Read about Marissa’s journey to becoming Tracy Turnblad and allow her overflowing positive thinking to rub off on you.
Whenever we think about heroines, the picture of a beautiful woman with admirable achievements and qualities comes to mind. We see her fighting foes and overcoming hurdles. We think of long legs and a slim waist. We certainly don’t think of a chubby, five-foot girl whose big hair gives an illusion of height and probably adds a pound to the scale. We don’t think of Marissa Jaret Winokur. But she’s every inch a heroine, on stage and off.
Marissa is best known as the dancing and singing superstar Tracy Turnblad in the hit Broadway musical Hairspray.
“When Marissa walked up the stairs to audition for Hairspray, the first thing I saw was her hair. I thought to myself, ‘Wow. I think the first person through the door is going to be our Tracy,’“ says composer Marc Shaiman. But things weren’t going to be that easy for Marissa.
“They kept telling me: ‘You’re not going to be the one we use for the show, but until we find that girl, we’d love for you to work on the material,’” said Marissa with a laugh. “I would say, ‘Okay, but I am going to be doing the show. I absolutely am doing the show.’”
Marc Shaiman adds, “We tortured her—kept her auditioning, because we couldn’t believe that the first girl who auditioned would get the part.”
Staying Positive
“I knew I’d be on Broadway someday, singing and dancing!” At 19, she played the ingénue role, Jan in the long-running musical Grease. She calls it her first lucky break. “There are never many roles for girls like me on the Broadway stage.”
Marissa had her weight wake-up call came when she was appearing on the Fox sitcom Stacked. “I remember watching it and thinking, ‘Wow, I’m much heavier than I think I am.’”
Marissa embarked on a weight-loss journey, taking the old-fashioned route: with sweat and determination. “I hike, play tennis, swim laps and, of course, there's the theater."
The Plot Twists and Turns for “Turnblad”
“Every six months we’ll go back and do another workshop and every six months they would say ‘You are not going to be Tracy Turnblad. We are auditioning girls all the time. We’re being upfront with you.’”
Marissa would reply, “That’s great. You’re being honest. But I am doing the show.” She started training and really working hard. She wanted to prove that she could do the role and do it quite well.
“After the first year of going through all of this, I was diagnosed with cancer,” Marissa says. “All of a sudden, in the middle of my dream of being the Broadway star that I was going to be, I get cancer.
“I didn’t tell anyone because I knew if they learned I had cancer, they’d find another girl and re-cast me. I knew I was going to get better. I had to get better. This is it for me. Tracy is about life and happiness and there is nothing in this girl’s life that she couldn’t represent being the optimistic and wonderful person that she is.
“Hairspray completely carried me through my whole cancer thing. I remember driving through Malibu Canyon singing Good Morning, Baltimore over and over and over again. That was what I would sing on my way to surgery and on my way home.
“I never wanted the audience to look at Marissa and say ‘Oh my, she had cancer!’ So, probably three months before I did the last reading, I went for a check-up and my doctors told me I’m cured. Hell, yeah! I’m cured.
“I went to that reading and I was ready! I wasn’t sick anymore. I wasn’t scared. I did my best performance probably at that last reading.”
Box Office Success
Hairspray opened at the Neil Simon Theatre on August 15, 2002, with Marissa Jaret Winokur in the lead role. The show became an overnight success, going on to win 8 Tonys in 2003, including Best Musical, Best Book, Best Score, and Best Leading Actor and Actress.
“I never thought I’d get a Tony for this performance. Tonys are for theatre, for Les Miserables¸ not for shows that make you feel good!” Marissa says. “But there I was, holding this award that I dreamt of my whole life. I believed in myself and it paid off.”
Hairspray ran for five years at the Neil Simon Theatre and closed on January 4, 2009, with 2,641 performances and is now on tour worldwide.
“There’s been a bazillion Tracies since I’ve left the show and I’m glad that there are girls like me growing up that are going to play Tracy,” says Marissa. “Tracy gives everybody hope and there’ll be a young girl in high school someday who may not be considered conventionally beautiful and she’s can step on the stage and be Tracy Turnblad and feel beautiful for two hours.”
Dancing and Dieting Her Way to Weight Loss
“It sounds so cliché, but you do not have to be a size 2 to love dancing and to look good doing it. I love to dance as much as possible. I have lost 45 pounds that way; it changed my body,” says Marissa, who hosts the hit NBC show Dance Your Ass Off.
“I count my calories, too. I have protein at every meal and lots of vegetables. It’s all about moderation, portions no bigger than my hand. That’s hard at restaurants, so I cut things in half and make them take the rest away!”
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