BWW Flashback: Remembering the Great Phyllis Newman

By: Sep. 16, 2019
Obituaries
Click Here for More on Obituaries
Enter Your Email to Unlock This Article

Plus, get the best of BroadwayWorld delivered to your inbox, and unlimited access to our editorial content across the globe.




Existing user? Just click login.

As BroadwayWorld sadly reported yesterday, stage star Phyllis Newman passed away yesterday, September 15, at the age of 86.

Newman got her start in show business at 4 years old imitating Carmen Miranda in theatres and clubs. Her portrayal of Martha Vail in the Jule Styne/Comden and Green musical Subways Are For Sleeping - costumed only in a bath towel - earned her a Tony Award. Her other Broadway credits include Bells Are Ringing, The Apple Tree, On the Town, The Prisoner of Second Avenue, Awake and Sing, Wish You Were Here, First Impressions, and her one-woman musical The Madwoman of Central Park West, which she co-authored with Arthur Laurents. She garnered a Tony Award nomination for her highly-acclaimed performance in Neil Simon's Broadway Bound.

Off-Broadway she earned a Drama Desk Nomination for her starring performance in James Lapine's The Moment When... at Playwrights Horizons. She received unanimous praise from critics for her role as an eccentric crisis hotline operator in Nicky Silver's off-Broadway comedy, The Food Chain, appeared with Fisher Stevens and Annabella Sciorra in the Naked Angels production of Shyster and starred in the Drama Desk-nominated revival of A Majority of One. Regionally she has been seen in Pleasures & Palaces and Rocket to the Moon as well as Arthur Laurents' My Good Name directed by Daniel Sullivan.

BroadwayWorld remembers the stage legend with just a few of her shining moments onstage below:

Scenes from Madwoman of Central Park West:

Phyllis performs "Who's That Woman" from Follies:

Phyllis plays Password in 1963:

Phyllis stands up for marriage equality in 2007:


Vote Sponsor


Videos