Tovah Feldshuh
Tovah Feldshuh (born Terri Sue Feldshuh December 27, 1952) actress, singer, playwright. Sister of Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright, David Feldshuh ("Miss Evers' Boys"). Before she went into acting she was a rock singer. She first appeared on the stage under the name of "Terri Fairchild" and later adopted the name Tovah, which is her Hebrew name [[1]]. She has had parallel careers on stage, film and television, earning Tony and Emmy nominations and numerous other awards for her work.
Tovah Feldshuh (pronounced 'FELD-shoe') is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and the winner of the McKnight Fellowship in Acting to the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre where she started her career under British director Michael Langham [[2]].
Famous for her flaming red hair, she first appeared on Broadway in "Cyrano" starring Christopher Plummer [[3]]. This was followed by numerous Broadway roles. She has been nominated for the Tony Award four times: as Best Actress (Play) in 1976 for "Yentl"; Best Actress (Musical) in 1979 for "Sarava;" Best Actress (Featured Role - Play) in 1989 for "Lend Me a Tenor"; and as Best Actress (Play) in 2004 for "Golda's Balcony". The latter play, William Gibson's work about the late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, set a record as the longest-running one-woman play in Broadway history on January 2, 2005.[[4]]
Feldshuh made her cabaret debut at the Algonquin Hotel Oak Room in her act, "Tovah: Crossovah! From Broadway to Cabaret," which was followed by a one-woman show "Tovah: Out of Her Mind!" (1996). In April 1999, the play opened at the Ritz Carlton in Philadelphia and she took it on the road to such cities as Houston, Dallas, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Hong Kong, and Sydney, Australia. Her London West End debut of "Tovah: Out of Her Mind!" sold out an eight week run at the Duke of York's Theatre. The Boston Globe selected her as best Cabaret Artist of 2000 [[5]].
The same year as her television debut, in 1993 Feldshuh appeared on television in a minor role in the Movie of the Week "Scream, Pretty Peggy" and later as Katherine Hepburn in "The Amazing Howard Hughes" (1977), but she came to international prominence as Helena Slomova in the 1978 mini series "Holocaust". Following this standout exposure (for which she received an Emmy nomination), she has continued to make numerous other television movies and series appearences (most recently with her recurring role as district attorney Danielle Melnick on "Law and Order" for which she received her second Emmy nomination in 2003). Feature film appearences have included "A Walk on the Moon", "Happy Accidents", "Brewster's Millions", "The Idolmaker", "The Blue Iguana", "A Day in October", and "The Believer". She played Judy Stein in "Kissing Jessica Stein" for which she won the Golden Satellite Award as Best Supporting Actress (2003)[[6]].
As a playwright she is perhaps best known for her on-woman show "Tallulah Hallelulah" (about Tallulah Bankhead) in which she stars. Tova Feldshuh was married to New York attorney Andrew Harris Levy in 1977 and they have two children. For her charity work, she is the recipient of the Eleanor Roosevelt Humanities Award, Hadassah's Myrtle Wreath and the Israel Peace Medal. The National Foundation for Jewish Culture honored her with the 2002 Jewish Image Award.