Profile of Donna McKechnie on Famous Like Me

Donna McKechnie is an American musical theater dancer, singer, and actress.

She was born in Detroit, Michigan on November 16, 1940. Her earliest career influence was the classic 1948 British ballet film The Red Shoes. Despite her parents' strong misgivings, at the age of fifteen she moved to New York City to audition for the American Ballet Theatre. When she was rejected, she found employment at Radio City Music Hall.

McKechnie's first musical theater work was in a touring company of West Side Story. In 1961, she made her Broadway debut in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. It was here that she first met choreographer Bob Fosse and his wife, Gwen Verdon, who was the show's dance captain. A stint in a Philadelphia production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum was followed by the NBC music series Hullabaloo, in which she was a featured dancer. It was here that she met Michael Bennett, who was to become a guiding force in her life and career.

Her television work also included a regular role on the popular Gothic soap opera, Dark Shadows, along with guest roles on a number of primetime series including The Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Rowan and Martin's Laugh In, and Cheers, along with recurring appearances on Fame.

In April 1968, McKechnie was back on Broadway in the short-lived musical version of Leo Rosent's collection of short stories The Education Of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N, which lead to a featured role in Burt Bacharach and Hal David's Promises, Promises, choreographed by Bennett. It was here that she first attracted notice from critics and theatergoers alike. This was followed by a role in the touring company of Call Me Madam, starring Ethel Merman.

Bennett showcased McKechnie again in Stephen Sondheim's Company (1970). After leaving the Broadway cast, she reprised her role in the Los Angeles and London companies, and also toured in the 1971 revival of On the Town. In March 1973 she choreographed and performed in the highly acclaimed one-night-only concert Sondheim: A Musical Tribute at the Shubert Theatre in New York. In 1974, she co-starred with Richard Kiley and Bob Fosse in the unsuccessful musical film version of the classic, The Little Prince.

McKechnie was part of Bennett's group therapy-style workshops that evolved into the Broadway smash A Chorus Line, in which she portrayed Cassie, a character based in great part on herself. Her performance earned her the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. She married Bennett in 1976, but after only a few months they separated and eventually divorced, remaining good friends until his death from AIDS in 1983.

In 1980, McKechnie was diagnosed with arthritis and was told she would never dance again. She pursued various physical, psychological, and holistic healing remedies, and was well enough to return to the Broadway company of A Chorus Line in 1986. During the remainder of the 1980s she also toured in Sweet Charity and Annie Get Your Gun, and she appeared in a London revival of Can-Can.

In the early 1990s, McKechnie appeared off-Broadway twice, first in a revue entitled Cut the Ribbons, followed by Annie Warbucks, a less successful sequel to the hit Annie. In 1993, she reunited with most of the original cast of Company for three concert performances. In 1996, she was awarded the Fred Astaire Award for Best Female Dancer for her performance in a Broadway adaptation of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II's film State Fair. In February 1997, she played Phyllis in a concert performance of Follies at London's Drury Lane Theatre, and the following year took on the role of Sally in a production of that same show at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey.

In 2002, McKechnie starred in the pre-Broadway production of the Jerry Herman musical revue Showtune. For the past several years, McKechnie has toured periodically in her one-woman show Inside the Music, a potpourri of songs, dances, and anecdotes about her life in the theater and triumphant battle with arthritis.

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