Bernadette Peters Bio
Bernadette Peters, born Bernadette Lazzara on February 28, 1948, in New York City, New York, United States, is an American actress and singer whose career has spanned more than six decades across Broadway, film, and television. A celebrated Broadway star, she has earned multiple Tony and Drama Desk nominations, winning two Tonys for Best Leading Actress in a Musical and receiving an Isabelle Stevenson Award for humanitarian work. Peters is widely regarded as a preeminent interpreter of Stephen Sondheim’s work, with standout performances in Mack and Mabel, Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, Gypsy, and other acclaimed productions.
Beyond the stage, she has maintained a prolific recording career, has performed regularly in solo concerts across the United States and internationally, and continues to appear on screen in television series and films.
Early Life and Background
Bernadette Peters was born on February 28, 1948, into an Italian-American family in Ozone Park in the New York City borough of Queens. She is the youngest of three children. Her mother, Marguerite Maltese, started her in show business by putting her on the television show Juvenile Jury at the age of three and a half. Her father, Peter Lazzara, drove a bread delivery truck. Her siblings are casting director Donna DeSeta and Joseph Lazzara.
As a small child, Peters appeared on the television shows Name That Tune and several times on The Horn and Hardart Children’s Hour. In January 1958, at age nine, she obtained her Actors Equity Card under the name Bernadette Peters to avoid ethnic typecasting, with the stage name taken from her father’s first name. She made her professional stage debut the same month in the comedy This Is Goggle, directed by Otto Preminger, which closed during out-of-town tryouts before reaching New York. She also appeared on NBC television as Anna Stieman in the 1958 Kraft Mystery Theatre production A Boy Called Ciske.
In her teen years, Peters attended Quintano’s School for Young Professionals, a now-defunct private school in Manhattan. She first appeared on the New York stage at age ten as Tessie in the New York City Center revival of The Most Happy Fella in 1959.
Path to Celebrity
Peters began working steadily as a teenager, appearing Off-Broadway in the musicals The Penny Friend in 1966 and Curley McDimple in 1967, and serving as a standby on Broadway in The Girl in the Freudian Slip in 1967. She made her Broadway debut in Johnny No-Trump in 1967 and then appeared as George M. Cohan’s sister Josie opposite Joel Grey in George M! in 1968, winning the Theatre World Award. Her performance as Ruby in the 1968 Off-Broadway production of Dames at Sea brought her critical acclaim and her first Drama Desk Award.
She went on to starring roles in her next Broadway vehicles, including Gelsomina in the 1969 musical La Strada and Hildy in a 1971 revival of On the Town, which earned her first Tony Award nomination. She played Mabel Normand in Mack and Mabel in 1974, receiving another Tony nomination. Clive Barnes wrote that with Mack and Mabel, diminutive and contralto Bernadette Peters found herself as a major Broadway star. She moved to Los Angeles in the early 1970s to concentrate on television and film work.
During this period, Peters began a romantic relationship with Steve Martin in 1977 that lasted approximately four years. She also started her recording career, releasing her first single in 1962 and continuing to develop her craft across stage, screen, and song.
Bernadette Peters Career
Early Career (1958-1974)
Peters’s professional career began in 1958 at the age of nine, when she obtained her Actors Equity Card and made her stage debut. Her early Broadway work in Johnny No-Trump and George M! established her as a promising young talent, leading to a Theatre World Award for George M! in 1968. Her Off-Broadway triumph as Ruby in Dames at Sea in 1968 brought her first Drama Desk Award and signaled her arrival as a major musical theatre performer.
Throughout the early 1970s, she balanced Broadway with film and television, taking on starring roles in La Strada in 1969 and the 1971 revival of On the Town. By the time she played Mabel Normand in Mack and Mabel in 1974, she had earned her second Tony Award nomination, and critics had begun to recognize her as a major Broadway star.
Breakthrough (1975-1999)
Peters appeared in more than forty feature films or television films beginning in 1973, including the 1976 Mel Brooks film Silent Movie, for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture. She co-starred in her own television series, All’s Fair, with Richard Crenna in 1976-77. She starred opposite Steve Martin in The Jerk in 1979 in a role that he wrote for her, and again in Pennies from Heaven in 1981, for which she won the Golden Globe Award as Best Motion Picture Actress in a Comedy or Musical.
She returned to Broadway in 1984 as Dot/Marie in the Stephen Sondheim-James Lapine musical Sunday in the Park with George, earning her third Tony Award nomination. The New York Times critic Frank Rich called her performance radiant. She recorded the role for PBS in 1986, winning a 1987 CableACE Award. Her next role was Emma in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Song and Dance on Broadway in 1985, winning her first Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical. She then created the role of the Witch in Sondheim-Lapine’s Into the Woods in 1987.
Other notable Broadway work during this period included The Goodbye Girl in 1993 and the 1999 Broadway revival of Annie Get Your Gun, in which she played Annie Oakley and won her second Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical. The Washington Post critic Lloyd Rose commented that Peters banishes all thoughts of Ethel Merman about two bars into her first number.
Notable Works and Milestones
Peters is regarded by many as the foremost interpreter of the works of Stephen Sondheim, having created defining performances in Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, A Little Night Music, Follies, and Gypsy. Her recording of four Broadway cast albums has won Grammy Awards, and she has received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1987.
Bernadette Peters Award Nominations
Across her career, Bernadette Peters has received seven Tony Award nominations, nine Drama Desk Award nominations, three Primetime Emmy Award nominations, and four Grammy Award nominations. She has also been nominated for Golden Globe Awards for both her film and television work, including nominations for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture for Silent Movie in 1976 and Best Television Actress in a Musical or Comedy for All’s Fair.
Bernadette Peters Awards Won
Peters has won two Tony Awards for Best Leading Actress in a Musical, for Song and Dance in 1985 and Annie Get Your Gun in 1999, along with the honorary Isabelle Stevenson Award in 2012. She has also won three Drama Desk Awards, for Dames at Sea, Song and Dance, and Annie Get Your Gun, and a Golden Globe Award for Pennies from Heaven in 1981.
Bernadette Peters Family
Bernadette Peters was born into an Italian-American family in Ozone Park, Queens, the youngest of three children. Her mother, Marguerite Maltese, worked in show business and started her career as a child performer. Her father, Peter Lazzara, drove a bread delivery truck. Her siblings are casting director Donna DeSeta and Joseph Lazzara.
Personal Life
Peters began a romantic relationship with actor Steve Martin in 1977 that lasted approximately four years. On July 20, 1996, she married investment adviser Michael Wittenberg at the Millbrook, New York, home of her longtime friend Mary Tyler Moore. Wittenberg died at age 43 on September 26, 2005, in a helicopter crash in Montenegro while on a business trip. She has adopted all of her dogs from shelters and currently has a mixed-breed dog named Charlie.