Music Mondays: Betty Buckley

Betty Buckley is a legendary, multi-award winning actress/singer whose career spans theater, film, television and concert halls around the world. She is a 2012 Theatre Hall of Fame inductee and the 2017 recipient of the Julie Harris Awards from The Actor’s Fund for Artistic Achievement and received The Lifetime Achievement Award from The American Songbook Association in 2023.

She won a Tony Award for her performance as Grizabella, the Glamour Cat, in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats and received her second Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a musical for her performance as Hesione in Triumph of Love. She received an Olivier Award nomination for her critically acclaimed interpretation of Norma Desmond in the London production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard, which she repeated to more rave reviews on Broadway.

Ms. Buckley is featured in the film, By Design, written and directed by Amanda Kramer which made it’s debut at The Sundance Film Festival in January 2025. She is also featured in the film Eternity for A24 Studios starring Miles Teller and Elizabeth Olsen to be released in the Fall of 2025. In March 2024, she co-starred in Imaginary for Blumhouse Productions and released by Lionsgate. She co-starred with James McAvoy in the M. Night Shyamalan hit film Split, one of the top International box office hits of 2017. She received a Saturn Award Nomination for Best Featured Actress for her work in the film.

Her other films include her debut in Brian de Palma’s screen version of Stephen King’s Carrie, Bruce Beresford’s Tender Mercies, Roman Polanski’s Frantic, Woody Allen’s Another Woman, Lawrence Kasden’s Wyatt Earp and M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening.

In 2024, The Mayfly, an animated short film written, produced and narrated by Ms. Buckley played the film festival circuit and won several awards including Best of Festival, Best Director and Best 2D Character Based Animation at The Los Angeles Animation Festival. The film also won Best Animation at The Lady Filmmakers Festival in Los Angeles. A love letter to New York City and music, The Mayfly is a lyrical tale that was inspired by a true event at the Café Carlyle.

Her other Broadway credits include 1776, Pippin, Song and Dance, The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Carrie. She headlined the first National Tour of the new Broadway production of Hello, Dolly! in 2018/2019.

Off-Broadway credits include the world premiere of Horton Foote’s The Old Friends for which she received a Drama Desk Nomination in 2014, White Lies, Lincoln Center’s Elegies, the original NYSF production of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, The Eros Trilogy, Juno’s Swans and Getting My Act Together and Taking It On The Road.

Regional credits include The Perfectionist, Gypsy, The Threepenny Opera, Camino Real, Buffalo Gal, Arsenic and Old Lace, The Old Friends at Houston’s Alley Theatre and Grey Gardens at the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor, NY and The Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles in 2016 for which she received an Ovation Award Nomination.

In London, she starred in Promises, Promises for which she was nominated for An Evening Standard Award and in the 2013 British premiere of Dear World.

On television, Buckley has had a recurring role on Law & Order SVU for NBC. She co-starred in the third season of AMC’s hit series Preacher and has guest starred on the Fox/Warner Bros. TV show The Cleaning Lady, The CW hit Supergirl, the NBC Series Chicago Med and ABC Family’s Pretty Little Liars. For HBO, she has appeared on Getting On, The Leftovers, The Pacific and for three seasons had a recurring role on OZ. She starred as Abby Bradford in the hit series Eight is Enough. She appeared twice on The Kennedy Center Honors and was a guest star in numerous television series, miniseries and films for television including Evergreen, Roses for the Rich and Without a Trace. She has been nominated for two Daytime Emmy Awards for her work on Taking a Stand, an After School special.

In 2022, she released the compilation recording Betty Buckley Sings Stephen Sondheim as a tribute to the late composer. The recording comprises 24 songs Buckley has recorded of Sondheim’s music over the span of her career. She has recorded 18 CD’s: including Ghostlight, produced by T Bone Burnett released in 2014, Story Songs in 2017 and Hope in 2018.

Buckley tours in concert worldwide with her ensemble of musicians and in 2015 was featured in the Royal Albert Hall concert of Follies, in celebration of Stephen Sondheim’s 85th birthday.

She received a Grammy Nomination for Stars and the Moon, Betty Buckley Live at the Donmar. She received her second Grammy Nomination for the audio book The Diaries of Adam and Eve.

For over forty-five years, Ms. Buckley has been a teacher of scene study and song interpretation, giving workshops in Manhattan and various universities and performing Arts Conservatories around the country. She is an Artist in Residence at Mercyhurst University and teaches regularly at the T. Schreiber Studio in New York City.

In 2009, Ms. Buckley received the Texas Medal of Arts Award for Theater and was inducted into the Texas Film Hall of Fame in 2007. In 2015, she was awarded The Stephen Bruton Award by The Lone Star Film Festival for her work in film and music. In 2018, she received the Sarah Siddons Award for outstanding theatrical performance in a Chicago theatrical production. She has two honorary doctorates from The Boston Conservatory and Marymount College and has been honored with three Lifetime Achievement Awards for her contributions to theater from the New England Theater Conference, The Shubert Theater in New Haven and the Terry Schreiber School in NYC.