, he's at the top of that list.

[39:11] David Armstrong: Yeah. He pioneered every medium. He was right there at the cutting edge as everything was invented.

[39:17] Albert Evans: But he's not a realist.

[39:19] David Armstrong: Robert Preston is the only man left standing on our list of greatest Broadway stars of all time in terms of the previous generations.

[39:29] Four musicals, 12 plays, two Tony Awards. Clearly a great Broadway star.

[39:36] And even though he's still strongly remembered for The Music Man, we can't forget that he was also the star of I Do, I Do, which was a big hit.

[39:44] Albert Evans: Yeah. And then several flop shows. But those two shows were significant hits.

[39:49] David Armstrong: And Robert Preston just showed that he didn't have the greatest voice in the world,

[39:53] but I think he was a great singer in getting across the words and making it really compelling and delightful and engaging.

[40:01] Albert Evans: I just can't think of a bad thing to say about him. Yeah. So I would give it to him.

[40:07] David Armstrong: I think we have a few other people who I know will be on your list, too.

[40:10] But I'm just saying that he really doesn't have negatives. Like his voice is not a negative.

[40:15] Albert Evans: He's very good sort of dancing. Yeah. And he's very good at playing two sides of a character at once.

[40:21] The sort of sinister side and this lovable side. Yeah.

[40:24] David Armstrong: And I have to say, having seen him on stage in Mac and Mabel, it was even in a less than successful show.

[40:31] He just shined on that stage. He was amazing. Speaking of amazing.

[40:36] Here's the final list. I'm going to list all these women one after another.

[40:40] OK. Gertrude Lawrence, six musicals, six plays, several of them written for her.

[40:46] Barbara Cook, 12 musicals, two plays, one Tony Award.

[40:50] Elaine Stritch, eight musicals and five plays, no Tony Awards, surprisingly enough, but four nominations.

[40:57] Angela Lansbury, seven musicals and six plays, two of those shows written for her, five Tony Awards.

[41:03] She's fantastic. Phenomenal.

[41:04] Carol Channing, six musicals and one play, two shows written for her and one Tony Award.

[41:05] Albert Evans: But you're right. She didn't have much of a range.

[41:07] In fact, by the time King and I came along, all of her songs were written within the range of an octave.

[41:11] Mary Martin, eight musicals and three plays, at least one of which was written for her, three Tony Awards.

[41:17] Gwen Verdon, six musicals, one play, four written for her, four Tony Awards.

[41:22] Ethel Merman, 15 musicals, at least nine of which were written for her, one Tony Award.

[41:28] Is there anybody there that you would eliminate from the running and not because they aren't sensational,

[41:35] but just because we have to start narrowing this down?

[41:38] Albert Evans: Well, I think Gertrude Lawrence. She's wonderful.

[41:41] And the few glimpses you can get at her from recordings and movies and stuff.

[41:45] But to me, she's sort of faded. She's a faded flower.

[41:48] David Armstrong: And also, she clearly had it because she couldn't really sing.

[41:52] And yet she starred in musicals. Gershwin wrote shows for her and Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote shows for her.

[41:58] She must have been delightful. She's great on those old records with Noel Coward doing scenes from private lives.

[41:12] Albert Evans: Toward the end, I mean, granted she was very sick, but she couldn't even do that. I know people who saw her at the end of King and I, and she was actually booed. Now, you don't judge people by the end, just like you don't judge people by their death. She was dying of cancer, so she had an excuse, but she was still going out on that stage. There are letters in the Oscar Hammerstein Collected Letters book where they're trying to deal with this issue that the audience is not happy with her performance. And like I said, that's not fair to judge her by that performance, because she could have been the greatest star of all time and still had that kind of end.

[41:47] David Armstrong: Exactly. She just, like, you know, stayed too long at the fair. I think she was great when she opened at King and I, but she rapidly declined.

[41:55] Albert Evans: Right. Anyway, and we just kind of don't know. I don't think we have enough evidence to judge her, so. Anybody else you wanted to knock out?

[42:02] David Armstrong: Just really quick run through their names. Barbara Cook, Elaine Stritch, Angela Lansbury, Carol Channing, Mary Martin, Gwen Verdon, Ethel Merman.

[42:09] Albert Evans: I think we could take Elaine Stritch off, although she's one of my favorite entertainers in the world and one of my favorite actors and favorite singers. I love the way she sings, because she really is musical. No matter how croaky she gets, she still sings the song. But I just think she's too unusual a type to count as, like, the greatest musical theater star.

[42:27] David Armstrong: Yeah. I think I can agree with that. And she had her most impact in a supporting role, sort of like Joel Grey to a certain extent. Although she played all these roles in stock and things like that. You'll see posters of her as Mame and things like that. But she's somebody you want to come out and knock one song out of the park.

[42:44] Albert Evans: Yeah. As opposed to being.

[42:46] David Armstrong: Wakes everyone up.

[42:48] Albert Evans: Exactly. And, you know, stops the show. Yeah, I'll agree with that. I also would put Barbara Cook in that category, mostly because I think her career got derailed.

[42:59] David Armstrong: Yeah.

[42:59] Albert Evans: Halfway through. And then she had a second career as an incredible cabaret performer, concert performer. But I feel like that disjointed aspect to her career moves her out of the stratosphere that we're heading towards.

[43:13] David Armstrong: I think best Anjou of all time.

[43:15] Albert Evans: Yeah.

[43:15] David Armstrong: Because she really, she put heart into it. She just wasn't being a sweet singer. It's like she put heartache and pain and joy and everything into her voice. And by all reports, was a terrific actress.

[43:26] Albert Evans: Yeah.

[43:26] David Armstrong: In the scenes and really played all of that stuff. OK, do we agree that everybody else on this list is in the running? Ethel Merman, Gwen Verdon, Mary Martin, Carol Channing, Angela Lansbury.

[43:38] Albert Evans: I think Carol Channing is too much of a novelty act. I mean, I love her. No one can do what she did. I love her on both the Gentleman for Blondes album and the Dolly album. No one else can play those roles as far as I'm concerned, at least on stage. But she just seems to be more like a.

[43:55] David Armstrong: I don't know. I can't express it. Can you?

[43:57] Albert Evans: She has that thing that happens to stars very often later in life as they become caricatures of themselves or they're perceived as caricatures of themselves. Again, how do you keep your audience happy? You do more of that same thing. And I've always been impressed that when you look at some of the other things she did, she replaced Rosalind Russell in Wonderful Town.

[44:17] David Armstrong: Yeah.

[44:18] Albert Evans: And so what was that like? Were there flavors of Carol Channing that we didn't get to see?

[44:23] David Armstrong: Well, I bet there were. Yeah. When I first came to the Fifth Avenue Theater, we did this production of A Little Night Music. I thought about trying to see if we could get Carol Channing to come and play Madam Armfelt. We went down a different path for a lot of different reasons, but I still think it was a really interesting idea.

[44:41] Albert Evans: But again, whether she would have wanted to or allowed herself to not be Carol Channing.

[44:47] David Armstrong: Right. But I think there was a time when she wasn't just Carol Channing. But we have to boil things down.

[44:53] Albert Evans: So.

[44:54] David Armstrong: Okay. I'll go with you there. I would gladly put her in, like, the top four or five.

[44:58] Albert Evans: Yeah.

[44:58] David Armstrong: It's not like I don't think she's any good.

[45:00] Albert Evans: Yeah. All right. Now I'm going to make this harder because I'm going to pull in the living candidates. The top seven candidates for greatest Broadway star of all time are, in no particular order, Patti LuPone, Bernadette Peters, Chita Rivera, Angela Lansbury, Gwen Verdon, Mary Martin, and Ethel Merman.

[45:20] Albert Evans: What happened to Robert Preston and Nathan Lane?

[45:23] David Armstrong: Well, Albert made an executive decision that none of the men, as great as they were, seemed to be on the same playing field with the women, and that the contest for greatest Broadway musical star of all time was a woman's game. So let's look at our criteria there. If we were talking about triple threats, the two standouts there would be obviously Chita and Gwen.

[45:45] Albert Evans: Oh, I didn't put Audra McDonald here. I'm going to make an executive decision and say Audra McDonald is still too young and fresh to be included in this list. We'll revisit in five or 10 years.

[45:59] David Armstrong: Yeah. Nobody under 70 is on our list. They're over 70 or dead.

[46:04] Albert Evans: Oh, okay. That's always a criteria. So I'm proposing you eliminate one, and I'll eliminate one, and then we'll tell each other who we eliminated. Tick tock, tick tock. Maybe we can get that music to play.

[46:19] David Armstrong: Okay, I'm ready.

[46:30] Albert Evans: Let me know when you are.

[46:31] David Armstrong: I'm ready.

[46:32] Albert Evans: All right, who are you moving off the list?

[46:35] David Armstrong: Patti LuPone.

[46:36] Albert Evans: I did the same thing. I'd rather see her act than hear her sing. I think she's a great actress. I don't like her as a singer because you can only understand like one out of every four words, and I think she's unpleasant. I think she's an unpleasant persona. When I saw her in Anything Goes, I was thinking of that character as the person who's throwing this big Paul Porter party for us. The life of the party.

[46:58] David Armstrong: Yeah, and I just thought, who the hell would want to go to a party hosted by Patti LuPone? And I know a lot of people would like that the most of anything in the world, but not me.

[47:08] Albert Evans: I don't agree with everything you said, but I do agree that Patti is the one to come off, and what I do agree with is my favorite thing that I ever saw her do was Masterclass, where she replaced Zoe Caldwell. For some reason, we were given free tickets. I went back a week after seeing Zoe Caldwell do it. I saw Patti LuPone do it and liked Patti LuPone more. I could imagine myself doing that because I do like her a lot in film and television and in plays. I don't want to go to her party.

[47:35] David Armstrong: I will say she's gotten better with the lyrics, but having been the bartender at the theater where Evita was playing back in the day, you could not understand a single word that she said. And then I think Terry Ralston replaced her. I may have that wrong. And then you could understand every word that Evita said. It was a fascinating thing to witness.

[47:55] Albert Evans: All about consonants.

[47:57] David Armstrong: Exactly. Okay, we're going to cross another two off. Okay, so now somebody else is coming off the list. Merman, Martin, Verdon, Lansbury, Cheetah, and Bernadette.

[48:06] Albert Evans: I don't know why some people are last names and some people are first names. Just the way it is.

[48:10] David Armstrong: Oh, this is going to be controversial. This is really hard.

[48:13] Albert Evans: Okay, I did it.

[48:14] David Armstrong: You did it.

[48:15] Albert Evans: All right, I did it too. You go first this time.

[48:18] David Armstrong: This is really hard, and I'm not sure I even agree with my choice, but I took Bernadette off the list.

[48:23] Albert Evans: Oh, okay. And why? In a few well-chosen words.

[48:27] David Armstrong: Probably just because she's the youngest person on this list.

[48:31] Albert Evans: That means I'm the youngest person.

[48:34] David Armstrong: You and Bernadette are too young to be the greatest Broadway stars of all time.

[48:39] Albert Evans: That's right, okay. And who did you choose, Albert?

[48:42] Albert Evans: I chose Mary Martin.

[48:43] David Armstrong: Okay.

[48:44] Albert Evans: Because I think she's just too goody-goody. She's just a little boring.

[48:51] David Armstrong: Interesting, and I can't disagree with that. The only thing I ever saw Mary Martin do was that play Do You Turn Somersaults that she did at the end of her life.

[49:00] Albert Evans: Oh, I didn't see that.

[49:02] David Armstrong: It was a two-hander with a British actor. I can't remember who it was. It was not a good play. It's not fair to judge her from that, but I can't say I was wowed by her star power.

[49:13] Albert Evans: Right.

[49:14] David Armstrong: I never saw her in person at all, so this is strictly from, you know, tapes and records and Peter Pan a million times.

[49:21] Albert Evans: Yeah.

[49:21] David Armstrong: I don't know, she just always seems so... She seems nice. She's like, she wouldn't hurt you. Now, I don't know if she was that way in life, but that's her stage persona.

[49:30] Albert Evans: I'm not going to disagree with you, but I have to think that when you were in the room and she's playing Nellie Forbush or even when she's playing Maria von Trapp, there was something going on because nobody...

[49:40] David Armstrong: There must have been.

[49:42] Albert Evans: But also, her golden years were in the years where being nice was a real commodity in movies and theater, and they must have just thought, oh, she's just wonderful, our Mary. And I think the world has gone on beyond that. Maybe it's too bad.

[49:57] David Armstrong: All right. I'm taking them both off. We're losing Bernadette and Mary Martin. Okay, now we're down to the top four. Ethel Merman, Gwen Verdon, Angela Lansbury, and Chita Rivera.

[50:12] Albert Evans: This is too hard.

[50:13] David Armstrong: I'm going to make it easier. You have to cut two.

[50:16] Albert Evans: Oh, okay. That doesn't make it easier.

[50:19] David Armstrong: I thought so, too. I thought if I take two off, then I can decide.

[50:25] Albert Evans: All right, it's your turn to go first.

[50:27] David Armstrong: This is just arbitrary. I'm going to take off Gwen Verdon and Chita for no good reason.

[50:35] Albert Evans: Okay. Well, Gwen is off the list because we both agreed on that.

[50:39] David Armstrong: I eliminated Gwen Verdon and Angela Lansbury.

[50:44] Albert Evans: That's fair.

[50:44] David Armstrong: Now we're down to three.

[50:46] Albert Evans: Wait, who are they?

[50:47] David Armstrong: I only have two left. Because between the two of us, we now have Ethel Merman, Angela Lansbury, and Chita Rivera.

[50:53] Albert Evans: Oh, good. I didn't want to see Chita go. So let's now talk about if the final three are Ethel Merman, Angela Lansbury, and Chita Rivera. Tell me, Albert, why should it be Ethel Merman?

[51:06] Albert Evans: Ethel is hard because she seems to be completely inaccessible to the younger crowd, and even the older younger crowd, because they only saw her on television when I still loved her, but her voice was wobbly. It was still a good voice. It was very clear and on pitch. But she seemed like an old woman, even though she was probably just in her 50s. In the 60s, she was in her 50s. She was a decade younger than the century. But she just seemed at best like a character woman. You didn't get the sense of that bad girl that she started out as. And she wasn't a recording star. And she wasn't a movie star. Although I think from her movies, you can reconstruct how she was on stage. I think you and I have talked about that in the past. I think, again, from watching There's No Business Like Show Business, you can get a sense of what she was like as Rose in Gypsy.

[51:56] David Armstrong: Yeah, I think absolutely. I mean, that character, whatever her name is, Mrs. Donahue, she was nice. She was tough, but she was always out for the good of her children, even if they didn't agree. You got a real sense of a show business woman who was single-minded and determined, but was not at all over-sentimental.

[52:15] Albert Evans: And I think Merman's early shows, when she was being like, not the prettiest girl in town, but certainly the liveliest and the toughest.

[52:23] David Armstrong: And sexy.

[52:24] Albert Evans: Yeah, and she was sexy.

[52:25] David Armstrong: Yeah, which we forget completely. And I agree with you. Growing up, as we did, seeing her on TV all the time, she was a little bit of a joke. And the older we got, the older she got, you felt like she's from another time, which, of course, now in hindsight is so unfair to judge somebody that way.

[52:43] Albert Evans: Yeah.

[52:43] David Armstrong: But you see what you see. And her style of singing, it's just gone. I mean, belting isn't gone, but belting without a microphone is gone.

[52:51] Albert Evans: Yeah.

[52:52] David Armstrong: Now people do this kind of fake belt that sounds loud and pointed in a microphone, but if you do it on stage and turn off the mics, it's like, what? Is she singing? Because I think we've probably all seen that, when suddenly the mics go off and you can't hear the leading lady.

[53:06] Albert Evans: Yeah. I just think she was a force of nature. I think she was a strong personality, but I think she had love in her. It showed that she loved her audience. She was one of the most generous performers. She had a big gift and she just wanted to give it to you professionally.

[53:22] David Armstrong: Yeah.

[53:22] Albert Evans: She didn't want to become your friend, but she wanted to share herself with you. There's something so appealing and star quality for me. I don't want a diva. I want someone who can deliver and entertain me, and then we both go home. And I think she felt like she was your best friend, if you had a best friend who was a giant Broadway star.

[53:42] David Armstrong: Yeah, yeah. And I think she was best friends to a lot of people. And certainly nobody's more legendary than her. Nobody has more stories, apocryphal though, but one of the signs of stardom is that people make up stories about you. To mask what they think your persona is.

[53:59] Albert Evans: Yeah.

[53:59] David Armstrong: You just go on and on with people telling real and fake Ethel Merman stories, all of which are hilarious. But also you admire her for her moxie and everything about her.

[54:11] Albert Evans: Yeah.

[55:26] Albert Evans: Chita Rivera, they're, I hate to say unaffected, because I don't think that's quite right. But somehow you feel like you could just go have a beer with them and it would be fine. They're not pretentious stars. That's, I think, a very good point. And I think you can, maybe less than the other two, but I think you can imagine all three of them being by themselves doing something that satisfies them. Not being on stage, like gardening or needlepoint or, you know, just something. They seem like people who have another life. Again, I think less so than the other two. But I see what you're saying, and I think that all of them had to have incredible drive and obsession with being stars that they wouldn't get when they got to. But you don't feel like they're nothing but stars. You don't feel like they're desperate to be stars. All right, so make the case for Angela Lansbury.

[56:18] David Armstrong: Oh, Angela, okay. How old do you think she was when she did MAME? Like in her 40s?

[56:24] Albert Evans: I think, yeah, like 40-ish, which is the age that character's supposed to be. Yeah, I don't think she ever considered being a musical comedy star, even though she was in MGM musicals, but usually someone else sang for her and she was playing, like, the saloon girl or something. She was never the center of attention. Yeah, I just think that she must have been astonished when she realized that, oh my god, I'm playing MAME. I wanted to play it. I went after it, but I never thought they were going to hire me. And then suddenly she's the toast of the town. And then she went on to do more, not more MAMEs, just more interesting projects because she was always a good actress.

[57:00] David Armstrong: She was a superb actress, certainly the best actress of these three women.

[57:04] Albert Evans: Yeah, so I think she looked for acting musical theater parts. And talk about her range between MAME and Mrs. Lovett and everything else in between. And she brought that acting to everything. But what's so interesting is as grounded as she was as an actor, she also was able to be a glamorous star and move like a star and dance like a star and carry the stage like a star and wear clothes like a star. And of course, you expect that from Chita because she's a dancer. But certainly Angela Lansbury is a triple threat in her own way, not on the level that Chita is, but just how you weight the things. She's bringing a wider range of acting and perhaps singing to the role, although I think Chita and Angela are pretty comparable singing-wise. And interestingly enough, a part that was written for Angela Lansbury, which was The Visit, then Chita ended up playing. So that's interesting that there's crossover.

[57:58] David Armstrong: Yeah, yeah. And crossover with Ethel Merman too, because they both played Rose in Gypsy.

[58:02] Albert Evans: Yeah. This is going to be hard. So I don't know how we... I think people will be disappointed if we declare it a triple tie.

[58:10] David Armstrong: No, I think we have to come to some sort of conclusion. All right, should we try the you're going to take off too and I'm going to take off too and we see where we are?

[58:19] Albert Evans: Okay. I'm going to surprise myself on this one. I don't know if I agree with what I did.

[58:24] David Armstrong: Okay. So we're going to tell who we took off?

[58:29] Albert Evans: Yeah. I'll go first. All right. I took off Angela Lansbury and Chita Rivera.

[58:36] David Armstrong: So I took off Angela Lansbury and Ethel Merman.

[58:42] Albert Evans: Okay. So let's just jump to the chase. It's going to come down to between Chita Rivera and Ethel Merman for the greatest Broadway star of all time. Well, on Merman's side, she was a huge star. I mean, if you're talking about a star, she's a bigger star than Chita Rivera. I'm not saying a better star. I'm just saying she was a bigger star. For me, the minus with Chita is that I'm not as focused on dancing as you are, partly because I had no training as a dancer. I like it. But also as the years go by and my vision gets worse and worse, I can't even see it anymore. So I have to think now, what was Chita like as a dancer? Really close to the TV screen. But dancing has always been of the three talents.

It's necessary, but it's not my deciding factor. To me, Merman is just the iconic Broadway star. And I don't know if Chita is iconic. She's just like supremely good at what she does. And again, probably we're prejudiced because Chita is more accessible. I've been in a room with Chita. I was never.

[59:37] David Armstrong: Yeah, yeah. So have I. I did one of those Ben Bagley albums with Chita.

[59:42] Albert Evans: Yeah. Chita doesn't know me, but I feel like I know Chita. No, I loved her. And of course, Merman is the obvious choice, but maybe that's because it's Merman. Some ways you feel like we can't make it Ethel Merman. Of course, that's what everybody's going to expect it to be. And that's what all the history books would tell you. But I agree with you. If you really look at Ethel Merman's career from Girl Crazy to Hello, Dolly, it's phenomenal. No one had more songs written for her that became hits. She made more hits, certainly, than anybody else. Now she had the greatest songwriters writing for her because they wanted to write for her. They created those shows for her. But then you have sort of the equivalent of that with Kander and Ebb, creating things for Chita with Chita in mind.

Chita had less opportunity to do that, again, because the business changed, the world changed by the time you get to the 60s and Chita is becoming a star. Ethel Merman's ending her career as Chita's beginning her career, basically, with a little bit of overlap.

[1:00:44] David Armstrong: So it sounds like we are deciding to do the obvious because I think in this case, history will tell you. And we've spent 100 episodes, many of them together, exploring the history of the Broadway musical from its very beginning today. And it seems like it is Ethel Merman.

[1:01:05] Albert Evans: Well, and in the case that Ethel Merman is no longer performing, is the greatest star, Chita Rivera will be crowned. Well, in a way, we have it both ways. Ethel Merman, we have determined, is the greatest Broadway musical star of all time, and Chita Rivera is the greatest living Broadway musical star of all time. I think that's pretty good.

[1:01:25] David Armstrong: Yeah, I think I'm happy with that. It's not a tie. It's acknowledgement. And I think because this series, Broadway Nation, has been largely focused on historical matters, maybe if we hadn't done that, we wouldn't have chosen Merman. But I think we've taken a very broad look, broad, get it, at musical theater. I'm happy that Merman can do it, but I wouldn't want to lose any of these other ladies. Well, maybe one. I mean, we're so lucky to be working in an art form that this kind of person emerges from, that it's big enough to encompass all of these very disparate personalities and temperaments and ways of performing.

[1:02:03] Albert Evans: That stuffy enough for you?

[1:02:08] David Armstrong: That's fantastic. It ties together with, and I've talked about this before, I think, if I were going to go in the time machine, as Laura Frankos devised in her book, Broadway Revival, if I could be in that time machine, I still think top on my list, and there's so many that, you know, if you had the opportunity to go back and see that original production of something, I would want to be there on opening night of Girl Crazy, when Ethel Merman walks out on that stage and sings, "I Got Rhythm" out of nowhere.

[1:03:02] ♪ Musical number: "I Got Rhythm" — performed by Ethel Merman ♪

[1:04:47] Albert Evans: That, to me, is still my top Time Machine dream.

[1:04:51] David Armstrong: I could agree with that. I would definitely like to be there. And my other choice might be Merman in Gypsy. But again, I think I've created her, Mama Rose, in my mind. I feel like I have seen her in Gypsy. And what we haven't seen is Ethel Merman young and sexy and transgressive in that kind of way.

[1:05:08] Albert Evans: Yeah, because that movie, if anything, goes totally. Well, it's all about Bing Crosby. It's so disappointing. It's the most disappointing thing ever. Well, it's the biggest missed opportunity. A word of advice to the audience out there. Do not watch the movie of Anything Goes with Ethel Merman and Bing Crosby. You will just never do it. It will just break your heart.

[1:05:26] David Armstrong: Exactly. Well, Albert Evans, thank you for bringing me on. It's always a pleasure to talk and argue and laugh with you about theater. I wouldn't have dreamed of having our 100th episode without you. And all the rest of you, check your weapons at the door. We are inviting any comments that you might have about this. But please be kind, as they say.

[1:05:49] Albert Evans: Yeah. All right. See you for the next 200.

[1:05:54] David Armstrong: All right. Bye. And now, as promised, here's the information about how you can become a patron of Broadway Nation. A donation of just $7 a month will not only keep Broadway Nation rolling along, it will also provide you with exclusive access to the complete unedited versions of many of the interviews that you hear on this podcast. And in fact, in addition to the 20-minute segment that was mentioned earlier, there's at least another 45 minutes of this conversation that we just didn't have time to include, but it will be available for patrons. And all patrons will receive special on-air shoutouts and acknowledgments of your vital support for this podcast. To join, simply go to broadwaynationpodcast.supercast.tech. That's broadwaynationpodcast.supercast.tech. Or click the link in the show notes to this episode.

Thank you in advance for your very generous support. Broadway Nation is written and produced by me, David Armstrong. Special thanks to Pals Mox for his help with editing this episode, to KVSH 101.9, the voice of beautiful Vashon Island, Washington, and to the entire team at the Broadway Podcast Network.