Sarah Jessica Parker Was a ‘Regular’ at Studio 54 at Age 14 Thanks to Her Role in Annie

Parker joined the cast as one of the orphans before taking on the lead role

It wasn’t exactly a hard-knock life when Sarah Jessica Parker starred in Annie.

Parker, 60, opened about her time in the show as a preteen actress in an article highlighting 29 Broadway legends published in Vulture on April 7. Annie was her second Broadway show, and she joined the cast as the orphan July and an understudy of Annie (the role made famous by Andrea McArdle, who also spoke to the outlet). When McArdle, now 61, left the show, Parker was cast as Annie at age 14.

The show was a massive hit, and Parker became a big fan when she saw it. “Andrea McArdle was and remains the queen — not because she behaved like a queen but because she was inarguably the standard-bearer for the role,” Parker told the outlet. “I went to see it soon after it opened with standing-room tickets, and my father told me, because I loved it so much, ‘Oh, you’re not really Annie material.’ Because I didn’t know I could sing.” She ended up playing July for about a year and Annie for another year. 

And the Annie cast of preteens became the toast of the city. “We were regulars at Studio 54, which makes absolutely no sense,” Parker said. “We would just walk around, mouths agape.” 

“But we were also very normal kids,” the And Just Like That star continued. “At a place called Joe G Pizza, with $5 I could get a slice and a drink and I still had about $4 left for the arcade. It had a stand with nuts, candies, Skee-Ball and pinball. My nickname became Pinball Parker.”

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McArdle, meanwhile, remembered that next door to the theater, there was a bar called Jilly’s and one of the stagehands would go over for a shot in between scene changes. One night, he told McArdle that Frank Sinatra was there and wanted to meet her.

“I slipped right out the stage door. And all of a sudden the scene is going into ‘Tomorrow’ and they’re like, “Where’s Andrea?’ ” she remembered. “One of the stagehands says, ‘Uh, she might have gone into Jilly’s to talk to Sinatra.’ The stage manager, Janet Beroza, comes in, drags me by the scruff of my neck, and throws me onstage. The orchestra had to hold for — I can’t imagine how long.”

Back in 2022, Parker reminisced about her Annie tenure when she saw a photo on Instagram of her costume fitting for the show. “Oh I’m so thrilled to see this photo,” she wrote. “I’ve no idea why this fitting was documented but I’m so grateful Mr. [Frank] Leonardo did so. Makes me very sentimental and weepy.”

“Took place at 890 Broadway. Barbara Matteras workroom,” the actress added. “Those are my personal knee-hi’s [sic] and shoes. Gosh, thanks for unearthing! X, SJ.”

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Annie wasn’t Parker’s last Broadway bow. In 1996, she appeared in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying alongside her then-boyfriend and now-husband Matthew Broderick. She then starred in Once Upon a Mattress. In 2022, the couple reunited on stage, starring together in Plaza Suite. 

Annie, meanwhile, became one of America’s most classic musicals. It ran on Broadway for six years, and has been revived twice, in addition to numerous U.S. tours. It was adapted into a 1982 film starring Aileen Quinn as Annie alongside Carol Burnett, Tim Curry, Bernadette Peters and Albert Finney, as well as a 1999 made-for-TV version starring Victor Garber, Kathy Bates, Audra McDonald, Alan Cumming and Kristin Chenoweth with Alicia Morton as Annie.

A 2014 movie starred Quvenzhané Wallis as Annie alongside Jamie Foxx and Cameron Diaz. Whoopi Goldberg also appeared in a production at The Theater at Madison Garden in late 2024. 

Oh, my nose.