Ruth Leon recommends…. Barbara Cook – Till There Was You – The Music Man
Ruth Leon recommendsBarbara Cook
Someone who was definitely flesh and blood was the great Barbara Cook. Her creamy effortless lyric soprano led the original casts of many musicals of the 1950s and, when she was no longer an ingenue (and when she wasn’t chosen to play the parts she had originated on Broadway in the movie versions) she started a second career as possibly the greatest cabaret performer of them all.
Here’s a look back at Barbara Cook as Marian the Librarian in her 11 o’clock number from The Music Man. Easy to see why she won a Tony for this performance and impossible to understand why Shirley Jones and not Barbara Cook was chosen to play Marian in the movie.
“. . . and when she was no longer an ingenue . . .”
A subject about which Barbara often included a humorous song in her concert performances:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utikSv0I3zQ
Cook had the better voice although a “stage” voice does not always translate well into a movie voice. Still and all, Shirley Jones sang well and looked gorgeous in the movie — amusing to read how the costume designer for the film had to do heroic work because she was well into her pregnancy at the time. At least one intimate scene had to be reshot because Robert Preston visibly and verbally reacted to being “kicked” by the then-unborn David Cassidy.