TOMMY TUNE

XCLUSIVE
CONVERSATION
with Melinda Roy
Tony Nominee, Co-Director of Gulfshore Ballet and (former AESTHETX magazine Centerfold!)


Photography by Peter Glebo


magazine
March 2004

Everything about Tommy Tune is larger than life. The six-foot-six, size-thirteen tap shod Texan has won an unprecedented nine Tony Awards in four different categories, as well as, among other accolades, eight Drama Desk Awards, two Obie Awards, a Drama League, an Astaire and a George Abbott Award for Lifetime Achievement! It was back in 1965 when Tommy Tune first danced onto the Great White Way and into the chorus of Baker Street. Next up was A Joyful Noise in 1967 and How Now Dow Jones in 1968. Five years and countless raves later, Tommy garnered his first Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical in Michael Bennett’s Seesaw.

Tune’s first foray into directing was the groundbreaking off-Broadway hit The Club in 1976. Back on Broadway, but this time as a choreographer and co-director, Tune gave us The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, followed by A Day in Hollywood / A Night in the Ukraine, for which he won his second Tony Award, this time for Best Choreography. Tommy returned to off-Broadway in 1981 to direct the highly controversial production of Carol Churchill’s Cloud 9. The next year, Tommy brought us Nine, for which he won his third Tony and his first for Directing a Broadway Musical. A double Tony Award win followed for Mr. Tune as Best Actor in a Musical and Best Choreography for the Broadway hit, My One and Only, co-starring Twiggy. Grand Hotel followed, with Tony wins for Best Choreography and Best Direction of a Musical, and the following year Mr. Tune did what no artist had done before (or has since) when he won the same two honors back-to-back, this time for The Will Rogers Follies. Tommy once again returned to the other side of the Broadway footlights in his one-man song and dance show, Tommy Tune Tonite!, later touring with it throughout the country and around the world.

Of his unique talents as a director, choreographer, singer, dancer and actor, the New York Times proclaimed, “Mr. Tune has reshuffled the elements of old-style musical into state of the art.” Andy Warhol once said that Tommy Tune “exudes a cultivated serenity and a genuine love of life.” Tommy has shied away from Hollywood movie-making, appearing in only two films early in his illustrious career. He was featured in Hello, Dolly!, starring Barbra Streisand and directed by Gene Kelly, and in Ken Russell’s The Boy Friend, where he first met Twiggy.

Tune has sung and danced for three U.S. Presidents, the Queen of England, and the Royal Family of Monaco. In 1991, Gwen Verdon inducted him into Broadway’s Theatre Hall of Fame, and Hollywood soon followed suit when, three years later, he was honored with his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame - appropriately placed directly in front of the Capezio Dancewear shop. In 1997, Tommy gave us Footnotes, his memoir about his extraordinary life in the theatre, and Slow Dancin’, a CD compilation of his favorite romantic ballads. The end of the millennium was the beginning of a dream come true for Tommy Tune when he made his Las Vegas debut as the star of EFX, the ninety million dollar spectacular at the MGM Grand Hotel. Tommy was thrilled to open Broadway’s newest theater, the Little Shubert, in his show, “White Tie and Tails,” with his chums the Manhattan Rhythm Kings. This year, Tommy Tune and the Manhattan Rhythm Kings are touring the country, performing their vaudeville-inspired show in theaters, performing arts centers, and with symphony orchestras everywhere.

Mr. Tune is very proud to be the namesake of Houston’s Tommy Tune Awards, for excellence in High School Musical Theatre. Tommy is honored to be the 2003 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award bestowed upon him on National Tap Day. Also in tap is Miss Spectacular, a twenty million dollar musical, which will be directed by Mr. Tune, set to open in Las Vegas in 2004.

Not content to entertain audiences on land alone, Tommy is readying a new musical called Paparazzi for Holland America Line’s newest ship, the Oosterdam. For more information, visit www.tommytune.com. But there is yet another dimension to his incredible talents; AESTHETX magazine presents....

DIRECTOR
CHOREOGRAPHER
SINGER
DANCER
ACTOR
PAINTER