Bernadette Peters Laura Pichardo April 3, 2012 Often called The finest singing actress since Barbra Streisand

(PBS) Bernadette Peters is a performer that has been able to succeed in Hollywood Movies, Television and Broadway. With an incredible talent that ranges through many different genres, Bernadette Peters is an invaluable contribution to the great stars of this era.

Making her Broadway debut at age 11 in Most Happy Fella and still working as a performer today, 2012, Bernadette Peters has had many different stages in her career and in her life. (PBS)

Born Bernadette Lazzara on February 28,1948 in New York City, to parents Peter and Marguerite Lazzara, Bernadette Peters started life with a family that pushed her from a very young age unto the stage. (Kevin Lux) At the age of 3 her mother was able to secure a spot for Bernadette on a childrens talent show called Juvenile Jury, in which the young girl ended up being one of the best contestants. (New York Times) She went on to participate in other talent shows like The Horn and Hardart Childrens Hour which marked the beginning of her incredible comedic timing and the realization of her possession of great charisma (New York Times). By the age of 5 she started taking tap

lessons at the insistence of her mother, and by the age of 9 she had received her Equity Card (PBS). At around the same time her mother decided to change Bernadettes name from Lazzara to Peters, her fathers 1st name, as she did not want Bernadette to have

trouble securing non-Italian roles with her real name and that it wouldnt fit nicely on a Marquee (Kevin Lux).

In the 1960s her main focus was to spend her teenage years concentrating on school and friends but still participated on a couple of shows such as The Most Happy Fella in 1959, The Penny Friend in 1966, and coincidentally understudied for the part of Dainty June in Gypsy, a musical that in the future would be one of her greatest successes for which she would earn a Tony for her role of Mama Rose in 2003. (Kevin Lux) In 1968, she achieved national fame by playing Ruby, a chorus girl in an off Broadway musical called Dames at Sea (Biography.com) for which she ended up winning her 1st Drama Desk Award (Kevin Lux).

At the end of the 1960s she realized that her vocation in life was performing. In the early stages of her career she was always in fear of being typecast as a high pitched airhead blonde so she worked hard at auditioning for parts that would help her be seen as a versatile actress. (Biography.com) She was able to overcome these stereotypes when she was cast in the leading role in the 1969 Musical George M. (New York Times).

Bernadette received her 1st Tony nomination in 1971 for her role of Brunehile Esterhazy in the Bernstein Musical On the Town (Biography.com) and in 1973 she made her silver screen debut in Ace Eli and Rodger of the Skies which marked the beginning of a successful transition into Hollywood. She played supporting role in the movies The Longest Year in 1974, Vigilante Force in 1976 and in Silent Movie for

which she was nominated for a Golden Globe and The Jerk, where she began dating Steve Martin. She received her 2nd Tony Award Nomination for her role of Mabel Normand in the Musical Mack and Mabel in 1974. (Kevin Lux)

In the 1980s she received her 1st Golden Globe award for her role of Pennies From Heaven and recorded her first record called Now Playing.. Bernadette's first Tony award would come just 2 years later in Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Song And Dance" for "Best Leading Actress in a Musical" where she alone was the entire first act (Kevin Lux). The role of "Emma" in "Song and Dance" also earned her the Drama League Award and the Drama Desk Award. She received another Drama Desk nomination for perhaps one of her best-known roles of her career, that of The Witch in Stephen Sondheims musical Into the Woods in 1987 (Kevin Lux).

The 1990s were very successful years for Bernadette. She was nominated for a Tony with her role of Paula opposite Marvin Short in the Marvin Hamlisch musical The Goodbye Girl in 1992; released her self-titled album Bernadette and another solo album called Ill be your Baby Tonight. for which she received a Grammy Nomination. She became the youngest inductee in the Theatre Hall of Fame (biography.com). On July 20th 1996 Bernadette married senior portfolio manager Michael Wittenberg. She performed at Carnegie hall for various fund raisers and received a Grammy Nomination for the live recording of this event titled Sondheim, Etc. and received a Grammy for the Cat recording on Annie Go Get Your Gun for which she was also awarded her 2nd Tony and another Drama Desk Award for her role as Annie Oakley.

Within the past few years she has received nominations for an Emmy, has recorded a new solo album based on Rodgers and Hammersteins Music and on June 19th, 2002 she gave her first solo performed in Radio City Music Hall. Tragedy struck when in September 2005 her husband was killed in a helicopter crash.

She has continued to work throughout the past 5 years in Movies and TV series and has done some concerts such as her solo debut at the Lincoln center In New York City. She continues to perform in concerts around the United States and Internationally. (Kevin Lux)