Interview: Bebe Neuwirth’s Advice for Getting Famous? Work Hard, But Have Fun!

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on September 24, 2009

Bebe Neuwirth knows fame.

She was already an established (and Tony-winning) stage actress and dancer when she was cast as the hilariously emotionally repressed Dr. Lilith Stern in in the 1980-1990s TV show Cheers. The character was a huge hit with both audiences and critics, eventually landing her two Emmys.

Still, when the producers of Frasier, a Cheers spin-off, approached her to continue the role of Lilith on a regular basis in that show, she declined, choosing instead to go back to Broadway.

Boy, did she go back to Broadway! Her triumphant Tony-winning turn as Velma Kelly is the 1996 revival of Chicago is the stuff of legend.

Since then, Neuwirth worked consistently, mostly on the boards, such as the upcoming Broadway adaptation of The Adams Family, in which she plays Morticia opposite Nathan Lane’s Gomez.

But Neuwirth still acts in television and film as well, as in the new movie Fame, a remake of the 1980s film and television show about a school for the performing arts. The producers made a point to cast real-life artists as the school’s adult teachers. Neuwirth plays Ms. Kraft, the school’s unforgiving dance teacher and, given her long and accomplished background in the field, it couldn’t have been more appropriate.

Recently, I chatted by phone with Bebe from her Greenwich Village apartment where we discussed everything from the difference between “TV fame” and “theater fame,” and how reality shows are changing the whole definition of what it means to be famous.

AE: It's interesting that both you and Kelsey Grammer [who plays Frasier] are both involved in the movie. Is it coincidence or did one of you get the other involved?
BN: I think it's a coincidence.

Kelsey Grammer as a teacher in Fame

AE: Do you have scenes together?
BN: I never even saw him. Not only do we not have scenes together, but I never even saw him. I didn't see Megan [Mullally] either, and she's a friend. I didn't see Debbie Allen, and she's a friend. We did Sweet Charity together.