Nicole Scherzinger emerges from theater in nightgown, covered in ‘blood’
It’s the Great Fright Way.
Nicole Scherzinger shocked onlookers on West 44th Street Saturday night when she emerged from the St. James Theatre to sign autographs — barefoot, wearing a black nightgown and covered in fake blood.
No, the former Pussycat Doll didn’t get into a fistfight in Shubert Alley, she’s the star of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Broadway musical “Sunset Blvd.,” which started previews last weekend.
The actress raced out of the theater immediately after the curtain fell, still in her costume.
And she made a splash straight out of a Stephen King novel.
In the show, based on the 1950 Billy Wilder movie, Scherzinger, 46, plays Norma Desmond, a faded and forgotten Hollywood movie star whose obsessive dream of returning to the silver screen ends gruesomely.
The “Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up!” role was famously played by Gloria Swanson in the film and Glenn Close on Broadway.
Before the carnage, though, Norma beautifully belts out beloved Lloyd Webber ballads, such as “As If We Never Said Goodbye” and “With One Look.”
Director Jamie Lloyd’s revival, which also stars Tom Francis, cleverly employs live video and a sexy, modernist look that couldn’t be more different from when Close played the part in 1994 and 2017.
The Post gave the musical’s Olivier Award-winning London production four stars last fall and called Scherzinger’s performance “breathtaking.”
“What Lloyd has wisely left intact in his jolting new London revival, starring Nicole Scherzinger as that restless recluse Norma Desmond, are the sturdy bones of a timeless American tragedy,” the review read.
The sight of a blood-soaked woman in Midtown certainly took people’s breath away.
A source overheard a passerby ask Scherzinger if she was OK.
“She responded, ‘You should’ve seen the other guy,’” they said.
Added a wag: “Broadway hasn’t seen an actor looking this banged up since ‘Spider-Man’ closed.”
