Fil-Am star quits Broadway's Spider-Man

I just got the news from Funfare’s Big Apple correspondent Edmund Silvestre that Natalie Mendoza, the Fil-Am female lead of the Broadway production of Spider-Man, has quit.

“It’s big news in all publications and on TV here in New York,” reported Edmund, “especially since the preview performances started on Nov. 28 last year. Spider-Man will open this February yet.”

Edmund forwarded to Funfare the following backgrounder on Natalie, culled from Wikipedia:

Natalie Mendoza was born in Hong Kong in 1980, the daughter of Robin Jackson, an English/German Australian television personality, and Noel Mendoza, a Filipino jazz pianist and arranger. She is one of six artist siblings. She was raised in Sydney, Melbourne and Hong Kong, and attended Presentation Star of the Sea Ladies College. She was accepted into Cats the Musical and played roles such as Demeter, Rumpleteazer and Sillabub.

In 1995 she understudied Kim in Miss Saigon and played the role of Mimi. She then went on to play a lead soloist in The Music of Lloyd Webber Concert Tour, also understudying Sarah Brightman. She then played the lead dancer in Sweet Charity and then was cast in the lead role of Eponine in Les Miserables for the 10th-anniversary production.

Mendoza appeared in Moulin Rouge! in which she appeared as the cameo role and lead dancer China Doll. She filmed several US series like Farscape and played Liat in ABC’s South Pacific opposite Harry Connick Junior and Glenn Close. When filming The Great Raid, she became involved with her co-star Joseph Fiennes, and moved to London. (The Great Raid also stars Cesar Montano, James Franco and Benjamin Bratt. — RFL)

In 2003, Mendoza went back to England and studied at the Bristol Old Vic Theater School training in Classical Theater. She has appeared on stage in many classical theater and modern theater productions. In 2005 she was cast as the lead role in the suspense-thriller film The Descent creating the iconic role of Juno.   

Natalie with Christopher Tierney, who plays the title role in the musical

In the new musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, she’s playing the role of Arachne. Preview performances began on Nov. 28, 2010. She suffered a concussion during the first preview performance when she was struck in the head by equipment in the wings. She did not report the accident to producers until Nov. 30. She appeared in the second performance, against her doctor’s advice; her role involves several flying sequences, including one in which she is spun upside-down.

Mendoza later felt ill and took a few days off to recuperate, while her understudy, America Olivo, covered the role. On Dec. 28, ABC News reported that Mendoza was hammering out an exit agreement with the producers, and would leave the show prior to its opening, currently scheduled for February this year. The production “is the most technically complex show ever on Broadway, with 27 aerial sequences of characters flying”.

On Dec. 28, the NY Daily News reported that she has left the Spider-Man musical.

Rewritten lyrics of Favorite Things an urban legend

It turned out to be an urban legend and I have to thank Pete Lacaba for calling my attention to it. I mean, Funfare’s story in December last year about Julie Andrews having written new lyrics for My Favorite Things, one of the songs in The Sound of Music. According to the unnamed Funfare contributor, “To commemorate her 69th birthday on Oct. 1 (last year), actress/vocalist Julie Andrews made a special appearance at Manhattan’s Radio City Music Hall for the benefit of the AARP. One of the musical numbers she performed was My Favorite Things from the legendary movie Sound Of Music. However, the lyrics of the song were deliberately changed for the entertainment of her ‘blue hair’ audience.”

Here are the lyrics Andrews reportedly recited:

Maalox and nose drops and needles for knitting,

Walkers and handrails and new dental fittings,

Bundles of magazines tied up in string,

These are a few of my favorite things.

Cadillacs and cataracts and hearing aids and glasses,

Polident and Fixodent and false teeth in glasses,

Pacemakers, golf carts and porches with swings,

These are a few of my favorite things.

When the pipes leak,

When the bones creak,

When the knees go bad

I simply remember my favorite things,

And then I don’t feel so bad.

Hot tea and crumpets, and corn pads for bunions,

No spicy hot food or food cooked with onions,

Bathrobes and heat pads and hot meals they bring,

These are a few of my favorite things.

Back pains, confused brains, and no fear of sinnin’,

Thin bones and fractures and hair that is thinnin’,

And we won’t mention our short shrunken frames,

When we remember our favorite things.

Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music: How do you solve a problem like Maria?

When the joints ache,

When the hips break,

When the eyes grow dim,

Then I remember the great life I’ve had,

And then I don’t feel so bad.

And here are excerpts from snopes.com Pete e-mailed to Funfare:

Since the 1965 film The Sound of Music acquainted the movie-going public with the Rodgers and Hammerstein tune My Favorite Things, innumerable parodies of that ditty have been coined by a legion of aspiring humorists who found it the perfect platform from which to launch a bit of comic mayhem…

…While Julie Andrews’ 69th birthday was on Oct. 1, 2004, she did not on that day, as the e-mailed tale asserts, sing a takeoff of My Favorite Things at a benefit in New York City…

…In March 2002, the item was repeated in Dear Abby’s column, with the advice mistress waving off the Mary Poppins connection with, “The rewritten lyrics are a hoot, but I doubt that Julie Andrews ever warbled them.” Abby was right about that. Not only was this anecdote false, but sadly so.

Andrews lost the ability to sing in 1997. That year she was admitted to Mount Sinai Hospital for the removal of a non-cancerous polyp on her vocal cords, and what should have been a simple surgical procedure went dreadfully wrong. Her multi-octave singing voice was virtually destroyed...

Anyway, Andrews sued the two doctors and the malpractice suit was settled out of court and according to unconfirmed reports, she got paid about $30M in damages.

In 2004, I interviewed Andrews in L.A. during the junket for Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (with Anne Hathaway playing the princess) and she admitted that she couldn’t hit the same high notes that she used to before the botched-up surgery, saying, “I miss singing very much.”

So what she did was “speak-singing,” admitting in our interview, “I don’t want to mislead anyone or make the audience feel that I’m cheating them.”

“Speak-singing” was also what Andrews did in her concert in London in May last year for which she was relentlessly panned by critics.

What’s up?

• Condolence to Quezon City Councilor Alfred Vargas whose father, Alfredo “Freddie” Vargas Jr., died of cardiac arrest Monday night at St. Luke’s Medical Center. He was 63. The wake is at Poblacion, Sta. Maria, Bulacan.

•  David Pomeranz will have a show at The Fort on Feb. 17 starting at 9 p.m. after the 7 p.m. cocktails. For tickets, call 0918-5633781 or 0908-8812128.

•  Correction to the correction, from Oscar buff Ronald Lara: Kate Winslet won Best Actress Oscar for The Reader, not Revolutionary Road.

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