'Beautiful' meeting between pop songwriter, actress portraying her

NEW YORK -- The meeting between the two women was brief but full of emotion.

It was a surprise for one. For the other, it was carefully orchestrated.

Broadway actress Jessie Mueller met singer-songwriter Carole King only once last fall, but both sides came away happier -- the actress with implicit approval to play King, and King pleased with the way things were going.

Mueller had been playing King for years as she helped develop the Broadway-bound "Beautiful: The Carole King Musical," but King couldn't bear to rehash her early years, so she kept it at arm's length.

Then, on the first day of rehearsals back in New York after playing an out-of-town tryout in San Francisco, Mueller spotted something at the door amid the hubbub of cast and crew.

"I see the hair," she recalls, referring to King's signature cascading curls. "I went, 'OK, I guess this is happening today."'

King was with her daughter, Sherry Kondor, the singer's manager and a producer of the show.

King and Mueller found each other in a crowded elevator, which then deposited them on the same floor.

"There was no avoiding it then," says Mueller. "I think Sherry said, 'I have someone I'd like you to meet."'

Mueller was a virtual expert on King, who wrote or co-wrote some of the greatest pop singles of the early 1960s.

The 30-year-old actress had brushed up on her piano work to more faithfully appear as a young King onstage, altered her singing voice to sound more like King and read everything about the songwriter. Still, seeing her in the flesh was striking.

"I think she makes people feel like they know her because of her music, and because I'd been watching her and studying her, it was the strangest thing of feeling like, 'I feel like I know you, but I know I don't. So I don't want to overstep,"' says Mueller. "But she's so warm and open."

After a hug, King graciously met the rest of the cast and told stories.

Then the 70-year-old sneaked away, leaving the stage pros to get on with portraying her budding career and first marriage, to Gerry Goffin.

The show opened this month with mixed reviews but almost universally positive notices for Mueller.