Harvey Forbes Firestin is an American actor, playwright, and voice actor. Winner of the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play based on his own trilogy, The Song of the Torch, and the Tony Award for Best Actor in the Musical Hairspray. Author of the book for the musical La Cage aux Folles, for which he also received the Tony Award for Best Book for a Musical. Member of the American Theater Hall of Fame since 2007.
Biography
Harvey Firestin was born on June 6, 1954 to Eastern European immigrants in Brooklyn, New York. Mother - Jacqueline Harriet (nee Gilbert), school librarian. Father - Irving Fayersteen, owner of a factory for the production of handkerchiefs. The Fayerstein family are atheists.
Prior to puberty, Firstein was a soprano in a professional boys' choir. Because of this, in his vocal cords, the vestibular fold became overdeveloped, and in adulthood, Harvey received a characteristic gravel voice, which gave him the advantage of working as the owner of the "double voice".
At one time, Harvey became the first openly gay celebrity. Now that his career as a stand-up comedian and wannabe is long over, he occasionally moonlights by writing columns about gay issues.
Creation
His famous gravelly voice is best known for the play and film The Torch Song Trilogy, which he wrote in which he starred both off-Broadway with a young Matthew Broderick and on Broadway with Estelle Getty and Fisher Stevens.
The Broadway production of A Song of the Torch won Harvey two 1982 Tony Awards: Best Play and Best Actor in a Play. In addition, the same play earned him two less prestigious Drama Desk Awards for Outstanding New Play and Outstanding Actor in a Play, as well as the Theater World Award. The film based on this play earned Harvey the Independence Award and was nominated for a Spirit Award for Best Male Leader.
In 1983, Firstein authored La Cage aux Folles, for which he again received the Tony Award for Best Book for a Musical and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book. However, the play Diamond Feet, based on this book in 1988 by Peter Allen, was a commercial flop, ending after 72 previews and 64 performances.
Harvey Firestin has written several other books titled Safe Sex, Forget It, and SpookHose.
In 2007, Firstein writes a new book for the musical A Catered Affair, in which he also starred. Trial performances of the musical took place at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego, with major performances on Broadway in 2008. The book won the Drama Desk Award for Best Book for a Musical. The musical itself won the Drama League Award for Best Production of a Musical.
In 2012, in co-authorship with Alan Mencken (music) and Jack Feldman (lyrics), Fierstin wrote a new book for the musical "News". The musical opened on Broadway in 2012 and Harvey was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Book for a Musical.
Firstein is the author of the book for the stage music version of the film Kinky Boots, with music and lyrics by Cindy Lauper. After trial shows at the Bank of America Theater in Chicago, the musical opened on Broadway in 2013. In the same year, the production won 6 Tony Awards, including an award for Best Musical.
Firestin's play Valentine's Cash was produced by the Manhattan Theater Club and staged on Broadway at the Samuel Friedman Theater in 2014. Director Joe Mantello directed the play starring Patrick Page, John Callum and Maare Winningham.
Harvey wrote The Wiz live! for NBC with Stephanie Mills, Queen Latifah and David Alan Grier. The program is a television adaptation of the musical The Wiz, which aired on Broadway from 1974 to 1979.
Harvey Firstein became the first openly gay celebrity in the United States and has helped improve the lives of today's American gays and lesbians.
Career
Firestin's debut as an actor took place at the La Mama Theater in Andy Warhol's only play, Pork. Besides La Mama, Harvey played in other places. With a desire to become an artist, he was educated at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. There he achieved his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1973.
In Boston, at La Mama, Harvey played three roles in Robert Patrick's Haunted Ghost in 1975. Then he played the same roles in the same production, but on the stages of Off-Broadway in 1991. In 2004, he played the role of Tevye in the 2004 production of Fiedler on the Roof.
Firestin starred in the film version of A Torch's Song with Matthew Broderick and Anne Bancroft, Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway, Mrs. Doubt and Death of the Trouble.
For his role in the documentary The Times of Harvey Milk, Harvey won an Emmy. As the voice actor, Harvey gave his voice to a character named Yao in the animated film Mulan. The same character was voiced by Firstein in Kingdom Hearts II and Mulan II.
Firestin's voice was also featured in The Simpsons. In the 1999 episode "The Simpsons and Delilah," he voiced the character Elmer.
In 1994, Harvey became the first openly gay actor to play the lead gay character in Daddy's Girls.
Firestin also played supporting roles in Vice Miami, Murder That She Wrote, the TV movie Showtime Common Ground, which he himself wrote, and the comedy series Cheers, which earned him an Emmy nomination. »As an outstanding supporting actor.
Harvey's most recent roles were in the 2006 remake of The Year Without Santa Claus, in the television performances Family Guy, Nurse Jackie. Voiced by Lily in the episodes "The Last Cigarette Ever" and "How I Met Your Mother."
In 2009, Firestin returned to the theater and played Tevye on the Fiddler on the Roof National Tour and in the Broadway revival of La Cage aux Folles.
In total, Harvey has played roles in 433 performances and 15 previews throughout his career.
