Then and now : a memoir
(Book)

A legend of the American theater, Barbara Cook burst onto the scene in the 1950s to become Broadway's leading ingénue in roles such as Cunegonde in Candide, Amalia Balash in She Loves Me, and her career-defining, Tony Award-winning role as the original Marian the librarian in The Music Man. But in the late 1960s, Barbara's extraordinary talent onstage was threatened by debilitating depression and alcoholism, forcing her to step away from the limelight. Emerging from the shadows in the early 1970s, Barbara reinvented herself as the country's leading concert and cabaret artist, performing the songs of Stephen Sondheim and other masters, while establishing a reputation as one of the greatest interpreters of the American songbook. Taking us deep into her life and career, from her childhood in the Jim Crow South to the Great White Way, this memoir candidly and poignantly describes both her personal difficulties and her legendary triumphs, detailing the extraordinary working relationships she shared with many of the key composers, musicians, actors, and performers of the late twentieth century, among them Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein, Elaine Stritch, and Robert Preston. Hailed by some as the greatest singer in the world, but preferring to think of herself as "a work in progress," Barbara Cook here delivers a powerful, personal tale of pain and triumph as straightforward, unflinchingly honest, and openhearted as her singing.--Adapted from dust jacket.