I'm just now discovering that Bernadette Peters has a lovely voice

Guess I'm tardy to the party

She has such an unusual voice--she had sure a pure tone, but it is all through her nose, for whatever reason.

Because of that voice and her kewpie-doll look, she was perfect for playing early 20th-century characters (like in "Dames at Sea" and "mack & Mabel").

She's one of the biggest Broadway stars there is. I've been fortunate to see her on stage twice and she's magnificent. Warm, funny, sexy, and charming. I thought she was even better than Bette Midler as a replacement in the last revival of Hello, Dolly. She sang the score better, nailed all the laughs Bette did and then some, and was very moving in a few moments that Bette usually barreled right past.

Better late than never, OP. Welcome to the party!

She's been a comforting voice for me to listen to since the 70s.

We've been waiting for you, OP. Were you being held hostage by Patti?

*had. Don't listen to her "Children Will Listen" from this year's Tony Awards.

You have so much to discover, OP!

My dad finds her to be soo beautiful and is just an overall fan of hers. He would find you quite remiss, OP. As his Lesbian daughter I will leave you be, though, OP. She was adorable in "Pennies from Heaven" even though that is a goofy B Movie.

I've only seen her once on stage and she killed it and looked beautiful doing it. It was for a fundraiser and not a grand Broadway show she was starring in but she made like she was doing a grand Broadway show if you will and I dug it. She's a heartfelt animal lover.

My dad also has years long crushes on the late Maureen O' Hara, Carly Simon and Sigourney Weaver in case anyone was wondering. He has fine taste.

I'm done with my heat wave induced rambling at this point. Welcome to the club, OP.

[quote]even though that is a goofy B Movie

Hardly, r10.

She also has a great set of boobs

The real ones or the fake ones?

She's also been one of the few sexy women who's managed to stay looking, more or less, exactly the same as she did in her heyday. She's probably had more than a bit of surgical help, but you can't fake fake skin that beautiful. I still remember an article where she talked about how all she ate was a "smile" of grapefruit and half a Kind bar to treat herself. That was a bit alarming, but I suppose it's helped her keep her figure.

Always had a slutty, vulpine energy. Very low-rent middling talent in the final analysis, and her career is the result of a lot of luck and a dearth of actress-singers who men wanted to fuck when she was coming up.

It’s interesting that in the decades she’s been around her ties to Satanism and the ongoing, terrifying gold standard movements are mentioned only in passing, as amusing eccentricities. It makes me wonder if Big Gold has taken a special interest in her all these years…

I wouldn't call her talent low-rent at all. I've seen her on stage and she's the real deal. You don't hold an audience in the palm of your hand for over 2 hours by being simply attractive or a slut.

She's one of those rare people who you've never heard anyone say a bad word about. No scandals at all to speak of and that's really something since she's been in the business since she was a kid.

r15 is trifling, r16. r15 in the *Ricky Martin Wins in Court After Nephew Withdraws Relationship and Harassment Allegations* thread:

[quote]Ricky paid him off. Anyone who thinks otherwise is being naive. It *looks* like Ricky was fucking him. Why pay him otherwise? To make it go away? Sure…but the most effective way to make it go away definitively was to let it wend its way through the courts. It doesn’t seem like that’s happened. Martin calculated that paying him off is better than letting it linger, but he’s calculated wrong. Ricky looks like he fucked his nephew.

Gee, who knew, OP? If only she could have sung on Broadway or something.

R18 doesn’t know what “trifling” means.

R21 I was hoping someone would post this! Andrea Martin was brilliant.

Like her version of "Making Love Alone," written for an SNL sketch.

I love everything about her, except The Fiji Island Frizz. Get your hair straightened, Bernadette.

Bernadette Peters HAD a lovely voice. There, I've corrected it for you. I saw her live in an orchestra pops concert about 10 years ago or more. Weak voice, with a wobble, often out of tune. However, there is no doubt that in the 80s and 90s, and even into the early oughts, she was a hot property in Broadway shows.

The only thing you need to see with Bernadette Peters:

Well, Bernadette has a more fragile instrument than Patti. Think of how Martin and Merman sounded at their ages.

I saw her cabaret act at Studio One back in the 70s. She was lovely.

Her voice hasn't held up as well as LuPone's, but she's always had a fragile voice. There have been many shows where she's sounded like she has a bad cold. It basically got to become her signature sound.

If she hadn’t had her vocal cords banged by so many cocks maybe she could still sing.

[quote]There have been many shows where she's sounded like she has a bad cold. It basically got to become her signature sound.

That's because she's had chronic respiratory problems for years. When she sounds like she has a cold, she usually does and is singing through it anyway, like the pro she is. None of that Beanie business from her.

Back in the '90s I saw her Sondheim show at the Hollywood Bowl and stood not two feet from her at an appearance at Tower Records on Sunset.

When she sings, the audience can understand every single word the lyricist wrote. This makes her generic and uninteresting as an artist.

Bernadette is the greatest musical theater star of her generation. I've seen her in concert four times, and she was great every time. She is the greatest crying singer ever.

R37 is Bernie’s queeny backup cabaret pianist. Get out, Sherman.

The cabaret reimagining of the Hank Williams classic at r1 is just fucking lovely.

I saw in on Broadway many times, and several times in concert as well. What really blew me away was in a concert where she had been doing powerhouse belting numbers and jazzy dancing in a dress slit down to her navel there was a blackout -and she reappeared in a simple black dress and sang "Shenandoah" a cappella and brought the house to tears, and then to their feet. It was absolutely unexpected, and brilliantly done. Just a simple, straightforward rendition of the song. No vocal pyrotechnics, no starry jazz turns. Just a heartfelt rendition of what she said was her favorite song growing up. And then back to the show tunes and Broadway glamour.

Yes, she has a very fragile voice and she does tend to go on sick, rather than call out. But she never disappoints.

Patti Lupone could never hit those high notes

I’ve been lucky enough to see Bernadette Peters in concert 4 times as well as Follies and Hello Dolly.

Follies was my favorite theatre going experience ever and as a Bernadette fan, Sondheim fan and Follies Queen, it was the trifecta. I know everyone on here loves to hate that performance but I loved it.

I never understood the hate for Bernadette in Follies. She wasn't the perfect Sally, but if you ask most people, no one will ever measure up to Dorothy Collins and it's not like you dig her up, revive her, and shove her on stage to do it again. That's a hard role to get right.

She seems genuinely nice in the R1 clip. I know Carson was not exactly genuinely nice in real life, but he was king of the talk shows for a reason. Talk show interviews are so canned now. I am sure Carson had some plan with what was going to be discussed, but it did not seem as obvious now where the guest tells this "spontaneous" funny story that was obviously carefully planned beforehand and they are practically reading it from a cue card.

R45, I was thinking the same things watching that clip. There is a loose flow to the conversation, even though some of the planted topics (“Somebody told me…”) are obvious. Johnny Carson remains the best, even after three decades of pretenders to the throne.

Carson and his guests were educated before the mass dumbing down by the Dept of Education and the American Federation of Teachers.

My first Broadway show was A Chorus Line, I believe in 1984. After our music teacher explained that you could wait outside the stage door to see if you could get actor's autographs, a number of us waited outside. Who came strolling down the alley? Bernadette. My 12-year-old self only knew her from the movie "Annie" at that point, but it was unmistakably her. I shyly asked her for her autograph, and she signed my Playbill. Huge smile on her face and she thanked me and quickly walked away. It was a very cool moment.

In which one of the early national Gypsy tours did Bernie play Baby or Dainty June? Was it the first with Ethel?

[quote]At age 13, Peters appeared as one of the "Hollywood Blondes" and was an understudy for "Dainty June" in the second national tour of Gypsy.

This was the first time I saw Bernadette Peters, on the Carol Burnett Show in 1974. I was fourteen years old at the time. Tim Conway deviated from the script, as always. Lyle Waggoner, Playgirl's centerfold in an issue the previous year, appears at the end of the sketch.

I’ve seen her in a couple shows- she’s a unique talent- original if not a generic leading lady in musicals. Funny, I met her and chatted with her last week at a send off party for mutual friends who are moving from NYC to Montreal. She couldn’t have been more pleasant, and she looks decades younger than her age-

She should be cast to channel the older version of Madonna in the latter’s forthcoming bio film that, if produced by herself, should otherwise prove to be quite “unbiased,” no…?!

She appeared on an episode of All In The Family in 1975.

I gave her a pearl necklace or two.

I saw her live @1998 -- her vocal prime -- she did the set from her "Live at Carnegie Hall" CD. Her "Joanna" was breathtakingly beautiful. I also saw her in "Gypsy."

I saw her in a concert in San Francisco around 2000. I don't really remember much about it, but she was very charming, and really related well with the audience. After that I remember being more impressed with her than I already was, because I never really saw her as a concert artist.

The ONLY thing I don’t like about her concerts is her patter. I saw her first in 2008, 2012, 2019 and just again this year in 2022, and she STILL tells the audience to “forgive her as she’s singing Peggy Lee’s Fever for the first time”

She also likes to tell an Eli Wallach joke “for the first time” that I heard her tell each concert.

That’s performance schtick- Judy Garland used to “forget the words” but continue the song at the same point in repeated performances of the song. She also cried on cue in Rainbow.

Are the lesbian rumors true?

[quote] She also cried on cue in Rainbow.

Yeah, but she couldn't make a tear stop halfway down her cheek. (And her breath smelled like cigarettes and gin during "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.)

One of the rare performers you never hear a bad word about, unlike that cunt Patti Lupone.

Bernadette muff dives with the best of them!

r27

that concert is awesome! I was so afraid that her boobs were going to fall out though

I don't care for Broadway shows at all but Bernadette is the real deal. I can listen to anything she sings.

Why people think she played Baby June.

[quote]Guess I'm tardy to the party

More tarty than tardy, Lardy.

Her strength is her vulnerability.

Even with her current mega-warble, you want to be on her side

Her voice cracks on the final phrase on Being Alive. It’s on her concert CD Sondheim Etc.

Always had the prettiest clit.

Her rendition of “No One Is Alone” in that London concert is amazing. Her voice cracks in that too, but to maximum emotional effect…

well you've had 50 years OP

I love her in the Cinderella TV musical with Brandy

Remember reading in some NYC paper or magazine about how Bernadette Peters was "one of the boys" far as theater actors were concerned. This particular article was going on about how BP was playing softball that day with the "guys" either in Central Park or some park downtown Manhattan.

Really have to give Ms. Peters credit, she's one of the few true grand divas left on NYC musical theatre scene. The woman is bankable, a trouper, and apparently far less of a pain in the ass than that other grand dame, (am not naming any names, but first name starts with a "P").

Fuck yeah!

No one has been able to top Ms. Peters in "Sunday In The Park With George"

Bernadette Peters probably is one of the eminent performers today of Sondheim's work.

Bernadette has a warm and rich tone.

I've tried listening to Lupone many times, but just can't get into her. She's too shrill and almost combative sounding in her approach to the lyrics. Works for stuff like Evita and more modern fare but listening to her attempts at the American standards can be excruciating.

Have you listened to Patti’s “Ladies Who Lunch” from Sondheim’s 80th birthday concert, r81?

That isn't a good comparison for R81, R82. She's great, but it is also "super combative sounding" to the poster's point, which is fine for that particular number. Bernadette is not a Joanne.

I think Bernadette's warmth is what made her such a strange fit for Rose in Gypsy and Annie in Annie Get Your Gun. That LuPone/Merman style sounds better with those scores. Loud, aggressive, and combative. I don't think it worked as well with Annie, but I found her performance in Gypsy to be really interesting. Lots of different shades that other women never found in the character.

They are completely different, I agree r83. I find the end of the version combative for sure, but I was referencing it to show their shared mastery interpreting a song. And Lupone’s vibrato in that is astounding…

I'm trying so hard to like her, but I just can't. I think it's the fakeness and the squawky voice.

I love both live, but going by recording, I prefer Patti. Her live concert is one of my favorite CDs.

[quote]but I was referencing it to show their shared mastery interpreting a song.

Again, I find Patti a mixed bag on that. She either nails it out of the park, or she leaves you cold.

Patti's performance at the Barbra Cook tribute is a prime example. She does "Come Rain or Come Shine" but her brittle, hard edge approach to it is all wrong. The song is a paean to complete love and devotion. In Patti's hands, it has a borderline menacing tone, like she's threatening someone to love them or else they'll be sorry.

I’m not familiar with that performance, but I often find an alternative interpretation of a song interesting/refreshing…

Her voice was a mess in the last Follies but it sort of made sense for her character

Isn't she wonderful? I realized how great she was when I started to think about that question from the thread about the best singer of the 20th century. I think she's the answer.

[quote]Her voice was a mess in the last Follies

I heard it could vary greatly from night to night due to her chronic sinus issues but if she could stand, she went on. Bernie has always been a trouper.

She had similar problems during her Dolly run, but, as said, she's a trouper and didn't miss.

Ms. Peters recently did a one night show in San Francisco, and was fantastic.

Bernadette Peters as Marie Catherine Sophie, Comtesse d'Agoult in 1991 film Impromptu.

Also starring Julian Sands as Franz Liszt. JS always gave off big dick energy IMHO.

Let's go to the video tape!

Bernadette Peters for Playtex "cross your heart" bras.

Bernadette Peters for American Express

Happy 100th Birthday, Hollywood, 1987 television broadcast.

One, who knew Treat Williams could sing?

Two, who gives a fuck about Treat Williams singing? *LOL* The man was sex on a stick back then.

Bernadette Peters in concert, 1979

Yay ! I can finally post ! I discovered Bernadette was my favorite singing cat from my childhood about 6 years ago . I was shocked to learn Bernadette was the voice of Rita. As a young gayling, I used to always think the singer, whoever they are , is amazing <3. I only learned it was her during a great singer debate about 6 years ago. I didn't want to contribute just Rita the Cat, then was shocked shitless to learn it was Bernadette Peters. I knew her as the girl from The Jerk up until I saw Annie Get Your Gun then I learned the name of the magical singing goddess :) .

2:37 is my favorite song in the video below.

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