There are 2 persons called Margo Lion:

1. A French actress and cabaret singer (1899-1989)
2. An American broadway producer (*1944)

1.
Margo Lion (Marguerite Hélène Constantine Barbe Elisabeth Lion, *Feb. 28, 1899 in Konstantinopel, †Feb. 25, 1989 in Paris) came to Berlin for training in classical ballet in the early 1920s.
Although she was much more successful singing parodic songs at Trude Hesterberg's cabaret, mostly written by her later husband Marcellus Schiffer.
She also collaborated with Friedrich Hollaender for the chorus line "Bei uns um die Gedächtniskirche 'rum".

Wearing a tight fit black dress most of the time she was well known for glamourous style, that even influenced Marlene Dietrich, her partner of the song "Wenn Die Beste Freundin mit der besten Freundin"

After the Nazis came to power she had to return to Paris, where she became famous for interpretations of Bertold Brecht songs.


2.
Margo Lion (born 1944) is an Broadway producer from Baltimore, Maryland, best known for her role in producing the stage and screen hit Hairspray. Combined, the works Lion produced have won 20 Tony Awards and a Pulitzer Prize.

Margo Lion grew up in a German Jewish family in Baltimore. She was interested in theatre from an early age and originally wanted to become an actress; her father nicknamed her after Sarah Bernhardt. She attended Mills College in Oakland, California. After college, Lion became a teacher; however, a workshop from the University of Iowa inspired her to pursue producing. Her first production ventures were non-profit productions, with stage personalities such as Joyce Carol Oates and Twyla Tharp.

Lion's first Broadway production was the musical Jelly's Last Jam. To finance the production, she used a nude sculpture by Henri Matisse, which she inherited when her parents died in a plane crash in Egypt when she was 18, as collateral. For subsequent productions, she mortgaged her New York apartment. These funds allowed Lion to produce several plays on Broadway. Many of these achieved critical acclaim, but none were overwhelmingly successful. These included Angels in America, I Hate Hamlet, Elaine Stritch at Liberty, and The Crucible.

In 1998, Lion produced The Triumph of Love, based on a 1732 comedy by Pierre de Marivaux. When the play turned out to be a flop, however, she became discouraged and considered changing careers. Shortly after, while watching John Waters' 1988 film Hairspray in bed with a cold, she had the idea to adapt the film into a musical. She recruited Marc Shaiman, a Hollywood film composer, for the musical's score. Lion originally conceived Hairspray as a small-scale production but changed her mind during workshops; instead, she raised $10.5 million for the musical's budget. Four years later, in August 2002, the musical reached Broadway and became an immediate commercial and critical hit, winning eight Tony Awards and ten Drama Desk Awards.

After Hairspray, Lion produced the Broadway productions Caroline, or Change, The Wedding Singer, and the play Radio Golf.

Lion is an adjunct professor at the Tisch School of the Arts of New York University. She married a playwright, but they later divorced. She has one son, Matthew Nemeth. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.