Tommy Tune
Thomas James Tune[1] (born February 28, 1939[2]) is an American actor, dancer, singer, theatre director, producer, and choreographer. Over the course of his career, he has won ten Tony Awards, the National Medal of Arts, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Tommy Tune
- Actor
- choreographer
- dancer
- singer
- theatre director
- producer
1965–present
Early life[edit]
Tune was born in Wichita Falls, Texas, to oil rig worker, horse trainer, and restaurateur Jim Tune and Eva Mae Clark along with his sister, Gracey. He attended Mirabeau B. Lamar High School, Houston and the Methodist-affiliated Lon Morris College in Jacksonville, Texas. He studied dance under Patsy Swayze in Houston.[3] He also studied dance with Kit Andree in Boulder, Colorado. He went on to earn his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drama from the University of Texas at Austin in 1962 and his Master of Fine Arts in Directing from the University of Houston. Tune later moved to New York to start his career.[4]
Personal life[edit]
Before leaving Texas in the 1960s for a Broadway career in New York, Tune worked with Mary Highsmith (mother of novelist Patricia Highsmith) at the Point Summer Theatre. In a letter to her daughter, Highsmith referred to Tune as her "adopted boy" whom she called "Romano." Tune later praised Highsmith for helping him develop his talents: "She was an opening for me; she opened a little bit of my tight fabric so that I might peer through."[20] When not performing, he used to run an art gallery in Tribeca that featured his own work. As of 2014, it is no longer open.[21][22]
In 1997, Tune's memoir, Footnotes, was published. In it, he wrote about what drives him as a performer, choreographer, and director and reminisced about his days with Twiggy in My One and Only; as well as meeting and working with his many idols. He further wrote about being openly gay in the world of theater; about losing his partner, choreographer David Steiger Wolfe, to AIDS in 1994, and about the unhappy ending of his relationship with A Chorus Line actor Michel Stuart.[23] He also described a woman whom he did not name but who he said was the "love of [his] life," and some media speculated that the description he gave appeared to fit Twiggy.[24]
In September 2021, Tommy Tune was elected the honorary president of the American Guild of Variety Artists, the labor union for non-actor stage performers.[25]