Tyne Daly Teaches Sierra Boggess a 'Master Class'

Tyne Daly Teaches Sierra Boggess a 'Master Class'


In a Times Square hotel restaurant, Tyne Daly sees Sierra Boggess approaching and immediately looks down at the young woman's feet."Hi, honey. Let's see the kicks," she says. "Whaddaya got?"Boggess, who looks radiant in a spaghetti strap maxi dress, has her hair pulled back in a ponytail and a pair of strappy wedges with towering 4-inch heels.Pets Still Homeless After Joplin Tornado. She lifts the dress ever so slightly to reveal the goods.

Daly and Boggess may be playing a chilly teacher and her overawed student in a revival of Terrence McNally's Tony Award-winning "Master Class," but they have bonded like sisters over something quite pedestrian.Their love of footwear has evolved into a little bit of a friendly rivalry. The other day, Boggess says she showed up for an interview in a pair of black Christian Louboutin d'Orsay style pumps, which she'd bought in London to congratulate herself on landing "Love Never Dies" in the West End.

The 29-year-old actress, excited to show them off, waited for Daly to arrive and gush. When her co-star walked in, though, Boggess' face fell: Daly had upped the ante and had some of her most expensive shoes flown in from Los Angeles. She was wearing an impressive pair that had an ankle strap, sparkles and sunflowers.What made the moment even funnier was that both women hadn't brought out their big guns for a TV interview. "We were both doing radio, so nobody saw our shoes, but we had the best shoes on," Boggess says and cracks up.

Onstage, their easy rapport vanishes. Daly, 65, plays the imperious opera singer Maria Callas at the end of her career and Boggess plays Sharon, a gifted student enrolled in the diva's master class at the Juilliard School. Callas is withering in her sarcasm, criticizes the students' voices and appearance and brings Sharon to tears.Daly, the Emmy Award winner who played Mary Beth Lacey on the TV cop show "Cagney & Lacey" and later won a Tony for "Gypsy," was hesitant at first about playing the glamorous Callas, a role that originally earned Zoe Caldwell a Tony in 1996.