Merely Marvelous is a celebration of the art and life of Broadway's greatest dancing star, Gwen Verdon. She overcame many obstacles, including rickets, the Hollywood system, a loveless first marriage and a difficult second marriage to choreographer/director Bob Fosse, to become a multi-Tony Award-winning performer. Gwen's life is told through interviews with family members and theatre associates as well as a mine of rare footage from her Broadway and Hollywood careers. Merely Marvelous is the story of a brave woman who rose to the very top of her profession.
A retrospective of Chita Rivera's film, television and stage career, including interviews with Dick Van Dyke, Ben Vereen, Carol Lawrence and others. Originally aired as Episode 2 of Season 43 of the PBS series Great Performances.
At the end of the 1950s, in a more innocent America, the brutal, meaningless slaying of a Midwestern family horrified the nation. This film is based on Truman Capote's hauntingly detailed, psychologically penetrating nonfiction novel. While in prison, Dick Hickock, 20, hears a cell-mate's story about $10,000 in cash kept in a home safe by a prosperous rancher. When he's paroled, Dick persuades ex-con Perry Smith, also 20, to join him in going after the stash. On a November night in 1959, Dick and Perry break into the Holcomb, Kansas, house of Herb Clutter. Enraged at finding no safe, they wake the sleeping family and brutally kill them all. The bodies are found by two friends who come by before Sunday church. The murders shock the small Great Plains town, where doors are routinely left unlocked. Detective Alvin Dewey of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation heads the case, but there are no clues, no apparent motive and no suspects...
Lucy married at the turn of the last century, when she was fifteen and her husband was fifty. If Colonel William Marsden was a veteran of the "War for Southern Independence", Lucy became a "veteran of the veteran" with a unique perspective on Southern history and Southern manhood. Her story encompasses everything from the tragic death of a Confederate boy soldier to the feisty narrator's daily battles in the Home--complete with visits from a mohawk-coiffed candy-striper.
When a group of trespassing seniors swim in a pool containing alien cocoons, they find themselves energized with youthful vigor.
This special is the second "Night of 100 Stars" to benefit The Actors Fund of America. Edited from a seven-hour live entertainment marathon that was taped February 17, 1985, at New York's Radio City Music Hall, this sequel to the 1982 "Night of 100 Stars" special features 288 celebrities.
Gwyneth Evelyn "Gwen" Verdon was an American actress and dancer. She won four Tony Awards for her musical comedy performances, and served as an uncredited choreographer's assistant and specialty dance coach for theater and film. With flaming red hair and a quaver in her voice, Verdon was a critically acclaimed performer on Broadway from the 1950s-70s. Having originated many roles in musicals she is also strongly identified with her second husband, director–choreographer Bob Fosse, remembered as the dancer–collaborator–muse for whom he choreographed much of his work and as the guardian of his legacy after his death. By the time she was six, she was already dancing on stage. She went on to study multiple dance forms, ranging from tap, jazz, ballroom and flamenco to Balinese. In 1942, Verdon’s parents asked her to marry family friend and tabloid reporter James Henaghan after he got her pregnant at 17, and she quit her dancing career to raise their child. After her divorce, she entrusted her son Jimmy to the care of her parents. Early on, Verdon found a job as assistant to choreographer Jack Cole. During her five-year employment with Cole, she took small roles in movie musicals as a "specialty dancer" She also taught dance to stars such as Jane Russell, Fernando Lamas, and Lana Turner. Verdon started out on Broadway as a "gypsy," going from one chorus line to another. Her breakthrough role finally came as second female lead in Cole Porter's musical Can-Can. Verdon's biggest success was George Abbott's Damn Yankees. Verdon won another Tony and went to Hollywood to repeat her role in the 1958 movie version Damn Yankees. Verdon won another Tony for her performance in the musical, New Girl in Town, and won her fourth Tony for Redhead. Verdon and Fosse continued to collaborate on projects such as musicals Chicago and Dancin', as well as All That Jazz. After originating the role of Roxie opposite Chita Rivera's Velma Kelly in Chicago, Verdon focused on film acting, playing character roles in movies such as The Cotton Club, Cocoon and its sequel. She continued to teach dance and musical theater and to act. She received three Emmy Award nominations for appearances on Magnum, P.I., Dream On, and Homicide: Life on the Street. Verdon appeared in Alice and Marvin's Room). In 1999, Verdon served as artistic consultant on a Broadway musical designed to showcase examples of classic Fosse choreography, called Fosse. which won a Tony Award for best musical. Verdon appeared in the movie Walking Across Egypt, as well as Bruno. Verdon received a total of four Tonys, for best featured actress for Can-Can and best leading actress for Damn Yankees, New Girl in Town, and Redhead. She also won a Grammy Award for the cast recording of Redhead. Verdon was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1981, and in 1998, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts.
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