Joel is the son of the Borscht Belt comedian, Mickey Katz, with whom he first
appeared on stage at the age of nine. Ironically, early in his career, If the
name Joel Katz doesn’t appear familiar, it is because he changed his name
few times, first to Joel Kaye and then to Joel Grey. The 5'5"
multi-talented actor, singer, dancer, and director got his big
breakwas being cast as the emcee in Cabaret for which he won Broadway's 1967 Tony Award as Best Supporting or Featured Actor (Musical).
Walter Kerr, writing about Cabaret in the Times, described how
he “burst from the darkness like a tracer bullet . . . Mr. Grey is cheerful,
charming, soulless and conspiratorially wicked.”
Joel
recreated his decadent emcee role in an Oscar-winning performance in
the film version of Cabaret (1972 which made him one of only eight
actors to have won both a Tony and an Oscar for having portrayed the same
role on stage and scree . Joel also earned three Tony nominations as Best
Actor (Musical): in 1969 George M, in 1975 for Goodtime Charley,
and in 1979 for The Grand Tour.
He also originated the role of the Wizard in the
popular musical Wicked.
Joel has been a tireless performer taking on
a co-starring role in the 2011 revival
of Cole Porter’s Anything Goes at age 79 while co directing the
Broadway revival of The Normal Heart, Larry Kramer’s play about the
early days of the AIDS epidemic,
It was during this exhaustive schedule that
his work as a photographer was recognized when his photographs and
photographs of the performer were featured at an exhibit during
April 2011 at the Museum of the City of New York, titled
"Joel Grey/A New York Life."
So let’s
salute the Energizer geezer on his birthday with a Cabaret
Cocktail while watching a DVD of Cabaret with his mesmerizing
performance as the
unctuous
sexual-ambivalent emcee who
put the "D" in decadence in post- Weimar Berlin.