Whipped Cream Difficulties

The paper of record has updated their Hal Prince, “Giant of Broadway and Reaper of Tonys” obit in place.

They’ve also added three corrections. So far.

I do like this a lot:

As both a producer and a director, Mr. Prince was a nurturer of unproved talent. Tom Bosley, for instance, later known as Howard Cunningham on the nostalgic television sitcom “Happy Days,” won a Tony in his first starring role in 1959 as the titular mayor of New York, La Guardia, in “Fiorello!” Liza Minnelli made her first Broadway appearance — and won a Tony — as the title character in “Flora, the Red Menace,” a 1965 politically-inflected musical set in 1935 about a spunky fashion designer who falls for a Communist. Produced by Mr. Prince and directed by George Abbott, “Flora” also featured the first Broadway score by the songwriting team of John Kander and Fred Ebb, who later wrote “Chicago” and two shows produced and directed by Mr. Prince: “Zorba” and “Cabaret.”
A featured actor in “Cabaret,” Joel Grey, was a largely unknown nightclub performer with few theater credits when Mr. Prince hired him in 1966 for what turned out to be a career-defining role: the arch, leering M.C. of the bawdy Kit Kat Club in Weimar-era Berlin.

I think that’s one of the nicest things you can say about anybody in an obit: they were good at spotting and developing unknown talents.

But Mr. Rich was writing on the heels of one of Mr. Prince’s most calamitous failures, “A Doll’s Life,” a musical sequel to “A Doll’s House,” Henrik Ibsen’s domestic drama of a woman’s revolt against the stultifying expectations of womanhood. With book and lyrics by Adolph Green and Betty Comden and a score by Larry Grossman, huge sets and grandiose sound amplification, it closed after five performances, a victim of its outsize self-importance.

Five performances. I thought the original production of “Carrie” ran for eight performances, but no: it only ran for five as well.

Also among the dead: Nick Buoniconti, linebacker for the Miami Dolphins in the 1970s (yes, he was one of the players on the 1972 team).

For many years Buoniconti was an intelligent, articulate and tough player for the Boston Patriots (now the New England Patriots) and the Dolphins, winning All-Pro honors five times in a 14-year pro football career. A former All-American at the University of Notre Dame, he anchored the Dolphins’ vaunted “No-Name Defense” under Coach Don Shula.

Mr. Buoniconti’s son, Marc, was paralyzed in a football accident in 1985. Mr. Buoniconti founded the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis:

For more than 30 years afterward, Buoniconti helped raise nearly $500 million for spinal cord and brain research carried out by the organization. He also played a critical role in directing the research and was a charismatic motivator of scientists and researchers.
Dr. Barth Green, a neurosurgeon and longtime chairman of the Miami Project, said in a phone interview: “People are walking now because of cellular transplants and the latest neuroengineering and bioengineering that has been applied to humans with disability. Nick was a stimulating force in that area, from bench to bedside. And this is someone who probably never took a science course.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 1st, 2019 at 9:14 am and is filed under Media, Music, NFL, Obits, Sports, Theatre. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.