There's a saying in the theater that everyone looks good in a hit and no one looks good in a flop. The 1967 musical Henry, Sweet, Henry was pretty much a flop. Despite the participation of many top talents, it closed after 80 performances and has rarely (like, once or twice) been revived since.
The reviews weren't good and it's sometimes cited as a show that audiences liked but the critics killed. Not having seen it, I have no idea how true that may have been…but back then, that was quite possible. It isn't as possible these days as witness the fact that The Addams Family and Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark are still running, the latter to capacity audiences. Anyway, both the critics and Word of Mouth did agree that the best thing about Henry, Sweet, Henry was the performance by an actress named Alice Playten. It didn't make her a big star but it got her a lot of attention and a lot of work…and for a long time, she appeared quite often on TV shows and in commercials. I never met her but I sure knew who she was and thought she was very, very good in everything she did.
The above is in the past tense because, sadly, Ms. Playten passed away the other day of heart failure at the age of 63. Here's an obit.
And here's Alice Playten. This is from an episode of The Ed Sullivan Show sometime during the brief run of Henry, Sweet, Henry. Don Ameche was the star and he introduces the number. The song isn't great but the singer sure is…