Kristin Chenoweth as Olive

In February 1999, a new star was born. On the opening night of the Broadway revival of the gentle musical comedy “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,” Kristin Chenoweth, a diminutive (4′11″) blonde with a bombastic voice, took center stage and belted out the show-stopping number “My New Philosophy” and critics and audience members alike responded. Playing the deadpan five-year-old Sally Brown, the title character’s discontented younger sister and a role that was not in the original (which did feature Peppermint Patty), the singer-actress excelled. Variety proclaimed that she was the only cast member who seemed “completely comfortable in the skin” of a little child. Ben Brantley in The New York Times compared her with Bernadette Peters and wrote that Chenoweth delivered “one of those break-out performances that send careers skyward.” Even the notoriously hard to please John Simon was taken in by her charms.

As with most overnight successes, Chenoweth had paid her dues. Born and raised in Oklahoma, she had decided at a young age to pursue a singing career, looking to such diverse women as Judy Garland and Sandi Patti as role models and harboring a strong desire to head to Nashville. In fact, she was ready to go to Tennessee after high school but at her parents’ insistence, Chenoweth enrolled at Oklahoma City University as voice major. To partially finance her education, she entered local beauty pageants and was named Miss Oklahoma City University and was a runner-up for the 1991 title of Miss Oklahoma. Using her scholarship money, she earned her masters degree and was planning on post-graduate work at Philadelphia’s Academy of Vocal Arts but she got sidetracked.

While helping a friend move to New York City, Chenoweth auditioned for a production of “Animal Crackers” at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, New Jersey on a whim. When she landed the role, she abandoned her plans and to her parents’ dismay, opted for a career in musical theater. Work at various regional companies followed before she made her Broadway debut in 1997 supporting Bill Irwin in a production of Moliere’s “Scapin.” Later that year, she originated the role of the rube Precious McGuire, who with her husband had entered a Depression-era dance marathon, in the Kander and Ebb musical “Steel Pier.” In 1998, Chenoweth undertook multiple roles in “A New Brain,” an autobiographical musical by William Finn.

Flexing her comedic muscles, she landed a regular berth on the limited series “Paramour,” a 1999-shot original period sitcom produced by American Movie Classics (AMC). That series was delayed for various reasons, so Chenoweth first reached a wide TV audience as the star of her own short-lived NBC comedy series “Kristin” (2001), in which she portrayed a small-town Oklahoman working as the assistant to a real estate mogul while trying to land a career on Broadway. The actress had a memorable 2001 guest appearance on NBC’s “Frasier” as Portia, the client-stealing junior agent to Frasier’s Crane’s unctuous rep Bebe (Harriet Sansom Harris), and had a recurring stint as Miss Noodle on the PBS children’s series “Sesame Street” beginning in 2003, before being cast in a recurring role on the network’s political drama “The West Wing” as the hard-driving deputy press secretary Annabeth Schott beginning in 2004.

In the meantime, she kept busy in various projects, with a supporting role in the indie feature “Topa Topa Bluffs” (2002) and a highly praised turn as librarian Marian Paroo opposite Matthew Broderick’s Professor Harold Hill in ABC’s TV production of the classic musical “The Music Man” (2003). Back on Broadway, Chenoweth earned raves when she originated the role of Glinda the Good Witch for the hugely popular Oz-inspired musical “Wicked,” Gregory Maguire’s best-selling novel, when it debuted in October 2003. “It’s amazing how Chenoweth keeps metamorphosing before your eyes and ears,” I>The New York Times opined of her Tony-nominated turn. “Her voice shifting between operetta-ish trills and Broadway brass, her posture melting between prom-queen vampiness and martial arts moves, she evokes everyone from Jeanette MacDonald to Cameron Diaz, from Mary Martin to Madonna.” In May 2004, Kristin starred with the New York Philharmonic in “Candide,” based on Voltaire’s novelette, with music by Leonard Bernstein which garnered rave reviews.

Reportedly, actress Nicole Kidman was so impressed by her ‘Wicked” performance that she promised to have a part written specifically for Chenoweth in “Bewitched” (2005), the update of the classic ’60s sitcom. Chenoweth stole virtually every scene she had as Kidman’s hyper neighbor and gal pal. After a supporting role in “The Pink Panther” (2006), Chenoweth appeared in the road comedy, “RV” (2006), as the mother in a family of fulltime RV travelers whose friendliness and constant singing drive another family, headed by an overworked executive (Robin Williams) on a vacation with his disgruntled family, more crazy than they make themselves. Meanwhile, Chenoweth was seen in “Running With Scissors” (2006), an adaptation of Augusten Burrough’s memoir about his bipolar poet mother who falls under the care of an unorthodox psychiatrist, and “Stranger Than Fiction” (2006), a surreal and intelligent comedy starring Will Ferrell as an IRS auditor whose life is interrupted by the sound of a personal narrator (Emma Thompson) that knows his every thought and feeling, including when and where he’ll die.

In 2002, Chenoweth released her debut solo recording Let Yourself Go, a collection of old standards composed by the likes of George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Richard Rodgers, Kurt Weil, Jule Styne, Jerome Kern and others. Her next release, As I Am (2005) showed her spiritual side with an eclectic collection of traditional and contemporary gospel anthems and related songs.

• Born: on 07/24/1968 in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
• Job Titles:Actor, Singer

Significant Others

• Companion: Aaron Sorkin. appeared in Sorkin’s series “The West Wing” (NBC); was rumored to be the inspiration for the character of Harriet Hayes on Sorkin’s “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” (NBC)
• Companion: Joshua Bell. met in summer 2001
• Companion: Marc Kudisch. born on September 22, 1966; engaged to be married; separated in 2000

Education

• Oklahoma City University, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, opera performance, MFA, 1995
• Oklahoma City University, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, voice, BFA
• Sequoyah Middle School, Broken Arrow, Oklahoma

Milestones

• 1977 At age seven, began recording her singing voice on a portable tape recorder
• 1980 Was a finalist to star in “Annie”
• 1997 Earned attention as Precious McGuire, half of a married couple participating in a dance marathon, in “Steel Pier”
• 1997 New York stage debut supporting Bill Irwin in a revival of Moliere’s “Scapin”
• 1998 Breakthrough stage role, as Sally Brown in the revised version of “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown”
• 1998 Played multiple roles in the Off-Broadway musical “A New Brain”
• 1999 Cast as the nefarious Lily Regis in the TV remake of the musical “Annie” (ABC)
• 1999 Had first non-musical role on Broadway as the star of the comedy “Epic Proportions”
• 1999 TV series debut, had supporting role in the AMC comedy-drama “Paramour”
• 2001 Signed to play Brenda Blethyn’s daughter in the CBS pilot, “Seven Roses”
• 2001 Starred in the short-lived NBC midseason replacement, “Kristin”
• 2002 Portrayed Marian Paroo in the TV remake of “The Music Man”
• 2003 Played Glinda the Good Witch in the award winning musical “Wicked”; received a Tony nomination for her performance
• 2004 Cast in a recurring role on “The West Wing,” (NBC) as the White House’s new media consultant
• 2005 Starred opposite Nicole Kidman, as the nosey neighbor in the big-screen version of “Bewitched”
• 2006 Cast in the prequel to the 1964 Peter Sellers original film “The Pink Panther”
• 2006 Co-starred in the Marc Forster comedy, “Stranger Than Fiction”
• 2006 Plays a minister’s wife in “Running with Scissors” based on the personal memoirs of Augusten Burroughs
• 2007 Cast in the new ABC series “Pushing Daisies”
• After completing masters program, was accepted for post-graduate study in voice at the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia
• Appeared in regional theater in “Strike Up the Band” and “Babes in Arms”
• Began singing career while still in high school; planned to head to Nashville but family insisted she attend college
• Raised in Oklahoma
• While helping a friend move to NYC, auditioned for a production of “Animal Crackers” at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, New Jersey; offered role; decided to abandon studies and pursue theatrical career
• Won the Miss Oklahoma City University title and was a runner-up in the 1991 Miss Oklahoma beauty pageant

(source)