STUDIO CITY —Catching up with Andrea Marcovicci this week at her Studio City home was a great treat. The NYC born and based actress has been making the cabaret rounds with her sexy legs and beautiful voice for decades. Andrea and I spoke of mutual friends Henry Jaglom and Constance Towers and her distinguished acting career, which includes theater, television and film. Andrea stars in Henry Jaglom’s recent hit film “Irene in Time” and is sublime in it. The beautiful brunette never ceases to amaze her fans and the critics with performances that capture your attention and never let go.
Her strong New York stage background includes playing Ophelia opposite Sam Waterston’s “Hamlet” for Joseph Papp, a Broadway debut with Howard Keel in “Ambassador” and starring with Anthony Newley in the musical “Chaplin” portraying all of Chaplin’s wives. The prolific actress has worked with many amazing leading men, but had to be honest when I pressed her about working with Tom Selleck during “Magnum P.I.”
Andrea and Tanna Frederick in Irene In Time
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“Tommy, I shouldn’t say this, but even though I have been kissed on TV dozens and dozens and dozens of times, Tom Selleck was a dreamboat. I also loved working with my friend Gregory Harrison on ”˜Trapper John, MD.’ One of the things that stands out in my mind about working with Selleck was how absolutely professional he was and how hard he worked. If you were a costar, he would have dinner with you, make sure the crew had dinner with everyone, he treated everyone like family and cared deeply about the entire cast and crew. He was in virtually every scene, the man was so hard working. Another thing that comes to mind is, while everyone else was getting their nose powdered, Tom would be getting eye drops put in, because he’d worked 16 hours the day before and also the salt air in Hawaii is very irritating. Yes, you can tell your mother, Tom was everything she thinks he is,” said Marcovicci.
Andrea Marcovicci
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Everyone has mentioned how much they loved Andrea on the ”˜60s soap “Love is a Many Splendored Thing.” When asked about it, Andrea laughed and said, “I loved doing that show. I would be very open at this point in my life to return to soaps. It is a very solid job and right now, I’m trying to do less cabaret and stage work and be at home to raise my daughter, who is attending Cleveland High School in Reseda. She’s really active in her activities and although my husband [Daniel Reichert] is a wonderful father, I would also like to spend more time with her while she’s growing up.”
The beautiful actress is a huge fan and historian of WWII era standards. Andrea will be performing “I’ll Be Seeing You,” a show that honors and commemorates the great standards of many like Porter, Gordon, Gershwin, Hammerstein, Warren and many others. “The WW II shows I have given in the past are slightly different than this most recent one. However, I always ask the WWII veterans, then Vietnam and Korean veterans to stand and at the end of the show the audience all give the soldiers a standing ovation,” said Andrea. “I try to not just sing the songs but tell the stories, so many young people have come to the shows and said afterward how they now understand why their grandfather may have cried listening to a certain song, or what the era really meant to those who lived it.”
When Ms. Marcovicci performs, there isn’t a dry eye in the audience. An historian who makes the songs of the bygone era real to even the new generation of cabaret lovers. The singer tells Canyon News why she admires this era so much. “WWII really was the good war. It was something that everyone in the nation agreed on for the last time, it seems. We all knew as a nation that it was the war that needed to be fought and won,” said Andrea. Favorites like “Sentimental Journey” and “As Time Goes By” are showstoppers for theater goers.
Originally suggested by long-time family friend Walter Cronkite, “I’ll Be Seeing You: Love Songs of World War II,” made its debut at Tom Rolla’s Gardenia in Hollywood and later played to sold out houses at the legendary Oak room of the Algonquin Hotel. The show was then orchestrated and toured throughout the country captured forever on the CD of the same name. The new version debuted in 2005 and has played in Los Angeles, New York, New Orleans and the Berkshires, among many other cities. The passionate singer learned her craft from her 91-year-old mother, singer Helen Marcovicci, who performs weekly at the Algonquin. Andrea also has been performing at the Algonquin for almost a quarter of a century.
The singer’s most requested show, “I’ll Be Thinking of You” will be on Saturday, March 13, at 8 p.m. inside the Janet and Ray Scherr Forum Theater at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza (2100 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd) in Thousand Oaks.
Marcovicci concluded, “The other project that I’m really hoping to do in the future is the take the standards from the ”˜40s era and have a few of today’s top pop stars remake the greats for the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan to uplift them and give them warm memories of home. I’d love to be the artistic director of the project, and create a whole new generation of music lovers. The best era in music was truly that era, the songs that were created then are still in the hearts of minds of those veterans who are part of the greatest generation. They are going so fast now, we really do owe them so much and should honor them now before it’s too late.”
Marcovicci’s performance is heart-stopping and very engaging. Everyone in the audience is taken back to an era when things were so much simpler and joy was part of music and music meant something. Take a look at the beautiful divine performer’s website at Andrea Marcovicci’s Home Page!
Photographs Courtesy: Daniel Reichert
