Menzel, Idina << mehn ZEHL, ih DEE nah >> (1971-…), is an American actress, singer, and songwriter. She won a 2004 Tony Award as best actress in a musical for her performance as Elphaba the Wicked Witch of the West in the original Broadway production of Wicked (2003). The show is a musical adaptation of the novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (1995) by the American author Gregory Maguire. That novel reinterpreted the characters in the popular children’s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) by the American author L. Frank Baum and in the 1939 motion-picture adaptation.
Menzel is perhaps best known for providing the voice of Queen Elsa in the animated motion-picture musical Frozen (2013). The film was inspired by the fairy tale “The Snow Queen” by the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. The song “Let It Go,” performed in the film by Menzel, won an Academy Award for best original song and a Grammy Award for best song written for visual media. Menzel became the first Tony Award winner to have a top-10 hit song.
Menzel was born Idina Kim Mentzel on May 30, 1971, in Syosset, New York. She later changed the spelling of her last name to “Menzel” to make it easier to pronounce correctly. She graduated in 1993 from New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in drama. Menzel made her Broadway debut as Maureen Johnson, a bisexual performance artist, in the original cast of Rent in 1996. A bisexual is a person who is attracted to members of both sexes. Menzel recreated the role in a 2005 motion-picture version of the play. Menzel performed in a number of other Broadway productions before being cast in Wicked. She has continued to perform on Broadway.
Menzel has also acted in a number of other motion pictures, including the fantasy Enchanted (2007). From 2010 to 2013, she starred as a vocal coach in the popular television series “Glee.” She has also acted in a number of other TV series.
As a singer, Menzel recorded the albums Still I Can’t Be Still (1998), Here (2004), I Stand (2008), and Holiday Wishes (2014). She was married to the American actor and producer Taye Diggs from 2003 to 2014.
