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Sofía Vergara is one hot 'Mama' Morton in `Chicago'

Posted on Mon, May. 25, 2009

Sofía Vergara is one hot 'Mama' Morton in `Chicago'

BY CHRISTINE DOLEN
cdolen at MiamiHerald.com

Sofía Vergara slips into the bar area of Manhattan's Thalia restaurant on a recent evening as dusk is giving way to the come-hither lights of Broadway marquees.
Though the lounge lighting is dim, the Colombian television host-turned-actress causes heads to swivel. Anyone who has seen her on screens small or large knows Vergara isn't merely a pretty woman: As Walter Bobbie, her most recent director, puts it, ''She's a major babe.'' And for a little more than a month -- minus this week -- she's also a first-time Broadway star.

Vergara has interrupted her limited starring gig in the long-running Broadway revival of Chicago to headline the show's touring company this week at Miami's Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts. That's unusual, but this is a performer who has built a thriving career on doing things differently.

''I have had good luck with acting, and I'm not afraid to take on challenges,'' says the tall, lithe Vergara, who looks far younger than the 37 she'll turn in July. ``This is the entertainment business, not brain surgery.''

When she was growing up as one of six siblings in an affluent family in Barranquilla, Vergara wanted to become a dentist. She married her longtime boyfriend at 18. And though the couple split three years later, their union produced her son, Manolo, now 17.

After a photographer discovered her, Vergara became a model and frequent cover girl, acted in commercials, then transitioned into television hosting with Univisión's Fuera de serie (Out of This World) and worked for the network for eight years.

Director Barry Sonnenfeld spotted her when she was a presenter at the 1999 American Comedy Awards and cast her in the made-in-Miami movie Big Trouble, based on the novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist (and Miami Herald blogger) Dave Barry. Larger movie roles followed, including ones in Chasing Papi, Four Brothers, Meet the Browns and Madea Goes to Jail. In 2007 she scored guest-star spots on HBO's Entourage and ABC's Dirty Sexy Money while playing Alicia Oviedo on Amas de casa desperadas, the Spanish-language version of Desperate Housewives.

Sounds like a Colombian Cinderella story, right? Yet though Vergara has dated such modern-day prince charmings as Enrique Iglesias, Mark Wahlberg and Tom Cruise, her life hasn't exactly been a nonstop fairy tale.

Her elder brother Rafael was kidnapped and murdered in Bogotá in 1998, prompting Vergara and most of her family to move to Miami. In 2002, she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer; surgery left a thin scar but saved her life. Her father, Julio, who remained in Colombia after Vergara's parents divorced, suffered an incapacitating stroke and lives in a nursing home.

''She's a beautiful woman who has been through it all,'' says Gabriela Garcia, dance captain and longtime Broadway company member of Chicago.

Garcia, a director of the not-for-profit group R.Evolución Latina, which celebrates Latina talent, says that essence works well in the surprising role Vergara is playing: ''Mama'' Morton, the matron of the prison where the sexy, attention-seeking murderesses Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly are awaiting trial.

''We've never had that Latina touch in the show before,'' she says. ``She's a gorgeous bombshell, but it works.''

Though she considered going for the leading role of foxy Roxie, Vergara's limited availability (she leaves the Broadway Chicago June 8 to begin shooting the new ABC series Modern Family) and lack of stage experience made Mama the better fit.

''I've always wanted to do a musical, but I've never done professional theater,'' she says. 'After four hours of rehearsal -- both my knees are bad -- I said, `I'm insane. I can't do this.' I couldn't walk the whole next day in New York.''

Mama Morton is usually played by an older or more zaftig woman: Queen Latifah did it in the movie, and Chandra Wilson of Grey's Anatomy will take over from Vergara.

Still, director Bobbie, who revived Chicago for New York's Encores series and has guided it through nearly 5,200 Broadway performances, thought what she could bring to the show was right for Mama.

``Ordinarily, more mature, matronly women are traditional Mama types. But at the core, she's both warm-hearted and tough. Sofia brings that.''

He adds: ``You can't teach what she's got at the Yale School of Drama. She's got pizazz.''

Vergara, who describes her mezzo-soprano voice as ''deep,'' admits she was initially terrified.

''The first night was horrible. I thought I'd blank out and forget something,'' she says. ``I'm having fun now.''

When the show's producers asked her to star in the Miami run, she said yes even though it meant walking onto a new stage with all new cast members. She now lives with Manolo in Los Angeles, but her mother, Margarita, and much of her family are in South Florida, so they'll be in the audience on opening night. Her son, an aspiring film director, came to her Broadway opening and brought her flowers.

''He was so proud,'' she says with a grin. ``He finally thinks I'm doing something important.''

Her next challenge will be playing the much-younger wife of former Married . . . with Children star Ed O'Neill on Modern Family, which will air at 9 p.m. Wednesdays starting in the fall.

The premise of the series is that a Dutch TV crew is making a documentary about three units of an extended and notably diverse American family: O'Neill, Vergara and her 10-year-old from a previous marriage; O'Neill's grown son, his wife and their three kids; and another O'Neill son, his partner and their adopted Vietnamese baby.

Vergara isn't sure if she'll try for a more substantial Broadway role someday. But if she does, she's likely to go for something both challenging and surmountable.

''You don't want to do things if you're not doing them right,'' she says.

http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/christine-dolen/story/1061468.html">http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/christine-dolen/st...

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By Simon on May 25, 2009, 09:34 in Friendly Talkzone.