Broadway: The Golden Age is a 2004 documentary by Rick McKay, telling the story of the "golden age" of Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 by the oral history of the legendary actors of the 40s and 50s, incorporating rare lost footage of actual performances and never-before-seen personal home movies and photos.

The Cast

The film includes interviews (filmed over a span of six years) with the following people:

• Edie Adams
  Edie Adams
  Edie Adams was an American singer, Broadway, television and film actress and comedienne. Adams, a Tony Award winner, "both embodied and winked at the stereotypes of fetching chanteuse and sexpot blonde." She was well-known for her impersonations of female stars on stage and television, most...
  
  
• Bea Arthur
• Elizabeth Ashley
  Elizabeth Ashley
  Elizabeth Ashley is an American actress who first came to prominence as the ingenue in the Broadway play Take Her, She's Mine, which earned her a Tony Award as Best Featured Actress in a Play.-Early life:...
  
  
• Alec Baldwin
  Alec Baldwin
  Alexander Rae "Alec" Baldwin III is an American actor who has appeared on film, stage, and television.Baldwin first gained recognition through television for his work in the soap opera Knots Landing in the role of Joshua Rush. He was a cast member for two seasons before his character was killed off...
  
  
• Kaye Ballard
  Kaye Ballard
  Kaye Ballard is an American musical theatre and television actress, comedienne, and singer.-Life and career:Ballard was born as Catherine Gloria Balotta in Cleveland, Ohio, to an Italian American family, the daughter of Lena and Vincent James Balotta.Ballard established herself as a musical...
  
  
• Bryan Batt
  Bryan Batt
  Bryan Batt is an American actor best known for his role in the AMC series Mad Men as Salvatore Romano, an art director for the Sterling Cooper agency. Primarily a theater actor, he has had a number of starring roles in movies and television as well...
  
  
• Betsy Blair
  Betsy Blair
  Betsy Blair was an American actress of film and stage, long based in London.Blair pursued a career in entertainment from the age of eight, and as a child worked as an amateur dancer, performed on radio, and worked as a model, before joining the chorus of Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe in 1940...
  
  
• Tom Bosley
  Tom Bosley
  Thomas Edward "Tom" Bosley was an American actor. Bosley is best known for portraying Howard Cunningham on the long-running ABC sitcom Happy Days. He also was featured in recurring roles on Murder, She Wrote, and Father Dowling Mysteries...
  
  
• Carol Burnett
  Carol Burnett
  Carol Creighton Burnett is an American actress, comedian, singer, dancer and writer. Burnett started her career in New York. After becoming a hit on Broadway, she made her television debut...
  
  
• Kitty Carlisle
• Carol Channing
  Carol Channing
  Carol Elaine Channing is an American singer, actress, and comedienne. She is the recipient of three Tony Awards , a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination...
  
  
• Betty Comden
  Betty Comden
  Betty Comden was one-half of the musical-comedy duo Comden and Green, who provided lyrics, libretti, and screenplays to some of the most beloved and successful Hollywood musicals and Broadway shows of the mid-20th century...
  
  
• Barbara Cook
  Barbara Cook
  Barbara Cook is an American singer and actress who first came to prominence in the 1950s after starring in the original Broadway musicals Candide and The Music Man among others, winning a Tony Award for the latter...
  
  
• Carole Cook
  Carole Cook
  Carole Cook is an American actress. She has appeared in many theatrical productions, in films and on television.Born as Mildred Frances Cook, she was a protege of Lucille Ball. Ball gave her the stage name of "Carole", after her friend Carole Lombard because, Ball reportedly told Cook, "you have...
  
  
• Hume Cronyn
  Hume Cronyn
  Hume Blake Cronyn, OC was a Canadian actor of stage and screen, who enjoyed a long career, often appearing professionally alongside his second wife, Jessica Tandy.-Early life:...
  
  
• Arlene Dahl
  Arlene Dahl
  Arlene Carol Dahl is an American actress and former MGM contract star, who achieved notability during the 1950s. She is the mother of actor Lorenzo Lamas.-Early years:...
  
  
• Charles Durning
  Charles Durning
  Charles Durning is an American actor. With appearances in over 100 films, Durning's memorable roles include police officers in the Oscar-winning The Sting and crime drama Dog Day Afternoon , along with the comedies Tootsie, To Be Or Not To Be and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, the last two...
  
  
• Daisy Eagan
  Daisy Eagan
  Daisy Eagan is an American actress.In 1991 she won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical for playing Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden...
  
  
• Fred Ebb
  Fred Ebb
  Fred Ebb was an American musical theatre lyricist who had many successful collaborations with composer John Kander. The Kander and Ebb team frequently wrote for such performers as Liza Minnelli and Chita Rivera....
  
  
• Nanette Fabray
  Nanette Fabray
  Nanette Fabray is an American actress, comedienne, singer, dancer, and activist. She began her career performing in vaudeville as a child and then became a musical theatre actress during the 1940s and 1950s, winning a Tony Award in 1949 for her performance in Love Life...
  
  
• Cy Feuer
  Cy Feuer
  Cy Feuer was an American theatre producer, director, composer, and musician.Born Seymour Arnold Feuerman in Brooklyn, New York,he studied trumpet privately with Max Schlossberg, he became a professional trumpeter at the age of fifteen, working at clubs on weekends to help support his family while...
  
  
• Bonnie Franklin
  Bonnie Franklin
  Bonnie Gail Franklin is an American actress, best known for her starring role in the television series One Day at a Time.-Personal life:...
  
  
• Betty Garrett
  Betty Garrett
  Betty Garrett was an American actress, comedienne, singer and dancer who originally performed on Broadway before being signed to a film contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer...
  
  
• Ben Gazzara
  Ben Gazzara
  -Early life:Gazzara was born Biagio Anthony Gazzara in New York City, the son of Italian immigrants Angelina and Antonio Gazzara, who was a laborer and carpenter. Gazzara grew up on New York's tough Lower East Side. He actually lived on E. 29th Street and participated in the drama program at...
  
  
• Robert Goulet
  Robert Goulet
  Robert Gerard Goulet was a Canadian American entertainer as a singer and actor. He played the role of Lancelot in the Broadway musical Camelot of 1960.-Early life:...
  
  
• Farley Granger
  Farley Granger
  Farley Earle Granger was an American actor. In a career spanning several decades, he was perhaps best known for his two collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock, Rope in 1948 and Strangers on a Train in 1951.-Early life:...
  
  
• Tammy Grimes
  Tammy Grimes
  -Early life:Grimes was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, the daughter of Eola Willard , a naturalist and spiritualist, and Nicholas Luther Grimes, an innkeeper, country-club manager, and farmer. She attended high school at the then-all girls school, Beaver Country Day School, in Chestnut Hill,...
  
  
• Uta Hagen
  Uta Hagen
  Uta Thyra Hagen was a German-born American actress and drama teacher. She originated the role of Martha in the 1963 Broadway premiere of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee...
  
  
• Sheldon Harnick
  Sheldon Harnick
  Sheldon Harnick is an American lyricist best known for his collaborations with composer Jerry Bock on hit musicals such as Fiddler on the Roof....
  
  
• Julie Harris
  Julie Harris
  Julia Ann "Julie" Harris is an American stage, screen, and television actress. She has won five Tony Awards, three Emmy Awards and a Grammy Award, and was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1994, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts. She is a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame...
  
  
• Rosemary Harris
  Rosemary Harris
  Rosemary Ann Harris is an English actress and a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame. Throughout her career she has been nominated for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award and has won a Golden Globe, an Emmy, a Tony Award, an Obie, and five Drama Desk Awards.-Early life:Harris was born in...
  
  
• June Havoc
  June Havoc
  June Havoc was a Canadian-born American actress, dancer, writer, and theater director. Havoc was a child Vaudeville performer under the tutelage of her mother. She later acted on Broadway and in Hollywood and stage directed . She last appeared on television in 1990 on General Hospital...
  
  
• Ruthie Henshall
  Ruthie Henshall
  Valentine Ruth Henshall , better known as Ruthie Henshall, is an English singer, dancer, and actress best known for her work in musical theatre. Henshall attended the Laine Theatre Arts school in Epsom, Surrey before making her first professional appearance on stage in 1986...
  
  
• Jerry Herman
  Jerry Herman
  Jerry Herman is an American composer and lyricist, known for his work in Broadway musical theater. He composed the scores for the hit Broadway musicals Hello, Dolly!, Mame, and La Cage aux Folles. He has been nominated for the Tony Award five times, and won twice, for Hello, Dolly! and La Cage...
  
  
• Al Hirschfeld
  Al Hirschfeld
  Albert "Al" Hirschfeld was an American caricaturist best known for his simple black and white portraits of celebrities and Broadway stars.-Personal life:Born in St...
  
  
• Celeste Holm
  Celeste Holm
  Celeste Holm is an American stage, film, and television actress, known for her Academy Award-winning performance in Gentleman's Agreement , as well as for her Oscar-nominated performances in Come to the Stable and All About Eve...
  
  
• Sally Ann Howes
  Sally Ann Howes
  Sally Ann Howes is a British actress and singer, who currently holds dual British-American citizenship. Her career on stage, screen and television has spanned over six decades...
  
  
• Kim Hunter
  Kim Hunter
  Kim Hunter was an American film, theatre, and television actress. She won both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award, each as Best Supporting Actress, for her performance as Stella Kowalski in the 1951 film A Streetcar Named Desire...
  
  
• Jeremy Irons
  Jeremy Irons
  Jeremy John Irons is an English actor. After receiving classical training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Irons began his acting career on stage in 1969, and has since appeared in many London theatre productions including The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the...
  
  
• Anne Jackson
  Anne Jackson
  Anne Jackson is an American actress of television, stage, and screen.-Life and career:Jackson, the youngest of three sisters, was born in Millvale, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Stella Germaine and John Ivan Jackson, a barber who ran a beauty parlor...
  
  
• Derek Jacobi
  Derek Jacobi
  Sir Derek George Jacobi, CBE is an English actor and film director.A "forceful, commanding stage presence", Jacobi has enjoyed a highly successful stage career, appearing in such stage productions as Hamlet, Uncle Vanya, and Oedipus the King. He received a Tony Award for his performance in...
  
  
• Simon Jones
  Simon Jones (actor)
  Simon Jones is an English actor, most famous for his appearances in the television and radio series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in which he played the lead role of Arthur Dent from 1978 to 2005...
  
  
• Lainie Kazan
  Lainie Kazan
  Lainie Kazan is an American actress and singer.-Personal life:Kazan was born Lanie Levine in Brooklyn, New York City, the daughter of a Russian Ashkenazi Jewish father who worked as a bookie and a Turkish Sephardic Jewish mother, Carole, whom Kazan has described as "neurotic, fragile and...
  
  
• Michael John LaChiusa
  Michael John LaChiusa
  Michael John LaChiusa is an American musical theatre and opera composer, lyricist, and librettist. He is best known for complex, musically challenging shows such as Hello Again, Marie Christine, The Wild Party, and See What I Wanna See...
  
  
• Martin Landau
  Martin Landau
  Martin Landau is an American film and television actor. Landau began his career in the 1950s. His early films include a supporting role in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest . He played continuing roles in the television series Mission: Impossible and Space:1999...
  
  
• Frank Langella
  Frank Langella
  -Early life:Langella, an Italian American, was born in Bayonne, New Jersey, the son of Angelina and Frank A. Langella Sr., a business executive who was the president of the Bayonne Barrel and Drum Company. Langella attended Washington Elementary School and Bayonne High School in Bayonne...
  
  
• Angela Lansbury
  Angela Lansbury
  Angela Brigid Lansbury CBE is an English actress and singer in theatre, television and motion pictures, whose career has spanned eight decades and earned her more performance Tony Awards than any other individual , with five wins...
  
  
• Arthur Laurents
  Arthur Laurents
  Arthur Laurents was an American playwright, stage director and screenwriter.After writing scripts for radio shows after college and then training films for the U.S...
  
  
• Carol Lawrence
• Michele Lee
  Michele Lee
  Michele Lee is an American singer, dancer, actress, producer, director and frequent game show panelist of the 1970s. She is best-known for her role as Karen Cooper Fairgate MacKenzie on the 1980s prime-time soap opera, Knots Landing...
  
  
• Hal Linden
  Hal Linden
  Hal Linden is an American stage and television actor and television director, best known for his role in the television comedy series Barney Miller and as presenter on the ABC educational series Animals, Animals, Animals....
  
  
• Cameron Mackintosh
  Cameron Mackintosh
  Sir Cameron Anthony Mackintosh is a British theatrical producer notable for his association with many commercially successful musicals. At the height of his success in 1990, he was described as being "the most successful, influential and powerful theatrical producer in the world" by the New York...
  
  
• Shirley MacLaine
  Shirley MacLaine
  Shirley MacLaine is an American film and theater actress, singer, dancer, activist and author, well-known for her beliefs in new age spirituality and reincarnation. She has written a large number of autobiographical works, many dealing with her spiritual beliefs as well as her Hollywood career...
  
  
• Karl Malden
  Karl Malden
  Karl Malden was an American actor. In a career that spanned more than seven decades, he performed in such classic films as A Streetcar Named Desire, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, On the Waterfront and One-Eyed Jacks...
  
  
• Donna McKechnie
  Donna McKechnie
  Donna McKechnie is an American musical theater dancer, singer, actress, and choreographer. She is known for her professional and personal relationship with choreographer Michael Bennett, with whom she collaborated on her most noted role, "Cassie" from the musical A Chorus Line, for which she...
  
  
• Ann Miller
  Ann Miller
  Johnnie Lucille Collier, better known as Ann Miller was an American singer, dancer and actress.-Early life:...
  
  
• Liliane Montevecchi
  Liliane Montevecchi
  Liliane Montevecchi is a French actress, dancer, and singer.Montevecchi began her career as a prima ballerina in Roland Petit's dance company...
  
  
• Patricia Morison
  Patricia Morison
  Patricia Morison is an American stage and motion picture actress and mezzo-soprano singer . She made her feature film debut in 1939 after several years on the stage. During her time as a screen actress she was lauded for her patrician beauty, with her blue eyes and extremely long, dark hair among...
  
  
• Robert Morse
  Robert Morse
  Robert Morse is an American actor and singer. Morse is best known for his appearances in musicals and plays on Broadway. He has also acted in movies and television shows. His best known role is that of J. Pierrepont Finch in the 1961 Broadway musical, and 1967 film How to Succeed in Business...
  
  
• James Naughton
  James Naughton
  James Naughton is an American director, theater, film and television actor.-Early life:Naughton was born in Middletown, Connecticut, the son of Rosemary and Joseph Naughton, both of whom were teachers He is the brother of actor David Naughton.-Career:Naughton graduated from Brown University and...
  
  
• Patricia Neal
  Patricia Neal
  Patricia Neal was an American actress of stage and screen. She was best known for her film roles as World War II widow Helen Benson in The Day the Earth Stood Still , wealthy matron Emily Eustace Failenson in Breakfast at Tiffany's , middle-aged housekeeper Alma Brown in Hud , for which she won...
  
  
• Phyllis Newman
  Phyllis Newman
  Phyllis Newman is an American actress and singer. She was nominated twice for the Drama Desk Award and won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical.-Early life:...
  
  
• The Nicholas Brothers
• Jerry Orbach
  Jerry Orbach
  Jerome Bernard "Jerry" Orbach was an American actor and singer. He was well known for his starring role as Detective Lennie Briscoe in the Law & Order television series and as the voice of Lumière in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. As well, Orbach was a noted musical theatre star...
  
  
• Janis Paige
  Janis Paige
  Janis Paige is an American film, musical theatre and television actress. Born Donna Mae Tjaden in Tacoma, Washington, she began singing in public from the age of five in local amateur shows...
  
  
• Amanda Plummer
• Jane Powell
  Jane Powell
  Jane Powell is an American singer, dancer and actress.After rising to fame as a singer in her home state of Oregon, Powell was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer while still in her teens...
  
  
• Hal Prince
  Hal Prince
  Harold Smith Prince is an American theatrical producer and director associated with many of the best-known Broadway musical productions of the past half-century...
  
  
• John Raitt
  John Raitt
  John Emmett Raitt was an American actor and singer best known for his performances in musical theater.-Early years:...
  
  
• Lee Roy Reams
  Lee Roy Reams
  Lee Roy Reams is an American musical theatre actor, singer, dancer, choreographer, and director.Born in Covington, Kentucky, Reams earned a Master of Arts degree and was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati...
  
  
• Rex Reed
  Rex Reed
  Rex Taylor Reed is an American film critic and former co-host of the syndicated television show At the Movies. He currently writes the column "On the Town with Rex Reed" for The New York Observer.-Life and career:...
  
  
• Charles Nelson Reilly
  Charles Nelson Reilly
  Charles Nelson Reilly was an American actor, comedian, director and drama teacher known for his comedic roles in theater, movies, children's television, animated cartoons, and as a panelist on the game show Match Game....
  
  
• Diana Rigg
  Diana Rigg
  Dame Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg, DBE is an English actress. She is probably best known for her portrayals of Emma Peel in The Avengers and Countess Teresa di Vicenzo in the 1969 James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service....
  
  
• Chita Rivera
  Chita Rivera
  Chita Rivera is an American actress, dancer, and singer best known for her roles in musical theater. She is the first Hispanic woman to receive a Kennedy Center Honors award...
  
  
• Tony Roberts
  Tony Roberts (actor)
  David Anthony "Tony" Roberts is an American actor. He is best known for his roles in several Woody Allen movies, usually cast as Allen's best friend.-Early life:...
  
  
• Mary Rodgers
  Mary Rodgers
  Mary Rodgers is an American composer of musicals and an author of children's books. She is a daughter of composer Richard Rodgers and his wife, Dorothy Rodgers, as is her sister, Linda Rodgers Emory...
  
  
• Gena Rowlands
  Gena Rowlands
  Gena Rowlands is an American actress of film, stage and television. The four-time Emmy and two-time Golden Globe winner is best known for her collaborations with her actor-director husband John Cassavetes in ten films, in two of which, Gloria and A Woman Under the Influence, she gave Academy...
  
  
• Eva Marie Saint
  Eva Marie Saint
  Eva Marie Saint is an American actress who has starred in films, on Broadway, and on television in a career spanning seven decades. She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the drama film On the Waterfront , and later starred in the thriller film North by...
  
  
• Marian Seldes
  Marian Seldes
  Marian Hall Seldes is an American stage, film, radio, and television actress whose career has spanned six decades and who was elected to the American Theatre Hall of Fame.-Life and career:...
  
  
• Vincent Sherman
  Vincent Sherman
  Vincent Sherman was an American director, and actor, who worked in Hollywood. His movies include Mr. Skeffington , Nora Prentiss , and The Young Philadelphians ....
  
  
• Douglas Sills
  Douglas Sills
  -Life and career:Born in Detroit, Michigan, he grew up in the suburb of Franklin, where he was friends with both Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell. Sills attended Cranbrook School, from which he graduated in 1978, and the University of Michigan where he majored in music...
  
  
• Stephen Sondheim
  Stephen Sondheim
  Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...
  
  
• Maureen Stapleton
  Maureen Stapleton
  Maureen Stapleton was an American actress in film, theater and television.-Early life:Stapleton was born Lois Maureen Stapleton in Troy, New York, the daughter of Irene and John P. Stapleton, and grew up in a strict Irish American Catholic family...
  
  
• Elaine Stritch
  Elaine Stritch
  Elaine Stritch is an American actress and vocalist. She has appeared in numerous stage plays and musicals, feature films, and many television programs...
  
  
• Mary Testa
  Mary Testa
  Mary Testa is an American stage actress. She is a two-time Tony Award nominee, for performances in revivals of Leonard Bernstein's On the Town and 42nd Street ....
  
  
• Tommy Tune
  Tommy Tune
  Thomas James "Tommy" Tune is an American actor, dancer, singer, theatre director, producer, and choreographer. Over the course of his career, he has won nine Tony Awards and the National Medal of Arts.-Early years:...
  
  
• Leslie Uggams
  Leslie Uggams
  Leslie Uggams is an American actress and singer, perhaps best known for her work in Hallelujah, Baby! She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority.-Singing:...
  
  
• Gwen Verdon
  Gwen Verdon
  Gwenyth Evelyn “Gwen” Verdon was an actress and dancer who won four Tony awards for her musical comedy performances. With flaming red hair and an endearing quaver in her voice, Verdon was a critically acclaimed dancer on Broadway in the 1950s and 1960s...
  
  
• Eli Wallach
  Eli Wallach
  Eli Herschel Wallach is an American film, television and stage actor, who gained fame in the late 1950s. For his performance in Baby Doll he won a BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer and a Golden Globe nomination. One of his most famous roles is that of Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly...
  
  
• Thommie Walsh
  Thommie Walsh
  Thomas Joseph “Thommie” Walsh III was an American dancer, choreographer, and director.-Biography:Born in Auburn, New York, Walsh was interested in dance from the age of five, but seriously considered foregoing it as a career when he was rejected by Juilliard...
  
  
• Wendy Wasserstein
  Wendy Wasserstein
  Wendy Wasserstein was an American playwright and an Andrew Dickson White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University...
  
  
• Fay Wray
  Fay Wray
  Fay Wray was a Canadian-American actress most noted for playing the female lead in King Kong...
  
  
• Gretchen Wyler
  Gretchen Wyler
  Gretchen Wyler was an American actress and founder of the Genesis Awards for animal protection.-Early life:...
  
  
• Karen Ziemba
  Karen Ziemba
  Karen Ziemba is an American actress, singer and dancer, best known for her work in musical theatre.-Biography:Ziemba was born in St. Joseph, Michigan, and went on to attend the University of Akron , where she studied dance and joined the Ohio Ballet in her sophomore year.Her Broadway debut was in...
  
  

The intrinsic value of the documentary as a historical record is underscored by the fact that seven of the interviewees (Hume Cronyn, Ute Hagen, Al Hirschfeld, Kim Hunter, Ann Miller, Harold Nicholas and Gwen Verdon) died before the film was released in June 2004, and another 25 interviewees have died since then (as of October 2011).

Reception

Broadway: The Golden Age won the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the Palm Beach International Film Festival

Palm Beach International Film Festival

The Palm Beach International Film Festival is a film festival in the United States held in Palm Beach, Florida which showcases over 120 films annually in April for over 20,000 attendees...

, the Audience Choice Award for Best documentary at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival

Santa Barbara International Film Festival

The Santa Barbara International Film Festival is a film festival and non-profit organization, established in 1985, that showcases independent American and international films. The SBIFF line-up includes 20 world premieres and 11 U.S. premieres, with newly expanded 11-day festival...

, and the Audience Award and Festival Award at the San Diego Film Festival, both for Best Documentary.

In 2006, McKay was honored with a Special Award for his work on the film by the New England Theatre Conference http://www.netconline.org