Her death was announced by her husband, veteran Broadway actor Danny Burstein, who said in a statement “our family is devastated. I have no words at this time because I am asleep.” Luker went public in 2020 saying he had been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease, also called ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Luker was nominated for Best Actress Tony in 1995 for Magnolia in “Showboat”, nominated for Best Actress in 2000 for playing Marian in “The Music Man” opposite Craig Bierko and nominated for Best Actress in 2007 as to Winifred Banks and “Mary Poppins”. . “
Tributes flooded social media, including Broadway stars like Laura Benanti, who called Luker “humble, loving and kind” with a “golden voice” that would “wrap you in peace.” Seth Rudetsky said it was “a great loss to Broadway and to the world.” Kristin Chenoweth tweeted that Luker was “one of the main reasons she wanted to be a soprano” and that Bernadette Peters called her “one of the most beautiful voices on Broadway and a charming person.”
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Luker was known for staying with shows for extended runs. “Yeah, I’m the queen of long races,” she told the Connecticut Post in 2011. “I don’t know if I’m lucky or if it’s a curse. But it’s how things have happened to me and it’s mostly a good thing.”
In 2013 she appeared in an off-Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim’s “Passion.” In addition to many stage credits, Luker appeared on television in “Boardwalk Empire” and “The Good Wife” and in the 2012 film “Not Fade Away.” Her other off-Broadway credits include “Death Takes a Holiday,” “Indian Blood” and “The Vagina Monologues.”
Broadway star Stephanie J. Block described Luker as “angel face and angel spirit” and LaChanze took to Twitter to describe Luker’s death as “a great loss to American theater.” Tony winner Michael Cerveris said: “There was no one more humble, more unexpectedly funny or more glorious when he sang.”
Luker and her husband starred in an episode of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” in which they played the parents of a young transgender man killed in an accident after being harassed.
Luker was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, and received a bachelor’s degree in music from the University of Montevallo, where he later received an honorary doctorate.
Luker made his Broadway debut in 1988 in “The Phantom of the Opera” first as a student of Sarah Brightman and then playing Christine alongside the legendary Michael Crawford. “I’ll never forget it. It was an out-of-body experience. It was so kind, though, and I’ll never forget it,” he told Playbill in 2016.
She had Broadway roles in “The Sound of Music” and as the original Lily in “The Secret Garden.” She was a replacement for “Nine” in 2003 alongside Antonio Banderas, “Fun Home” in 2016 and “Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella” in 2013-14.
Her albums include “Greenwich Time”, “Leaving Home”, “Anything Goes: Rebecca Luker Sings Cole Porter” and “I Got Love: Songs of Jerome Kern”, with 14 classics ranging from “Bill / Can’t Help” Loving That Man ”to“ My Husband’s First Wife. ”He also paid tribute to the legendary Barbara Cook at the 2011 Kennedy Center Honors.
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His last role on stage was playing the close wife of a small town minister in a 2019 Kennedy Center production of “Footloose.” Her last performance was in June in a Zoom benefit performance, “At Home with Rebecca Luker.”
In addition to her husband, Luker is survived by two stepchildren, Alex and Zach.
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