When Broadway star Terri White performs her show-stopper "Necessity" every night in "Finian's Rainbow," she knows what she's singing about.

A year ago, she was homeless and sleeping on a bench in Washington Square Park - and, but for a beat cop who cared, she might still be there.

Things got really bad last year. White couldn't pay the bills. Her partner of 14 years threw her out. She couldn't get a gig.

"I can't tell you how many times I auditioned," White says. "Chicago" rejected her eight times.

"I was depressed, and it zapped my positive energy, and I think they felt that," White explains. "I thought I was over."

She was on the street. Guys who'd bummed smokes off her outside the clubs watched out for her. Still, it was dangerous. She would catnap on a Washington Square Park bench for an hour, then wander the narrow streets of the Village for another. On one of those walks down Grove St., she bumped into 6th Precinct cop David Taylor.

"I was on patrol at around 4 in the morning. It was early fall, and it was chilly," Taylor says. "I was coming up Grove and I saw her coming down Seventh Ave. South. She came over to the car."

They'd seen each other around the neighborhood for a couple of years.

She'd been on the streets three months. Rather than refer her to a shelter and drive on, Taylor, started calling in some chits.

"I started texting immediately. I had just helped this guy move stuff out of a basement apartment. I asked him if Terri could use a room until she got on her feet. He said okay."

His action set off others, like one magnet clicking to the next.

White started to get her old self back. The owner of The Keys club in Key West, Fla., flew her down to sing for a weekend. It turned into a two-week gig. She met jewelry designer Donna Barnett. When auditions began for the Encore's version of "Finian's Rainbow," Barnett paid for her to fly to New York.

She got it! Producer Alan Marks heard her sing and hired her for the Broadway show. Now there's Tony buzz and People magazine.

Wow...great story!

noimageatall said:

PurpleJedi said:

Pay it forward...that's my philosophy. If everyone helped at least one person the world would be a better place.

noimageatall said:

Absolutely.

Unfortunately, humans expect to collect from what they give, usually with interest. So the sad reality is our "every-man-for-himself" society.

PurpleJedi said:

Not ever realizing that when you help another you are ultimately helping yourself.

noimageatall said:

BTW - I love the pic of Lady Gaga in your avie.