Bundyology - David Garrison at Sardi's

Playbill On-Line (Website):
David Garrison Getting
A Caricature at Sardi's

Last update February 2, 1998

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David

Introduction

as posted by Carolyn Crapo at alt.tv.mwc on October 16, 1997.

Sardi's is the most famous theatrical restaurant and by far one of the most famous sites in all of New York. There are only a couple of hundred caricatures there at any given time, a tradition started about sixty years ago, and to be put there is one of the greatest honors a theatre actor can get. Boy, did he make the right career move!

I found an old article in David's file at the NY Public Library of the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center It's from 1980, when the 27-year-old had just gotten his first starring role (as Groucho in 'A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine') and immediately been nominated for a Tony. The interview took place in Sardi's, as it happens, and David was asked for his future plans. He said something like he'd love to play Richard II, Kermit the Frog, and Cyrano ("although I wouldn't need a fake nose. Nature has endowed me with one of my own") and ended with, "And as long as we're in Sardi's, I'd love to see my picture on the wall." Well, seventeen years later, he's gotten his wish. Congratulations to this MWC alum who's doing so very well.

First Article

by Playbill On-Line as posted by Carolyn Crapo at alt.tv.mwc on October 16, 1997.

Titanic Plans Fall 1998 Tour
Garrison Goes on Sardi's Wall Oct. 15

15-OCT-97

The 1997 Tony-winning Best Musical Titanic will embark in fall 1998 on a national tour of the U.S. at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C.

(Snip)

In other Titanic news, on Oct. 15 at 5:30 PM, Titanic star David Garrison (he plays the villain, Ismay) will get one of Broadway's great honors: his own caricature on the wall at Sardi's restaurant on West 44th St. Though best known for playing Marcy's first husband on TV's "Married With Children," Garrison has numerous theatre credits, including a recent Off-Broadway revival of I Do! I Do! and 1982's Torch Song Trilogy.

Second Article

by Playbill On-Line.

David Garrison: A Stage Villain Gets His Portrait in Sardi's

07-DEC-97

GLAD ABOUT THE BOOS

It's ironic that the Sardi's accolade--a caricature for its hallowed walls--is finally coming to David Garrison now when he is in the midst of an unbroken line of hisses. "It's quite consistent, actually," he says of the boos that greet his bows in Titanic, "but I'm taking it as a left-handed compliment. If I didn't, I'd be in therapy for the rest of my life!"

He plays that ill-fated liner's ruthless owner, J. Bruce Ismay, and does such a hatefully hard-nosed good job of it audiences can't resist spewing their disfavor for him, like clockwork, at his curtain call. He shrugs a sheepish "It's a living," and the crowd roars. "It's the best laugh in the show--a good tension release for the audience."

Prior to this voyage, Garrison always left 'em laughing, arriving on Broadway in that Christopher Durang cavalcade, A History of the American Film. "I was the song-and-dance man. I started out as a minstrel, and by the time we got to Technicolor, I was Gene Kelly. I did an 11 o'clock spot called 'Isn't It Fun To Be in the Movies?'" Seconding that motion, he next turned into a Tony-nominated Groucho for Tommy Tune's A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine.

Garrison still remembers the night he opened in Hollywood/Ukraine, "walking into Sardi's and getting applause and thinking, 'Maybe some day I'll get my mug up on the wall.' Well, 17 years later, it happened." And, under a heading of Be Grateful for Small Favors, "I'm happy to say that the caricature looks like me and not Mr. Ismay. There's a gleam in the eye that Mr. Ismay doesn't have."

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