There Is Nothing Like Tony-Winning "Dame" Phyllis Newman!

When it comes to Tony memories, nothing can top Phyllis Newman’s tale of what happened on April 29, 1962, the night she won Best Featured Actress in a Musical for Subways Are for Sleeping, featuring a book and lyrics co-written by her husband, Adolph Green. Just before her category was announced, Newman’s producer, David Merrick, turned to her and whispered, “I voted for Barbra Streisand,” the star of his other show, I Can Get it for You Wholesale.” Then, as Newman began her acceptance speech, a streaker appeared behind her in the Waldorf-Astoria’s Grand Ballroom.

Laughing at the memory almost half a century later, the actress recalls, “I said, ‘Stop it, stop it, you’re ruining my big moment!’” As for emerging victorious after Merrick’s nasty aside, she says now, “It was one of the greatest moments of anybody’s life.”

Beloved as a vivacious actress and comedienne, Phyllis Newman will receive her second Tony on June 7 for her role as a crusader for women’s health. She is the recipient of the new Isabelle Stevenson Award, created to recognize an individual who has made a substantial contribution of volunteered time and effort on behalf of humanitarian, social service or charitable organizations. Since 1996, the Phyllis Newman Women’s Health Initiative (PNWHI) of the Actors’ Fund of America has raised more than $3.5 million and served 2,500 women in the entertainment industry.

“It’s terrific for the Actors’ Fund to get this kind of attention,” Newman says of the Tony, modestly downplaying her own accomplishments in addressing the health needs of women. “It’s very exciting to be honored with a new award.”

A breast cancer survivor, Newman decided in the mid-1990s that a new source of health care funding and information was needed when her assistant, an aspiring actress, confessed that she could not afford a mammogram. “I thought, ‘This is ridiculous!’” recalls Newman, who was then acting off-Broadway in Nicky Silver’s The Food Chain. “There were seven or eight brilliantly talented women onstage that season and I knew them all, so I wrote notes and asked them to take part in an evening by women, for women and about women. And every star [including Glenn Close, Carol Burnett and Betty Buckley] said yes.”

The result was the very first Nothing Like a Dame benefit concert, a tradition that will continue on June 15 at New World Stages with an intimate evening featuring Audra McDonald, Bebe Neuwirth, Alice Ripley, Kelli O’Hara and Andrea McArdle. Proceeds support the services of PNWHI, which include case management and counseling, free mammograms and gynecological exams, help with insurance issues, support groups and more.

“One of the reasons I agreed to put my name on ‘Pin-whi,’ as we call it—and it’s a terrible name, by the way!—is that I’m an illustration of someone who’d had a very serious illness but was working and feeling good and looking healthy,” Newman explains. “I used to look at [breast cancer survivors] Happy Rockefeller and Betty Ford and think, ‘They’re okay, so I’ll be okay.’” Asked about her current health, Newman says cheerfully, “I’m okay. I can’t work the way I would like to, but I can get out and do things.”

And indeed she does, regularly taking an aisle seat at Broadway openings and developing an autobiographical musical. “After Adolph died [in 2002], I started writing about caretaking and loss,” Newman says. “I have pages and pages of short pieces and lyrics and parodies.” Her daughter, lyricist Amanda Green (High Fidelity), and composer Larry Grossman have an opening number ready, and Newman envisions herself and two other actresses portraying the different stages of her life.

“What would really make me happy is to be performing again while saying something about this part of my life,” Newman says. “The older I get, the more I know what I am: a performer. All my cares really do leave me when I’m onstage. That’s when I’m happiest. It’s corny, but it’s absolutely true.”

On Tony night, look for Phyllis Newman walking the red carpet in a custom creation by 23-year-old fashion designer Cho Cheng. “He’s devising something really elegant, befitting a humanitarian,” she says with a laugh. “When you’re a humanitarian, you don’t wear red sequins—though I’d like to!”