Broadway and cabaret great Barbara Cook died August 8 at her Manhattan home at the age of 89. Our Frank DiLella has a look back at her long and illustrious career.
Widely known as one of the original ingénues of the Golden Age of Broadway, Barbara Cook was in a class of her own. The songstress put an indelible stamp on some of musical theater's most notable characters with her silky soprano voice. The actress died of respiratory failure in her home Tuesday.
Born in Atlanta in 1927, Cook made her Broadway debut in the short-lived show "Flahooley" in the early-1950s.
She would later go on to create Cunegonde in Leonard Bernstein's "Candide," Amalia Balash in "She Loves Me," and Marian the Librarian in "The Music Man," for which she received a Tony Award for best featured actress in a musical.
Also considered a master interpreter of Stephen Sondheim, Cook made her final appearance on Broadway in 2010 in the musical revue, "Sondheim on Sondheim." A year later, she received the prestigious Kennedy Center Honor for her contribution to the arts.
When asked to reflect on the role she connected with the most, Cook gave me an unexpected response at her 85th birthday party at Carnegie Hall.
"'The King and I.' I did that in Stock — and I did it at City Center. I never did do a Broadway production of it," Cook said. "I did it with Farley Granger. We were so right with one another."
Barbara Cook, you were truly "Something Wonderful."