2013 Tony Awards Clip Countdown: #2 - The Tremendous Tommy Tune

Today we are continuing BroadwayWorld's 2013 Tony Awards Clip Countdown with a special spotlight focused on one of the most Tony Award-winning artists in history, actor/choreographer/director Tommy Tune!

S'Wonderful

One man, nine Tony Awards. Oh, yes, you read that right; nine. And, yes, one of them was actually for the 1982 Broadway musical he choreographed/directed incidentally titled NINE. Winning Tony Awards for his onstage performances as well as for his visionary direction and choreography for some of the most innovative and audience-pleasing musicals of the 1980s and 1990s, Tommy Tune is Broadway royalty and one of the top Tony Award winners ever - and, with good reason. So, let's take a look back at where it all began.

Teaming with a young Michael Bennett on a handful of early musicals certainly set the stage - so to speak - for Tommy Tune's ascent to the highest ranks of Broadway in a very short period of time. Thanks to Bennett, Tune was provided with first show-stoppers that ingratiated him with an audience in a significant immediate manner - namely, byway of A JOYFUL NOISE and SEESAW. It is with Tune's participation in the "Clog Dance" in A JOYFUL NOISE that Broadway first became aware of his copious triple-threat skills, and, in 1974, the fulfillment of that huge promise was realized in Tune's first Tony Award-winning role, performing the unforgettable "It's Not Where You Start (It's Where You Finish)" in SEESAW.

Following his Tony win, Tune proceeded to branch out on his own as a choreographer and director in his own right, finding quick success with THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS and following that up with A DAY IN HOLLYWOOD/A NIGHT IN THE UKRAINE (for which he won a 1980 Tony Award for Best Choreography).

Then came NINE. Going head-to-head with Bennett's own DREAMGIRLS at the 1982 Tony Awards, NINE took home Best Director and Best Musical and cemented Tune's place in the theatrical firmament as not only one of the finest performers and choreographers, but one of the best working directors as well. Almost as if to prove the point, Tune proceeded next to direct, choreograph and star in his next project - MY ONE & ONLY, for which he received a 1983 Tony Award for Best Actor In A Musical, as well as Best Choreography. Impressed yet? It would be virtually impossible not to be given these wow-worthy credits - and, we've almost only just begun!

After that string of successes, Tune somehow still had a few hits left in him, but they would prove to be quite a bit more difficult to mount - case in point; out-of-town bomb GRAND HOTEL, which was subsequently drastically rewritten and re-staged from the ground-up on its way to Broadway to become a Tony-winning success in 1990. Indeed, Tune took home two more Tony Award trophies for GRAND HOTEL - Best Director and Best Choreography (again). After that? THE Will Rogers FOLLIES, which went on to win Best Director, Best Choreography as well as Best Musical itself. Tune supervised the Jeff Calhoun revival production of GREASE! after that and then more or less stepped away from directing following the troubled BUSKER ALLEY, which never came in, ultimately. Unfortunately, Tune has not found the ideal property to showcase his talents since, either - THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE GOES PUBLIC was a fast flop in 1994 and TURN OF THE CENTURY never made it to New York much more recently (in 2008) - but, any moment, a new Tommy Tune musical could be conceived and begin on the journey to being born before a Broadway audience for our pleasure, enthrallment and entertainment. And, judging from this account of his career thus far, any new Tommy Tune musical would be winning many Tony Awards shortly thereafter!

As if discovering a 17-year-old Sutton Foster and casting her in THE Will Rogers FOLLIES tour wasn't enough to make him a living legend!

Check out my 2012 InDepth InterView with Tommy Tune about many of these musicals and much more, available here.

The 2013 Tony Awards air tomorrow, Sunday, June 9, at 8 PM on CBS. More information is available at the official site here.

At The Grand

So, now, let's take a look at some of the best Tony Awards moments from telecasts gone by as they relate to triple-threat Tommy Tune!

First up, Tommy Tune accepts his first Tony Award in 1974 for the musical SEESAW, directed by Michael Bennett.

Next, sample Tune's long-running hit THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS at the 1979 Tony Awards.

The original cast of A DAY IN HOLLYWOOD/A NIGHT IN THE UKRAINE performs at the 1980 Tony Awards.

Check out the impossibly sexy TV commercial for NINE in 1982 featuring an astonishingly titillating Anita Morris.

Kathi Moss performs "Be Italian" from NINE at the 1982 Tony Awards.

The original Broadway cast of MY ONE & ONLY performs "Chasin' The Clouds Away" on the 1983 Tony Awards.

Tommy Tune and Thommie Walsh receive 1983 Best Choreography Tony Awards for MY ONE & ONLY.

Kathleen Turner introduces a jaw-dropping medley from GRAND HOTEL at the 1990 Tony Awards.

The original cast of THE Will Rogers FOLLIES performs on the 1991 Tony Awards.

Lastly, see Tommy Tune share the stage with another triple-threat super-talent at the 2004 Tony Awards - the one and only Hugh Jackman! "One Night Only" indeed!

What exactly makes Tommy Tune such a masterful man of the theatre in your most humble estimation? Is it his ability to dazzle us time and time again - whether as a performer, choreographer, director or all three? Or, is it his sheer apparent genius in bringing out the best in musical material, whatever it may be? Whatever it is that makes him who he is, the next Tommy Tune Tony-winning hit cannot come soon enough to the Great White Way. Let's turn a nine into a ten already, Tommy! If anyone could do it, it's you.

After all, as the lyrics of the famous SEESAW song conclude, "It's not where you start, it's where you finish, / And you're gonna finish on top."