Showtune Sunday: Lauren Bacall performs number from “Woman of the Year” at 1981 Tonys

While Applause was clearly the highlight of Lauren Bacall’s stellar Broadway career, the 1981 musical Woman of the Year was also a major critical triumph and smash hit for the great star who died on Wednesday.

The show was based on the 1942 Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy film of the same name with the musical changing the newspaper reporters of the original to television personality Tess Harding and cartoonist Sam Craig, who experience difficulty merging their careers with their marriage.

The musical ran for 770 performances and eleven previews with Bacall being replaced by Raquel Welch after the first year. Welch was followed by Debbie Reynolds.

Bacall won her second Tony for lead actress in a musical, the same number won by such Broadway musical powerhouses as Patti LuPone, Chita Rivera and Bernadette Peters.

On Friday evening, Broadway dimmed its lights for one full minute in honor of one of its dazzling legends who had also starred in the Broadway comedies Goodbye Charlie (1959), Cactus Flower (1965-66), and Waiting In The Wings (1999) which had a six-month run and was Miss Bacall’s final Broadway show.