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Re: [ARSCLIST] Mystery singer -- who is this lady?
Hah! You made me look - but her offical website doesn't say!
Interesting story though.
copy & paste:
Raised in the Washington Heights section of New York City...
... Leslie Uggams made her national television debut at age six on the
TV series Beulah, portraying the niece of Ethel Waters. Appearances on
Your Show of Shows, The Milton Berle Show, Arthur Godfrey Show, and
several children's programs followed. At age seven, Leslie began
performing regularly at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem as an extra added
attraction before the performances of such legends as Louis Armstrong,
Ella Fitzgerald, and Dinah Washington.
Leslie attended the New York Professional Children's School, and at age
fifteen she appeared on the CBS-TV series Name That Tune. Her
appearance proved to be fortuitous: Mitch Miller, head of recordings
for Columbia Records, was impressed by her vocal talents, signed her to
a recording contract and then made her a regular on Sing Along With
Mitch, TV's first pre-recorded music show.
Concurrent with her musical composition and theory studies at the
Julliard School, Ms. Uggams released the first of ten LP's she was to
record for Columbia, including her first hit single, "Morgan."
Alternating major nightclub appearances with her stage work, Leslie
Uggams appeared in the musical The Boyfriend in Berkeley, California.
Soon she won the lead in Hallelujah, Baby!, which had originally been
written for Lena Horne, and earned the 1968 Tony Award for Best Actress
In A Broadway Musical Comedy.
Two years later she had her own musical variety television series on
CBS-TV, The Leslie Uggams Show, and a new recording contract with
Atlantic Records, and in 1970 she made her dramatic film debut in
"Skyjacked."
Her portrayal of Kizzy in the most watched dramatic show in TV history,
"Roots," won her the Critics Choice Award for Best Supporting Actress
in 1978, and her first Emmy nomination for Best Leading Actress. She
also starred in the miniseries Backstairs at the White House, Sizzle,
an ABC-TV Movie of the Week, and Christmas at Radio City Music Hall, an
HBO special. She won an Emmy as co-host of the NBC-TV series Fantasy.
In addition to ongoing concert dates, Leslie returned to Broadway to
star in the musical Blues in the Night; she also enjoyed a two year run
in the hit musical Jerry's Girls. In 1987, she toured with Peter Nero
and Mel Torme in The Great Gershwin Concert, for which she received
rave reviews, and in 1988 starred as Reno Sweaney, in the National
Company of the Lincoln Center Production of Anything Goes. Leslie
reprised her role in 1989/90 at the Lincoln Center's Vivien Beaumont
Theatre on Broadway. 1991 saw Leslie touring in Stringbean, a new play
with music based on Ethel Waters' rise to fame in the twenties and
thirties.
Off stage, Leslie is a founding member of the BRAVO Chapter/City of
Hope-- a charitable organisation dedicated to the study, treatment, and
eradication of all blood-related diseases, a board member of the Alvin
Alley Dance Theatre, and TADA, a children's musical theatre.
Among her most recent concerts are the Pittsburgh Symphony, Rhode
Island Symphony, and The Memorial Day Concert on the Washington Mall,
in front of 300,000 people, televised live by PBS.
Quite a resume, but no age 10 stage name...
Lou Judson • Intuitive Audio
415-883-2689
On Mar 9, 2006, at 3:46 PM, David Lennick wrote:
Leslie Uggams