October 28, 2025 • 46 mins
Patti LuPone was only four years old when she realized she belonged on stage, and she started by entertaining family members in her Long Island living room.
LuPone won her second Tony Award for Evita, which she initially described as merely “noise from Britain.” Although she has enjoyed tremendous, long-term success, she talks candidly to Alec about blows to her career and ego.
Originally aired February 18, 2013
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Thing from iHeart Radio. According to the online Urban Dictionary,
today's guest has become a verb. To LuPone is quote
to give an outstanding theatrical performance, to make an audience
revel in, open mouthed awe at your unparalleled brilliance. Unquote.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Don't cry for me, gentlea. The truth is I never
left you.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
All through my wild days, my mad existence, I kept
my promise.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Dorge your dist.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Patty Lapone has twenty six Broadway credits to date and
has won two Tony's, one for Evida and one for
Gypsy in London. She originated the role of Norma Desmond
in Sunset Boulevard and Fantine in Les Miserabla, for which
she won an Olivier Award. She's worked in film and
on television, most notably as the mom on the ABC
(01:10):
drama Life Goes On. Before all this success, Patty was
in the first class of the Drama Division at Juilliard
in nineteen sixty eight, which seems like a reasonable place
to start dreaming of a career in the theater. But
Patty Lapone's story really begins even earlier.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
I knew when I was a kid that I had
a Broadway voice. I wanted to be a rocker because
I grew up in that era of transistor radios at
the beach, you know, the rascals. We started in the fifties,
Little Anthony in the Imperials. I mean, all through the
fifties and sixties and seventies, I knew I didn't have
a rock voice. Though I knew I had a Broadway voice.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
This is all.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Instinctual behavior, completely instinctual behavior. And my mom listened to
opera and my dad listened to jazz.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
What did he do?
Speaker 4 (01:58):
He was a principal of an lamentary school on Long
Island in Northport, and my mom was a housewife, a homemaker.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
How many kids in your family?
Speaker 4 (02:06):
Twin brothers and me, you know, typical in a ranch
house on Long Island, right, typical. I know the drum, yeah, exactly.
And I was enrolled in dance at four years old,
and I fell in love with the stage. But that
wasn't really the first inkling of some sort of connection
to the stage. My mother used to troop me out
in front of guests to do my Marilyn Monroe imitation,
(02:29):
and I don't even know how I came up with this,
but I would come out, they'd laugh, and I'd go, oh,
this is cool. Like you know I was. I was
pretty astute when I was very very young, pretty. So
I started dancing, and I fell in love with the audience,
and so the performance aspect started very very young in dance.
When Julliard happened, well, my brother attended the dance division
(02:51):
of the Juilliard School and told me that they were
starting a drama division. I actually had moved into New
York City and was auditioning for musicals and working, and
I just wanted to be in musicals and hang out
in New York City and party. And I auditioned and
I got in. And what happened in the four years
the course of the four years of the Juilliard School,
I fell out of love with musical and in love
with classical theater. And I was actually trained as a
(03:12):
classical actress. So we did know a lot of other
great classical actress Yes, Kevin Klein, David Steyers, David Shram,
Mary Louisatto, and then of course the classes below me
have gained more recognition than my class did. We were
the very first class.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
But that girl from Northport who's doing Marilyn Monroe impersonations
in the ranch house with your family, what's that like
for you that transitioned to be in that very heady, sophisticated.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
With Well, it was tough for me because I was
not a favorite at school. My best friend, who I
met in the first year, Nancy Nichols, was a favorite
and I was not. But Nancy and I would always
palle around together and make trouble, but Nancy would get
the roles and I would not. And that went on
for several years. I think it was only my third
year when I realized that they were trying to throw
(04:00):
me out of school. And what they did. They couldn't
throw me up because they didn't like my personality. But
what they did was they through every conceivable role in
my direction to make me fail as an actor. But
what happened was they that they didn't belong. Yeah, they
didn't like me. They or you know, I didn't get cut.
Every year students got cut, So we started with they
(04:23):
wanted to years. We ended up with the seventeen of
the original thirty six. In the fourth year. I never
got cut. So I'm confused as to why that actually happened,
because why didn't they just cut me? Possibly because every
role I played I succeeded in. But what they did
was they trained one actor in my class and versatility,
and the rest of them were pigeonholed, as you know,
(04:46):
life will pigeonhole you into exactly the sub brett, the
leading lady, the character woman. But I went back and forth,
back and forth, back and forth, which taught me that
I could.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
There were no boundaries, no, and if you look.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
At my history, I've done more plays than i've done musicals.
But because I guess the voice is a powerful instrument,
do you know what I mean? And it's an American
cultural event, the American broad the musical, not the Broadway.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Well, also the music that you've performed when someone is
as successful as you, And I've said this to people
who have careers of music beyond the theater, as leading
actresses in the theater. Music distinguishes things because it's a
product you can consume anywhere. You know, your career goes
to another level when I can drive in my car
and listen to the soundtracks.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
When anything goes I never thought about that I can.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Be on the beach and I can listen to the
soundtrack from Sweeney Todd music. Performers will always have the
upper hand on actors. But you were saying, how the
versatility thing. You were almost forced to embrace this versatility
to survive. And you graduate from that program the first
class graduates.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
What year nineteen seventy two and where do you go?
John Housman in our third year, he presented a season
to the prominent people in New York theater and critics,
and mel Gusa was the one that said. Mel Gusa
was a second string critic for the New York Times,
and he was the one that said, why break this
company up? Why not form a permanent acting company? Which
(06:15):
was John's q. And when we graduated, he handed us
our equity card and four years. But we stayed for
four years of touring the country performing classical plays in
true revolving rep which is a different play every single night.
So we got even more training because in our first
year we lost several bookings because we didn't know how
(06:36):
to tour, We didn't know how to maintain a performance.
We only did three at Juilliard and we had no
idea what happened on the fourth and that sounds crazy,
but it's we lost.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Do you think this acting company idea and the touring
was what Hausman had up asleeve the whole time when
he instigated the Juilliard program, No, I.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
Don't think so. You know, the training was intense and
emotionally intense, psychologically intense, physically intense. By there was one
production where the company formed an invisible circle of support
around each other, and that was his He saw the
ensemble and I remember, I mean it was it bores
(07:15):
to Marn's production of You from the Bridge, and oh,
I could cry now thinking of it. It was an extraordinary,
powerful experience to be a student actor but in a
professional mindset. And I remember our curtain call and the
pride and the power, and it was an amazing moment
(07:42):
that changed the course of all of us. And we
understood what ensemble meant, and we understood what support meant,
and we understood the power we had as individuals and
as actors. And John saw that in his actors. There's
been a couple of experiences that I've had that it's
that same ensemble mentality. So that's the other thing I
(08:02):
have to interject here when I left Juilliard and left
the acting company, and then of course landed musicals. We
all did, by the way David Stiers did, Kevin did,
Mandy did. We all ended musicals. But there's only a
couple of times where I felt I had that kind
of ensemble. And one was Lima's in London because it
was a Royal Shakespeare Company actors. And the other was Gypsy,
(08:23):
where every actor owned their part, big or small, and
gave themselves to the play every single night. The other
one was Sweeney Too, because and our stage manager said
in Sweeney that we acted more like a band than
a bunch of actors. Right.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
I love that feeling. So the acting company thing lasts
for how long? You didn't?
Speaker 4 (08:41):
I did it for four years. Nobody goes in for
four years anymore. We all did it for four years,
and you know, I thought about the other I don't
know why we stayed, except we thought, I'm sure we
all went we are not going to be able to
play these parts in real life.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
And that was back in a time when there were
the very last vapors in the air here in New
York of the old way, and the old way was
you went downtown, and you sat carried a spear for Joe,
or you carried a spear in the park. And there
was an apprenticeship in the theater. And if you didn't
have cred in the theater, Raoul and Chris Walkin and
Sir Gurney and you and Kevin and everybody, everybody who
(09:15):
were the princes and princesses and Mandy of the theater
in New York, that's where you headed. So when you
finished the acting company and you've decided, you know, you've
done enough, it's four years, which was a typical of people.
Then where do you go?
Speaker 4 (09:27):
Then we came home, Kevin and I came home.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
And so you're with Kevin. Yes, Kevin and you were
Kevin and you were a.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
Couple for seven years. We broke up, we got back together,
we broke up, we got back together, we broke up,
We got back.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
To Can you imagine the children you would have had
for him? Good God, in heaven, good God, they would
have a theater big enough to house that person's ego
and talent.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
So we both came home and Kevin went off and
did a play, and I had auditions four I didn't
get the Baker's Wife Stephen Schwartz musical The Baker's Wife,
based on marcell Panos La fem de Boulange. But I
got a telephone call from David Merrick's general manager, Helen Nickerson,
(10:17):
and to ask if I was free because they wanted
me to come out to La to replace the leading lady.
And I wanted to do this musical so badly, so
I went out and I did my first big, gut wrenching,
rip out of your body, squish heart, the most horrible,
(10:37):
vulnerable experience of my life, The Baker's Wife.
Speaker 5 (10:40):
Who does he think he is? Who could be as handsome?
Who could be as smart as he thinks he is?
He just had to snap his fingers. Women fall up?
What does he think that'll.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Slink away with him? Palla him rise?
Speaker 4 (10:58):
And truly it was an unbelievable disaster, and we were
on the road for six months. That is that's the
big question. It is a great idea, it's a great film.
It had Stephen Schwartz music, it had Joe Melziner's last sets,
Jennifer Tipped into the lights and the one Oldrins did
(11:18):
the costumes. David Merrick was producing. It had all the
potential to be a smash hit, and it got progressive.
I joined two days after they opened in LA and
it got progressively worse. For you knew months and no
I thought it was going to be okay, but I
didn't realize that nobody realized what was really going to
(11:39):
happen to us and it and what did happen, Well,
six people were fired. The show never got better. David
Merrick came out. One of the most theatrical moments I've
ever had in my career was David Merrick showing up
in San Francisco. We were performing in San Francisco with
no director. We were told to stay after the show.
They assembled us on the stage and there was it
(11:59):
was not lit except for the ghost light. David Merrick
showed up and stood in front of the ghost light,
so he was totally backlit. Couldn't see his face, only
saw the outline of a long coat and a bowler hat,
and proceeded to ask us to go into rehearsal for nothing,
so that we could save this wonderful show. And it
was so dramatic, because he's incredibly dramatic, and so in
(12:23):
the light of day, everybody went what we had just
gotten out of rehearsal for nothing. We were in rehearsal
every single day, performing at night for six months. And
what we rehearsed that day when in that night, only
to rehearse the next day, and that stuff would come out,
some new stuff would go in that was not better
than what we had just taken.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
We're in a laboratory. We were in you were in
Doctor Frankenstein's.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
The people were dying, the rats were dying, the rats
were losing air. Oh my god, it was so horrible.
And you know, there's an expression, Larry Galbart's expression. If
Hitler were alive today, his punishment should be to send
him out on the road with the music in trouble.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
I did a movie once in the movie was going
really badly and said, this is as if the government
made movies.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
You know, I've always said, there's a fine line between
a hit and a flop. And you don't know what
it is. You don't know why it is a hit,
and you don't know why it is a flop. You know,
if it's really terrible, you know right off the bat,
and you're not going to take the job. But if
it has the potential to be a hit and ends
up being a flop. You can't figure it out, so you.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Do this show and when you come out of that, like,
what's the lesson for you? Was there something you said
to yourself? Never again am I going to no?
Speaker 4 (13:35):
I went into a depression for nine months. I was
on valium to sleep for the six months, and I
went into a valium depression for nine months, gained forty pounds,
woke up went what the hell just happened? And I
couldn't say you think that?
Speaker 1 (13:51):
It is like like you care a lot. There's nothing
casual about you. There's nothing amateurish about you. You know,
you're very serious and you're very dedicated. You're very hard
working along with being very talented, and you feel these wounds.
Why do you think that is why?
Speaker 4 (14:06):
Our business is subjective? It's all subjective, you know what
I mean? You talk to anybody from the baker's wife
and they can remember it as if it was yesterday,
and there's blood spilled, and we became blood a blood family.
I just said to me Jerome, who's in phantom now
and we see each other and what we recall is
that bonding in that horrible experience, and we can talk
(14:27):
about it as if it was yesterday. I think it's
because you know, it happened to us. Of course it
happened to the creators, but they're not on stage. We're
on stage succeeding or failing in front of an audience.
We're on stage being judged by the audience. We're the messengers.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
We're the ones who take the hit.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
We take the hit all the time. This was really abusive.
It was just horrible. I woke up one morning and
my face was filled with what looked like whiteheads. The
entire face had raised bumps on it. I didn't know
what it was. I went to sleep, well, God, and
the entire face. I maybe it was from the valume.
I have no idea what I was. Things were happening
(15:03):
to us, physically happening to us. And when does the.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Sun come out for you? When does the sun come
out for Patty Lapone? Career wise?
Speaker 4 (15:11):
I think when I go back to work with David Mammott,
I go back and work with David, I go into
I mean, go back David and I did it play
in Chicago? Was that after Baker's wife? Was that I see,
I'm trying to keep I'm trying to keep it straight.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
What play did you do with him? First?
Speaker 4 (15:26):
The very first play I did with him was a
thing called All Men or Whores Kevin sam ch Chiffish
and I did it at Yelle Rep for one night.
I said, Hey, Dave, we opened and closed in new Haven.
And new Haven used to be one of the circuit
you know, when you took a show out of town,
your first stop was new Haven and it was a
big deciding factor. So we opened and closed, we bombed well.
(15:47):
And from there he gave me a play called The Woods.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
What happens when you do the Woods?
Speaker 4 (15:52):
Well, I go back to what I was trained for,
and I go back to an honest environment pretty much.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
And you're back to the circle of trust. Yeah, eving
feels right. This is more like it.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
And it's a risk. It's a big risk. And when
every time I work with David I learned so much
as a human being. Was that approximately and I think
late nineteen seventy six, seventy seven, So you had a
relationship with him, yes, well we met him in thirty
five years. Yes, yes, and I will I will drop
everything to do a play by David everything. I don't
care how risky. It is. I learned so much from
(16:29):
David and I instinctually have the mammot speak. That's something
that I know how to do his rhythms, and I
think it's because it's someone said I cut my teeth
on David. David's words when you know, starting with allmen
or whores and the woods and the water engine and Edmund.
I had finished Devita and I went down to the
Provincetome playoffs at the opening of Edmund, and I said,
(16:53):
why couldn't I have been in this? In the back
of my head? And not two weeks later I got
a call from Gregorymoser and David saying would you replace
to Linda's a Chicago actress, and she wanted to go
back to Chicago. She was playing What the Wife. She
came on and she was at the beginning, beginning, That's
that's it, you know, and she visits broke.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
The dish or whatever it is exactly I'm leaving. She's
what do you mean you're leaving? Of course we're leaving.
We'read geting dress book and I think, no, I'm leaving
you what do you know?
Speaker 5 (17:16):
This?
Speaker 4 (17:16):
Will you know?
Speaker 1 (17:16):
I begged Mammon to give me the right to do
the movie, but he gave it to Bill Mason.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
And so I joined the company and my agent was
so furious with me. He said, this will hurt your
negotiational you know ability, And I went for what you know,
If anybody in the business knows who I am, they
know that this is where I came from before I
did Ivita, and they did not want me to go backwards.
They didn't want me to go to the Guthrie to
(17:42):
do Rosalind and As You Like It. But I was
able to work with leave U Chule, a great Romanian
director which is passed god rest is soul, in his
internationally famous production of As You Like It at the Guthnment.
I was raked over the calls by the critics. One
critic said, you know, basically, what was Ivita doing here?
And it was It was difficult, as you say to
rad all that, but I kept doing it because I
(18:02):
was given the opportunity to do it, and I wasn't
going to say no, I have to wait for the
next ev de part to come along. If I waited
for the next ev de part to come along my
ten years, I'd still be waiting.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Is a Vita. The next big thing for you, recollection
Avida is the big thing is the.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
Thing that was nineteen seventy nine. But in because how
does that happen? I auditioned Joanna Merlin is how princess
casting director, and of course how directed, how directed, And
as I said earlier, all of those people had come
to see this acting company at Juilliard, this unsemble.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
They were aware of you.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
They were aware, yes, And so I was brought in
for a preliminary audition, and then I was told to
make myself free, make sure that I made myself free
for the final callback. And as I understand it, How
wanted to cast actors in the role the roles as
opposed to just musical theater people. So I think that's
one of the reasons why I got in there, because
he knew, they knew I was an actor. Between there
(19:01):
were several plays, there was stage directions by Israel Horovitz,
John Glover, Ellen Green and I down at the public
while Merrill's.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Doing You're doing everything you can to scratch that inch
of yours and not become a star.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
No, I get it, No, no, it was it was
it was the available work.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
We're about to talk about the moment when perhaps one
of the greatest musical stars of the last fifty years
is born on Broadway. So let's talk about how that
the moment this happens, how Prince wants people who can
act and sing. And you go to the make yourself
available to the final callback and what happened. How do
you feel when you're in that room.
Speaker 4 (19:36):
Well, I was very mad because I was actually shooting
nineteen forty one and there was a little issue about
the Larch movie. Yes, about letting me go, and the
producer said, if you're not back tomorrow or the next day,
you'll never work in Hollywood again. So I left Hollywood
with those words ringing in my ear. And I woke
up in New York to the nineteen seventy eight blizzard
(19:57):
where they are like two feet of snow on the ground.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Couldn't get back to LA I couldn't.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
Get back to La No, Christopher Reeve got me on
the plane. I only missed three hours of shooting. When
they said how'd you get here, I said, Superman, it's
a camaraderie exactly. So I went to the final callback,
but I was really mad because I didn't want to
do this musical. I didn't like the music. I thought, you, Vita,
(20:21):
you didn't like it?
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Ah, what specifically? You're a smart woman, what specifically didn't
you like?
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Well?
Speaker 4 (20:27):
I didn't like. I heard the White album, the Julie Covington,
David Essex, Colin Wilkinson, very rocky, weird music, but it
rocked out a lot, and I thought, what's the matter.
I'm a rocker. I want to be a rocker. It
was really really high. Didn't grab me. I mean, I
grew up on Rogers and Hammerstein, I grew up on
Julie Stein, Meredith Wilson, Stephen Sondheime. This was not a
(20:48):
musical to me. This was noise from Britain, you know
what I mean? It wasn't. It just didn't. It didn't.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
So how did you go out there and do it?
Speaker 4 (20:57):
I went out and the final edition, I was wet
from my knees down, wearing sneakers and jeans, not knowing
it was going to snow. Who you know, I did
so stupid. I didn't look at the weather report. I
went out there and I blasted, literally blasted through rainbow
high Buenos Aires and don't cry for me, Argentina and
there were tears in my eyes, apparently, and there were
there were tears of rage, necessarily, not tears of right.
(21:19):
And I left and I got I got a call
on the set. I made it back and I got
a call on the set in the makeup trailer, and
they said you've got the part. And I started to
cry again because I had promised David that I would
reprise The Woods at the Public Theater with Ullu gross
Bar directing.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
What I love is that you're going to blow your
Hollywood film career to go do a musical you don't
even like, and then that one they offered to you're
not sure you're going to think because you got to
go to another little man play well.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
I had been trained to be an actor, and I
thought my responsibility was to act at every possible opportunity,
and especially good opportunity. You know it put you know,
fly your craft and if it's good material. And I
David and I forged a friendship and a bond, and
I didn't want to let him down. David and I
(22:07):
became really really good friends. David lived on twentieth Kevin
and I lived on twenty first Street. He'd come over
all the time. For breakfast, we'd walk around, we'd do Antia.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
I'm gonna start calling you out by the way, because
you keep changing the subject.
Speaker 4 (22:17):
What happened with how how did hell get you to
do that material?
Speaker 1 (22:23):
And it became what it became?
Speaker 4 (22:25):
Well, No, I knew I had to do it. I
cried because I knew that it would have to I
couldn't do the Woods and I had to do a
the Tip because I knew I wanted to work with
hol and I knew that it would change the course
of my career.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
You knew going in that was going to be a hit.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
There was so much hype before have.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
They done it in London?
Speaker 4 (22:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (22:41):
So what is a big hit in London?
Speaker 4 (22:43):
Huge hit?
Speaker 1 (22:43):
And you were in the American cast. It was a
huge hit in London, So you knew this was a
big opportunity and.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
There was hype. You can't believe. That was my first
indication that this was going to be a tough experience
because it was I went, how am I going to
get around the hype? It was the first musical that
I was aware of that had so much pre opening
hype the modern way, not even buzz, you know, not
word of mouth, hype, media hype, and it was created,
(23:10):
of course by really useful by Andrew's company, do you
know what I mean? That's how he operates. And it
was frightening and I had no vocal time. So now
this thing is all hyped up.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
You've been through everything you've been through, You've had some
good times and some tough times, and you've worked hard,
god knows four years in the row with Housman in
that company, and you step out for the Broadway opening,
the opening of Avida. What was it like for you?
How did they even perfect? Of course you did.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
Yeah, and I threw up in the sink before I sank.
Don't cry from me, Argentina. I'm sure it was a
combination of I got. I got extremely bad notices opening
in LA and extremely bad notices opening in San Francisco.
And How came to me and said, we're going to
laugh about this. In twenty years of Patty, they pulled
(23:54):
the entire company together, and he said there was an
article coming out in Susie nicker Parker's column the next
day that I was going to be fired, and that
Actor's Equity was waiting to clear Elaine Page to take
my place, and this was in the newspapers A bad Yeah,
she's the one that originated in London. I'm dealing with
all of this press of me being fired and me
not being able to sing the part and still going
(24:14):
on for my.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Well that was that was opening night, and so so
you go out and do the opening of What Happens?
Speaker 4 (24:20):
Bad reviews again, Actually they weren't bad. They dismissed how
and is this was an innovative This was an innovative
concept and innovative production. They dismissed how and they barely
touched on Mandy and me. And that's worse when you're ignored.
It's one thing if they're passionate and you're back and
(24:41):
passionate when you're good, but when you're ignored. And Mandy
and I at one point I said you want to
go out for a drink? He said yeah. We were
on fifty second. I think that's where the bread with theaters.
And we walked down eighth Avenue and simultaneously we burst
into tears. I mean, we worked hard in those parts
and then to be ignored is tough. And then of
(25:03):
course nine months later they give us the Tonys.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
More after the break, when you win the Tony did.
Was it any vindication for you at all? Or was
it just a.
Speaker 4 (25:16):
Yeah? Such a relief. It was such a relief because
really have you read? Because I was still performing and
still scared out of my mind. Every night I envied
Mandy because Mandy was just all over the place. He
didn't have a problem singing it. So he literally he
told me. He told me something the other day we
were talking about it beat He said, well, how tell
me to go? He wanted me over there, and I
(25:38):
said to how how do I get there? He said,
I don't know, just get there, And so that's where
he does a jette across the stage and I went.
I would see it every night, going why is Mandy
doing that? And it was because Hal told him to
get there, get there, and he didn't care. How so
Mandy put it in and it became part of his performance.
(25:59):
And so I suppose in that respect, how gives the
actor freedom? But I didn't have that freedom because I
was so tied up in a not because I didn't
think I could sing it.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
I wanna be be when a apne what I did.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
If I hadn't thought, if I hadn't known, we would
stay to again. Really, you know when you in a
rehearsal period, you know this, you have to do it
over and over and over again, so you're not hitting
that d in. Screw the middle classes once you're not
hitting that g in. Screw the middle classes, once you're
(26:41):
doing it over and over again. I didn't have vocal
technique to know that. I didn't have to hit those
notes every day. I didn't have vocal technique. I got
it during the run by from a kidney chorus who
David Rosberg I came stage in the tips. They got
(27:03):
him a piano, that put a piano in my dressing room,
and he worked with me an hour every single day
before the show. He would come to me and work
out of the goodness of his heart.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
David Vosper where is he.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
He's in Ohio. He's a director of opera. But he
would give me a vocal technique. He would warm me up.
And the difficult thing was to be to apply what
he had just taught me that night. Because I would
do one thing right, something else would go disastrously wrong.
But at least I was getting a technique to sing
(27:37):
that part. He saved my job, and they they knew
that and they paid him.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Now you say, when you talk about this, you talk
about the tension and the anxiety and the fear, and
you don't really want to necessarily be doing a vida
because you got another David play and this and this
and that. When did it start to become fun for you?
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (27:55):
Anything goes with a ball, Okay, So talk about that. Wow,
because of the material and because of the cast, and
it was hysterical, I mean Jerry's acts and Jerry did
a great job of directors, yes he is. But however,
these were the way musicals used to be written. You'd
have a joke coming and then a gorgeous song. The
(28:17):
material was so ripe and so beautiful. If I was
in a bad mood, all I had to do was
hear that. Okay, I know where I am tonight, just
looking and at the audience and seeing tears of joy
from laughter. The only thing we are as actors are messengers.
(28:39):
That's all we are. Correct. We are delivering the playwright's
intentions through the concept of the director. And I come
on stage if I feel confident in the role, then
I give it away. I give it away anyway. But
it's all about them. So I have to go out
there and love them, and I do. And I think
they see that they can relax with me because they
(29:02):
know I'm giving it to them. I'm not. You know,
there are some actors that don't want to be on
stage that because you just nailed it.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Because Patty Lepone to me is a woman who comes
out there and the first thing she sat up to
and she's like, you know, how's everybody doing? It's like
a little moment like a nightclub singer, like you know
how you all doing tonight? Without saying how y' all
doing tonight? Like just connect to them and let them
feel like there's no place else we'd rather be is
there than here? Right now?
Speaker 4 (29:26):
Well, I think our responsibility is to relax them. You've
been in an audience. I've been in an audience where
we're worried for the performer and then we're not having experience.
They're paying a lot.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
And if I'm worried for the performer and they and
they should be worried for, then I'm worried for me
because I want to get the f out of there. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
Hello. Our responsibility is the minute we hit the deck
is to relax the audience. And that is what is
called command.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
You're the colony, you're the top, You're You're a melody
from a symphony by Strass. I say this on it.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
How long did you do anything?
Speaker 4 (30:11):
Goes ah, fifteen months? I think fifteen Oh, I laughed
my ass off, and that'sa we had such a ball.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
And the same thing is, is this this idea that
someone said to me, why do you like doing the theater?
I mean, even now, did you get it? A lot
of actors do it for a period and you get
it out of your system. I said, you know, the
one thing I've never gotten out of my system is
if the play is the right play, I said, I
go to work at six o'clock. I like to get
to the theater early. Me too, the kind of drain
the day out of me. And then I go out
on stage and I said, you know what I love?
(30:37):
I said, I know exactly what I'm going to say.
I know exactly what the other guy is going to
say for the next two and a half hours, and
I know exactly how people are likely going to react.
I said, how often can you say that in your life?
You know exactly what's going to happen, And it's a
good thing for the next two and a half hours
of your life. I never get tired of that.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
No, and I it's magical. It's magical. And you said,
drain the day out, drain the day out to have
a magic good night. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Really?
Speaker 4 (31:02):
To have an experience with a group of people. Do
you know I mean not just your your fellow actors
on the stage, but people that want that leave the
theater going oh my. I mean I've done that. I've
walked out of a production going oh my, oh what
street are we on? You know, we've been transported, We've
been taken away, We've drained the day out of our life,
and we've experienced something that has changed us. It's another
(31:24):
thing I love about our profession, the arts. I mean,
you can do that in the in the movies too.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Was as a woman, as an actress who is known
for a raft. Now of these heavy duty, you know,
powerful musical roles, was there another one that I'm missing?
Between Avida and No, we did all I did?
Speaker 4 (31:45):
Oliver? I did Oliver? I know Oliver here le miss
in London. Who were the leads in Oliver, Ron Moody
and Graham Campbell God Restless, so Ron Moody was reprising
his Yeah he was great, beautiful.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Song, gorgeous as long as he needs me, one of
the most beautiful songs in all of the musical theater.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
God.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
Yeah, he wrote a great score. And then I went
to London and did lea miz so le miz you
did only in London? Yes? Why well? And this because
I didn't want to do it well. And it's a
reason that I have questioned my entire career. When I
was at the Barbicane rehearsing the Barbicane was then the
Royal Shakespeare Company's London home, it felt so much like
(32:25):
being in the hallways of Juilliard. It was amaze the
rehearsal rooms. I just felt like I was at Juilliard.
And Trevor actually said to me, if anybody belongs in
this production or with the Royal Shakespeare Company, it's you, Patty.
Because Michelle Sudni was an artistic director of the Royal
Shakespeare Company. Michelle sun Deny was one of the co
founders and an artistic director of the Drama division of
(32:47):
the Juilliard School. So I came full circle two different
countries but I had come full circle in training.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Couple of the notices for you when you did le
Mis in London.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
I don't even remember, but I won an Olivier Award
for Fontine. So I have no idea. But everybody that
I know that saw you do it said you were
breathtaking in that role.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
So there was no desire you had.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
Well, this is what happened. Two weeks after we opened
at the Barbicane. I came off stage in my barricade
uniform because I was in the barricade scene, and I went,
I can't do this in New York. It was an instinct,
I can't do this in New York. And I went
to the stage door to drop off a name to
the stage door man. A Cameron McIntosh, the producer you
know besides or Sci was standing there and I said, Cameron,
I can't do this in New York. I was the
(33:25):
only American in the company. He said, I know, the
parts too small. I said, no, that's not it. I said,
this is my company. I realized when I came off
the stage that I was in the perfect theatrical environment,
in the perfect play, with the perfect cast, and I
didn't want anything to touch that memory and I made it.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
It would be different in New York totally.
Speaker 4 (33:46):
It would be a reproduction of this production. And I
didn't think that I would see And you know, I've
never known whether I made the right decision or not.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
But what did you do after that?
Speaker 4 (33:58):
LBJ? I came back to do LBJ and.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
We didn't talk about film in your life now because
in and around all of your historic career in the theater,
what is going on for you?
Speaker 4 (34:11):
Film one nothing? I wish it did nothing, I mean
but minor. But I don't know why I don't get
cast or I don't know why that you know, And
now it's probably too light because I'm one of those
women that are too old for Hollywood, or maybe maybe
I'm coming into my film career now. I don't know
why it didn't happen, but it didn't. I did driving
Miss Daisy, and Alfred Duri was responsible for my casting
in that I did. And that's the best experience you
(34:34):
had making a film, all of them, working, especially working
with the Australian directors Bris Beresford and Peter Weirer.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
What did you do with them?
Speaker 4 (34:42):
We did Witness with Peter Weheir and I did Driving Daisy.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
With Do you ever worked with Lamette?
Speaker 4 (34:48):
Very little? I had a tiny, tiny, little part in something.
I can't remember what it was, but I thought, oh
my god, I would love to have worked with him.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Who were the stars.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
I don't remember the whole experience. I was literally I
had one tiny and I can't remember if it was
a movie or I can't remember television series. Could have
been a television series, but I can't remember what about.
Life goes on for four years and then you know,
guest spots here and there. But it was It's odd
that that that I haven't had that opportunity.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
I probably did have that opportunity, but you passed on it. Correct. No,
I don't think I in the chance to do a
television series come your way.
Speaker 5 (35:24):
No.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
I it's interesting. I'm a hard sell, Alec. I've been
cut at the studio level on auditions in California because
I didn't believe I was I could do this or that,
And you know, it's like it's I'm a hard sell
in California. I'm a hard sell in movies. I'm a
(35:45):
heart sell in TV. You know, I'm always a hard cell.
I could tell you a story, right, now, but I can't.
I've been asked to audition for a musical, and it's
twenty five years since I've auditioned for a musical. When
does it stop coming up?
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Patty Lapone talks about the most painful loss of her career,
her subsequent illness, and how she recovered from both.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
But the time is come.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
Not with the voice as soft as thunder, as they tear.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Your whole, Bob, as they turn your dream to share,
(36:46):
he can make your sound heard.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
Say with one law your known.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
This is It's Alec Baldwin and you were listening to
here's the thing. Patty Lapone originated the role of Norma
Desmond in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard in London. She
was set to move with the show to Broadway until
she found out she was being replaced by Glenn Close.
To say she was devastated is an understatement.
Speaker 4 (37:20):
You know, there's always going to be some kind of
stuff going on in a musical. That's just the nature
of a musical. But it was a great company, we
had a great time. That was the exterior information that
was coming to me that was very painful. I mean, clearly,
when I didn't get the reviews Andrew wanted me to get.
I was on the chopping block, but I didn't find
that out until after Glenn Close opened in New York
(37:42):
and Vincent Canby gave her this review against my bad review. Meantime,
I'm getting standing ovations in London and there's nothing about
me in the press in London because I show up
every night. I'm turning in my it's working, yeah, but
Andrew wanted something else. And the way they got me
out was the way they were going to get me
out was to have me quit because of the the
(38:02):
barrage of negative publicity and my agents and the lawyer
said stay on stage. And I don't know if it
was worth it, because it was really painful integration. Months
before I closed, I got a telephone call from my agent.
I'm in the dressing room getting ready for the show.
I called my agent call. He said here, you're sitting down.
I said yeah. He said, you've been fired. Glenn Close
was replacing you in New York and he went and
(38:24):
I got up and had batting practice in my dressing
room with a you know, a floor lamp, and left.
They could hear me crying and screaming, and the company
came up and company manager. I said, I've been fired.
I said, I'm leaving. I'm going bye. I can't take
this anymore. And if people say, what would you do
if you saw Andrew again, I said, it's not what
I would do, It's what my husband would do. Because
whatever I had to absorb I then took out on
(38:47):
my husband when I came home, and that was like
I went into therapy. I was on prozac. It was
like it was like a long healing process because I
had to absorb it and I couldn't. There was no
place I could release it because I had to perform
every night and that. But that company was extraordinary and
we had a great time. We had a great time.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
So after that, you do Sweeney.
Speaker 4 (39:04):
Then the next musical I do is Sweeney with John Doe.
Oh well, that is two thousand. This is interesting. I
come home beat up emotionally and also physically. I find
out through a routine eye examination that I am in
the middle of detached retinas in both eyes. There's like
(39:24):
four hundred shots of laser in one eye, two hundred
and fifty in the other eye. Kevin Anderson gets into
a life threatening motorcycle accident, and bob Aby and the
choreographer comes down with a really really severe case of
I don't know, shingles or something. So three of us
are manifesting illness at the end of this experience, which
was so bad. So I take time to heal and
(39:46):
I do a movie. I do bits and pieces. But
the next big thing that comes comes on the heels
of breast cancer. They say, do you want to play
Nellie love It in Sweeney Todd with the New York
philm brintervill playing I went first thing, I said to
Steve now, because I've never been cast an Assantai musical.
They said, yes, it gives the proval. I said, of
course I do. But this is a year earlier. Within
(40:08):
that year, I find out that I have breast cancer.
And what happens is I deal with it. There's nothing
else I can do but deal with it and go
through radiation. On my last day of radiation, start rehearsal
for Sweeney Todd or the New.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
York Fill And it's that one for the Fill.
Speaker 4 (40:22):
Yes, the quintessential New York moment. The New York Philharmonic
on a New York stage in a New Yorker's production,
and that was an unbelievable experience.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Here are hot from the oven. What is that it's priest,
have a little priest? Is it really good? That it's
too good? At least?
Speaker 4 (40:49):
Then again they don't comment since all the flesh, so
that what's pretty fresh.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
Now let's talk about Mammo's last place. So here you're
last venture in New York? Is you with your old buddy?
So he calls you. He's got the play and he
called you.
Speaker 4 (41:07):
I called him. I saw November, and I saw after
the play. I saw his wife, Rebecca Pigeon. I said, Rebecca,
I'm hitting David up for a play. It's too long.
It's too long that we've worked together. And I wrote
him a letter and I said, I don't want a
relationship to end with the old neighborhood. I said, let's
do something. And then he called me and he said,
do you know who Kathy Boudin is? And I did,
(41:27):
but I didn't. And then he started to tell me
about he was right. He was thinking about writing a
play about the weatherman or the or an anarchist. And
I went, oh cool. And then then I found out
this was last year. And then I found out that
the play was being done in London, and I went, no, no, no, man,
I said, I have to play this part. And I
wrote to him and I said, is this the part
we were talking about? I said, they don't want me
in London because they don't want me in London, But
(41:49):
can I do it in New York? And he called me.
I said, scure, London, Let's do it now. So that's
how that happened. I knew it was a risk, but
that you know, I always take a risk with David
and I.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
You've been directed by David before a lot more often
than you're comfortable with him in both very aspects. And
we talked about because I came and saw you that
last performance, and we talked about how the financing and
the financiers themselves have changed a lot, which is, if
they don't get those results very very quickly, they jump,
(42:21):
they put the parachute.
Speaker 4 (42:22):
This is a risky play. And you know what Broadway
should be, what Broadway is supposed to be, which is
a vehicle for every idea. And I also am frustrated
with the producers that have made gobs of money. They
should have a levy tax, a tax levied against them.
(42:44):
They should open a black box theater. They should support
all the new playwrights and composers. There should be a
great deal of support. Art is the soul of a nation,
and our art is not being supported before they developed. Yes,
and it's very, very very depressing. It's very depressing. If
I go back on the stage in New York, I'm
going to find out who the producers are and who
their partners are, and I'm going to sit down and
(43:06):
talk to them, and I want to find out what
their marketing campaign is.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
What their marketing You know, I need some answers going in.
Speaker 4 (43:11):
Yes, you definitely, And I want to pay and play,
which you don't have pair play on Broadway. You don't
have that. But you know they don't think we take
the risk with them. We most certainly do.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
Actually, well, we book out the payer play concepts and films.
Is important because we book out and sometimes you got
to take a deeper I think, go, maybe I shouldn't
care so much.
Speaker 4 (43:28):
I don't know whether that's true, Alec, you would it
would reflect in your performance, do you know what I mean?
I think that you can see when people care and
when you an audience. This can see when they don't.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
Care, because you see, because you seem like someone in
the years I've bumped into you, run into you, known you,
known you better, you seem to care the exact same
amount as you used to.
Speaker 4 (43:50):
I love what I do, and I love the audience,
and I love the fact that I get to do it,
and I love I love our craft very very much,
and it's it's a noble craft. We have a responsibility
to it and to the audience, and to the playwright
and to the message. I won't ever care less if
the scar.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
Should fall into the scene and the storm, it all.
Speaker 5 (44:18):
To me.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
That we have lonely, I will say.
Speaker 4 (44:32):
To Lone.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
Next month, Patty Lapone will go on a national tour
with her concert entitled Faraway Places This is Him to
Love from the CD of the same name. Her book,
Patty Lapone, a Memoir, is now available both in hardcover
and as an ebook. So the last thing I want
to say to you is a comment and a question
(44:56):
embedded in a comment. And that is, and I want
to say this as carefully as I can, is that
I want to get myself in trouble here on public
radio watching you perform, Patty sometimes it's like having sex
with you, and it's a good section.
Speaker 4 (45:07):
It's like sex.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
When you do what you do, it's like and when
you're done, I almost get this feeling like you're looking
at me personally, look at me, going, you really enjoyed
that day? That was good for you, wasn't it. Do
you realize My question is do you realize the effect
you have on people?
Speaker 5 (45:22):
Do you know?
Speaker 4 (45:24):
Well, when you come out there, can you feel how
much they're digging what you do?
Speaker 1 (45:28):
You must be able to feel it.
Speaker 4 (45:29):
Well, I don't know. If I don't go out there
going they're going to dig me. I go out there,
and I do know that the people that have come
to see me know that I have them in mind
and that they I already have them on my side.
They know that I'm doing it for them. They it
just it could be a persona could be a body
(45:51):
language thing, but they know that I know they're there.
And the differences when actors don't acknowledge the audience, the
audience can't come. When an actor acknowledges the audience, then
you can have a moment of ecstasy
This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Thing from iHeart Radio. According to the online Urban Dictionary,
today's guest has become a verb. To LuPone is quote
to give an outstanding theatrical performance, to make an audience
revel in, open mouthed awe at your unparalleled brilliance. Unquote.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Don't cry for me, gentlea. The truth is I never
left you.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
All through my wild days, my mad existence, I kept
my promise.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Dorge your dist.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Patty Lapone has twenty six Broadway credits to date and
has won two Tony's, one for Evida and one for
Gypsy in London. She originated the role of Norma Desmond
in Sunset Boulevard and Fantine in Les Miserabla, for which
she won an Olivier Award. She's worked in film and
on television, most notably as the mom on the ABC
(01:10):
drama Life Goes On. Before all this success, Patty was
in the first class of the Drama Division at Juilliard
in nineteen sixty eight, which seems like a reasonable place
to start dreaming of a career in the theater. But
Patty Lapone's story really begins even earlier.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
I knew when I was a kid that I had
a Broadway voice. I wanted to be a rocker because
I grew up in that era of transistor radios at
the beach, you know, the rascals. We started in the fifties,
Little Anthony in the Imperials. I mean, all through the
fifties and sixties and seventies, I knew I didn't have
a rock voice. Though I knew I had a Broadway voice.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
This is all.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Instinctual behavior, completely instinctual behavior. And my mom listened to
opera and my dad listened to jazz.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
What did he do?
Speaker 4 (01:58):
He was a principal of an lamentary school on Long
Island in Northport, and my mom was a housewife, a homemaker.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
How many kids in your family?
Speaker 4 (02:06):
Twin brothers and me, you know, typical in a ranch
house on Long Island, right, typical. I know the drum, yeah, exactly.
And I was enrolled in dance at four years old,
and I fell in love with the stage. But that
wasn't really the first inkling of some sort of connection
to the stage. My mother used to troop me out
in front of guests to do my Marilyn Monroe imitation,
(02:29):
and I don't even know how I came up with this,
but I would come out, they'd laugh, and I'd go, oh,
this is cool. Like you know I was. I was
pretty astute when I was very very young, pretty. So
I started dancing, and I fell in love with the audience,
and so the performance aspect started very very young in dance.
When Julliard happened, well, my brother attended the dance division
(02:51):
of the Juilliard School and told me that they were
starting a drama division. I actually had moved into New
York City and was auditioning for musicals and working, and
I just wanted to be in musicals and hang out
in New York City and party. And I auditioned and
I got in. And what happened in the four years
the course of the four years of the Juilliard School,
I fell out of love with musical and in love
with classical theater. And I was actually trained as a
(03:12):
classical actress. So we did know a lot of other
great classical actress Yes, Kevin Klein, David Steyers, David Shram,
Mary Louisatto, and then of course the classes below me
have gained more recognition than my class did. We were
the very first class.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
But that girl from Northport who's doing Marilyn Monroe impersonations
in the ranch house with your family, what's that like
for you that transitioned to be in that very heady, sophisticated.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
With Well, it was tough for me because I was
not a favorite at school. My best friend, who I
met in the first year, Nancy Nichols, was a favorite
and I was not. But Nancy and I would always
palle around together and make trouble, but Nancy would get
the roles and I would not. And that went on
for several years. I think it was only my third
year when I realized that they were trying to throw
(04:00):
me out of school. And what they did. They couldn't
throw me up because they didn't like my personality. But
what they did was they through every conceivable role in
my direction to make me fail as an actor. But
what happened was they that they didn't belong. Yeah, they
didn't like me. They or you know, I didn't get cut.
Every year students got cut, So we started with they
(04:23):
wanted to years. We ended up with the seventeen of
the original thirty six. In the fourth year. I never
got cut. So I'm confused as to why that actually happened,
because why didn't they just cut me? Possibly because every
role I played I succeeded in. But what they did
was they trained one actor in my class and versatility,
and the rest of them were pigeonholed, as you know,
(04:46):
life will pigeonhole you into exactly the sub brett, the
leading lady, the character woman. But I went back and forth,
back and forth, back and forth, which taught me that
I could.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
There were no boundaries, no, and if you look.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
At my history, I've done more plays than i've done musicals.
But because I guess the voice is a powerful instrument,
do you know what I mean? And it's an American
cultural event, the American broad the musical, not the Broadway.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Well, also the music that you've performed when someone is
as successful as you, And I've said this to people
who have careers of music beyond the theater, as leading
actresses in the theater. Music distinguishes things because it's a
product you can consume anywhere. You know, your career goes
to another level when I can drive in my car
and listen to the soundtracks.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
When anything goes I never thought about that I can.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Be on the beach and I can listen to the
soundtrack from Sweeney Todd music. Performers will always have the
upper hand on actors. But you were saying, how the
versatility thing. You were almost forced to embrace this versatility
to survive. And you graduate from that program the first
class graduates.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
What year nineteen seventy two and where do you go?
John Housman in our third year, he presented a season
to the prominent people in New York theater and critics,
and mel Gusa was the one that said. Mel Gusa
was a second string critic for the New York Times,
and he was the one that said, why break this
company up? Why not form a permanent acting company? Which
(06:15):
was John's q. And when we graduated, he handed us
our equity card and four years. But we stayed for
four years of touring the country performing classical plays in
true revolving rep which is a different play every single night.
So we got even more training because in our first
year we lost several bookings because we didn't know how
(06:36):
to tour, We didn't know how to maintain a performance.
We only did three at Juilliard and we had no
idea what happened on the fourth and that sounds crazy,
but it's we lost.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Do you think this acting company idea and the touring
was what Hausman had up asleeve the whole time when
he instigated the Juilliard program, No, I.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
Don't think so. You know, the training was intense and
emotionally intense, psychologically intense, physically intense. By there was one
production where the company formed an invisible circle of support
around each other, and that was his He saw the
ensemble and I remember, I mean it was it bores
(07:15):
to Marn's production of You from the Bridge, and oh,
I could cry now thinking of it. It was an extraordinary,
powerful experience to be a student actor but in a
professional mindset. And I remember our curtain call and the
pride and the power, and it was an amazing moment
(07:42):
that changed the course of all of us. And we
understood what ensemble meant, and we understood what support meant,
and we understood the power we had as individuals and
as actors. And John saw that in his actors. There's
been a couple of experiences that I've had that it's
that same ensemble mentality. So that's the other thing I
(08:02):
have to interject here when I left Juilliard and left
the acting company, and then of course landed musicals. We
all did, by the way David Stiers did, Kevin did,
Mandy did. We all ended musicals. But there's only a
couple of times where I felt I had that kind
of ensemble. And one was Lima's in London because it
was a Royal Shakespeare Company actors. And the other was Gypsy,
(08:23):
where every actor owned their part, big or small, and
gave themselves to the play every single night. The other
one was Sweeney Too, because and our stage manager said
in Sweeney that we acted more like a band than
a bunch of actors. Right.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
I love that feeling. So the acting company thing lasts
for how long? You didn't?
Speaker 4 (08:41):
I did it for four years. Nobody goes in for
four years anymore. We all did it for four years,
and you know, I thought about the other I don't
know why we stayed, except we thought, I'm sure we
all went we are not going to be able to
play these parts in real life.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
And that was back in a time when there were
the very last vapors in the air here in New
York of the old way, and the old way was
you went downtown, and you sat carried a spear for Joe,
or you carried a spear in the park. And there
was an apprenticeship in the theater. And if you didn't
have cred in the theater, Raoul and Chris Walkin and
Sir Gurney and you and Kevin and everybody, everybody who
(09:15):
were the princes and princesses and Mandy of the theater
in New York, that's where you headed. So when you
finished the acting company and you've decided, you know, you've
done enough, it's four years, which was a typical of people.
Then where do you go?
Speaker 4 (09:27):
Then we came home, Kevin and I came home.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
And so you're with Kevin. Yes, Kevin and you were
Kevin and you were a.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
Couple for seven years. We broke up, we got back together,
we broke up, we got back together, we broke up,
We got back.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
To Can you imagine the children you would have had
for him? Good God, in heaven, good God, they would
have a theater big enough to house that person's ego
and talent.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
So we both came home and Kevin went off and
did a play, and I had auditions four I didn't
get the Baker's Wife Stephen Schwartz musical The Baker's Wife,
based on marcell Panos La fem de Boulange. But I
got a telephone call from David Merrick's general manager, Helen Nickerson,
(10:17):
and to ask if I was free because they wanted
me to come out to La to replace the leading lady.
And I wanted to do this musical so badly, so
I went out and I did my first big, gut wrenching,
rip out of your body, squish heart, the most horrible,
(10:37):
vulnerable experience of my life, The Baker's Wife.
Speaker 5 (10:40):
Who does he think he is? Who could be as handsome?
Who could be as smart as he thinks he is?
He just had to snap his fingers. Women fall up?
What does he think that'll.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Slink away with him? Palla him rise?
Speaker 4 (10:58):
And truly it was an unbelievable disaster, and we were
on the road for six months. That is that's the
big question. It is a great idea, it's a great film.
It had Stephen Schwartz music, it had Joe Melziner's last sets,
Jennifer Tipped into the lights and the one Oldrins did
(11:18):
the costumes. David Merrick was producing. It had all the
potential to be a smash hit, and it got progressive.
I joined two days after they opened in LA and
it got progressively worse. For you knew months and no
I thought it was going to be okay, but I
didn't realize that nobody realized what was really going to
(11:39):
happen to us and it and what did happen, Well,
six people were fired. The show never got better. David
Merrick came out. One of the most theatrical moments I've
ever had in my career was David Merrick showing up
in San Francisco. We were performing in San Francisco with
no director. We were told to stay after the show.
They assembled us on the stage and there was it
(11:59):
was not lit except for the ghost light. David Merrick
showed up and stood in front of the ghost light,
so he was totally backlit. Couldn't see his face, only
saw the outline of a long coat and a bowler hat,
and proceeded to ask us to go into rehearsal for nothing,
so that we could save this wonderful show. And it
was so dramatic, because he's incredibly dramatic, and so in
(12:23):
the light of day, everybody went what we had just
gotten out of rehearsal for nothing. We were in rehearsal
every single day, performing at night for six months. And
what we rehearsed that day when in that night, only
to rehearse the next day, and that stuff would come out,
some new stuff would go in that was not better
than what we had just taken.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
We're in a laboratory. We were in you were in
Doctor Frankenstein's.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
The people were dying, the rats were dying, the rats
were losing air. Oh my god, it was so horrible.
And you know, there's an expression, Larry Galbart's expression. If
Hitler were alive today, his punishment should be to send
him out on the road with the music in trouble.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
I did a movie once in the movie was going
really badly and said, this is as if the government
made movies.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
You know, I've always said, there's a fine line between
a hit and a flop. And you don't know what
it is. You don't know why it is a hit,
and you don't know why it is a flop. You know,
if it's really terrible, you know right off the bat,
and you're not going to take the job. But if
it has the potential to be a hit and ends
up being a flop. You can't figure it out, so you.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Do this show and when you come out of that, like,
what's the lesson for you? Was there something you said
to yourself? Never again am I going to no?
Speaker 4 (13:35):
I went into a depression for nine months. I was
on valium to sleep for the six months, and I
went into a valium depression for nine months, gained forty pounds,
woke up went what the hell just happened? And I
couldn't say you think that?
Speaker 1 (13:51):
It is like like you care a lot. There's nothing
casual about you. There's nothing amateurish about you. You know,
you're very serious and you're very dedicated. You're very hard
working along with being very talented, and you feel these wounds.
Why do you think that is why?
Speaker 4 (14:06):
Our business is subjective? It's all subjective, you know what
I mean? You talk to anybody from the baker's wife
and they can remember it as if it was yesterday,
and there's blood spilled, and we became blood a blood family.
I just said to me Jerome, who's in phantom now
and we see each other and what we recall is
that bonding in that horrible experience, and we can talk
(14:27):
about it as if it was yesterday. I think it's
because you know, it happened to us. Of course it
happened to the creators, but they're not on stage. We're
on stage succeeding or failing in front of an audience.
We're on stage being judged by the audience. We're the messengers.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
We're the ones who take the hit.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
We take the hit all the time. This was really abusive.
It was just horrible. I woke up one morning and
my face was filled with what looked like whiteheads. The
entire face had raised bumps on it. I didn't know
what it was. I went to sleep, well, God, and
the entire face. I maybe it was from the valume.
I have no idea what I was. Things were happening
(15:03):
to us, physically happening to us. And when does the.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Sun come out for you? When does the sun come
out for Patty Lapone? Career wise?
Speaker 4 (15:11):
I think when I go back to work with David Mammott,
I go back and work with David, I go into
I mean, go back David and I did it play
in Chicago? Was that after Baker's wife? Was that I see,
I'm trying to keep I'm trying to keep it straight.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
What play did you do with him? First?
Speaker 4 (15:26):
The very first play I did with him was a
thing called All Men or Whores Kevin sam ch Chiffish
and I did it at Yelle Rep for one night.
I said, Hey, Dave, we opened and closed in new Haven.
And new Haven used to be one of the circuit
you know, when you took a show out of town,
your first stop was new Haven and it was a
big deciding factor. So we opened and closed, we bombed well.
(15:47):
And from there he gave me a play called The Woods.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
What happens when you do the Woods?
Speaker 4 (15:52):
Well, I go back to what I was trained for,
and I go back to an honest environment pretty much.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
And you're back to the circle of trust. Yeah, eving
feels right. This is more like it.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
And it's a risk. It's a big risk. And when
every time I work with David I learned so much
as a human being. Was that approximately and I think
late nineteen seventy six, seventy seven, So you had a
relationship with him, yes, well we met him in thirty
five years. Yes, yes, and I will I will drop
everything to do a play by David everything. I don't
care how risky. It is. I learned so much from
(16:29):
David and I instinctually have the mammot speak. That's something
that I know how to do his rhythms, and I
think it's because it's someone said I cut my teeth
on David. David's words when you know, starting with allmen
or whores and the woods and the water engine and Edmund.
I had finished Devita and I went down to the
Provincetome playoffs at the opening of Edmund, and I said,
(16:53):
why couldn't I have been in this? In the back
of my head? And not two weeks later I got
a call from Gregorymoser and David saying would you replace
to Linda's a Chicago actress, and she wanted to go
back to Chicago. She was playing What the Wife. She
came on and she was at the beginning, beginning, That's
that's it, you know, and she visits broke.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
The dish or whatever it is exactly I'm leaving. She's
what do you mean you're leaving? Of course we're leaving.
We'read geting dress book and I think, no, I'm leaving
you what do you know?
Speaker 5 (17:16):
This?
Speaker 4 (17:16):
Will you know?
Speaker 1 (17:16):
I begged Mammon to give me the right to do
the movie, but he gave it to Bill Mason.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
And so I joined the company and my agent was
so furious with me. He said, this will hurt your
negotiational you know ability, And I went for what you know,
If anybody in the business knows who I am, they
know that this is where I came from before I
did Ivita, and they did not want me to go backwards.
They didn't want me to go to the Guthrie to
(17:42):
do Rosalind and As You Like It. But I was
able to work with leave U Chule, a great Romanian
director which is passed god rest is soul, in his
internationally famous production of As You Like It at the Guthnment.
I was raked over the calls by the critics. One
critic said, you know, basically, what was Ivita doing here?
And it was It was difficult, as you say to
rad all that, but I kept doing it because I
(18:02):
was given the opportunity to do it, and I wasn't
going to say no, I have to wait for the
next ev de part to come along. If I waited
for the next ev de part to come along my
ten years, I'd still be waiting.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Is a Vita. The next big thing for you, recollection
Avida is the big thing is the.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
Thing that was nineteen seventy nine. But in because how
does that happen? I auditioned Joanna Merlin is how princess
casting director, and of course how directed, how directed, And
as I said earlier, all of those people had come
to see this acting company at Juilliard, this unsemble.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
They were aware of you.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
They were aware, yes, And so I was brought in
for a preliminary audition, and then I was told to
make myself free, make sure that I made myself free
for the final callback. And as I understand it, How
wanted to cast actors in the role the roles as
opposed to just musical theater people. So I think that's
one of the reasons why I got in there, because
he knew, they knew I was an actor. Between there
(19:01):
were several plays, there was stage directions by Israel Horovitz,
John Glover, Ellen Green and I down at the public
while Merrill's.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Doing You're doing everything you can to scratch that inch
of yours and not become a star.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
No, I get it, No, no, it was it was
it was the available work.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
We're about to talk about the moment when perhaps one
of the greatest musical stars of the last fifty years
is born on Broadway. So let's talk about how that
the moment this happens, how Prince wants people who can
act and sing. And you go to the make yourself
available to the final callback and what happened. How do
you feel when you're in that room.
Speaker 4 (19:36):
Well, I was very mad because I was actually shooting
nineteen forty one and there was a little issue about
the Larch movie. Yes, about letting me go, and the
producer said, if you're not back tomorrow or the next day,
you'll never work in Hollywood again. So I left Hollywood
with those words ringing in my ear. And I woke
up in New York to the nineteen seventy eight blizzard
(19:57):
where they are like two feet of snow on the ground.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Couldn't get back to LA I couldn't.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
Get back to La No, Christopher Reeve got me on
the plane. I only missed three hours of shooting. When
they said how'd you get here, I said, Superman, it's
a camaraderie exactly. So I went to the final callback,
but I was really mad because I didn't want to
do this musical. I didn't like the music. I thought, you, Vita,
(20:21):
you didn't like it?
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Ah, what specifically? You're a smart woman, what specifically didn't
you like?
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Well?
Speaker 4 (20:27):
I didn't like. I heard the White album, the Julie Covington,
David Essex, Colin Wilkinson, very rocky, weird music, but it
rocked out a lot, and I thought, what's the matter.
I'm a rocker. I want to be a rocker. It
was really really high. Didn't grab me. I mean, I
grew up on Rogers and Hammerstein, I grew up on
Julie Stein, Meredith Wilson, Stephen Sondheime. This was not a
(20:48):
musical to me. This was noise from Britain, you know
what I mean? It wasn't. It just didn't. It didn't.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
So how did you go out there and do it?
Speaker 4 (20:57):
I went out and the final edition, I was wet
from my knees down, wearing sneakers and jeans, not knowing
it was going to snow. Who you know, I did
so stupid. I didn't look at the weather report. I
went out there and I blasted, literally blasted through rainbow
high Buenos Aires and don't cry for me, Argentina and
there were tears in my eyes, apparently, and there were
there were tears of rage, necessarily, not tears of right.
(21:19):
And I left and I got I got a call
on the set. I made it back and I got
a call on the set in the makeup trailer, and
they said you've got the part. And I started to
cry again because I had promised David that I would
reprise The Woods at the Public Theater with Ullu gross
Bar directing.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
What I love is that you're going to blow your
Hollywood film career to go do a musical you don't
even like, and then that one they offered to you're
not sure you're going to think because you got to
go to another little man play well.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
I had been trained to be an actor, and I
thought my responsibility was to act at every possible opportunity,
and especially good opportunity. You know it put you know,
fly your craft and if it's good material. And I
David and I forged a friendship and a bond, and
I didn't want to let him down. David and I
(22:07):
became really really good friends. David lived on twentieth Kevin
and I lived on twenty first Street. He'd come over
all the time. For breakfast, we'd walk around, we'd do Antia.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
I'm gonna start calling you out by the way, because
you keep changing the subject.
Speaker 4 (22:17):
What happened with how how did hell get you to
do that material?
Speaker 1 (22:23):
And it became what it became?
Speaker 4 (22:25):
Well, No, I knew I had to do it. I
cried because I knew that it would have to I
couldn't do the Woods and I had to do a
the Tip because I knew I wanted to work with
hol and I knew that it would change the course
of my career.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
You knew going in that was going to be a hit.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
There was so much hype before have.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
They done it in London?
Speaker 4 (22:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (22:41):
So what is a big hit in London?
Speaker 4 (22:43):
Huge hit?
Speaker 1 (22:43):
And you were in the American cast. It was a
huge hit in London, So you knew this was a
big opportunity and.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
There was hype. You can't believe. That was my first
indication that this was going to be a tough experience
because it was I went, how am I going to
get around the hype? It was the first musical that
I was aware of that had so much pre opening
hype the modern way, not even buzz, you know, not
word of mouth, hype, media hype, and it was created,
(23:10):
of course by really useful by Andrew's company, do you
know what I mean? That's how he operates. And it
was frightening and I had no vocal time. So now
this thing is all hyped up.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
You've been through everything you've been through, You've had some
good times and some tough times, and you've worked hard,
god knows four years in the row with Housman in
that company, and you step out for the Broadway opening,
the opening of Avida. What was it like for you?
How did they even perfect? Of course you did.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
Yeah, and I threw up in the sink before I sank.
Don't cry from me, Argentina. I'm sure it was a
combination of I got. I got extremely bad notices opening
in LA and extremely bad notices opening in San Francisco.
And How came to me and said, we're going to
laugh about this. In twenty years of Patty, they pulled
(23:54):
the entire company together, and he said there was an
article coming out in Susie nicker Parker's column the next
day that I was going to be fired, and that
Actor's Equity was waiting to clear Elaine Page to take
my place, and this was in the newspapers A bad Yeah,
she's the one that originated in London. I'm dealing with
all of this press of me being fired and me
not being able to sing the part and still going
(24:14):
on for my.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Well that was that was opening night, and so so
you go out and do the opening of What Happens?
Speaker 4 (24:20):
Bad reviews again, Actually they weren't bad. They dismissed how
and is this was an innovative This was an innovative
concept and innovative production. They dismissed how and they barely
touched on Mandy and me. And that's worse when you're ignored.
It's one thing if they're passionate and you're back and
(24:41):
passionate when you're good, but when you're ignored. And Mandy
and I at one point I said you want to
go out for a drink? He said yeah. We were
on fifty second. I think that's where the bread with theaters.
And we walked down eighth Avenue and simultaneously we burst
into tears. I mean, we worked hard in those parts
and then to be ignored is tough. And then of
(25:03):
course nine months later they give us the Tonys.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
More after the break, when you win the Tony did.
Was it any vindication for you at all? Or was
it just a.
Speaker 4 (25:16):
Yeah? Such a relief. It was such a relief because
really have you read? Because I was still performing and
still scared out of my mind. Every night I envied
Mandy because Mandy was just all over the place. He
didn't have a problem singing it. So he literally he
told me. He told me something the other day we
were talking about it beat He said, well, how tell
me to go? He wanted me over there, and I
(25:38):
said to how how do I get there? He said,
I don't know, just get there, And so that's where
he does a jette across the stage and I went.
I would see it every night, going why is Mandy
doing that? And it was because Hal told him to
get there, get there, and he didn't care. How so
Mandy put it in and it became part of his performance.
(25:59):
And so I suppose in that respect, how gives the
actor freedom? But I didn't have that freedom because I
was so tied up in a not because I didn't
think I could sing it.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
I wanna be be when a apne what I did.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
If I hadn't thought, if I hadn't known, we would
stay to again. Really, you know when you in a
rehearsal period, you know this, you have to do it
over and over and over again, so you're not hitting
that d in. Screw the middle classes once you're not
hitting that g in. Screw the middle classes, once you're
(26:41):
doing it over and over again. I didn't have vocal
technique to know that. I didn't have to hit those
notes every day. I didn't have vocal technique. I got
it during the run by from a kidney chorus who
David Rosberg I came stage in the tips. They got
(27:03):
him a piano, that put a piano in my dressing room,
and he worked with me an hour every single day
before the show. He would come to me and work
out of the goodness of his heart.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
David Vosper where is he.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
He's in Ohio. He's a director of opera. But he
would give me a vocal technique. He would warm me up.
And the difficult thing was to be to apply what
he had just taught me that night. Because I would
do one thing right, something else would go disastrously wrong.
But at least I was getting a technique to sing
(27:37):
that part. He saved my job, and they they knew
that and they paid him.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Now you say, when you talk about this, you talk
about the tension and the anxiety and the fear, and
you don't really want to necessarily be doing a vida
because you got another David play and this and this
and that. When did it start to become fun for you?
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (27:55):
Anything goes with a ball, Okay, So talk about that. Wow,
because of the material and because of the cast, and
it was hysterical, I mean Jerry's acts and Jerry did
a great job of directors, yes he is. But however,
these were the way musicals used to be written. You'd
have a joke coming and then a gorgeous song. The
(28:17):
material was so ripe and so beautiful. If I was
in a bad mood, all I had to do was
hear that. Okay, I know where I am tonight, just
looking and at the audience and seeing tears of joy
from laughter. The only thing we are as actors are messengers.
(28:39):
That's all we are. Correct. We are delivering the playwright's
intentions through the concept of the director. And I come
on stage if I feel confident in the role, then
I give it away. I give it away anyway. But
it's all about them. So I have to go out
there and love them, and I do. And I think
they see that they can relax with me because they
(29:02):
know I'm giving it to them. I'm not. You know,
there are some actors that don't want to be on
stage that because you just nailed it.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Because Patty Lepone to me is a woman who comes
out there and the first thing she sat up to
and she's like, you know, how's everybody doing? It's like
a little moment like a nightclub singer, like you know
how you all doing tonight? Without saying how y' all
doing tonight? Like just connect to them and let them
feel like there's no place else we'd rather be is
there than here? Right now?
Speaker 4 (29:26):
Well, I think our responsibility is to relax them. You've
been in an audience. I've been in an audience where
we're worried for the performer and then we're not having experience.
They're paying a lot.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
And if I'm worried for the performer and they and
they should be worried for, then I'm worried for me
because I want to get the f out of there. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
Hello. Our responsibility is the minute we hit the deck
is to relax the audience. And that is what is
called command.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
You're the colony, you're the top, You're You're a melody
from a symphony by Strass. I say this on it.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
How long did you do anything?
Speaker 4 (30:11):
Goes ah, fifteen months? I think fifteen Oh, I laughed
my ass off, and that'sa we had such a ball.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
And the same thing is, is this this idea that
someone said to me, why do you like doing the theater?
I mean, even now, did you get it? A lot
of actors do it for a period and you get
it out of your system. I said, you know, the
one thing I've never gotten out of my system is
if the play is the right play, I said, I
go to work at six o'clock. I like to get
to the theater early. Me too, the kind of drain
the day out of me. And then I go out
on stage and I said, you know what I love?
(30:37):
I said, I know exactly what I'm going to say.
I know exactly what the other guy is going to
say for the next two and a half hours, and
I know exactly how people are likely going to react.
I said, how often can you say that in your life?
You know exactly what's going to happen, And it's a
good thing for the next two and a half hours
of your life. I never get tired of that.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
No, and I it's magical. It's magical. And you said,
drain the day out, drain the day out to have
a magic good night. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Really?
Speaker 4 (31:02):
To have an experience with a group of people. Do
you know I mean not just your your fellow actors
on the stage, but people that want that leave the
theater going oh my. I mean I've done that. I've
walked out of a production going oh my, oh what
street are we on? You know, we've been transported, We've
been taken away, We've drained the day out of our life,
and we've experienced something that has changed us. It's another
(31:24):
thing I love about our profession, the arts. I mean,
you can do that in the in the movies too.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Was as a woman, as an actress who is known
for a raft. Now of these heavy duty, you know,
powerful musical roles, was there another one that I'm missing?
Between Avida and No, we did all I did?
Speaker 4 (31:45):
Oliver? I did Oliver? I know Oliver here le miss
in London. Who were the leads in Oliver, Ron Moody
and Graham Campbell God Restless, so Ron Moody was reprising
his Yeah he was great, beautiful.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Song, gorgeous as long as he needs me, one of
the most beautiful songs in all of the musical theater.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
God.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
Yeah, he wrote a great score. And then I went
to London and did lea miz so le miz you
did only in London? Yes? Why well? And this because
I didn't want to do it well. And it's a
reason that I have questioned my entire career. When I
was at the Barbicane rehearsing the Barbicane was then the
Royal Shakespeare Company's London home, it felt so much like
(32:25):
being in the hallways of Juilliard. It was amaze the
rehearsal rooms. I just felt like I was at Juilliard.
And Trevor actually said to me, if anybody belongs in
this production or with the Royal Shakespeare Company, it's you, Patty.
Because Michelle Sudni was an artistic director of the Royal
Shakespeare Company. Michelle sun Deny was one of the co
founders and an artistic director of the Drama division of
(32:47):
the Juilliard School. So I came full circle two different
countries but I had come full circle in training.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Couple of the notices for you when you did le
Mis in London.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
I don't even remember, but I won an Olivier Award
for Fontine. So I have no idea. But everybody that
I know that saw you do it said you were
breathtaking in that role.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
So there was no desire you had.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
Well, this is what happened. Two weeks after we opened
at the Barbicane. I came off stage in my barricade
uniform because I was in the barricade scene, and I went,
I can't do this in New York. It was an instinct,
I can't do this in New York. And I went
to the stage door to drop off a name to
the stage door man. A Cameron McIntosh, the producer you
know besides or Sci was standing there and I said, Cameron,
I can't do this in New York. I was the
(33:25):
only American in the company. He said, I know, the
parts too small. I said, no, that's not it. I said,
this is my company. I realized when I came off
the stage that I was in the perfect theatrical environment,
in the perfect play, with the perfect cast, and I
didn't want anything to touch that memory and I made it.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
It would be different in New York totally.
Speaker 4 (33:46):
It would be a reproduction of this production. And I
didn't think that I would see And you know, I've
never known whether I made the right decision or not.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
But what did you do after that?
Speaker 4 (33:58):
LBJ? I came back to do LBJ and.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
We didn't talk about film in your life now because
in and around all of your historic career in the theater,
what is going on for you?
Speaker 4 (34:11):
Film one nothing? I wish it did nothing, I mean
but minor. But I don't know why I don't get
cast or I don't know why that you know, And
now it's probably too light because I'm one of those
women that are too old for Hollywood, or maybe maybe
I'm coming into my film career now. I don't know
why it didn't happen, but it didn't. I did driving
Miss Daisy, and Alfred Duri was responsible for my casting
in that I did. And that's the best experience you
(34:34):
had making a film, all of them, working, especially working
with the Australian directors Bris Beresford and Peter Weirer.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
What did you do with them?
Speaker 4 (34:42):
We did Witness with Peter Weheir and I did Driving Daisy.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
With Do you ever worked with Lamette?
Speaker 4 (34:48):
Very little? I had a tiny, tiny, little part in something.
I can't remember what it was, but I thought, oh
my god, I would love to have worked with him.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Who were the stars.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
I don't remember the whole experience. I was literally I
had one tiny and I can't remember if it was
a movie or I can't remember television series. Could have
been a television series, but I can't remember what about.
Life goes on for four years and then you know,
guest spots here and there. But it was It's odd
that that that I haven't had that opportunity.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
I probably did have that opportunity, but you passed on it. Correct. No,
I don't think I in the chance to do a
television series come your way.
Speaker 5 (35:24):
No.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
I it's interesting. I'm a hard sell, Alec. I've been
cut at the studio level on auditions in California because
I didn't believe I was I could do this or that,
And you know, it's like it's I'm a hard sell
in California. I'm a hard sell in movies. I'm a
(35:45):
heart sell in TV. You know, I'm always a hard cell.
I could tell you a story, right, now, but I can't.
I've been asked to audition for a musical, and it's
twenty five years since I've auditioned for a musical. When
does it stop coming up?
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Patty Lapone talks about the most painful loss of her career,
her subsequent illness, and how she recovered from both.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
But the time is come.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
Not with the voice as soft as thunder, as they tear.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Your whole, Bob, as they turn your dream to share,
(36:46):
he can make your sound heard.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
Say with one law your known.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
This is It's Alec Baldwin and you were listening to
here's the thing. Patty Lapone originated the role of Norma
Desmond in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard in London. She
was set to move with the show to Broadway until
she found out she was being replaced by Glenn Close.
To say she was devastated is an understatement.
Speaker 4 (37:20):
You know, there's always going to be some kind of
stuff going on in a musical. That's just the nature
of a musical. But it was a great company, we
had a great time. That was the exterior information that
was coming to me that was very painful. I mean, clearly,
when I didn't get the reviews Andrew wanted me to get.
I was on the chopping block, but I didn't find
that out until after Glenn Close opened in New York
(37:42):
and Vincent Canby gave her this review against my bad review. Meantime,
I'm getting standing ovations in London and there's nothing about
me in the press in London because I show up
every night. I'm turning in my it's working, yeah, but
Andrew wanted something else. And the way they got me
out was the way they were going to get me
out was to have me quit because of the the
(38:02):
barrage of negative publicity and my agents and the lawyer
said stay on stage. And I don't know if it
was worth it, because it was really painful integration. Months
before I closed, I got a telephone call from my agent.
I'm in the dressing room getting ready for the show.
I called my agent call. He said here, you're sitting down.
I said yeah. He said, you've been fired. Glenn Close
was replacing you in New York and he went and
(38:24):
I got up and had batting practice in my dressing
room with a you know, a floor lamp, and left.
They could hear me crying and screaming, and the company
came up and company manager. I said, I've been fired.
I said, I'm leaving. I'm going bye. I can't take
this anymore. And if people say, what would you do
if you saw Andrew again, I said, it's not what
I would do, It's what my husband would do. Because
whatever I had to absorb I then took out on
(38:47):
my husband when I came home, and that was like
I went into therapy. I was on prozac. It was
like it was like a long healing process because I
had to absorb it and I couldn't. There was no
place I could release it because I had to perform
every night and that. But that company was extraordinary and
we had a great time. We had a great time.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
So after that, you do Sweeney.
Speaker 4 (39:04):
Then the next musical I do is Sweeney with John Doe.
Oh well, that is two thousand. This is interesting. I
come home beat up emotionally and also physically. I find
out through a routine eye examination that I am in
the middle of detached retinas in both eyes. There's like
(39:24):
four hundred shots of laser in one eye, two hundred
and fifty in the other eye. Kevin Anderson gets into
a life threatening motorcycle accident, and bob Aby and the
choreographer comes down with a really really severe case of
I don't know, shingles or something. So three of us
are manifesting illness at the end of this experience, which
was so bad. So I take time to heal and
(39:46):
I do a movie. I do bits and pieces. But
the next big thing that comes comes on the heels
of breast cancer. They say, do you want to play
Nellie love It in Sweeney Todd with the New York
philm brintervill playing I went first thing, I said to
Steve now, because I've never been cast an Assantai musical.
They said, yes, it gives the proval. I said, of
course I do. But this is a year earlier. Within
(40:08):
that year, I find out that I have breast cancer.
And what happens is I deal with it. There's nothing
else I can do but deal with it and go
through radiation. On my last day of radiation, start rehearsal
for Sweeney Todd or the New.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
York Fill And it's that one for the Fill.
Speaker 4 (40:22):
Yes, the quintessential New York moment. The New York Philharmonic
on a New York stage in a New Yorker's production,
and that was an unbelievable experience.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Here are hot from the oven. What is that it's priest,
have a little priest? Is it really good? That it's
too good? At least?
Speaker 4 (40:49):
Then again they don't comment since all the flesh, so
that what's pretty fresh.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
Now let's talk about Mammo's last place. So here you're
last venture in New York? Is you with your old buddy?
So he calls you. He's got the play and he
called you.
Speaker 4 (41:07):
I called him. I saw November, and I saw after
the play. I saw his wife, Rebecca Pigeon. I said, Rebecca,
I'm hitting David up for a play. It's too long.
It's too long that we've worked together. And I wrote
him a letter and I said, I don't want a
relationship to end with the old neighborhood. I said, let's
do something. And then he called me and he said,
do you know who Kathy Boudin is? And I did,
(41:27):
but I didn't. And then he started to tell me
about he was right. He was thinking about writing a
play about the weatherman or the or an anarchist. And
I went, oh cool. And then then I found out
this was last year. And then I found out that
the play was being done in London, and I went, no, no, no, man,
I said, I have to play this part. And I
wrote to him and I said, is this the part
we were talking about? I said, they don't want me
in London because they don't want me in London, But
(41:49):
can I do it in New York? And he called me.
I said, scure, London, Let's do it now. So that's
how that happened. I knew it was a risk, but
that you know, I always take a risk with David
and I.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
You've been directed by David before a lot more often
than you're comfortable with him in both very aspects. And
we talked about because I came and saw you that
last performance, and we talked about how the financing and
the financiers themselves have changed a lot, which is, if
they don't get those results very very quickly, they jump,
(42:21):
they put the parachute.
Speaker 4 (42:22):
This is a risky play. And you know what Broadway
should be, what Broadway is supposed to be, which is
a vehicle for every idea. And I also am frustrated
with the producers that have made gobs of money. They
should have a levy tax, a tax levied against them.
(42:44):
They should open a black box theater. They should support
all the new playwrights and composers. There should be a
great deal of support. Art is the soul of a nation,
and our art is not being supported before they developed. Yes,
and it's very, very very depressing. It's very depressing. If
I go back on the stage in New York, I'm
going to find out who the producers are and who
their partners are, and I'm going to sit down and
(43:06):
talk to them, and I want to find out what
their marketing campaign is.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
What their marketing You know, I need some answers going in.
Speaker 4 (43:11):
Yes, you definitely, And I want to pay and play,
which you don't have pair play on Broadway. You don't
have that. But you know they don't think we take
the risk with them. We most certainly do.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
Actually, well, we book out the payer play concepts and films.
Is important because we book out and sometimes you got
to take a deeper I think, go, maybe I shouldn't
care so much.
Speaker 4 (43:28):
I don't know whether that's true, Alec, you would it
would reflect in your performance, do you know what I mean?
I think that you can see when people care and
when you an audience. This can see when they don't.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
Care, because you see, because you seem like someone in
the years I've bumped into you, run into you, known you,
known you better, you seem to care the exact same
amount as you used to.
Speaker 4 (43:50):
I love what I do, and I love the audience,
and I love the fact that I get to do it,
and I love I love our craft very very much,
and it's it's a noble craft. We have a responsibility
to it and to the audience, and to the playwright
and to the message. I won't ever care less if
the scar.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
Should fall into the scene and the storm, it all.
Speaker 5 (44:18):
To me.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
That we have lonely, I will say.
Speaker 4 (44:32):
To Lone.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
Next month, Patty Lapone will go on a national tour
with her concert entitled Faraway Places This is Him to
Love from the CD of the same name. Her book,
Patty Lapone, a Memoir, is now available both in hardcover
and as an ebook. So the last thing I want
to say to you is a comment and a question
(44:56):
embedded in a comment. And that is, and I want
to say this as carefully as I can, is that
I want to get myself in trouble here on public
radio watching you perform, Patty sometimes it's like having sex
with you, and it's a good section.
Speaker 4 (45:07):
It's like sex.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
When you do what you do, it's like and when
you're done, I almost get this feeling like you're looking
at me personally, look at me, going, you really enjoyed
that day? That was good for you, wasn't it. Do
you realize My question is do you realize the effect
you have on people?
Speaker 5 (45:22):
Do you know?
Speaker 4 (45:24):
Well, when you come out there, can you feel how
much they're digging what you do?
Speaker 1 (45:28):
You must be able to feel it.
Speaker 4 (45:29):
Well, I don't know. If I don't go out there
going they're going to dig me. I go out there,
and I do know that the people that have come
to see me know that I have them in mind
and that they I already have them on my side.
They know that I'm doing it for them. They it
just it could be a persona could be a body
(45:51):
language thing, but they know that I know they're there.
And the differences when actors don't acknowledge the audience, the
audience can't come. When an actor acknowledges the audience, then
you can have a moment of ecstasy
Host
Alec Baldwin
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