Biography
Eder was born in Tucson, Arizona on February 3, 1961 and raised in Brainerd, Minnesota. Her parents, Georg (from Austria) and Leila (from Norway), exposed her to music at an early age. She cites Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand, and Eileen Farrell as her childhood inspiration. Eder cites Garland, specifically, as her greatest influence.
Before her work on Broadway, Eder gained experience in the entertainment industry. She teamed up with classmate Paul Todd, who had won international awards for his piano and organ playing, and began the "Paul and Linda Show". After the duo went separate ways, Eder was a lounge singer at Harrah's Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Eder next tried her hand at the talent show, Star Search, where her performance caught the notice of Angel Records and, subsequently, Frank Wildhorn. She starred in two 1991 stagings of his musical Svengali, the 1990 World Premiere, 1995-6 National Tour, and 1997 Broadway production of his Jekyll & Hyde, and the 2003 World Premiere of Camille Claudel. The two married in 1998 and divorced in 2004; they have one son, Jake. Eder is a recipient of the Theater World Award (1996–97) for her work in Jekyll & Hyde.
During Eder & Wildhorn's high-time on Broadway, she received much attention for not only her Broadway vocals, but her pop-albums as well. She made frequent appearances on The Rosie O'Donnell Show and Live with Regis and Kathie Lee and the Late Show with David Letterman. On O'Donnell's show, she would often be seen playing a clip of Linda's famous single "Vienna". She was invited to Gifford's final performance on "Live..." and sang the song "Anything Can Happen", which was written for the musical Wonderland: Alice's New Musical Adventure, but was later cut from the musical.
Linda lists her first musical theatre credit to her high school days as the Mother Abbess in The Sound of Music. The first professional Broadway musical production, a national tour, she saw was Evita, a role which she had once expressed interest in playing.
Read more about this topic: Linda Eder
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