Rita Gardner, original ‘Fantasticks’ star
Rita Gardner, who in a long cabaret and theater career earned an enduring place in stage history in 1960, when she originated the role of Luisa in the musical “The Fantasticks,” the longest-running musical in theatrical history, died Saturday in Manhattan. She was 87.
Claire-Frances Sullivan, her personal assistant and caretaker, said the cause was leukemia.
Ms. Gardner was in her mid20s and little known when she responded to an audition notice for “The Fantasticks,” a romantic fable with a book and lyrics by Tom Jones and music by Harvey Schmidt. She had called Lore Noto, the show’s producer, before attending the audition, and he told her that though the creative team already had another actress in mind for the part, she should audition anyway.
“I didn’t know Tom or Harvey or anybody,” she said in an interview for the book “The Amazing Story of ‘The Fantasticks’” (1991), by Donald C. Farber and Robert Viagas. “I came in, essentially, off the street. They didn’t know me either.”
She sang the song she had once used to win an “Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts” contest, “Over the Rainbow.” Schmidt heard a quality he liked.
“With a lot of singers you can tell when they go from head to chest voice; it’s two different voices,” he said in an interview for the same book. “With Rita it was all one voice. Rita was like a pop singer, yet she could do these obbligato things, and it didn’t seem strange.”
She got the part of Luisa, the only female role in the piece. The show opened in May 1960 at the Sullivan Street Playhouse in Greenwich Village.
The show ran for 42 years, closing in 2002 after more than 17,000 performances, and then reopened in 2006 and ran until 2017. Ms. Gardner stayed only until the end of 1960.
Rita Schier was born Oct. 23, 1934, in Brooklyn to Nathan and Tillie (Hack) Schier. In 1957, she married the playwright Herb Gardner. Their marriage ended in divorce, as did her marriage to Peter Cereghetti. At her death, she was married to Robert Sevra, her only immediate survivor.