In certain cases the film-to-stage musicals work. I do appreciate musicals that come from films because I happen to be in one – and the right ones work. There are lots of musical adaptations of films and ‘jukebox musicals’ – is it more difficult to get original stories produced? Our job, especially in the first 15 minutes, is to remove that expectation and for the audience to believe: that girl is Rachel Marron and that guy is Frank Farmer and I’m going on this journey. Every now and again someone says: ‘You sound great but you didn’t sing it like Whitney.’ I’m not supposed to. What proportion of the audience come expecting it to be a Whitney tribute show? Gloria, who does the matinees, is amazing, so the audience is in great hands. It’s 12 songs a show and two hours of talking. We talked about doing eight shows a week at the start and I checked with voice therapists and they said don’t do it. I grew up listening to Whitney and knew those songs were tough songs: people come into the theatre wanting them to be sung properly. It wouldn’t be a tall order, it would be suicidal. You said singing 24 songs a day would be a tall order – so you’re not doing matinees, right? Now I have to find a dress and fix my hair. To be in that category is a real honour – Helen Mirren is in there. I didn’t know about it until I got emails congratulating me. You have been nominated for an Olivier – that must be exciting? Heather Headley, 38, was in the original Broadway production of The Lion King and has been nominated for an Olivier award for The Bodyguard musical. “We’d come and we’d bow,” Hemsley said in the interview, laughing, remembering the sitcom he made into a hit, in many ways by connecting his character to the heart of his childhood.Heather Headley says she is amazed how polite British people are when they have a row (Picture: Rex) According to Hemsley, she was known as “The Queen” or “The Queen Bee.” But it may interest you to know that Isabel Sanford, the actress who played Louise, had an entirely different nickname her castmates used for her behind scenes on set. Nicholl said yes, and that’s why when many viewers think of Louise Jefferson, they also know her by the other name, Weezy. She was older than him, and he wanted to get her attention, so in that playful, teasing way every kid knew all too well, he began calling her “Weezy.” The fondness flooded the actor, thinking back, and he wondered if it could work as a nickname for his sitcom wife.Īs soon as he had that thought, Hemsley went straight to executive producer Don Nicholl and asked if he could use the nickname on the show. It seems that Sherman Hemsley was growing up in Philly when he young named a giant crush on a girl named Louise.
STORY BEHIND HEATHER HEADLEY HE IS ARCHIVE
The idea to call her Weezy came to Hemsley randomly one day, and this is the story he shared with the Archive of American Television. “Weezy!” George Jefferson would yell, beckoning his wife Louise Jefferson by calling her the name only he used for her. According to Hemsley, he drew a lot for the character from growing up in Philadelphia, which is where that famous walk he does in the opening credits came from, and apparently also where he got the nickname he uses for his wife on the show. It makes a ton of sense, then, that Hemsley had a lot of control over who George Jefferson was and who he became, from the moment we first met him as Archie Bunker’s foe to the very last episode of The Jeffersons.