Tommy Tune

Actor, dancer, singer, choreographer, theatre director Tommy Tune has won nine Tony Awards and the National Medal of Arts. Tune was born in Texas to oil rig worker Jim Tune and Eva Mae Clark. At age five, he began tap, acrobatics and ballet lessons and he later majored in drama at the University of Texas. Tune moved to New York City and, in 1965, made his Broadway debut as a performer in the musical Baker Street and garnered raves and his first Tony Award in Seesaw. He then choreographed The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine which earned him two more Tonys. He went on to direct and choreograph two more hit musicals, Grand Hotel and The Will Rogers Follies and followed with an international tour of Tommy Tune Tonite! (a one-man song and dance extravaganza). In Tunes 1997 memoir Footnotes he writes about what drives him as a performer, and offers stories about being openly gay in the world of theater. This 6-feet 7-inch dance sensation is the recipient of Dance Magazines Lifetime Achievement Award and the 2008 Fred Astaire Lifetime Achievement Award. Tommy Tune addressed the Academy's student delegates at the 1994 Achievement Summit on his legendary career path from a childhood in Wichita Falls, Texas to the Broadway stage.