Presented by The Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing, the Tony Awards honor the best Broadway plays and musicals, along with excellence in a variety of other categories, including acting, lighting design, costume design, choreography, and original score. Since the first awards ceremony in 1947, the two organizations have also bestowed individuals with Special Tony Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre to “honor an individual for the body of his or her work.”
There have been several Special Tony Awards over the years, including the Lawrence Langner Award and Star of the Decade, but the first-ever Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre award was given to husband-and-wife Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy at the 48th Tony Awards in 1994. Here’s a look at four acclaimed Broadway personalities who have since received the distinction.
1. Joel Grey
Along with legendary composer John Kander, actor-director Joel Grey received the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre at the 76th Tony Awards in 2023. As a performer, Grey debuted on Broadway in 1961 in Neil Simon’s Come Blow Your Horn and later appeared in productions such as Cabaret, The Grand Tour, Wicked, Anything Goes, and Chicago. He co-directed a revival of The Normal Heart in 2011 and directed a well-received production of Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish in 2019, which received a New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award Special Citation and won the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical Revival.
Grey won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical for Cabaret in 1967 and received Tony nominations for The Grand Tour, Goodtime Charley, The Normal Heart, and George M! He also has dozens of film and TV credits and won an Academy Award and Golden Globe for reprising his role in the 1972 film version of Cabaret. Only eight other performers have won the Tony and Oscar for the same role.
“I’m so inspired by my dad. By the sheer breadth of his work, his love of life,” said actor Jennifer Grey, who presented her father, 91, with the award. “As someone who has clung to his every move my entire life his incredible career only pales in comparison to the accomplishment of how he lives his life, his gigantic heart. This world is just markedly better for him being here.”
2. Angela Lansbury
A decorated singer and performer, Angela Lansbury received the Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre honor at the 75th Tony Awards in June 2022 for her incredible decades-long career, which included memorable performances not only on the stage but in film and TV. On the screen, she made her feature debut in the 1944 film Gaslight, for which she received an Academy Award nomination. She acted in several musicals during the 1940s and 1950s but didn’t receive acclaim for her singing voice until the 1960s.
While Lansbury’s first attempt at singing on the stage, for Stephen Sondheim’s Anyone Can Whistle, lasted for just nine performances, she later received Tony Awards for performances in Mame, Dear World, Gypsy, and Sweeney Todd. She was among the world’s highest-paid actresses in the early 1990s and received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 1991.
Lansbury died in October 2022, about four months after she received the Special Tony Award.
3. Chita Rivera
An award-winning stage performer regarded for her energetic performances and command of the audience, especially with her dancing abilities, Chita Rivera received the Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre honor at the 72nd Tony Awards in 2018. She began her career in the 1950s and was still performing into the 2010s. She received a Tony nomination for reprising her role as Claire Zachanassian in The Visit in 2015.
Rivera is best known for performances in shows such as Chicago, West Side Story, and Kiss of the Spider Woman. She won two Tony Awards and was nominated for two others during her distinguished career. She also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. She is so well known for her dancing that the Fred and Adele Astaire Awards, created in 1982 to honor excellence in dance and choreography, was renamed the Chita Rivera Awards for Dance and Choreography in 2017.
4. Harold Prince
Although Harold Prince has never performed on a Broadway stage, nobody has influenced Broadway theater more than the legendary producer and director. Prince, who died in July 2019, received the Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre honor at the 60th Tony Awards in 2006. He received an additional Special Tony Award in 1972 for his work with Fiddler on the Roof, which he directed.
Prince won a record 21 Tony Awards during his career, including eight each for directing and producing. He earned his first award in 1955 for producing The Pajama Game and won the following year for Damn Yankees. He also won Tony Awards for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Cabaret, and A Little Night Music.