Never ceases to amaze me when Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Ewan MacGregor, Catherine Zeta-Jones, open their mouths and songs come out. Who knew?
Back in the 1930s-50s, every movie star was thrown into musicals and they swam or sank (ever hear Tallulah Bankhead or Clark Gable sing? Yikes!).
But so few musicals are made these days that it comes as a shock when Hugh Jackman bursts out in “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’” or Nicole Kidman trills “I Follow the Night.” Can any other current stars sing? Any you know of?
Anthony Stewart Head can sing, but that’s been a well-known fact for a while. The one that shocked me was Amber Benson, who played Tara on Buffy:tVS. What a set of pipes on her!! (and yes, the entendre is totally double.)
Heh. This is an old one, but still- they just showed “Paint Your Wagon” on TV a few days ago. I was really surprised to see Clint Eastwood singing.
If that was his actual voice (and it sounded like it to me) it was pleasant to hear. A nice even quality to it, I thought, probably because he wasn’t trying to belt it out.
Treat Williams sang on Everwood the other night. I suppose they could have dubbed it, but it sounded like his own voice and it was pretty good. He was playing guitar and serenading a lady friend.
It’s been a while since I saw it, but IIRC correctly, most of the actors in Woody Allen’s musical “Everyone Says I Love You” sing like you would expect non-professionals to if they suddenly burst into song, so it comes as something of a surprise when Tim Roth opens his mouth and real music comes out.
BTW, didn’t Hugh Jackman the Broadway star predate Hugh Jackman the movie star?
There are a lot of actors that started out on the stage – if you wanna work on the stage, you have to at least get the basic training down to be a tripple threat. If ya can’t dance, dammit ya better be able to sing.
Yes, he’s been performing in musicals since high school. I bleieve he understudied the Danny role in “Grease” on Broadway.
Others who can sing that surprise me are Merryl Streep, and Michelle Pfeiffer (who did her own singing in The Prince of Egypt and The Fabulous Baker Boys.)
Jerry Orbach of course, our favourite Law and Order detective, has a longs standing career in musicals – IIRC he was the original Billy FLynn on the Broadway soundtrack of Chicago and more recently was Lumière, the candlestick, in Beatuy and the Beast.
Lea Thompson can also sing really well (in addition to her recent broadway role, she also sings on the Howard the Duck soundtrack. (Not that anyone cares about that one.)
Trivia: Anthony Stewart Head is the brother of Murray Head – a UK performer who’s probably best known for his musical roles creating the role of Judas in the original performances of Jesus Christ Superstar (nope, he wasn’t in the movie version) and as “the American” in the broadway play Chess (from which Murray’s version of “One Night in Bangkok” made it into the top forty in the 80s).
Orbach also sang in “Annie Get Your Gun” with Ethel Merman.
Most people who knew him were surprised that Arthur Q. Bryan was a good enough singer to do “Kill the Wabbit.” (Bryan, not Mel Blanc was the long-time voice of Elmer Fudd. In fact, WB stopped using Elmer after Bryan died and created Yosemite Sam (done by Blanc) because they needed a foil for Bugs).
Kennth Brannagh had a pretty good voice; I think his rendition of “You Can’t Take That Away From Me” from Love’s Labour’s Lost is particularly good. The rest of the cast – including Alicia Silverstone – also sings quite well.
Ewan McGregor has a good set of pipes (he first showed them in “A Life Less Ordinary” before “Moulin Rouge”), but the most amazing surprise was Jane Horrocks. If American’s know her at all, it was probably as “Bubble” in “Absolutely Fabulous,” but in “Little Voice,” she not only sings terrifically, but she manages to channel Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe, Shirley Bassey, and a few other great singers.
I still remember the shock when retiring NBC news anchor Edwin Newman hosted SNL back in the late '70s, and belted out an amazing rendition of “Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone.”
It freaked me out when they had a musical Xena and Kevin Smith and Lucy Lawless were singing. Antonio Banderas can sing, he’s on the Mambo Kings soundtrack and he sounds swoony.
One time on SNL Gwenyth Paltrow and Myra Rudolph started singing the theme from Fame and they sounded great. I’m always confused about this D’Angelo song I always hear on the radio covered by someone who sounds like Bonnie Raitt. Part of me can’t accept the idea that it’s Gwenyth Paltrow from Duets. I’ve been told that’s who it is, but it doesn’t compute. How is it that I’ve never heard the original on the radio, and now every time I go to the dentist I hear Gwenyth Paltrow singing it?
John Goodman sings very well. You can catch him, for example, in a Randy Newman song “If I Didn’t Have You” on the Monster’s Inc soundtrack with Billy Crystal (who definately cannot sing.) I also caught him in a Roger Miller tribute TV show where he was quite fabulous. I’m quite disappointed he dosen’t sing in O Brother Where Art Thou?.
Clint Eastwood sang in the aforementioned Paint Your Wagon, and can be caught since then a few times. Not half bad.
Antonio Banderas, as mentioned before, does sing well - he also sings in Desperado.
Kate Winslet released a single entitled “What If?” I haven’t listened to it myself, but I’ve heard it’s pretty good.
Kelsey Grammer did his own singing in the animated Anastasia. Except for him, Angela Landsbury and Bernadette Peters (well, naturally for the latter!) the rest had separate singing voices.
