Then and Now

A legend of the American theater, Barbara Cook burst upon the scene to become Broadway’s leading ingénue in roles such as Cunégonde in Leonard Bernstein’s Candide, Amalia Balash in Jerry Bock’s She Loves Me, and her career-defining, Tony-winning role as the original Marian Paroo in Meredith Wilson’s The Music Man. But in the late 1960s, Barbara’s extraordinary talent onstage was threatened by debilitating depression and alcoholism which forced her to step away from the limelight and out of the public life. Emerging from the shadows in the early 1970s, Barbara reinvented herself as the country’s leading concert and cabaret artist, performing the songs of Stephen Sondheim and other masters, which confirmed her reputation as one of the greatest and most acclaimed interpreters of the American songbook—and earned her a Tony nomination at age eighty-two for Sondheim on Sondheim.



Taking us deep into her life and career, from her childhood in the South to the Great White Way, Then and Now candidly and poignantly describes the demons that nearly derailed Barbara’s life, and pays tribute to the working relationships she shared with many of the key composers, musicians, actors and performers of the late twentieth century, among them Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein, Elaine Stritch, Robert Preston, and many others.



A powerful, personal tale of pain and triumph, illustrated with photos, Then and Now is an absorbing record of an exception talent and a remarkable period in American culture.