Olivia d'Abo Is Half of Pigeon Sisters in Lane-Broderick Odd Couple
By Robert Simonson
24 May 2005
Olivia d'Abo will play one of the two sexy Pigeon sisters in the Broadway revival of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, which will star the golden duo of Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, Playbill.com has learned.
The actress will be Gwendolyn, the part played by Carole Shelley in the 1965 Broadway original. The other sister is named Cecily (they are teasingly named after the two young ingenues in The Importance of Being Earnest).
The London-born Olivia d'Abo has appeared in dozens of films, including "It Had to Be You," "The Velocity of Gary," "Kicking and Screaming" and "Greedy." However, she is probably better known for playing Karen Arnold for four years in the television series "The Wonder Years." Her father is Mike d'Abo, who played King Herod in the original London staging of Jesus Christ Superstar.
Brad Garrett, of "Everybody Loves Raymond" fame, will play Murray the Cop in the Broadway revival, the Chicago Sun-Times recently reported. That casting has not yet been officially confirmed.
The play will begin previews on Oct. 4 at the Brooks Atkinson. Rehearsals are to begin on Sept. 6. Emanuel Azenberg, Ira Pittelman, Jeffrey Sine, Max Cooper and Ben Sprecher are producing.
Joe Mantello will direct the staging, which would reunite the stars of The Producers. Lane and Broderick will play Oscar Madison and Felix Unger in Simon's classic The Odd Couple. Lane would be the sloppy sportswriter Madison, while Broderick would be the uptight photographer Felix Unger.
The original Broadway production of The Odd Couple opened at Broadway's Plymouth Theatre in March 1965. Art Carney and Walter Matthau starred as, respectively, Felix and Oscar. The production won four 1965 Tonys, including awards for Matthau (Actor), Simon (Author), Mike Nichols (Director) and Oliver Smith (Scenic Designer). Matthau then repeated his role on film opposite the Felix of Jack Lemmon. The long-running TV version of Simon's work featured Jack Klugman (Oscar) and Tony Randall (Felix).
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