Lunch Break Videos: Some of Broadway’s legendary divas singing their signature songs

What would we do without our Broadway divas?

Even if we can’t get to New York to see them perform or their big show(s) are long gone, we have the soundtracks – and now we have YouTube!  How else could we know how great Ethel Merman was in Gypsy and Annie Get Your Gun, or Mary Martin in South Pacific and Peter Pan, Angela Lansbury in Mame, or Lauren Bacall in Applause?

Here are a trio of our greatest divas singing songs they will always be associated with.

Enjoy!

The great Elaine Stritch belts out Ladies Who Lunch from Company. Others have tried to sing the song but no one can match Stritch on this particular number. It is just the perfect match of performer and song.

Patti LuPone singing Don’t Cry for Me Argentina from her Tony winning role in Evita.

And finally, here is Barbra Streisand singing People from Funny Girl. She won the Academy Award for her performance as Fanny Brice in the 1968 movie after playing the part of Broadway. She didn’t win the Tony the her stage performance though. That year she lost to Carol Channing who won for Hello Dolly! Streisand got her revenge a few years later when she was cast in the film version of Dolly instead of Channing.