Chita Rivera takes thrilling "Life" on the road

By Robert Osborne

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Chita Rivera does Broadway proud in the national touring company of her Tony-nominated "Chita Rivera: The Dancer's Life," which I caught last week at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach, Fla.

The show began on the road in December for a two-week run at the Arnoff in Cincinnati and has since played major dates from Miami to Cleveland and from Seattle to Philadelphia. After a hiatus this week, it opens May 1 for two-weeker in Boston. (Following four more East Coast dates, "Dancer's Life" is scheduled to wrap June 10 in Norfolk, Va.)

The show is looking and playing even better than in its Broadway incarnation during the 2005-06 season; it's crisp, fresh, done full-throttle and, being Broadway-born, is a great advertisement for Broadway at large. And Chita's amazing, but we already knew that, didn't we?

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Someone else who has always done Broadway proud celebrates her 90th birthday Sunday.

Celeste Holm, born April 29, 1917, became a Broadway name in the original cast of the landmark 1943 legit musical "Oklahoma!" She achieved bona fide Broadway star status in 1944's "Bloomer Girl," three years later was Oscared in Hollywood for 1947's "Gentleman's Agreement" and has been a star and a relentless champion of the arts ever since, receiving additional Oscar nominations for 1949's "Come to the Stable" and 1950's "All About Eve" and adding television, nightclubs, radio and more Broadway in her resume.

Two of my own favorite Holm performances were as the unseen voice of the husband-stealer in Joseph Mankiewicz's 1949 "A Letter to Three Wives" and as the no-nonsense Aunt Polly in the underrated 1973 musical version of "Tom Sawyer."

On her upcoming landmark natal day, this special lady will be toasted at a party in New York by her husband, Frank Basile, and a large contingent of close chums.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter