Best Known As: Film Actor

Gist:  Bernadette Peters (born February 28, 1948) is an American actress and singer from New York City. Over the course of a career that has already spanned five decades, she has starred in musical theatre, films and television, as well as performing in solo concerts and recordings. She is one of the most critically-acclaimed Broadway performers, having received nominations for seven Tony Awards, winning two, and eight Drama Desk Awards, winning three. Four of the Broadway cast albums on which she has starred have won Grammy Awards.

Peters first performed on the stage as a child and then a teenage actor in the 1960s, and in film and television in the 1970s. She was praised for this early work and for appearances on The Muppet Show, The Carol Burnett Show and in other television work, and for her roles in films like Silent Movie, The Jerk, Pennies from Heaven and Annie. In the 1980s she returned to the theatre, where she became one of the best-known Broadway stars over the next three decades. She also has recorded six solo albums and several singles, as well as many cast albums, and performs regularly in her own solo concert act. Peters also continues to act in films and on television, where she has been nominated for three Emmy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards, winning once.

Peters is particularly noted for her starring roles in stage musicals, including Song and Dance, Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, Annie Get Your Gun, and Gypsy, becoming closely associated with composer Stephen Sondheim. She had a four-year romantic relationship with comedian Steve Martin and was married to investment adviser Michael Wittenberg for over nine years until he was killed in a helicopter crash on September 26, 2005. Peters is known for her charitable work, including as a founder of the Broadway Barks animal charity.

Life Facts:  Peters was born 'Bernadette Lazzara' to an Italian-American family in Queens, New York, the youngest of three children. Her siblings are casting director Donna DeSeta and Joseph Lazzara. Her father Peter drove a bread delivery truck, and her mother, Marguerite (née Maltese), started her in show business by putting her on the television show Juvenile Jury at the age of three-and-a-half. She appeared on the television shows Name That Tune and several times on The Horn and Hardart Children's Hour at age five.

In January 1958, at age nine, she obtained her Actors Equity Card in the name of Bernadette Peters to avoid ethnic stereotyping, with the stage name taken from her father's first name. She first appeared on the New York stage at age 10 in the New York City Center revival of The Most Happy Fella (1959). In her teen years, she attended the Quintano's School for Young Professionals, a former private school that several famous people, such as Steven Tyler, attended.

At age 13, Peters appeared as one of the "Hollywood Blondes" and was an understudy for "Dainty June" in the second national tour of Gypsy. During this tour Peters first met her long-time accompanist, conductor and arranger Marvin Laird, who was the assistant conductor for the tour. Laird recalled, "I heard her sing an odd phrase or two and thought, 'God that's a big voice out of that little girl,'" The next summer, she played Dainty June in summer stock, and in 1962 she recorded her first single. In 1964 she played Leisl in The Sound Of Music and Jenny in Riverwind in summer stock at the Mt. Gretna Playhouse (Pennsylvania), and Riverwind again at the Bucks County Playhouse in 1966. Upon graduation from high school, she started working steadily, appearing Off-Broadway in the musicals The Penny Friend (1966) and Curley McDimple (1967) and as a standby on Broadway in The Girl in the Freudian Slip (1967). She made her Broadway debut in Johnny No-Trump in 1967 and next appeared as George M. Cohan's sister opposite Joel Grey in George M! (1968), winning the Theatre World Award.

It was Peters' performance as "Ruby" in the 1968 Off-Broadway Dames at Sea, a spoof of 1930s musicals, that brought her critical acclaim and her first Drama Desk Award. Peters had starring roles in her next Broadway vehicles?Gelsomina in La Strada (1969), Hildy in On the Town (1971), for which she received her first Tony Award nomination, and Mabel Normand in Mack and Mabel (1974), receiving another Tony nomination. Although these had short runs, Peters was singled out for praise by the critics, and the Mack and Mabel cast album became popular among musical theatre fans. She moved to Los Angeles in the early 1970s to concentrate on television and film work.

Peters has recorded six solo albums and several singles. Three of her albums have been nominated for the Grammy Award. Peters' 1980 single "Gee Whiz" reached the top forty on the U.S. pop singles charts.

, 1980)]]

Peters' debut album in 1980 (an LP), entitled Bernadette Peters contained 10 songs, including "If You Were The Only Boy", "Gee Whiz", "Heartquake", "Should've Never Let Him Go", "Chico's Girl", "Pearl's A Singer", "Other Lady", "Only Wounded", "I Never Thought I'd Break and You'll Never Know". The original cover painting by Alberto Vargas was one of his last works, created at the age of 84. According to The New York Daily News, Peters "persuaded him to do one last 'Vargas Girls' portrait.... She just went to his California retreat, asked him to do one more, he looked at her and said, 'You ARE a Vargas girl!'" She kept the original painting. The original title planned for the album was Decades. It was re-released on CD in 1992 as Bernadette with the same cover art (pictured at left), together with some tracks from her 1981 album, Now Playing. Rolling Stone wrote of her debut album,

Her next solo album, Now Playing (1981), featured songs by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Carole Bayer Sager and Marvin Hamlisch, and Stephen Sondheim (for example, "Broadway Baby"). Bernadette Peters was re-released on CD in 1992 as Bernadette, with the 1980 Vargas cover art, and included some of the songs from Now Playing. In 1996, she was nominated for a Grammy Award for her best-selling album, I'll Be Your Baby Tonight, which includes popular songs by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Lyle Lovett, Hank Williams, Sam Cooke, and Billy Joel, as well as Broadway classics by Leonard Bernstein and Rogers and Hammerstein. The live recording of her 1996 Carnegie Hall concert, Sondheim, Etc. - Bernadette Peters Live At Carnegie Hall, also was nominated for a Grammy Award.

Peters' next studio album, in 2002, Bernadette Peters Loves Rodgers and Hammerstein, consisted entirely of Rodgers and Hammerstein songs, including two that she sings in her concerts, "Some Enchanted Evening" and "There Is Nothin' Like a Dame". This album, which reached position 14 in the "Top Internet Charts", was her third album in a row nominated for a Grammy. It formed the basis of her Radio City Music Hall solo concert debut in June 2002. Her last solo album, titled Sondheim Etc., Etc. Live At Carnegie Hall: The Rest of It, was released in 2005. It consists of all of the songs (and patter) from her 1996 Carnegie Hall concert that were not included in the earlier recording.

Additionally, Peters has recorded songs on other albums, such as "Dublin Lady" on John Whelan's Flirting with the Edge (Narada, 1998). On the Mandy Patinkin Dress Casual 1990 album, Patinkin and Peters recorded the songs from Stephen Sondheim's 1966 television play, Evening Primrose. On the tribute album Born to the Breed: A Tribute to Judy Collins Peters sings "Trust Your Heart".

for the premiere of I Am Because We Are.]]

Peters married investment adviser Michael Wittenberg on July 20, 1996 at the upstate New York home of long-time friend Mary Tyler Moore. Wittenberg died at age 43 on September 26, 2005 in a helicopter crash in Montenegro while on a business trip.

Peters has two dogs, a mixed-breed dog named Kramer and a pit bull named Stella, both adopted from shelters. Peters' goddaughter Isabelle and Kramer were the inspirations for the characters in her first children's book, Broadway Barks, while Stella is the subject of her forthcoming second children's book.

Career Facts:  Peters was born 'Bernadette Lazzara' to an Italian-American family in Queens, New York, the youngest of three children. Her siblings are casting director Donna DeSeta and Joseph Lazzara. Her father Peter drove a bread delivery truck, and her mother, Marguerite (née Maltese), started her in show business by putting her on the television show Juvenile Jury at the age of three-and-a-half. She appeared on the television shows Name That Tune and several times on The Horn and Hardart Children's Hour at age five.

In January 1958, at age nine, she obtained her Actors Equity Card in the name of Bernadette Peters to avoid ethnic stereotyping, with the stage name taken from her father's first name. She first appeared on the New York stage at age 10 in the New York City Center revival of The Most Happy Fella (1959). In her teen years, she attended the Quintano's School for Young Professionals, a former private school that several famous people, such as Steven Tyler, attended.

At age 13, Peters appeared as one of the "Hollywood Blondes" and was an understudy for "Dainty June" in the second national tour of Gypsy. During this tour Peters first met her long-time accompanist, conductor and arranger Marvin Laird, who was the assistant conductor for the tour. Laird recalled, "I heard her sing an odd phrase or two and thought, 'God that's a big voice out of that little girl,'" The next summer, she played Dainty June in summer stock, and in 1962 she recorded her first single. In 1964 she played Leisl in The Sound Of Music and Jenny in Riverwind in summer stock at the Mt. Gretna Playhouse (Pennsylvania), and Riverwind again at the Bucks County Playhouse in 1966. Upon graduation from high school, she started working steadily, appearing Off-Broadway in the musicals The Penny Friend (1966) and Curley McDimple (1967) and as a standby on Broadway in The Girl in the Freudian Slip (1967). She made her Broadway debut in Johnny No-Trump in 1967 and next appeared as George M. Cohan's sister opposite Joel Grey in George M! (1968), winning the Theatre World Award.

It was Peters' performance as "Ruby" in the 1968 Off-Broadway Dames at Sea, a spoof of 1930s musicals, that brought her critical acclaim and her first Drama Desk Award. Peters had starring roles in her next Broadway vehicles?Gelsomina in La Strada (1969), Hildy in On the Town (1971), for which she received her first Tony Award nomination, and Mabel Normand in Mack and Mabel (1974), receiving another Tony nomination. Although these had short runs, Peters was singled out for praise by the critics, and the Mack and Mabel cast album became popular among musical theatre fans. She moved to Los Angeles in the early 1970s to concentrate on television and film work.

Peters was nominated for Emmy Awards for her guest-starring roles on the Fox situation comedy Ally McBeal (2001), and The Muppet Show (1977). She was also nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award, Outstanding Performer in a Children's Special, for her work in the made-for-television movie Bobbie's Girl. She won the 1987 "CableACE Award" for her role as Dot in the television version of Sunday in the Park With George.

She has appeared in many variety shows with stars such as Sonny and Cher and George Burns. She has both performed and presented on the Academy Awards broadcasts in 1994, 1987, 1983, 1981 and 1976. Peters has been a presenter at the annual Tony Awards ceremony and co-hosted the ceremony with Gregory Hines in June 2002. She also hosted Saturday Night Live in November 1981. She made 12 guest appearances on The Carol Burnett Show as well as appearing with Burnett in the made-for-television version of Once Upon a Mattress and the 1982 film Annie. She also performed at the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony for Burnett (2003). Peters appeared often on the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and on the day-time talk show Live with Regis and Kelly, both as a co-host and a guest. Peters voiced stray cat Rita in the Rita and Runt segments of the animated series Animaniacs. Rita often sang on the show, sometimes in parodies of songs from Broadway musicals. She appeared on Inside the Actor's Studio in November 2000, discussing her career and craft.

Peters has co-starred in a number of television movies, including The Last Best Year (1990) with Mary Tyler Moore, Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella (1997) with Brandy (receiving a nomination for the "Golden Satellite Award" for her role), and Prince Charming (2003) with Martin Short. She co-starred in her own television series, All's Fair, with Richard Crenna in 1976?77, for which Peters was nominated for a Golden Globe award as Best TV Actress ? Musical/Comedy. In March 2005, she made a pilot for an ABC situation comedy series titled Adopted, co-starring with Christine Baranski, but it was not picked up. Peters appeared in the Lifetime television movie Living Proof which was first broadcast on October 18, 2008. She played the role of Barbara, an art teacher with breast cancer, who is initially reluctant to participate in the study for the cancer drug Herceptin. Andrew Gans of Playbill wrote, "Peters is able to choose from an expansive emotional palette to color the character, and her performance... is moving, humorous and ultimately spirit-raising".

Peters' television work in recent years also includes guest appearances on several television series. She appeared as the sharp-tongued sister of Karen Walker (Megan Mullally) on the penultimate episode of the NBC series Will & Grace, "Whatever Happened to Baby Gin?" (May 2006); as a defense attorney on the NBC series, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (November 2006); as a judge on the ABC series Boston Legal (May 2007); and as an accident victim in Grey's Anatomy (September 2008). Of her role in Grey's Anatomy, TV Guide wrote: "Peters is especially fine as she confronts a life spinning out of control. I'd make her an early contender for a guest-actor Emmy nomination." In January, February and May 2009, she appeared in the ABC series Ugly Betty in five episodes as Jodie Papadakis, a magazine mogul running the YETI (Young Editors Training Initiative) program that Betty and Marc are in.

Peters's appearance at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival in June 2009 was filmed and broadcast in Australia later that month.