Tony Danza on Broadway

February 09, 2007

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Tony Danza has been in “The Producers” since mid-December, and he credits his Brooklyn-upbringing as one of the key reasons he’s able to play the role of Max Bialystock, the rapscallion who uses money from little old ladies to finance what he thinks will be a flop Broadway musical. How do you fill the shoes of a role played first and nearly the signature of a guy like Nathan Lane?

Mel Brooks says that the characters is a New Yorker first - and then he's Jewish. So why shouldn't Brooklyn-born-and-bred Tony Danza, now a budding song-and-dance man, step into Bialystock's shoes in the long-running Broadway musical?

''I am a New Yorker. It's just that I have been living in LA for 28 years,'' the performer says, talking with an outer-borough accent that suggests the man never really left his Italian roots behind. ''I am kind of finding my way back.''

Danza gave a great interview to the AP this week about his evolution - from sitcom star on ''Taxi'' and ''Who's the Boss'' to club performer to talk-show host to Broadway headliner (with his caricature now on the wall at Sardi's).

''There is only one way to stay around in this business _ unless you're George Clooney or some big shot,'' the actor says. ''If you don't hit that kind of big fame, the only way to stay relevant is to diversify. I hate to use Madonna's term of reinvention but, in a way, that's it. Otherwise, you are yesterday's TV star. There is always going to be somebody younger, somebody better, somebody cheaper.''

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