Smith, the head of the Shubert Organization. (Eliot and Lloyd Webber also won the award that year for Best Score.) “Tonight’s honor would have given my husband particular pleasure,” said his widow, who died Nov. That night, Valerie Eliot accepted the Tony on behalf of her husband. The Shuberts would never have flown her over if they didn’t think they were going to win!” “But I should have realized something was up when I saw Eliot’s widow sitting on the other side of the theater. “I lost to a man who’d been dead for 18 years,” Stone said. He froze, and then slowly backtracked to his seat. ” he stood up and began making his way down the aisle. When he heard the words “and the 1983 Tony Award goes to. “If ever there was a sure thing that year, I was it,” Stone once told me.Īs the nominees for Best Book of a Musical were being called out, Stone adjusted his bow tie, slicked down his hair and quickly went through his acceptance speech in his head. Since Eliot died in 1965, Stone didn’t see him as much of a threat either. Eliot, whose “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats” was the basis for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Cats.” The competition that year, he said, wasn’t too stiff: Betty Comden and Adolph Green were in the running for “A Doll’s Life,” a flop and Richard Levinson and William Link were up for “Merlin,” another flop. Stone had been nominated for his book to “My One and Only,” a charming Gershwin catalog show starring Tommy Tune and Twiggy. It uses recordings made from readings given by Eliot in London in 1955.The late, great Peter Stone, who wrote such shows as “1776” and “The Will Rogers Follies,” loved a good anecdote, and one of his favorites was about the 1983 Tony Awards. Eliot Reads Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats is an audiobook that was released by Caedmon Records in 1957.
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