Make It Ethnic

Date: November 02, 1997
By Mark Lorando, Staff writer

From Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA)
Submitted by: Larry A.


When you wish upon a major international film and recording star, your TV dreams come true.

At least they did for Neil Meron and Craig Zadan, who produced Bette Midler's remade-for-TV "Gypsy" in 1993 and got a call days after it aired from Whitney Houston's agent.

"Whitney wants to do a musical with you," the agent said. "Got any ideas?"

Why, yes, dahling, an ab-so-lute-ly mahvelous idea -- Whitney Houston as "Cinderella," the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical version.

"Whitney would be honored," the agent said.

Two years passed. Repeated scheduling conflicts -- and the birth of Houston's first child -- pushed back the start of production. Earlier this year,Meron and Zadan got another call.

"I've got some bad news, guys," Houston said. "I'm too old to play Cinderella." "What if you play the Fairy Godmother," they countered, "and Brandy plays Cinderella?"

And thus, Meron and Zadan say, was born "The Wonderful World of Disney's" November sweeps centerpiece, a multicultural remake of the 1957 musical event starring Julie Andrews.

With Houston, the producers have a name as big as Bette's to put on the marquee. And in Brandy, they think they have a talent as fresh and exciting as the pre-"Sound of Music" Andrews.

"She's 18, so she's young enough for the role," Meron -- or Zadan, it's hard to tell them apart -- said in a joint phone interview from Los Angeles. "She has acting experience, but she's also a major recording star. She fit every category you could possibly imagine."

The producers like to refer to this as "the colorblind Cinderella," and they credit "the colorblind 'Carousel' revival" on Broadway with empowering them to reinvent a fairy tale.

"We wanted it to reflect the world we're existing in now," they said. There was no casting quota system, they said, just a commitment to include asmany different ethnicities as possible.

"The only thing we knew for sure," they said, "was that the prince (playedby Paolo Montalban) would be non-white. We didn't want to create a perception that Cinderella needed a white prince to save her."