September 3, 2024 • 44 mins
It’s time for the final episode in our Summer Staff Picks series, highlighting our favorite conversations from the Here’s The Thing archives. This week, we revisit Alec Baldwin’s 2013 conversation with “The First Lady of Broadway,” Elaine Stritch. Alec sat down with the late stage and screen veteran who, among many famous roles, played his mother Colleen Donaghy on “30 Rock.” Stritch spoke to Alec about her transition from the Sacred Heart Convent and finishing school to finding herself in New York theater classes sitting between Walter Matthau and Marlon Brando. She performed for nearly 70 years – and of her extraordinary career, Stritch comments, "I was the funny, kind of offbeat girl. I was never the romantic lead.” This wide-ranging conversation with the witty and outspoken legend touches on everything from her time on the “30 Rock” set to Stritch’s famous cabaret act at the Carlyle Hotel.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Alec Baldwin, and you were listening to Here's
the Thing from iHeart Radio. It's summer, and that means
it's time for our tradition at Here's the Thing, where
the staff share their favorite episodes from our archives in
our Summer Staff Picks series. Next up is producer Maureen Hoban.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Thanks Alec. When I think of women who unapologetically speak
their minds and are bubbling over with humor and talent,
of course I think of Elaine Stretch. She was known
for playing bold and body females, including that of Colleen Donneghe,
mother to Alex's character on Thirty Rock. It was a
(00:40):
delicious role where she effortlessly eviscerated the vice president of
East Coast Television and Microwave Oven Programming at every turn.
Elayne Stretch sadly passed away in twenty fourteen, a year
after this recording, but in it you'll experience the sharp wit,
unfiltered candor, and unmatched presence of the legendary first Lady
(01:05):
of Broadway, Elaine Stretch.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Actress Elaine Stretch has been performing for nearly seventy years.
No matter the medium, she brings her characters to life.
With a playful ferocity that naturally leads to scene stealing performances.
Despite her enviable career in film and television, Elaine Stritch
is a self professed Broadway baby. A big break came
(01:32):
in nineteen fifty when she was hired to understudy ethel
Merman in Irving Berlin's musical Call Me Madam.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
She scared me to death.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Really, she's a tough brag.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Oh. When I got to the end of Call Me Madam,
it was.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Mine on me madaises.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
It is not so surprises that you feel very strange.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
But not.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Elaine Stretch remained on stage for much of the fifties
and sixties, playing such iconic roles as Martha in Who's
Afraid of Virginia Woolf, both Vera and Mame in the
musical Mame, and Amanda in Private Lives by Noel Coward.
In nineteen seventy, she originated what was arguably the role
of her career, the acerbic Joanne in Stephen Sondheim's Company.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
And Here's to the Girls who just watched, Aren't They
the Best?
Speaker 1 (02:23):
In a TV documentary about the cast recording of that production,
we meet Elaine's toughest critic herself. Here she is listening
to a take of that song she made famous, Ladies
Who Lunch.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
As every Boy Row, And of course I'm smoking a
nice cigarette, which helped the situation.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Just to be clear, that's Elaine yelling at the sound
of her own voice. That was over forty years ago.
But Elaine Stritch has continue to hold herself to impossibly
high standards, and she stayed busy, at least until recently.
Earlier this year, she announced that she was leaving New
York for her home state of Michigan. In April, at
(03:14):
age eighty eight, Elaine Stritch performed her last cabaret show
at the Carlisle Hotel.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
About a month ago. I really said, I'm I want
out of here. I want out of New York. I
don't I shouldn't live in New York anymore. It's not
for me anymore. It's too fast for me. Or no,
it's not too fast. And I changed my mind about that.
It's not this, It's not that, it's just not for me.
(03:41):
This is New York taxi lo and it's dinner and
tonight and tomorrow in.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Three full day and I can't.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Handle it because I'm not interested in handling.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
You just don't want you could do it, You just
don't want to do it.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Doesn't give me any satisfaction. I don't go home and say,
I guess I told them.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
So about a month ago. It had been an idea,
and then a month ago you went, I'm doing it.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
I called up my nephew, who is a great buddy
of mine in Birmingham, Michigan, and I said, I'm coming home.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
What do you think you're going to do there?
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Oh, you have no idea.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
I'm just saying a very active life.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
First of all, nothing. I'm really going to do nothing.
I'm going to wake up and go back to bed
and go back to bed. That's exactly right.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
That's what I want to do.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
I want to do it. I want to sleep a lot.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
What's wrong with us? I would like to wake up
and have my oatmeal and read the paper and go
right back to it, right back to bed until about noon.
So you're going to go there and do nothing.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
And I like to go to dinner. I like to
meet my nieces, my nephews, my cousins, my you know.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Your relations there by way of who you're really two sisters,
your two sisters.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
I had two sisters, were three sisters. I was the
baby and they and all the.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Kids in bedroom Detroit. You were in like what Bloomfield
Hills or yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah your dad. But your
dad was someone not in the car business.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Daddy was, well, yes he was. He was the BF
Goodrich rubber. He was.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
He was in the time.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
My mother called it the g d BF good Rich.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Rubber, the goddamn BF.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
You got it.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
What are your two sisters? What kind of lives did
they have? No show business?
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Very very chic, very normal. Normal. Georgie had four kids
and Sally had three.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
So you have seven, yeah, he said.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Seven guys running around and they're all crazy about me.
Why shouldn't I go home? There's nothing to tie me here.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
It's not the same.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
My career tied me here. I talk career talk and
play and plan and plan.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
And make plan. What am I doing next? What am
I doing next?
Speaker 3 (06:05):
That's right?
Speaker 1 (06:06):
And when you get off that merry ground, it gets
you get a different stop.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Oh what to stop? It is the merry go round
broke down?
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Why do you say that you could keep working? You
don't want to.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
No, I don't want to find parts and look for
him and I said the other night, when is pretend
going to end?
Speaker 4 (06:31):
Right?
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Slowly but surely, alex Is I'm starting to say I
don't want to pretend anymore. I want to get up
in the morning and I want it to be real.
I don't want to.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
I can't believe you're saying this, because it's so I am.
It's so much. Maybe as a result of my getting older.
I turned fifty five a couple of weeks ago, and
my wife I got married again, and my wife were
having a baby. And because of all this stuff, I
realize I want to be me for a change. I
want to wake up and I want to say my
words and have my thought or not say anything. It's
(07:07):
such a self involvement.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
This business work, it is it is.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Why do you think you've lasted this long? You know
what talent is? Why have you lasted all this time?
And because you're talented? Certainly It isn't because people think
you're an easy time of it.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Because I have to accomplish something in that department almost
every day of my life.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
I have to You've never stopped trying to prove yourself.
That's the key, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
No, I got to go and do that part in
that soap, in that schmope. I don't care what it is.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
You got to give it everything.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Or I'm with Noel Coward on the West End, or
I'm with Hal Prince on Broadway. I'm with all the big, big,
big big shots, and they're directing me well and guiding
me well. And I'm I'm.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
You going to prove you belong there with them?
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Yes, And I'm being directed in the world way of
the big shots, and I'm doing fine. I'm doing fine.
I'm I'm I'm doing fine.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Would you? But there's a point, I'm assuming when did
you feel that you're in the room and all of
a sudden it's like, I don't need anybody's advice. I
know what I want to do. Here's what I do.
Was there a time you remember in your life when
that changed?
Speaker 3 (08:21):
I got self satisfied about the parts that I played.
For example, well, like I was the I was the funny,
kind of offbeat girl. I wasn't. I was never the
romantic lead. I wasn't good that kind of looking girl
(08:42):
in the movies. I couldn't be that kind of looking
girl I was.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Well, you could you could have been looks Wise, but
you just don't want to play it because those were
dull parts. Well, yeah, they weren't as good as parts.
But I yeah, you were a sassier woman. Yeah, and
you played those.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Parts an attention getter when I didn't want to be
eve Arden? I really didn't.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Okay, Okay, that's a good point. Why.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Well, because I don't want to be a funny girl
that's just cracking Wise cracks or staying up with the
you know, with the rollers in her.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Hair, for driving the car while the two leads make
out in the back of the car. You don't want
to be that. No, what did you? What did you?
Speaker 3 (09:27):
I don't want them to make up in the bags?
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Right? Well, did you sprinkle on top of what might
have been eve Arden for you, which it very easily
could have been. What did you sprinkle on top of
that to make sure that it wasn't eve Arden? What
do you do that eve Arden didn't.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Do I get dramatic or frightened or reel about something
or pain.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Yeah there's a pain, Yeah you do. Yes, it's not working.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Dramatic happens to me in the course of a comedy.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Oh, but are you always that way.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
What was I always what way?
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Complicating things with the pain of your existence. There's this
thing you tap into. Did you do when you were
very young?
Speaker 3 (10:11):
I think so? I think I did.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Were you the complicated one?
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (10:16):
I think so. I mean very often I would hear
around our house where's the lane? And then was oh?
And they'd say oh, and I'd say, I'm right here.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
They were worried about you.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
Yeah, everybody was worried about me, because when I wasn't accountable,
I was. I scared him and I didn't mean to.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
When did performing begin for you as a were a
performer as a child.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
I was laughing. I was born laughing.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
They were funny.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Oh God, I was funny. I really was funny, and
I made everybody laugh and I wasn't conscious of it.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Right.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
I want to tell you something. I love to tell
you a line from my life to see if you
get this, and I'm going to tell it to you.
My mother and dad, as a present to me when
I was six years old, took me to Niagara Falls,
(11:21):
which was very close to Birmingham, Michigan. And I kept
hearing about this, and I was going to wear my
new pink coat and hat and I was going to
Niagara Falls, and I kept hearing it and you know,
Christmas Morning, Christmas whatever it was. And and I never
(11:41):
said a word. I just sat in the backseat and
I just waited. They pulled up Alec to the parking
lot in Niagara Falls, and here we are. We're here, lady,
we're here, Come on, get out. And it was just me,
mom and dad. So that two sisters, the older sisters,
(12:02):
you know, the hell with them. And I got very
teary eyed and pulled my mother back from the car
and said, Mama, what We're going to go see Niagara Falls?
(12:23):
And I asked her if Niagara Falls had a baby,
And to me and to my mother and my father
it was one of the most extraordinary dramatic lines of
all time. All I was interested in is did this
woman Niagara Falls have a baby? Because then I could
(12:48):
play with her. And it was the I think, an
absolute proof of how lonely and sad I was as
a kid. I didn't know what the hell aretistic was
all about. I really didn't. I knew I had to
express myself. I knew I had to express myself, and
that's all there was to it.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
So when you left Michigan. When you left home, you
lived at home in Michigan. Your family lived in Michigan
until you left home. Did you go to college?
Speaker 3 (13:17):
No, I didn't go to college, which I graduated from
high school. I went where Sacred Heart Convent.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
You went to a convent.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
I went to a convent. The soccer cur highly educational,
big scholastic, Scooby doo.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
You went there for what twelve years? That was your
high school? When you left there?
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Where'd you go to Dushen Residence? Which was also the
soccer cur but it was a residence finishing school for
what it was like after school stuff, you know, Like
I'm trying to think of one of the courses that
we took, current events, isn't that? I guess how long.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Were you there?
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Years?
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Two years after that?
Speaker 3 (14:01):
And I went out and majored in dramatics at the
New School in Greenwich Village.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
The finishing school was in the city where you were
back in Michigan.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
In Greenwich Village, the finishing school.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
I'm in New York And you went to finishing school
in New York.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Absolutely, see on ninety first and fifth Avenue.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Yeah, And I took these three courses at the school,
which was fine. I had a roommate from Chicago who
was majoring in journalism, and we were all very sophisticated abroads.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
You went to New School for drama. That was your
first acting exposure able boom. What did you think about
it when you first I loved it.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
I sat next to Myrlon Brando. That was didn't hurt
at all.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
That'll get you through class.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
Yeah, Walter Matho was on the other side of me
at the New School. Yeah, we had a very stellar cast.
I was getting along fine and having the most fun
I've ever had in my own life.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
What's the first job you ever got?
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Well, first of all, I was at the studio theater
at the New School and we had our own theater
and Piscott he directed, and Stella Adler directed, and we
had all those Stanislawski people. We had more fun, Alex.
You couldn't believe.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
It was Stella like as a director, heaven she was
what made her so. She's very insightful, all.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
This kind of dramatics, you know, Slaine and Marlin and
Wolf and you do it. She scream her head off
at us. She was crazy woman, absolutely divine.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
And when you left that program. What was your first job.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
Job summers Dock where Westport, Connecticut?
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Do you remember what you did?
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Yeah, Craig's Wife. I think I did.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
People they say years ago, they go, what show did
you do? And you name a show people just never
heard of. They go, Craig is Craig's wife.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Who did you play Craig's wife?
Speaker 1 (16:15):
They nurse? What did you play?
Speaker 3 (16:17):
I played the ant, the ant that visited and told
craig wife she was full of shit.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
You started as an aunt, and you're going to finish
as an ant. You're going now you're an aunt. That's
your next that's your that's your role. Now you're an aunt.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
They're not allowed to call me because it's so boring.
They called me Todd Lane because my mother is French.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
To Lane. I thought they were going to call it
lady stretch. How would have them call you? No, her highness?
Speaker 3 (16:45):
But I just had the most wonderful time in dramatic school.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
And then what about your first job, Douglas?
Speaker 3 (16:52):
I did my first play with Kirk Douglas.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
What show with Kirk Craig's.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
Wait a minute, Wait a minute, I'll tell you in
a minute.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Close you and Kirk Douglas. You're on a stage in
New York.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Yeah, I play. And also where is my black bag? Alec?
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Hunter?
Speaker 3 (17:12):
I need I need orange juice?
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Hunter? Come in places? Can we send Hunter in here?
Plays with the provisions? Hunter. Ryan Herdlica, who accompanied Elaine
to the studio, came through the door juice in hand.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
I need some orange juice. Diab Beanies is kicking up.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
I need Hunter, my good man. Hunters here now.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
Yeah, Hunter's here. All's right with the world. Okay, we're
how about a glass?
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Yes, that's a cleaning. We'll get them a clean. We'll
go get a clean.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
It's all right, it's all right if you just empty
that glass, it's heaven. I need some orange juice. You
know that I'm diabetic.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Yes, of course I need. The world knows by now.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
The world knows. Okay. You know what I couted the
other day line of my father's that really is so
naughty and just so much fun. Here's looking up your
old address. Isn't that a great line? And he said
it with no he used that was it?
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Nothing on it?
Speaker 3 (18:16):
That's right, all right, I'm going to drink this.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
I mean the oranges now, so we don't have some
event here. That's cool, okay, all right, So now that
you've had your orange juice and your brain freezes over,
Kirk Douglas, what was the show? Do you remember? Now?
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Woman bites Dog?
Speaker 1 (18:35):
That orange juice. It's a miracle elixir. I want to
mean a case of that orange juice. It's kind of dog,
Woman bites Dog. What'd you play in that?
Speaker 3 (18:43):
If you girlfriend? He lived with I didn't even know
what that phrase meant.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
You were a floozy.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
Well no, I wasn't. I just but I lived with
him and I wasn't married to him. I didn't know
what that meant.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
What do you mean, Kirk Douglas, Oh.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
My god, I loved him, Oh god, I loved him.
And what an actor.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
And he's one of the few men who was as
great an actor as he was a star. Oh he
was a great actor.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
He was a great actor.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
He was a great actor.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
I loved him, and he loved me. He flipped over me.
I've known him for years and he took me half
way away for the weekend, and then I discovered that
I shouldn't go. He took you half way away to
Poem Springs, and then I said I shouldn't be going.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
So what did you do? You hit?
Speaker 3 (19:35):
Like what he said?
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Where were your redlands?
Speaker 3 (19:39):
I don't know. We were halfway to Palm Beach Springs.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
So you're driving east and we.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Were driving for the weekend.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
And you decided you didn't want to Well, I.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
Said, I'm getting nervous because what do you want me
to do when we get up here? Douglas, Oh, Elaine,
he knew I was a verge and so he was
dealing with that.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
We'll have more with a lame stretch after the break.
So what was the first leading role you had on Broadway?
Big row, take more rs you see? Can remember.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Of the big part? Oh, big big part I had
was Angel in the Wings, which was a review. Hardest
thing in the world to do a review, and the
kind of.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
Review like New Faces was like Leonard Simons sketches one
sket and I was the big busted you know, girl
in the in the bedroom.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
I was the I was the.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
The piece on the side.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Yeah, so you hear you?
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Is it amazing you with this virginal You went to
Sucker cur and you went to finishing school and as
soon as you're out, God is just tempting you. He's
taking Marlon Branda on one side of you, and Kirk
Douglas is reving up the convertible to take you to
Palm Springs, and you're the fluzy here and you're the
peace on the side, the busty fem the tale.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
But what I was really doing is learning my lines
to the play or to the television or to the
I was really loving acting. I loved it. I loved pretending.
I just loved it. Was being somebody other than I
(21:45):
was was my idea of a good time?
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Was part of that process for you? Learning from people
you worked with or you admire. Did you look at
other people and say, because I've had that, I mean,
I'm not going to say I had it.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Tell me, well.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Like Merman, when you worked with Mermam, did you learn
from Murmam? Did you? Did you? Yeah? You didn't.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
I did her part. I did her. There's no question
about that. She loved her. Everybody loved everybody. But I
know how to do that, and I was so frightened
and so terrified, and I was so good in it.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Right. Did you feel that she was of that type
where just Murmuran is murmur She goes out in the stone.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
So she made it, you know, so long. She'd say
goodbye to me from the wings on my opening night
and then go sit in the first row. She scared
me to death when I got to the end of
Call Me Madam, it was mine.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Yeah, you felt that way. Huh. When do you think
you became you?
Speaker 3 (22:47):
The moment I started to rehearse Merman's part, I was
doing the new Merman, the new Everything.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
That's when you became you. Yeah, So doing the piece
doing Call Me Adam is when you felt things change
for you.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
You felt you were right something, not necessarily now everything
I did, everything I did was you know.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
But when you do a show Elaine Stretch at Liberty,
when you do a show that is a memoir of.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Your career, oh yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
It is enormously successful. When did you think in your life?
When did you reach a point in your life that
you felt you were someone who could write a memoir
about your life, that you thought it was interesting enough.
When did you cross the line and say.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
God, yeah, I was convinced by this producer who said,
who saw me perform at a Judy Garland special at
Carnegie Hall? And what I did was tell Judy Garland stories,
and I told.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
You she was a tribute to Judy as a tribute.
She's gone by this, yeah, yeah, yeah, long gone.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
And oh boy, I really did know her very well from.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
From where'd you first meet her?
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Party? At a party someplace I don't know. And I
loved her. So when I tried out one of my
stories on Judy Garland, I mean she tried out one
of hers, I said, Judy, I've got an idea, and
I sincerely did. I said, I've got a great idea.
Why don't we tour Mame? I said to Judy Garan
(24:30):
And she says divine. She said that sounds great. I said,
but here's the good idea, Judy. When I do Mame,
I go to bed early, and when you do Meme,
you go to bed early, and then the other one
(24:51):
does vera.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
She's going to switch on and off. Yeah, and she
bought that idea.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
She's listening now and she's saying, oh, okay, okay, okay,
and she's counting up the songs, what songs she has?
What in it? And after this long pause, she looks
at me and says, what about matinees? And I thought
(25:18):
it was one of the funniest things I'd ever heard
in my whole life. That Judy Garland wanted to know
what about matinees. That's how she carefully She wanted her
her career planned so she could be able to get
loaded when she wanted to. And you know, it was
her way of treating a very serious discussion.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
So you did a tribute thing where you told stories
about her, and that's when someone pinched the idea to
you of doing a memoir of your career.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
That's right, what vaguely was and there was that you
tell a story to an audience the like of which
I have never heard.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
That's true. I was that the opening night at the Public,
when that Liberty opened at the Public, everyone who was
had a pulse in New York. Everyone who was alive
that night came to that opening at the Public. Everybody
in the theater came. They went crazy, They went crazy.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
It's lovely. God is lovely. Success is lovely. It's so
hard and it's such hard work, but it's so gratifying.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
What's the hardest thing about it for you? What's been
the hardest thing? Do you find it hard just to
have the fear of what that you won't be able
to perform.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
The fear that I'm just gonna forget, and I'm gonna
not so much forget. But it's the fear. It's the fear.
And that was when I was not drinking at all,
and I didn't drink anything to get my talent out,
but all my life I had.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Have you ever done a show, I'm sure you've done
countless shows. You ever done a show where you're sitting
backstage thinking what am I doing here? How did I
get myself into this? Or were you always engaged by
what you were doing?
Speaker 3 (26:55):
I was always engaged always.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
You never took it.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
I was leading up to it or coming down. You know,
I was trying to get it behind you.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
You never regretted doing anything? Never? No, Wow, that's incredible. No.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
I never never regretted doing anything on the stage.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Never. How was that possible?
Speaker 3 (27:18):
Because I just won every time I walked out there.
You know that old expression about I own the stage.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Elaine Strich has never regretted anything she's done on stage,
but there are many who regret not seeing her one
woman show, Elaine Stretch at Liberty on Broadway in two
thousand and two. Newsweek called it a biting hilarious, even
touching tour de forced tour of Strich's career and life.
In a minute, Stretch tells me a secret and very
(27:52):
personal moment she had on stage during the run of
Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf. In the past twenty years,
TV and film have introduced Elaine Stretch to a new audience.
She garnered Emmys for her performances in Law and Order
and in thirty Rock, where she played my character's mother,
(28:13):
the irascible Colleen Donahue.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
Well, well, well, well, well, this must be the one
Phoebe welcome.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
No, no, no, mother, mother, This.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
Is not Phoebe. This is not Phoebe. Well, why the
hell not? I mean, she's perfect. I ended up liking
Tina Fey an awful law and very quietly all by myself.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Did you enjoy doing the show? No, you didn't know why.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
I didn't have any fun with comedy. I did with
you for a while, but then it got a little
bit too routine for me, and I wasn't challenged. I
didn't ever challenge with it. I mean I was fine,
But oh, I don't know, Alex.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
It would you think TV is not your No?
Speaker 3 (29:08):
I think TV is fine. With me, nothing's wrong with it.
I love TV, I love comedy. I loved working with you.
It was almost like we need It was something that
I did two weeks ago at the Carlisle when they
(29:30):
said challenged me to do a show and just go
out there and do a show for an hour and
a half. And I accepted the challenge and did it.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
And how did it go?
Speaker 3 (29:44):
I didn't have any rehearsal or anything.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
How did it go?
Speaker 3 (29:49):
Fantastic? And Warren Baty, people like Warren and Bennette, and
it came. I adore both of them. And he said,
I've got to get three cameras on this. This is terrifying,
you know the fact that I did it with no rehearsals.
(30:10):
Winged it, winged it exactly. It's a good way of
putting it.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
But you don't want to wing it anymore.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Oh it's so hard, My god.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Is there any place you can perform if you have
a notion? If you're sitting there in Birmingham, Michigan, and
you decide you want to get up and you want
to do a show, you want to do an hour
and a half? Club act like you are there facilities
there that you're dialed into that you can go.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
I go up to ann Arbor and I rehearse it.
But I wouldn't. I just say, here's what I'm going
to do. I'm going to learn three songs. I have
to learn them sort of. And if I go up
in the lyrics, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Who's your piano player, your accompany.
Speaker 6 (30:57):
Rob, Rob, and he's feeding you the lyrics all the time.
He amusingly, Yeah, yeah, that's part of the act. Well,
I've never heard a laugh like this. But the other
night when I said, Rob, what is that? And I'm
out of control and he says, I don't know, that's.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
What it is. And and I was hit, you know, like,
I said, okay, but I mean we got to start
over then, don't we, alec I mean Rob, And he
said yes. So we went to a new song and
I sang it straight through with no mistakes, and they
went crazy. I sang a Snheim song. Everybody says don't,
(31:42):
everybody says don't, everybody says don't. It is said right
that song God jo It just goes so fast and furiously,
and then they went nuts. I mean, when you do
know something by heart, they really go, h do.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
You give them one.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it. That's it.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
So we did so with the Are you okay?
Speaker 3 (32:06):
Yeah? I think so.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
So did you ever want to do a drama in
your later years? I mean in the last fifteen years.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
I was just cut out for it, cut out for it.
You were, oh episode, what's.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
The last drama you did on stage?
Speaker 3 (32:26):
Edward Alby Lady from Dubuque, No No, No, Three, twelve Women. No,
I was asked to do that. I didn't do it.
There's too much to learn. A delicate ballance. One of
(32:47):
the best plays ever written in the whole world of
it and also a play for me.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
What did you like about the part? What did you
like about it?
Speaker 3 (32:56):
It was very quiet and very subtle, subtle, like forget
about it and just and I just went about my
business on that stage and I did everything. I drank
too much, I talked too much. I did exactly as
(33:17):
I pleased. I went upstairs when I wanted to go upstairs.
I was absolutely all over the place and not promising
anything to anybody. It was unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Who directed.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
Jerry Gutierras, Really, who is the best director with aside
from George Wolf, the two of them were the what
is it?
Speaker 1 (33:40):
No? No help illuminate this for people, because this, to
me is a very important question for you, and that
is you're so self directed. You know, you've got the.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
Talent here, you've got to feel good.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
But baby, you got so many bullets in your chamber.
It's not funny. And you come out there you're loaded.
And what does a director do for you? How does
the director help you?
Speaker 3 (34:04):
Oh, he makes me feel comfortable about myself.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
He gives you.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
For instance, George Wolf when he did My One Woman Show,
he has a way of laughing that he had. When
he laughs, he falls on the floor. He throws himself
on the floor because he's got to do that. He's
got to go. He goes crazy when he laughs and
he's laughing. And he said, and that will make me
(34:30):
listen to a director, that will that will tune me in.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
This is a nice one. A director gives you confidence.
Oh my gosh, I've worked with so many of them.
Where not that they undermined you, but they certainly didn't
give you any confidence. They almost resented the implication that
they do that. They kind of looked at you like, well,
you're getting paid all this money, you just get up
there and do it. I'm not here to help you.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
No, they don't help you.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
There's no mentoring or care or whatever. It's very very strange.
But Wolf, you loved and Gutierra's you love. Now tell
me about performers in the latter part of your career
that you worked with that you loved. Did you love Bernadette?
I'm assuming you just love ador.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Adored her if I could, and I and I kind
of ran her. I was her older sister, her older everybody,
and I made her laugh till she just went crazy,
and vice versa. I want a little more orange juice.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Gang Hunter, Hunter. That beating sound we've been hearing periodic?
Is that a glucose meter? That was that? Was that
thing that went off?
Speaker 3 (35:33):
Where's mine? It's dux come.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
It's telling us to enter the blood Sugars.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
Okay, Oh my god, I forgot all about them.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Yeah, this will enter them?
Speaker 3 (35:46):
Oh? Are we okay?
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Do you want to take a break and do it now?
Speaker 3 (35:50):
How will it take a minute?
Speaker 1 (35:53):
Go right ahead? Please do it now.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
I don't want you should wait.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
I wouldn't want it in the post that you were
hospitalized on my account because of Alec Baldwin refused to
allow me to administer my diabetes treatment.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
Oh boy, okay, this is right away. I'm going to
do it now. Okay, Oh there we go.
Speaker 4 (36:14):
I don't have mine, Ladies and gentlemen, Okay, Elaine Stretch
and Hunter, the ever trusty Hunter are squeezing droplets of
her blood onto a device. So I got to tell
us that we've nearly killed her here.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Okay, yeah, you one more time as okay, and then
it's done.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
And then and you want to keep it at what number?
What's the question?
Speaker 3 (36:42):
It's not a matter of keeping, it's just entering them
what they are now that are two hours after.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
I'd love to do mine too. While we're at it,
let's have a let's have a prick our finger and
squeeze it on the glucose meter.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
Party, stop that, Alex, Listen, there's another be bet.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
This is why you're so glad we're not doing this
on television, because to see this happening is really do
you want to know?
Speaker 3 (37:08):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Unsettling.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
And we've done both of them.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
Now, done both of them?
Speaker 3 (37:12):
Yay?
Speaker 1 (37:13):
And what number you have? One ninety one? And where
do you want to be?
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Doesn't happen?
Speaker 1 (37:18):
To be there.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
That's fine, that's good, it's cool.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Okay, she's cool.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
Oh oh, I know what I wanted to tell you.
I want to tell him something that I that I
got the nerve to tell John Tuturis.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Now, Now, when you told John Tuturo what you wanted
to tell him? Was it something that meant a lot
to you? Because we'll edit that you called him to Taurus.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
A lot of people all have.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
Alex Bold called John Toturis, What did you want to
tell John to?
Speaker 3 (37:47):
I want to tell somebody something about me and acting
that sort of I thought kind of represented something about
me that I had had courage to tell. And the
thing was that, I, oh, how can I tell you this?
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Will you tell me that your secret and I'll tell
you mine?
Speaker 3 (38:06):
All right? My secret is is that how can I
put it to you? My secret is in Virginia Wolf.
When I was playing Virginia Wolf. I sometimes I get
fuzzy when I'm telling a story. Now and it's.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
We have that in common. Go ahead.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
I wanted to tell something intimate about myself to John
about when he was interviewing me. I told him that
when I was doing Virginia Wolf and when George and
Martha had their scene together and George said, our son
(38:53):
is dead. You know, the big scene. Our son he
yells in my face is And I went no. At
the height of my force, I said no to him,
and I had an orgasm for the first time in
(39:15):
my life. You did, yes?
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Really?
Speaker 3 (39:18):
So so this is this is how important that moment
was on stage to me. This is unbelievable, you know.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
So it's safe to say this is a very I'm
not going to I'm going to sound like I'm making
a joke here, but I'm only half making Honey. I
just think it speaks volumes about you, about what a
real uh creature of the theater you want. That the
only time you ever had an orgasm was saying the
words of a homosexual man. I mean it is as
far from a heterosexual orgasm as you could possibly Yeah. No, no,
(39:51):
I think I'll be very particular about who he casts very.
Did you have a good relationship with him, you're close
with Yeah, he's very tough who he put to.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
This very but he's and he's very fond of me.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
I got two last questions for you, and I want
you to give me a simple answer to this first question.
I've met a lot of people in this business, and
I've worked with a lot of people who were powerful.
Julie Harris played my mother on a TV series.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
Oh My God. And I work with you the best.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
I work with some great people, you know, great great people,
some not so great, but some great ones. And you're
one of the great ones I worked with. But just
give me a yes or a no if you're capable,
And that is, do you realize what you mean to
other people who were in this business, how much they
love you and how much they admire Do you know.
Speaker 3 (40:45):
I'm beginning to.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Do you into the mic place. Don't talk to you.
Speaker 7 (40:49):
I'm beginning to because in this business, as you know,
especially for people who themselves are very talented and or
successful other talented people, that's like an Africa desiac to them.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
Talent is the greatest aff diaisiac. And everyone basically says,
there's no one more talented than you. You're an immensely,
immensely incalculably talented woman and people, and you're a gigantic
pain in the ass. Sometimes you're a legendary pain in
the ass, but you're a gigantic pain in the ass.
(41:21):
But people don't, you know, they joke about that because
they love you. And why do they love you? Of
course you're so talented, you're so funny, you're soever, Your
timing is impeccable. Now, what are you going to miss
about New York?
Speaker 3 (41:37):
The personality of human beings in New York. They are
so opened and sec They're not watching what they're doing.
They're not you know, they're they're not watching their language,
they're not watching anything. They're just going through life saying
(41:58):
what ye all? Right? Oh? Fuck you? You know, and
everybody should.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
And they're engaged by the event. Yeah, every day is
an event in New York. Elaine Stritch says she's going
to miss New Yorkers, and I can tell you that
we will miss her too. But she's not out of
the spotlight just yet. Elaine Stritch Shoot Me, a documentary
(42:26):
about her life, which I helped to produce, recently premiered
at the Tribeca Film Festival. The film has been picked
up by Sundance Selects for a wider distribution. Are you there, Alex?
Speaker 3 (42:38):
Yeah, okay, I can hear you, sweethearn't, So.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
You're in the kitchen. I called Elaine up to ask
her how the transition was going from New York City
to Birmingham, Michigan.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
I did the right thing, moving away from the Carla.
You know, you get hung up on perks. You live
with perks, and then your perks run out because you
fall and break your hip and you blah blah blah
blah blah, and then you have no you have no
deal card. You know what I mean. I'll go down
(43:10):
and talk to the audience for an hour every night
and you give me my cleaning.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Now, that would be a funny TV show to have
you be this famous broad, this famous cabaret right the stage, actress,
award winning actress. And she moves. Of course, it's a
fish out of water story. She moves back with the
cousins and the nieces in Birmingham, Michigan. And what you're
used to is bartering with people. You're walking up to
(43:35):
some dry cleaner there and saying, well, I'll tell you
what do I want you to clean my coats to
me and I'll come sing at your kid's bar mitzvah.
And they look at you like you got a screw loose.
They're like, you want to.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
What I think we got some here.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
The guy says, that'll be sixty five dollars.
Speaker 3 (43:51):
Please and send in the clowns. This crowdish, well listen
and I love it and I miss your humor, like forget.
I'm not sure I want to work with you again.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
Yeah, I definitely don't want to work with you again.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
Definitely don't want to work with me. I think we agree.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
So I've been upstages enough, Ladies and men, talk to
you later. Goodbye, Goodbye, my.
Speaker 3 (44:18):
Darling, bye bye.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
Here's the Thing is recorded at CDM Studios. This episode
was produced by Kathleen Russo, Zach MacNeice, and Maureen Hoban.
Our engineer is Frank Imperial. Our social media manager is
Danielle Gingwich. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the Thing is brought
to you by iHeart Radio.
This is Alec Baldwin, and you were listening to Here's
the Thing from iHeart Radio. It's summer, and that means
it's time for our tradition at Here's the Thing, where
the staff share their favorite episodes from our archives in
our Summer Staff Picks series. Next up is producer Maureen Hoban.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Thanks Alec. When I think of women who unapologetically speak
their minds and are bubbling over with humor and talent,
of course I think of Elaine Stretch. She was known
for playing bold and body females, including that of Colleen Donneghe,
mother to Alex's character on Thirty Rock. It was a
(00:40):
delicious role where she effortlessly eviscerated the vice president of
East Coast Television and Microwave Oven Programming at every turn.
Elayne Stretch sadly passed away in twenty fourteen, a year
after this recording, but in it you'll experience the sharp wit,
unfiltered candor, and unmatched presence of the legendary first Lady
(01:05):
of Broadway, Elaine Stretch.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Actress Elaine Stretch has been performing for nearly seventy years.
No matter the medium, she brings her characters to life.
With a playful ferocity that naturally leads to scene stealing performances.
Despite her enviable career in film and television, Elaine Stritch
is a self professed Broadway baby. A big break came
(01:32):
in nineteen fifty when she was hired to understudy ethel
Merman in Irving Berlin's musical Call Me Madam.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
She scared me to death.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Really, she's a tough brag.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Oh. When I got to the end of Call Me Madam,
it was.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Mine on me madaises.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
It is not so surprises that you feel very strange.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
But not.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Elaine Stretch remained on stage for much of the fifties
and sixties, playing such iconic roles as Martha in Who's
Afraid of Virginia Woolf, both Vera and Mame in the
musical Mame, and Amanda in Private Lives by Noel Coward.
In nineteen seventy, she originated what was arguably the role
of her career, the acerbic Joanne in Stephen Sondheim's Company.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
And Here's to the Girls who just watched, Aren't They
the Best?
Speaker 1 (02:23):
In a TV documentary about the cast recording of that production,
we meet Elaine's toughest critic herself. Here she is listening
to a take of that song she made famous, Ladies
Who Lunch.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
As every Boy Row, And of course I'm smoking a
nice cigarette, which helped the situation.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Just to be clear, that's Elaine yelling at the sound
of her own voice. That was over forty years ago.
But Elaine Stritch has continue to hold herself to impossibly
high standards, and she stayed busy, at least until recently.
Earlier this year, she announced that she was leaving New
York for her home state of Michigan. In April, at
(03:14):
age eighty eight, Elaine Stritch performed her last cabaret show
at the Carlisle Hotel.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
About a month ago. I really said, I'm I want
out of here. I want out of New York. I
don't I shouldn't live in New York anymore. It's not
for me anymore. It's too fast for me. Or no,
it's not too fast. And I changed my mind about that.
It's not this, It's not that, it's just not for me.
(03:41):
This is New York taxi lo and it's dinner and
tonight and tomorrow in.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Three full day and I can't.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Handle it because I'm not interested in handling.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
You just don't want you could do it, You just
don't want to do it.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Doesn't give me any satisfaction. I don't go home and say,
I guess I told them.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
So about a month ago. It had been an idea,
and then a month ago you went, I'm doing it.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
I called up my nephew, who is a great buddy
of mine in Birmingham, Michigan, and I said, I'm coming home.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
What do you think you're going to do there?
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Oh, you have no idea.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
I'm just saying a very active life.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
First of all, nothing. I'm really going to do nothing.
I'm going to wake up and go back to bed
and go back to bed. That's exactly right.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
That's what I want to do.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
I want to do it. I want to sleep a lot.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
What's wrong with us? I would like to wake up
and have my oatmeal and read the paper and go
right back to it, right back to bed until about noon.
So you're going to go there and do nothing.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
And I like to go to dinner. I like to
meet my nieces, my nephews, my cousins, my you know.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Your relations there by way of who you're really two sisters,
your two sisters.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
I had two sisters, were three sisters. I was the
baby and they and all the.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Kids in bedroom Detroit. You were in like what Bloomfield
Hills or yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah your dad. But your
dad was someone not in the car business.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Daddy was, well, yes he was. He was the BF
Goodrich rubber. He was.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
He was in the time.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
My mother called it the g d BF good Rich.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Rubber, the goddamn BF.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
You got it.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
What are your two sisters? What kind of lives did
they have? No show business?
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Very very chic, very normal. Normal. Georgie had four kids
and Sally had three.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
So you have seven, yeah, he said.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Seven guys running around and they're all crazy about me.
Why shouldn't I go home? There's nothing to tie me here.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
It's not the same.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
My career tied me here. I talk career talk and
play and plan and plan.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
And make plan. What am I doing next? What am
I doing next?
Speaker 3 (06:05):
That's right?
Speaker 1 (06:06):
And when you get off that merry ground, it gets
you get a different stop.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Oh what to stop? It is the merry go round
broke down?
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Why do you say that you could keep working? You
don't want to.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
No, I don't want to find parts and look for
him and I said the other night, when is pretend
going to end?
Speaker 4 (06:31):
Right?
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Slowly but surely, alex Is I'm starting to say I
don't want to pretend anymore. I want to get up
in the morning and I want it to be real.
I don't want to.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
I can't believe you're saying this, because it's so I am.
It's so much. Maybe as a result of my getting older.
I turned fifty five a couple of weeks ago, and
my wife I got married again, and my wife were
having a baby. And because of all this stuff, I
realize I want to be me for a change. I
want to wake up and I want to say my
words and have my thought or not say anything. It's
(07:07):
such a self involvement.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
This business work, it is it is.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Why do you think you've lasted this long? You know
what talent is? Why have you lasted all this time?
And because you're talented? Certainly It isn't because people think
you're an easy time of it.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Because I have to accomplish something in that department almost
every day of my life.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
I have to You've never stopped trying to prove yourself.
That's the key, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
No, I got to go and do that part in
that soap, in that schmope. I don't care what it is.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
You got to give it everything.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Or I'm with Noel Coward on the West End, or
I'm with Hal Prince on Broadway. I'm with all the big, big,
big big shots, and they're directing me well and guiding
me well. And I'm I'm.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
You going to prove you belong there with them?
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Yes, And I'm being directed in the world way of
the big shots, and I'm doing fine. I'm doing fine.
I'm I'm I'm doing fine.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Would you? But there's a point, I'm assuming when did
you feel that you're in the room and all of
a sudden it's like, I don't need anybody's advice. I
know what I want to do. Here's what I do.
Was there a time you remember in your life when
that changed?
Speaker 3 (08:21):
I got self satisfied about the parts that I played.
For example, well, like I was the I was the funny,
kind of offbeat girl. I wasn't. I was never the
romantic lead. I wasn't good that kind of looking girl
(08:42):
in the movies. I couldn't be that kind of looking
girl I was.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Well, you could you could have been looks Wise, but
you just don't want to play it because those were
dull parts. Well, yeah, they weren't as good as parts.
But I yeah, you were a sassier woman. Yeah, and
you played those.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Parts an attention getter when I didn't want to be
eve Arden? I really didn't.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Okay, Okay, that's a good point. Why.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Well, because I don't want to be a funny girl
that's just cracking Wise cracks or staying up with the
you know, with the rollers in her.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Hair, for driving the car while the two leads make
out in the back of the car. You don't want
to be that. No, what did you? What did you?
Speaker 3 (09:27):
I don't want them to make up in the bags?
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Right? Well, did you sprinkle on top of what might
have been eve Arden for you, which it very easily
could have been. What did you sprinkle on top of
that to make sure that it wasn't eve Arden? What
do you do that eve Arden didn't.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Do I get dramatic or frightened or reel about something
or pain.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Yeah there's a pain, Yeah you do. Yes, it's not working.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Dramatic happens to me in the course of a comedy.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Oh, but are you always that way.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
What was I always what way?
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Complicating things with the pain of your existence. There's this
thing you tap into. Did you do when you were
very young?
Speaker 3 (10:11):
I think so? I think I did.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Were you the complicated one?
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (10:16):
I think so. I mean very often I would hear
around our house where's the lane? And then was oh?
And they'd say oh, and I'd say, I'm right here.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
They were worried about you.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
Yeah, everybody was worried about me, because when I wasn't accountable,
I was. I scared him and I didn't mean to.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
When did performing begin for you as a were a
performer as a child.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
I was laughing. I was born laughing.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
They were funny.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Oh God, I was funny. I really was funny, and
I made everybody laugh and I wasn't conscious of it.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Right.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
I want to tell you something. I love to tell
you a line from my life to see if you
get this, and I'm going to tell it to you.
My mother and dad, as a present to me when
I was six years old, took me to Niagara Falls,
(11:21):
which was very close to Birmingham, Michigan. And I kept
hearing about this, and I was going to wear my
new pink coat and hat and I was going to
Niagara Falls, and I kept hearing it and you know,
Christmas Morning, Christmas whatever it was. And and I never
(11:41):
said a word. I just sat in the backseat and
I just waited. They pulled up Alec to the parking
lot in Niagara Falls, and here we are. We're here, lady,
we're here, Come on, get out. And it was just me,
mom and dad. So that two sisters, the older sisters,
(12:02):
you know, the hell with them. And I got very
teary eyed and pulled my mother back from the car
and said, Mama, what We're going to go see Niagara Falls?
(12:23):
And I asked her if Niagara Falls had a baby,
And to me and to my mother and my father
it was one of the most extraordinary dramatic lines of
all time. All I was interested in is did this
woman Niagara Falls have a baby? Because then I could
(12:48):
play with her. And it was the I think, an
absolute proof of how lonely and sad I was as
a kid. I didn't know what the hell aretistic was
all about. I really didn't. I knew I had to
express myself. I knew I had to express myself, and
that's all there was to it.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
So when you left Michigan. When you left home, you
lived at home in Michigan. Your family lived in Michigan
until you left home. Did you go to college?
Speaker 3 (13:17):
No, I didn't go to college, which I graduated from
high school. I went where Sacred Heart Convent.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
You went to a convent.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
I went to a convent. The soccer cur highly educational,
big scholastic, Scooby doo.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
You went there for what twelve years? That was your
high school? When you left there?
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Where'd you go to Dushen Residence? Which was also the
soccer cur but it was a residence finishing school for
what it was like after school stuff, you know, Like
I'm trying to think of one of the courses that
we took, current events, isn't that? I guess how long.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Were you there?
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Years?
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Two years after that?
Speaker 3 (14:01):
And I went out and majored in dramatics at the
New School in Greenwich Village.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
The finishing school was in the city where you were
back in Michigan.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
In Greenwich Village, the finishing school.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
I'm in New York And you went to finishing school
in New York.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Absolutely, see on ninety first and fifth Avenue.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Yeah, And I took these three courses at the school,
which was fine. I had a roommate from Chicago who
was majoring in journalism, and we were all very sophisticated abroads.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
You went to New School for drama. That was your
first acting exposure able boom. What did you think about
it when you first I loved it.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
I sat next to Myrlon Brando. That was didn't hurt
at all.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
That'll get you through class.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
Yeah, Walter Matho was on the other side of me
at the New School. Yeah, we had a very stellar cast.
I was getting along fine and having the most fun
I've ever had in my own life.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
What's the first job you ever got?
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Well, first of all, I was at the studio theater
at the New School and we had our own theater
and Piscott he directed, and Stella Adler directed, and we
had all those Stanislawski people. We had more fun, Alex.
You couldn't believe.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
It was Stella like as a director, heaven she was
what made her so. She's very insightful, all.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
This kind of dramatics, you know, Slaine and Marlin and
Wolf and you do it. She scream her head off
at us. She was crazy woman, absolutely divine.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
And when you left that program. What was your first job.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
Job summers Dock where Westport, Connecticut?
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Do you remember what you did?
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Yeah, Craig's Wife. I think I did.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
People they say years ago, they go, what show did
you do? And you name a show people just never
heard of. They go, Craig is Craig's wife.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Who did you play Craig's wife?
Speaker 1 (16:15):
They nurse? What did you play?
Speaker 3 (16:17):
I played the ant, the ant that visited and told
craig wife she was full of shit.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
You started as an aunt, and you're going to finish
as an ant. You're going now you're an aunt. That's
your next that's your that's your role. Now you're an aunt.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
They're not allowed to call me because it's so boring.
They called me Todd Lane because my mother is French.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
To Lane. I thought they were going to call it
lady stretch. How would have them call you? No, her highness?
Speaker 3 (16:45):
But I just had the most wonderful time in dramatic school.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
And then what about your first job, Douglas?
Speaker 3 (16:52):
I did my first play with Kirk Douglas.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
What show with Kirk Craig's.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
Wait a minute, Wait a minute, I'll tell you in
a minute.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Close you and Kirk Douglas. You're on a stage in
New York.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Yeah, I play. And also where is my black bag? Alec?
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Hunter?
Speaker 3 (17:12):
I need I need orange juice?
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Hunter? Come in places? Can we send Hunter in here?
Plays with the provisions? Hunter. Ryan Herdlica, who accompanied Elaine
to the studio, came through the door juice in hand.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
I need some orange juice. Diab Beanies is kicking up.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
I need Hunter, my good man. Hunters here now.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
Yeah, Hunter's here. All's right with the world. Okay, we're
how about a glass?
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Yes, that's a cleaning. We'll get them a clean. We'll
go get a clean.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
It's all right, it's all right if you just empty
that glass, it's heaven. I need some orange juice. You
know that I'm diabetic.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Yes, of course I need. The world knows by now.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
The world knows. Okay. You know what I couted the
other day line of my father's that really is so
naughty and just so much fun. Here's looking up your
old address. Isn't that a great line? And he said
it with no he used that was it?
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Nothing on it?
Speaker 3 (18:16):
That's right, all right, I'm going to drink this.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
I mean the oranges now, so we don't have some
event here. That's cool, okay, all right, So now that
you've had your orange juice and your brain freezes over,
Kirk Douglas, what was the show? Do you remember? Now?
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Woman bites Dog?
Speaker 1 (18:35):
That orange juice. It's a miracle elixir. I want to
mean a case of that orange juice. It's kind of dog,
Woman bites Dog. What'd you play in that?
Speaker 3 (18:43):
If you girlfriend? He lived with I didn't even know
what that phrase meant.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
You were a floozy.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
Well no, I wasn't. I just but I lived with
him and I wasn't married to him. I didn't know
what that meant.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
What do you mean, Kirk Douglas, Oh.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
My god, I loved him, Oh god, I loved him.
And what an actor.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
And he's one of the few men who was as
great an actor as he was a star. Oh he
was a great actor.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
He was a great actor.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
He was a great actor.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
I loved him, and he loved me. He flipped over me.
I've known him for years and he took me half
way away for the weekend, and then I discovered that
I shouldn't go. He took you half way away to
Poem Springs, and then I said I shouldn't be going.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
So what did you do? You hit?
Speaker 3 (19:35):
Like what he said?
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Where were your redlands?
Speaker 3 (19:39):
I don't know. We were halfway to Palm Beach Springs.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
So you're driving east and we.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Were driving for the weekend.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
And you decided you didn't want to Well, I.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
Said, I'm getting nervous because what do you want me
to do when we get up here? Douglas, Oh, Elaine,
he knew I was a verge and so he was
dealing with that.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
We'll have more with a lame stretch after the break.
So what was the first leading role you had on Broadway?
Big row, take more rs you see? Can remember.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Of the big part? Oh, big big part I had
was Angel in the Wings, which was a review. Hardest
thing in the world to do a review, and the
kind of.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
Review like New Faces was like Leonard Simons sketches one
sket and I was the big busted you know, girl
in the in the bedroom.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
I was the I was the.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
The piece on the side.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Yeah, so you hear you?
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Is it amazing you with this virginal You went to
Sucker cur and you went to finishing school and as
soon as you're out, God is just tempting you. He's
taking Marlon Branda on one side of you, and Kirk
Douglas is reving up the convertible to take you to
Palm Springs, and you're the fluzy here and you're the
peace on the side, the busty fem the tale.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
But what I was really doing is learning my lines
to the play or to the television or to the
I was really loving acting. I loved it. I loved pretending.
I just loved it. Was being somebody other than I
(21:45):
was was my idea of a good time?
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Was part of that process for you? Learning from people
you worked with or you admire. Did you look at
other people and say, because I've had that, I mean,
I'm not going to say I had it.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Tell me, well.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Like Merman, when you worked with Mermam, did you learn
from Murmam? Did you? Did you? Yeah? You didn't.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
I did her part. I did her. There's no question
about that. She loved her. Everybody loved everybody. But I
know how to do that, and I was so frightened
and so terrified, and I was so good in it.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Right. Did you feel that she was of that type
where just Murmuran is murmur She goes out in the stone.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
So she made it, you know, so long. She'd say
goodbye to me from the wings on my opening night
and then go sit in the first row. She scared
me to death when I got to the end of
Call Me Madam, it was mine.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Yeah, you felt that way. Huh. When do you think
you became you?
Speaker 3 (22:47):
The moment I started to rehearse Merman's part, I was
doing the new Merman, the new Everything.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
That's when you became you. Yeah, So doing the piece
doing Call Me Adam is when you felt things change
for you.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
You felt you were right something, not necessarily now everything
I did, everything I did was you know.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
But when you do a show Elaine Stretch at Liberty,
when you do a show that is a memoir of.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Your career, oh yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
It is enormously successful. When did you think in your life?
When did you reach a point in your life that
you felt you were someone who could write a memoir
about your life, that you thought it was interesting enough.
When did you cross the line and say.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
God, yeah, I was convinced by this producer who said,
who saw me perform at a Judy Garland special at
Carnegie Hall? And what I did was tell Judy Garland stories,
and I told.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
You she was a tribute to Judy as a tribute.
She's gone by this, yeah, yeah, yeah, long gone.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
And oh boy, I really did know her very well from.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
From where'd you first meet her?
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Party? At a party someplace I don't know. And I
loved her. So when I tried out one of my
stories on Judy Garland, I mean she tried out one
of hers, I said, Judy, I've got an idea, and
I sincerely did. I said, I've got a great idea.
Why don't we tour Mame? I said to Judy Garan
(24:30):
And she says divine. She said that sounds great. I said,
but here's the good idea, Judy. When I do Mame,
I go to bed early, and when you do Meme,
you go to bed early, and then the other one
(24:51):
does vera.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
She's going to switch on and off. Yeah, and she
bought that idea.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
She's listening now and she's saying, oh, okay, okay, okay,
and she's counting up the songs, what songs she has?
What in it? And after this long pause, she looks
at me and says, what about matinees? And I thought
(25:18):
it was one of the funniest things I'd ever heard
in my whole life. That Judy Garland wanted to know
what about matinees. That's how she carefully She wanted her
her career planned so she could be able to get
loaded when she wanted to. And you know, it was
her way of treating a very serious discussion.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
So you did a tribute thing where you told stories
about her, and that's when someone pinched the idea to
you of doing a memoir of your career.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
That's right, what vaguely was and there was that you
tell a story to an audience the like of which
I have never heard.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
That's true. I was that the opening night at the Public,
when that Liberty opened at the Public, everyone who was
had a pulse in New York. Everyone who was alive
that night came to that opening at the Public. Everybody
in the theater came. They went crazy, They went crazy.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
It's lovely. God is lovely. Success is lovely. It's so
hard and it's such hard work, but it's so gratifying.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
What's the hardest thing about it for you? What's been
the hardest thing? Do you find it hard just to
have the fear of what that you won't be able
to perform.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
The fear that I'm just gonna forget, and I'm gonna
not so much forget. But it's the fear. It's the fear.
And that was when I was not drinking at all,
and I didn't drink anything to get my talent out,
but all my life I had.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Have you ever done a show, I'm sure you've done
countless shows. You ever done a show where you're sitting
backstage thinking what am I doing here? How did I
get myself into this? Or were you always engaged by
what you were doing?
Speaker 3 (26:55):
I was always engaged always.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
You never took it.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
I was leading up to it or coming down. You know,
I was trying to get it behind you.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
You never regretted doing anything? Never? No, Wow, that's incredible. No.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
I never never regretted doing anything on the stage.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Never. How was that possible?
Speaker 3 (27:18):
Because I just won every time I walked out there.
You know that old expression about I own the stage.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Elaine Strich has never regretted anything she's done on stage,
but there are many who regret not seeing her one
woman show, Elaine Stretch at Liberty on Broadway in two
thousand and two. Newsweek called it a biting hilarious, even
touching tour de forced tour of Strich's career and life.
In a minute, Stretch tells me a secret and very
(27:52):
personal moment she had on stage during the run of
Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf. In the past twenty years,
TV and film have introduced Elaine Stretch to a new audience.
She garnered Emmys for her performances in Law and Order
and in thirty Rock, where she played my character's mother,
(28:13):
the irascible Colleen Donahue.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
Well, well, well, well, well, this must be the one
Phoebe welcome.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
No, no, no, mother, mother, This.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
Is not Phoebe. This is not Phoebe. Well, why the
hell not? I mean, she's perfect. I ended up liking
Tina Fey an awful law and very quietly all by myself.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Did you enjoy doing the show? No, you didn't know why.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
I didn't have any fun with comedy. I did with
you for a while, but then it got a little
bit too routine for me, and I wasn't challenged. I
didn't ever challenge with it. I mean I was fine,
But oh, I don't know, Alex.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
It would you think TV is not your No?
Speaker 3 (29:08):
I think TV is fine. With me, nothing's wrong with it.
I love TV, I love comedy. I loved working with you.
It was almost like we need It was something that
I did two weeks ago at the Carlisle when they
(29:30):
said challenged me to do a show and just go
out there and do a show for an hour and
a half. And I accepted the challenge and did it.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
And how did it go?
Speaker 3 (29:44):
I didn't have any rehearsal or anything.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
How did it go?
Speaker 3 (29:49):
Fantastic? And Warren Baty, people like Warren and Bennette, and
it came. I adore both of them. And he said,
I've got to get three cameras on this. This is terrifying,
you know the fact that I did it with no rehearsals.
(30:10):
Winged it, winged it exactly. It's a good way of
putting it.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
But you don't want to wing it anymore.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Oh it's so hard, My god.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Is there any place you can perform if you have
a notion? If you're sitting there in Birmingham, Michigan, and
you decide you want to get up and you want
to do a show, you want to do an hour
and a half? Club act like you are there facilities
there that you're dialed into that you can go.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
I go up to ann Arbor and I rehearse it.
But I wouldn't. I just say, here's what I'm going
to do. I'm going to learn three songs. I have
to learn them sort of. And if I go up
in the lyrics, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Who's your piano player, your accompany.
Speaker 6 (30:57):
Rob, Rob, and he's feeding you the lyrics all the time.
He amusingly, Yeah, yeah, that's part of the act. Well,
I've never heard a laugh like this. But the other
night when I said, Rob, what is that? And I'm
out of control and he says, I don't know, that's.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
What it is. And and I was hit, you know, like,
I said, okay, but I mean we got to start
over then, don't we, alec I mean Rob, And he
said yes. So we went to a new song and
I sang it straight through with no mistakes, and they
went crazy. I sang a Snheim song. Everybody says don't,
(31:42):
everybody says don't, everybody says don't. It is said right
that song God jo It just goes so fast and furiously,
and then they went nuts. I mean, when you do
know something by heart, they really go, h do.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
You give them one.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it. That's it.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
So we did so with the Are you okay?
Speaker 3 (32:06):
Yeah? I think so.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
So did you ever want to do a drama in
your later years? I mean in the last fifteen years.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
I was just cut out for it, cut out for it.
You were, oh episode, what's.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
The last drama you did on stage?
Speaker 3 (32:26):
Edward Alby Lady from Dubuque, No No, No, Three, twelve Women. No,
I was asked to do that. I didn't do it.
There's too much to learn. A delicate ballance. One of
(32:47):
the best plays ever written in the whole world of
it and also a play for me.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
What did you like about the part? What did you
like about it?
Speaker 3 (32:56):
It was very quiet and very subtle, subtle, like forget
about it and just and I just went about my
business on that stage and I did everything. I drank
too much, I talked too much. I did exactly as
(33:17):
I pleased. I went upstairs when I wanted to go upstairs.
I was absolutely all over the place and not promising
anything to anybody. It was unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Who directed.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
Jerry Gutierras, Really, who is the best director with aside
from George Wolf, the two of them were the what
is it?
Speaker 1 (33:40):
No? No help illuminate this for people, because this, to
me is a very important question for you, and that
is you're so self directed. You know, you've got the.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
Talent here, you've got to feel good.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
But baby, you got so many bullets in your chamber.
It's not funny. And you come out there you're loaded.
And what does a director do for you? How does
the director help you?
Speaker 3 (34:04):
Oh, he makes me feel comfortable about myself.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
He gives you.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
For instance, George Wolf when he did My One Woman Show,
he has a way of laughing that he had. When
he laughs, he falls on the floor. He throws himself
on the floor because he's got to do that. He's
got to go. He goes crazy when he laughs and
he's laughing. And he said, and that will make me
(34:30):
listen to a director, that will that will tune me in.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
This is a nice one. A director gives you confidence.
Oh my gosh, I've worked with so many of them.
Where not that they undermined you, but they certainly didn't
give you any confidence. They almost resented the implication that
they do that. They kind of looked at you like, well,
you're getting paid all this money, you just get up
there and do it. I'm not here to help you.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
No, they don't help you.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
There's no mentoring or care or whatever. It's very very strange.
But Wolf, you loved and Gutierra's you love. Now tell
me about performers in the latter part of your career
that you worked with that you loved. Did you love Bernadette?
I'm assuming you just love ador.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Adored her if I could, and I and I kind
of ran her. I was her older sister, her older everybody,
and I made her laugh till she just went crazy,
and vice versa. I want a little more orange juice.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Gang Hunter, Hunter. That beating sound we've been hearing periodic?
Is that a glucose meter? That was that? Was that
thing that went off?
Speaker 3 (35:33):
Where's mine? It's dux come.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
It's telling us to enter the blood Sugars.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
Okay, Oh my god, I forgot all about them.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Yeah, this will enter them?
Speaker 3 (35:46):
Oh? Are we okay?
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Do you want to take a break and do it now?
Speaker 3 (35:50):
How will it take a minute?
Speaker 1 (35:53):
Go right ahead? Please do it now.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
I don't want you should wait.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
I wouldn't want it in the post that you were
hospitalized on my account because of Alec Baldwin refused to
allow me to administer my diabetes treatment.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
Oh boy, okay, this is right away. I'm going to
do it now. Okay, Oh there we go.
Speaker 4 (36:14):
I don't have mine, Ladies and gentlemen, Okay, Elaine Stretch
and Hunter, the ever trusty Hunter are squeezing droplets of
her blood onto a device. So I got to tell
us that we've nearly killed her here.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Okay, yeah, you one more time as okay, and then
it's done.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
And then and you want to keep it at what number?
What's the question?
Speaker 3 (36:42):
It's not a matter of keeping, it's just entering them
what they are now that are two hours after.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
I'd love to do mine too. While we're at it,
let's have a let's have a prick our finger and
squeeze it on the glucose meter.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
Party, stop that, Alex, Listen, there's another be bet.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
This is why you're so glad we're not doing this
on television, because to see this happening is really do
you want to know?
Speaker 3 (37:08):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Unsettling.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
And we've done both of them.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
Now, done both of them?
Speaker 3 (37:12):
Yay?
Speaker 1 (37:13):
And what number you have? One ninety one? And where
do you want to be?
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Doesn't happen?
Speaker 1 (37:18):
To be there.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
That's fine, that's good, it's cool.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Okay, she's cool.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
Oh oh, I know what I wanted to tell you.
I want to tell him something that I that I
got the nerve to tell John Tuturis.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Now, Now, when you told John Tuturo what you wanted
to tell him? Was it something that meant a lot
to you? Because we'll edit that you called him to Taurus.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
A lot of people all have.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
Alex Bold called John Toturis, What did you want to
tell John to?
Speaker 3 (37:47):
I want to tell somebody something about me and acting
that sort of I thought kind of represented something about
me that I had had courage to tell. And the
thing was that, I, oh, how can I tell you this?
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Will you tell me that your secret and I'll tell
you mine?
Speaker 3 (38:06):
All right? My secret is is that how can I
put it to you? My secret is in Virginia Wolf.
When I was playing Virginia Wolf. I sometimes I get
fuzzy when I'm telling a story. Now and it's.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
We have that in common. Go ahead.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
I wanted to tell something intimate about myself to John
about when he was interviewing me. I told him that
when I was doing Virginia Wolf and when George and
Martha had their scene together and George said, our son
(38:53):
is dead. You know, the big scene. Our son he
yells in my face is And I went no. At
the height of my force, I said no to him,
and I had an orgasm for the first time in
(39:15):
my life. You did, yes?
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Really?
Speaker 3 (39:18):
So so this is this is how important that moment
was on stage to me. This is unbelievable, you know.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
So it's safe to say this is a very I'm
not going to I'm going to sound like I'm making
a joke here, but I'm only half making Honey. I
just think it speaks volumes about you, about what a
real uh creature of the theater you want. That the
only time you ever had an orgasm was saying the
words of a homosexual man. I mean it is as
far from a heterosexual orgasm as you could possibly Yeah. No, no,
(39:51):
I think I'll be very particular about who he casts very.
Did you have a good relationship with him, you're close
with Yeah, he's very tough who he put to.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
This very but he's and he's very fond of me.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
I got two last questions for you, and I want
you to give me a simple answer to this first question.
I've met a lot of people in this business, and
I've worked with a lot of people who were powerful.
Julie Harris played my mother on a TV series.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
Oh My God. And I work with you the best.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
I work with some great people, you know, great great people,
some not so great, but some great ones. And you're
one of the great ones I worked with. But just
give me a yes or a no if you're capable,
And that is, do you realize what you mean to
other people who were in this business, how much they
love you and how much they admire Do you know.
Speaker 3 (40:45):
I'm beginning to.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Do you into the mic place. Don't talk to you.
Speaker 7 (40:49):
I'm beginning to because in this business, as you know,
especially for people who themselves are very talented and or
successful other talented people, that's like an Africa desiac to them.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
Talent is the greatest aff diaisiac. And everyone basically says,
there's no one more talented than you. You're an immensely,
immensely incalculably talented woman and people, and you're a gigantic
pain in the ass. Sometimes you're a legendary pain in
the ass, but you're a gigantic pain in the ass.
(41:21):
But people don't, you know, they joke about that because
they love you. And why do they love you? Of
course you're so talented, you're so funny, you're soever, Your
timing is impeccable. Now, what are you going to miss
about New York?
Speaker 3 (41:37):
The personality of human beings in New York. They are
so opened and sec They're not watching what they're doing.
They're not you know, they're they're not watching their language,
they're not watching anything. They're just going through life saying
(41:58):
what ye all? Right? Oh? Fuck you? You know, and
everybody should.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
And they're engaged by the event. Yeah, every day is
an event in New York. Elaine Stritch says she's going
to miss New Yorkers, and I can tell you that
we will miss her too. But she's not out of
the spotlight just yet. Elaine Stritch Shoot Me, a documentary
(42:26):
about her life, which I helped to produce, recently premiered
at the Tribeca Film Festival. The film has been picked
up by Sundance Selects for a wider distribution. Are you there, Alex?
Speaker 3 (42:38):
Yeah, okay, I can hear you, sweethearn't, So.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
You're in the kitchen. I called Elaine up to ask
her how the transition was going from New York City
to Birmingham, Michigan.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
I did the right thing, moving away from the Carla.
You know, you get hung up on perks. You live
with perks, and then your perks run out because you
fall and break your hip and you blah blah blah
blah blah, and then you have no you have no
deal card. You know what I mean. I'll go down
(43:10):
and talk to the audience for an hour every night
and you give me my cleaning.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Now, that would be a funny TV show to have
you be this famous broad, this famous cabaret right the stage, actress,
award winning actress. And she moves. Of course, it's a
fish out of water story. She moves back with the
cousins and the nieces in Birmingham, Michigan. And what you're
used to is bartering with people. You're walking up to
(43:35):
some dry cleaner there and saying, well, I'll tell you
what do I want you to clean my coats to
me and I'll come sing at your kid's bar mitzvah.
And they look at you like you got a screw loose.
They're like, you want to.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
What I think we got some here.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
The guy says, that'll be sixty five dollars.
Speaker 3 (43:51):
Please and send in the clowns. This crowdish, well listen
and I love it and I miss your humor, like forget.
I'm not sure I want to work with you again.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
Yeah, I definitely don't want to work with you again.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
Definitely don't want to work with me. I think we agree.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
So I've been upstages enough, Ladies and men, talk to
you later. Goodbye, Goodbye, my.
Speaker 3 (44:18):
Darling, bye bye.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
Here's the Thing is recorded at CDM Studios. This episode
was produced by Kathleen Russo, Zach MacNeice, and Maureen Hoban.
Our engineer is Frank Imperial. Our social media manager is
Danielle Gingwich. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the Thing is brought
to you by iHeart Radio.
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