Episode 36 Guest Star: Phyllis Newman

- January 12, 2021

Phyllis Newman (March 19, 1933 – September 15, 2019) was an American actress and singer. She won the 1962 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her role as Martha Vail in the musical Subways Are for Sleeping on Broadway, received the Isabelle Stevenson Award in 2009 and was nominated another Tony for Broadway Bound (1987), as well as two nominations for Drama Desk Awards.

Newman was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, one of three daughters of a Jewish immigrant couple. Her mother, Rachel Gottlieb, from Lithuania, was professionally known as Marvelle the Fortune Teller. Her father, Sigmund Newman, from Warsaw, billed himself as Gabel the Graphologist, working alongside his wife in boardwalk amusements.

She had two sisters, Shirley (Mrs. Elliott) Porte, and Elaine (Mrs. Harry) Sandaufer. She attended Lincoln High School where she was voted "Future Hollywood Star."

Newman made her Broadway debut in Wish You Were Here, in 1952. Additional theater credits include Bells Are Ringing, The Prisoner of Second Avenue, and Subways Are for Sleeping, for which she won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress.

An early television role for Newman was in a 1959 episode of Beverly Garland's crime drama Decoy. The following year she was cast as Doris Hudson on the CBS summer replacement series Diagnosis: Unknown, opposite Patrick O'Neal as pathologist Dr. Daniel Coffee. Newman created the role of Renée Buchanan on the ABC soap opera One Life to Live. Other television credits include The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Burke's Law, ABC Stage 67, Murder, She Wrote, The Wild Wild West. On screen, Newman appeared in Picnic (1955), Let's Rock (1958), Bye Bye Braverman (1968), To Find a Man (1972), Mannequin (1987), Only You (1994), The Beautician and the Beast (1997), A Price Above Rubies (1998) and The Human Stain (2003).

In addition to her appearances on original cast recordings, Newman recorded an album of contemporary songs, Those Were the Days, for Sire Records in 1968. In England, the album was released as Phyllis Newman's World of Music on London Records. In 1995 Newman founded The Phyllis Newman Women's Health Initiative of the Actors Fund of America.

Newman was married to lyricist and playwright Adolph Green from 1960 until his death in 2002. She was the mother of journalist Adam Green and singer-songwriter Amanda Green. Newman died on September 15, 2019 at the age of 86 from complications of a lung disorder.