Ghost Light Monday--Edie Adams

It was announced this week that Broadway and television veteran, and Tony Award-winning actress Edie Adams died at the age of 87 (some sources say she was 85). Ms. Adams appeared once in my Year, in the role of the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella, where she was also featured in one of the DVD extras. Ms. Adams originated two important musical roles on Broadway--Eileen in Wonderful Town (to Rosalind Russell as sister Ruth), and Daisy Mae in Li'l Abner, for which Ms. Adams received a Tony Award.

While those two shows were Ms. Adams's only Broadway credits, she had an active film and television career and was famously married to comedian Ernie Kovacs. She also had a recording career that played up her sex kitten image (as the album cover in this entry shows).

I was surprised to read in one of the obituaries for her, that Ms. Adams trained as an opera singer at the Juilliard School. Not that she didn't have a pleasant singing voice, but it didn't strike me at all as operatic. But then this was the day when all singers got training, no matter what style of music they ended up performing.

Would that all Broadway singers had to go through some real singing training.

Cinderella television production on DVD

I grew up with the 1965 version of this Rodgers and Hammerstein production, but knew that an earlier version of Cinderella with Julie Andrews had aired, but was thought lost. Well, what once was lost now is found.

The 1957 version is much more interesting than the remakes that have followed. Not only is it wonderful to see Ms. Andrews at the height of her Broadway career and to see Kaye Ballard and Alice Ghostley as the stepsisters, but it's also very interesting to see how the production was created to allow for costume changes and scene changes in a live television setting.

There is much more dialogue in this version than I recall in the Lesley Ann Warren version. There is more for the chorus of singers and dancers to do, as well. I have to confess a long love of Stuart Damon, the 1965 Prince, but Jon Cypher holds his regal own, even if his singing does not match Damon's.

There are some interesting extras on the DVD, but the funniest has to be Oscar Hammerstein reciting his lyrics while the Ed Sullivan Orchestra is conducted by Richard Rodgers.

Cinderella
Music by Richard Rodgers
Lyrics and book by Oscar Hammerstein
Television production from 1957 released on DVD
Cast: Julie Andrews, Jon Cypher, Alice Ghostley, Kaye Ballard, Edie Adams, Howard Lindsey, Dorothy Stickney, Ilka Chase