The 25th annual Bistro Awards were announced on March 9. The gala ceremony, which takes place April 13 at Gotham Comedy Club in New York, recognizes actors, musicians, and other performers who have made significant contributions to the cabaret community.
Among this year's honorees are Elaine Stritch, who will receive the award for extraordinary cabaret artist, and Mitzi Gaynor, who will be presented with the Bob Harrington Lifetime Achievement Award.
Elaine Stritch has been the toast of both Broadway and London's West End for six decades.She has collected a number of trophies on both continents over the years for such award-winning turns as "Bus Stop", "Sail Away", "A Delicate Balance", "Show Boat" and "Company". Through sheer personality alone, her cacophonous singing voice has miraculously taken classic songs from Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart to Noel Coward and Stephen Sondheim and put her indelible stamp on them.
Mitzi Gaynor first took the concert and nightclub world by storm in 1961 at Las Vegas’ fabulous Flamingo Hotel. Her debut was met with overwhelming acclaim - Life Magazine noted “Gaynor started at the top and climbed even higher”, The Los Angeles Times called her “The nation’s number one female song and dance star” - and for the next four decades she dominated stages across the United States and Canada, as her Emmy® winning television specials delivered her performing magic to the millions of viewers who looked forward to those annual must-see events.
The legendary musical performer has been in show business for sixty five years beginning her career at the age of twelve in the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera as a featured performer in productions including Naughty Marietta, Roberta, Jollyana and The Great Waltz in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia and on Broadway in the New Century Theatre production of Gypsy Lady. She transitioned from stage to screen at age nineteen with her first film role opposite Betty Grable in My Blue Heaven. She starred in seventeen motion pictures (earning a Golden Globe® nomination for South Pacific), nine network television specials (garnering seventeen Primetime Emmy® Award nominations) and returned to live performing with countless concert productions nationwide for over forty years.
Comments