Idina Kim Menzel (/ɪˈdiːnə mɛnˈzɛl/ ih-DEE-nə men-ZEL; née Mentzel; born May 30, 1971) is an American actress and singer. Particularly known for her work in musicals on the Broadway stage and having achieved mainstream success across stage, film and music, Menzel has garnered the honorific title "Queen of Broadway" for her achievements. Her accolades include an American Music Award, a Billboard Music Award, a Disney Legends Award, and a Tony Award, as well as nominations for three Drama League Awards and four Drama Desk Awards. In 2019, she was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to live theatre.
Menzel rose to prominence as a stage actress in 1996, making her Broadway debut playing Maureen Johnson in the rock musical Rent, which earned her a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. After appearing in several smaller-scale stage and Off-Broadway productions, in 2003 Menzel originated the role of Elphaba in the Broadway musical Wicked, for which she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. The popularity of the musical, Menzel's character and song "Defying Gravity" earned her a devoted following among theater fans. After leaving the show in 2005, she reprised the role in the musical's original West End production until the end of 2006, becoming the highest-paid actress in West End theatre history. In 2014, Menzel returned to Broadway as Elizabeth Vaughan in the musical If/Then, for which she received a third Tony Award nomination.
Menzel began transitioning to film and television roles in the early 2000s. After reprising her role as Maureen in Rent's 2005 film adaptation, she was cast as Nancy Tremaine in Disney's musical fantasy film Enchanted (2007) and reprised her role in its sequel Disenchanted (2022). She had a recurring role as Shelby Corcoran on the musical television series Glee (2010–2013). Since 2013, Menzel has voiced Elsa in Disney's computer-animated Frozen franchise. "Let It Go", a song she recorded for the first film, became widely popular upon release, winning an Academy Award for Best Original Song and reaching number five on the Billboard Hot 100, making her the first Tony Award-winning actor to have a top-10 song on the chart. Menzel also starred in the crime drama film Uncut Gems (2019) and in the jukebox musical film Cinderella (2021).
As a recording artist, Menzel has released six studio albums: Still I Can't Be Still (1998), Here (2004), I Stand (2008), Holiday Wishes (2014), idina. (2016), and Christmas: A Season of Love (2019).
Early life and education
Idina Kim Mentzel was born on May 30, 1971, in Manhattan. She grew up in New Jersey until about age three, when her family moved to Syosset, New York, on Long Island. Her parents are Stuart Mentzel, a pajama salesman, and Helene Goldberg, a therapist. She has a younger sister named Cara. Menzel is Jewish, and her grandparents emigrated from Ukrainian Haisyn. Menzel attended J. Irving Baylis Elementary School in Plainview, New York, and then Syosset's H. B. Thompson Middle School and Syosset High School.
When Menzel was 15 years old, her parents divorced and she began working as a wedding and bar/bat mitzvah singer, a job that she continued throughout her time at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in drama in 1992.
Idina changed the spelling of her surname to "Menzel" to better reflect the pronunciation that the Mentzel family had adopted in the United States. She was friends with actor Adam Pascal before they worked together in Rent.
In 2017, during an interview with Irish New York–based songwriter Jimmy Walsh, he revealed that, in 1992, Menzel recorded a demo for him of the song "In Your Eyes", which went on to win the Eurovision Song Contest 1993 for Irish singer Niamh Kavanagh. Menzel was paid $75 for the recording.
