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Barbra's Understudy in
"Funny Girl" on Broadway
In 1964, after Barbra Streisand was cast as Fanny Brice in the
new Broadway musical Funny Girl, the hunt began for
someone to understudy the part. Brooklyn native (and Erasmus
Hall graduate) Lainie Kazan was hired. Lainie remembers going on
only once while Barbra was sick with the flu. For years, her
dubious involvement with Funny Girl was Lainie Kazan's
most illustrious claim to fame. Even today, whenever Lainie is
interviewed, the conversation inevitably winds up with a
discussion of what it was like to be Barbra Streisand's
understudy:
From The Jewish Bulletin of Northern California, January 5, 1996
Kazan must be tired of
hearing how she waited for Barbra Streisand, star of
"Funny Girl," to get sick, in hopes of going from
understudy to potential star. Streisand, however, never
missed a day of performing in over one year.
Until one day.
"So I phoned up all the
critics and invited them to see me. It was a gamble," she
says.
It paid off, and Kazan
became an overnight sensation on Broadway. What was
Streisand's reaction? "She never got sick again," Kazan
says.
Lainie Kazan
ultimately emerged out from under Barbra Streisand's 1964 shadow
to carve out quite a substantial career for herself in show
business. She is a recording artist, nightclub entertainer,
stage performer and comedic character actress in films and on
television. Fans of the CBS sitcom The Nanny will
remember Lainie's hilarious romp as Fran's Aunt Frieda. She has
appeared in several highly successful films, such as My
Favorite Year (opposite Peter O'Toole) in 1982, and the
runaway hit, Beaches (with Bette Midler) in 1988. Lainie
was even nominated for a Tony Award when she reprised her role
from My Favorite Year for a Broadway stage adaptation in
1993. Recently, Lainie achieved a her greatest success with a
co-starring role in the 2002 film, My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
In another
interesting Streisand connection, Lainie Kazan was married to
the late Peter Daniels. Daniels was Barbra's piano accompanist
during her engagements at "The Bon Soir" in New York. When
Daniels got the job as the assistant conductor for Funny Girl,
he met and eventually married the understudy.
In 1998, Lainie
Kazan released an album of ballads called In the Groove.
For those yearning to hear how she might have sounded during her
only stage appearance as Fanny Brice during the Streisand run of
Funny Girl, Lanie included her very own rendition of
The Music That Makes Me Dance on the CD.
Hear a sample.
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By the way . . .
 George
Reeder understudied the role of Nick Arnstein for both
Sydney Chaplin and Johnny Desmond in Funny Girl.
And unlike Lainie, Reeder performed his role many times:
"What really kept it interesting for me as an understudy
to Sydney Chaplain was that I got to go on a lot--150
times for Sydney and Johnny Desmond...I never knew when I
walked into the theater if I'd be playing the lead that
night with Barbra. And even when I wasn't doing the lead,
I'd rehearse my role every Wednesday with Barbra's
understudy, Lainie Kazan." George Reeder's most
recent stage appearance was a lead role in "The
Nutcracker" at The Inland Pacific Ballet in Claremont,
California. |
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