Joan Diener
Encyclopedia
Joan Diener was an American
theatre
actress and singer with a three-and-a-half-octave range.
Born in Columbus, Ohio
, Diener majored in psychology
at Sarah Lawrence College
and moonlighted as an actress while still a student. She made her Broadway
debut in the 1948 revue
Small Wonder
, choreographed by Gower Champion
and co-starring Tom Ewell
, Alice Pearce
and Jack Cassidy
.
Diener met her future husband, theatre director Albert Marre
, when she won the role of Lalume, the seductive wife of the Wazir, in Kismet
, winning a Theatre World Award
for her performance. They were married three years later and subsequently had a son Adam and a daughter Jennifer.
In 1958, Marre directed a production of At the Grand, a musical
adaptation of Vicki Baum
's 1930 novel Grand Hotel
, in Los Angeles
with Diener as an opera
diva
(a ballerina
in the book) who falls in love with a charming, but larcenous, faux baron
. (Although the show never reached Broadway, it was revamped drastically more than thirty years later and, directed by Tommy Tune
, became the hit Grand Hotel
.)
Mitch Leigh
's Man of La Mancha
also was directed by Marre, who cast his wife as Aldonza, the lusty serving wench envisioned by the deranged Don Quixote as virtuous Dulcinea. The critics were unanimous in praising her portrayal, but she inexplicably was overlooked by the Tony nominations committee. She went on to play the role in London
and Amsterdam
, in Paris
(starring Jacques Brel) and Brussels
in French. She appears on the cast recording with Brel. At age 62, in the 1992 Broadway revival starring Raul Julia
, she took over the same role she had created decades earlier. Pop singer Sheena Easton
collapsed during one performance and Diener filled in for the second half of the show.
Diener reunited with Leigh as composer and Marre as director for both Cry for Us All
(1970), which closed after nine performances, and Home Sweet Homer
(1975), which never made it past opening night, despite the presence of Yul Brynner
as Odysseus
.
Diener's most famous stage roles went to others when they reached the screen - Dolores Gray in Kismet and Sophia Loren
in La Mancha - and she never had a film career of her own. In addition to appearing on Broadway and in London
's West End
, she performed in nightclubs, such as the Blue Angel in Manhattan
, early television (Androcles and the Lion
on Omnibus
), and in regional theatre
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
actress and singer with a three-and-a-half-octave range.
Born in Columbus, Ohio
Columbus, Ohio
Columbus is the capital of and the largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio. The broader metropolitan area encompasses several counties and is the third largest in Ohio behind those of Cleveland and Cincinnati. Columbus is the third largest city in the American Midwest, and the fifteenth largest city...
, Diener majored in psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
at Sarah Lawrence College
Sarah Lawrence College
Sarah Lawrence College is a private liberal arts college in the United States, and a leader in progressive education since its founding in 1926. Located just 30 minutes north of Midtown Manhattan in southern Westchester County, New York, in the city of Yonkers, this coeducational college offers...
and moonlighted as an actress while still a student. She made her 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...
debut in the 1948 revue
Revue
A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century American popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932...
Small Wonder
Small Wonder
Small Wonder is an American science fiction sitcom that aired in first-run syndication from September 7, 1985 to May 20, 1989. The show chronicles the family of a robotics engineer who, after he secretly creates a robot modeled after a real human girl, tries to pass it off as their daughter...
, choreographed by Gower Champion
Gower Champion
Gower Carlyle Champion was an American actor, theatre director, choreographer, and dancer.-Early years:Champion was born in Geneva, Illinois, the son of John W. Champion and Beatrice Carlisle. He was raised in Los Angeles, California, where he graduated from Fairfax High School...
and co-starring Tom Ewell
Tom Ewell
Tom Ewell was an American actor.-Early life and career:Born Samuel Yewell Tompkins in Owensboro, Kentucky, where his family expected him to follow in their footsteps as lawyers or whiskey and tobacco dealers....
, Alice Pearce
Alice Pearce
Alicia “Alice” Pearce was an American actress. Brought to Hollywood by Gene Kelly to reprise her Broadway performance in the film version of On the Town , Pearce played comedic supporting roles in several films, before being cast as Gladys Kravitz in Bewitched in 1964...
and Jack Cassidy
Jack Cassidy
John Joseph Edward “Jack” Cassidy was an American actor of stage, film and screen.His frequent professional persona was that of an urbane, super-confident egotist with a dramatic flair, much in the manner of Broadway actor Frank Fay...
.
Diener met her future husband, theatre director Albert Marre
Albert Marre
Albert Marre is an American director and producer in the theatre.Born in New York City, Marre made his Broadway debut as an actor and associate director of the 1950 revival of John Vanbrugh's Restoration comedy The Relapse...
, when she won the role of Lalume, the seductive wife of the Wazir, in Kismet
Kismet (musical)
Kismet is a musical with lyrics and musical adaptation by Robert Wright and George Forrest, adapted from the music of Alexander Borodin, and a book by Charles Lederer and Luther Davis, based on Kismet, the 1911 play by Edward Knoblock...
, winning a Theatre World Award
Theatre World Award
The Theatre World Award, first awarded for the 1945-46 season, is an American honor presented annually to actors and actresses in recognition of an outstanding New York City stage debut performance, either on Broadway or off-Broadway.-History:...
for her performance. They were married three years later and subsequently had a son Adam and a daughter Jennifer.
In 1958, Marre directed a production of At the Grand, a musical
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
adaptation of Vicki Baum
Vicki Baum
Hedwig Baum was an Austrian writer. She is known for Menschen im Hotel , one of her first international successes....
's 1930 novel Grand Hotel
Grand Hotel (book)
Grand Hotel is a 1929 novel by Vicki Baum, which was the basis for the film Grand Hotel. It should not be confused with Berlin Hotel , published in 1945, which deals with the situation in Germany towards the end of World War II. The film Grand Hotel was remade as Week-End at the Waldorf ....
, in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
with Diener as an opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
diva
Diva
A diva is a celebrated female singer. The term is used to describe a woman of outstanding talent in the world of opera, and, by extension, in theatre, cinema and popular music. The meaning of diva is closely related to that of "prima donna"....
(a ballerina
Ballerina
A ballerina is a title used to describe a principal female professional ballet dancer in a large company; the male equivalent to this title is danseur or ballerino...
in the book) who falls in love with a charming, but larcenous, faux baron
Baron
Baron is a title of nobility. The word baron comes from Old French baron, itself from Old High German and Latin baro meaning " man, warrior"; it merged with cognate Old English beorn meaning "nobleman"...
. (Although the show never reached Broadway, it was revamped drastically more than thirty years later and, directed by 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:...
, became the hit Grand Hotel
Grand Hotel (musical)
Grand Hotel is a musical with a book by Luther Davis and music and lyrics by Robert Wright and George Forrest, with additional lyrics and music by Maury Yeston....
.)
Mitch Leigh
Mitch Leigh
Mitch Leigh is an American musical theatre composer and theatrical producer best known for the musical Man Of La Mancha.-Biography:Leigh was born in Brooklyn, New York) as Irwin Michnick...
's Man of La Mancha
Man of La Mancha
Man of La Mancha is a musical with a book by Dale Wasserman, lyrics by Joe Darion and music by Mitch Leigh. It is adapted from Wasserman's non-musical 1959 teleplay I, Don Quixote, which was in turn inspired by Miguel de Cervantes's seventeenth century masterpiece Don Quixote...
also was directed by Marre, who cast his wife as Aldonza, the lusty serving wench envisioned by the deranged Don Quixote as virtuous Dulcinea. The critics were unanimous in praising her portrayal, but she inexplicably was overlooked by the Tony nominations committee. She went on to play the role in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
(starring Jacques Brel) and Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
in French. She appears on the cast recording with Brel. At age 62, in the 1992 Broadway revival starring Raul Julia
Raúl Juliá
Raúl Rafael Juliá y Arcelay was a Puerto Rican actor.Born in San Juan, he gained interest in acting while still in school. Upon completing his studies, Juliá decided to pursue a career in acting. After performing in the local scene for some time, he was convinced by entertainment personality Orson...
, she took over the same role she had created decades earlier. Pop singer Sheena Easton
Sheena Easton
Sheena Easton is a Scottish recording artist. Easton became famous for being the focus of an episode in the British television programme The Big Time, which recorded her attempts to gain a record contract and her eventual signing with EMI Records.Easton rose to fame in the early 1980s with the pop...
collapsed during one performance and Diener filled in for the second half of the show.
Diener reunited with Leigh as composer and Marre as director for both Cry for Us All
Cry for Us All
Cry for Us All is a musical with a book by William Alfred and Albert Marre, lyrics by Alfred and Phyllis Robinson, and music by Mitch Leigh. In response to poor advance sales, the title was...
(1970), which closed after nine performances, and Home Sweet Homer
Home Sweet Homer (musical)
Home Sweet Homer is a musical with a book by Roland Kibbee and Albert Marre, lyrics by Charles Burr and Forman Brown, and music by Mitch Leigh.Originally called Odyssey, it is one of the most notorious flops in Broadway theatre history...
(1975), which never made it past opening night, despite the presence of Yul Brynner
Yul Brynner
Yul Brynner was a Russian-born actor of stage and film. He was best known for his portrayal of Mongkut, king of Siam, in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor for the film version; he also played the role more than 4,500 times on...
as Odysseus
Odysseus
Odysseus or Ulysses was a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad and other works in the Epic Cycle....
.
Diener's most famous stage roles went to others when they reached the screen - Dolores Gray in Kismet and Sophia Loren
Sophia Loren
Sophia Loren, OMRI is an Italian actress.In 1962, Loren won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Two Women, along with 21 awards, becoming the first actress to win an Academy Award for a non-English-speaking performance...
in La Mancha - and she never had a film career of her own. In addition to appearing on Broadway and in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
's West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
, she performed in nightclubs, such as the Blue Angel in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, early television (Androcles and the Lion
Androcles and the Lion (play)
Androcles and the Lion is a 1912 play written by George Bernard Shaw.Androcles and the Lion is Shaw's retelling of the tale of Androcles, a slave who is saved by the requited mercy of a lion. In the play, Shaw portrays Androcles to be one of the many Christians being led to the Colosseum for torture...
on Omnibus
Omnibus (TV series)
Omnibus was an arts-based BBC television documentary series, broadcast on BBC1 in the United Kingdom. It ran from 1967 until 2003, usually being transmitted on Sunday evenings....
), and in regional theatre
Community theatre
Community theatre refers to theatrical performance made in relation to particular communities—its usage includes theatre made by, with, and for a community...
.