Each spring, Broadway’s biggest night hands out a prize that nearly everyone calls simply “the Tony.” Far fewer know that the name belongs to a real person, a pioneering actress and director whose work shaping American theater was cut short, and whose nickname stuck to the award almost by accident on the night it was first given.
A Real Person, Not A Mascot
The full name of the award gives the answer away. The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. “Tony” was the lifelong nickname of Mary Antoinette Perry. Born June 27, 1888, in Denver, she was an American actress, producer, director, and administrator, and co-founder and secretary of the American Theatre Wing.
Perry built a substantial career on the stage and behind it. She made her theatrical debut in 1905 and, after a marriage that pulled her away from performing for more than a decade, returned to the theater following her husband’s death in 1922. She went on to direct a string of Broadway productions in a long professional partnership with producer Brock Pemberton, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy “Harvey” in 1944, in a field that gave few women the chance to direct at all.
Wartime Leadership And Personal Sacrifice
Perry’s largest mark came through the American Theatre Wing, the organization that still presents the awards. She helped found the Wing, which operated the Stage Door Canteens that provided hospitality and entertainment for servicemen, and she served as its chairman from 1941 to 1944. The canteens, where soldiers could mingle with Broadway performers, grew out of the theater community’s wartime volunteer effort, and Perry helped drive it.
Her devotion came at a cost. By the mid-1940s, Perry was $300,000 in debt and living on $800 a week from her “Harvey” royalties. Asked by a reporter why she poured so much money and time into what he called thankless theatrical causes, she rejected the premise, saying, “I’m just a fool for the theatre.” She also underwrote auditions for thousands of aspiring performers and saw her hope for a national actors’ school realized shortly before her death.
How The Award Got Her Name
Perry did not live to see the prize that bears her name. When she died of a heart attack in 1946 at the age of 58, Brock Pemberton suggested that the American Theatre Wing devise a series of awards named in her honor. Pemberton, her longtime collaborator, memorialized her as someone who met life head on and gave generously of her nature, and proposed the award to recognize distinguished stage acting and technical achievement.
The shortened name was not part of any formal plan. It emerged on the spot at the first ceremony. During the inaugural event, as Pemberton handed out an award, he called it a “Tony,” referring to Perry’s nickname, and the name stuck.
A Modest First Ceremony
The debut bore little resemblance to today’s televised spectacle. The first awards took place on Easter Sunday, April 6, 1947, in the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. Vera Allen, Perry’s successor as chairwoman of the Wing, presided over an evening of dining, dancing, and entertainment, with a black-tie-optional dress code. Eleven Tonys were presented across seven categories, along with eight special awards, including one for restaurateur Vincent Sardi.
The prizes themselves were also informal at first. During the first two years, there was no official Tony Award, and winners received a scroll plus mementos such as a money clip for the men and a compact for the women. Accounts of the men’s keepsake vary, with some early reports describing a cigarette lighter, while the women’s compacts were made by Tiffany and Co.
The Medallion That Endures
The familiar award arrived two years later through a design competition. In 1949, the designers’ union United Scenic Artists sponsored a contest, and the winning entry, a disk-shaped medallion designed by Herman Rosse, remains the official Tony Award to this day. One face carries the masks of comedy and tragedy; the reverse bears Perry’s profile, keeping her image on every statuette handed out. Since 1968, the medallion has been mounted on a black pedestal with a curved armature, and each award is numbered.
That small profile on the back of the medallion is the lasting trace of the woman who inspired it. Generations of winners have lifted a trophy named for a director who spent her own fortune supporting the art form and died before the honor existed. The nickname that a grieving collaborator spoke aloud one Easter Sunday turned a personal tribute into one of the most recognized awards in entertainment, carrying Antoinette Perry’s name to a global audience that mostly knows her only as “Tony.”
