Elaine Stritch

Very very difficult. I worked with her when I was a college intern. I used to arrange her cars into the city. A real piece of work.

She was...unique. That can count for a lot.

She was a miserable old cunt but she could be funny.

She was very difficult- and very very talented.

She was so bitchy to Michael Musto. I wish the full interview was online.

She was a cunt to everybody.

A cuntier cunt has never cunted.

Elaine was impossible.

It was if she purposely did everything in her power to slow down whatever you were working on or hoping to achieve around her. She was a masterclass in "major pain in the ass" and once she went back to drinking like a fish, she was insane. She pretended to be sober but had been drinking again for years. It was ok for Elaine to have ONE scotch, because she had a fear of flying! She was a total mess and highly unpleasant.

R8 made me laugh out loud so hard I spit out my wine.

I remember her room at the Carlyle was pretty sad, with a hot plate on top of an apartment sized refrigerator.

She totally had the personality of an alcoholic.

All of them, R11.

A great Elaine story from YouTube...

[italic]She came into a tiny coffee shop that I worked in on 45th street between shows of "A Delicate Balance" one of the rooms had a bathroom and the door was always broken.... She had given her order and gone into the bathroom and I thought "That lock better work. It's freaking ELAINE STRITCH!" Mind you NO ONE who worked with me knew who she was. I was getting her order together, when all of the sudden I hear this blood curdling shriek: "WHAT THE F?!! I'M TAKING A DUMP IN HERE!!"[/italic]

You can see the desperation on her face.

I honestly think Elaine was likely a lesbian and died a virgin.

You can tell just from her one-woman show that she must have been exhausting to be around.

She was originally cast as Ursula in The Little Mermaid. She was let go because she wasn't following instructions on how to sing "Poor Unfortunate Souls".

[quote] I honestly think Elaine was likely a lesbian and died a virgin.

R15 I didn’t realize you could rise to the level of Elaine’s fame in the entertainment business and still be a virgin.

She fucked around, and found out. She made fun of her Catholic school girl history.

My first memory of her is as Rudy's teacher on The Cosby Show.

She paid people with English muffins.

She looked like a real broad, loud and abrasive. You wonder about the quality of her life in her last decades.

I saw her in Company, A Delicate Balance, and her one woman show twice. On stage she was always the professional. That Company doc is great. She just doesn't get it. Then comes a couple of day later and nails it. The PBS rendition is also great. A youtube go to.

Slightly off topic. I, too, saw That production of A Delicate Balance. One of the highlights of a long theater-going life. Terrific cast in a terrific production

OP = David Ehrenstein risen from the dead

[quote]r22 = On stage she was always the professional

Bullshit.

Her “Broadway Baby” in the 1985 Follies Lincoln Center concert is completely wrong headed. But they let her get away with it as she’s Elaine Stritch.

Here is Barbara Cook singing "In Buddy's Eyes" to a rapt rehearsal room, save for Elaine who is busy pulling focus by fussing with her bag and her shoes and her what-have-yous.

That Follies concert was good. Carol Burnett gave the definitive version of I’m Still Here in it.

YMMV!

Wha?

I disagree entirely, r28. I think Burnett is awful and way off the mark in that number.

Elaine was briefly engaged to Ben Gazzara and used her pull to get him cast as her leading man in "Goldilocks." But once they broke up, he was replaced with Barry Sullivan (who was replaced with Don Ameche).

She fucked them all, but she wouldn’t put out for Brando—she was still naïve at that point

Burnett was able to nail the monologue intro as only she can but once the song starts she froze up at the thought of doing a Sondheim song and lost all of her individuality.

But at least she remembered all of the lyrics. Here's Elaine fucking up I'm Still Here in front of Obama.

Was she too full of herself to use a teleprompter or was her vision so bad it wouldn't have helped anyway?

Oh, r32, I wouldn't take Elaine's word for any of that, mainly Elaine's words as scripted for her by John Lahr and George C Wolfe!

bump

Maybe it's because I saw them live and it was the first time I heard the songs but

Broadway Baby will always belong to Shutta(wonderful in the Busby Berkeley Whoopie segment on youtube. I had no idea she had once been young.)

I'm Still Here will always belong to De Carlo

And Send in the Clowns will always belong to Johns.

And of course LWL will always belong to Strichie.

Sorry left out the T in Stritchie. Noel and Elaine will never forgive me.

What exactly is the Stritch/Champion story?

[quote]It was if she purposely did everything in her power to slow down whatever you were working on or hoping to achieve around her

One does get a sense of that when she´s torturing her poor PA who´s trying to get the flower cads in order. 14:00

PA: These are the cards i gave you before. Kristin Chenoweth...

Elaine: Who´s that?

One of my biggest regrets is never seeing her live. I’m sure she was a nightmare to know or work with, but as just an audience member, she was someone I would have loved to have seen in something,

That was a hoot, R27. She's like the old crazy women you used to see on the subway constantly fussing with their voluminous stuff.

A friend sat next to her on a flight once. She crabbed the whole time in her gravelly voice, but then at the end give him her fabulous Chanel glasses

I've always found her fascinating but incredibly repulsive and scary. Definite lesbian vibes. I can't imagine any man wanting to fuck that. She's seems so asexual, unattractive and high maintenance.

R31, it was a platonic engagement. He may not even have known he was “engaged” to her. Source: HIM

Well she was a very good friend of Liz Smith so there's that. Like Liz, Merv Griffin and Roddy McDowall the stories that must have gone to the grave with these people.

Was her British sitcom”Two’s Company” inspired by “Maude” or did I hear that wrong?

She was one of my top 5 OG Law & Order defense attorneys.

Elaine Stritch- Lanie Stieglitz

Tovah Feldshuh- Danielle Melnick

Peter Jacobson- Randy Dworkin

Patti Lupone- Ruth Miller

George Grizzard- Arthur Gold

She was a nighmare to work with on The Edge of Night.

R48 Tell us more Sharon

Elaine was a drunk. A big one.

She resumed drinking years before she finally admitted she had.

Didn't she regret moving back to Michigan to her family? But she couldn't stay at the Carlyle any longer. They were losing too much money to just have her name there. She should have bought a place years ago when she could afford it. Bacall claimed that buying her place in the Dakota was the only financial investment that worked out for her.

My mother and I were having coffee (her) and ice cream (me) after a visit to the Met Museum, at a coffee shop nearby. Elaine came in and sat next to me as we were finishing. I said "Hi! You're Joanne! I liked your song!" She stared at me like I was shit on her shoe. My mom apologized and told her that I confused her character with her. She asked my mom if I was a little young for the show. (I was 13.) SHe gave me a wink when she left. I think she could tell I was a fag-ling.

I saw her “live” in “A Little Night Music”. Bernadette Peters was Desiree, replacing CZJ. Elaine was Madame Armfeldt, replacing Lansbury.

Unfortunately, Elaine was under the impression she was playing Miss Hannigan. The mugging — in A Little Night Music, yet! — was …of clinical note (as my therapist would say). Diagnostic levels of narcissism and scene-stealing. Ham like you’ve never seen.

Which was one thing.

But, during her one and only song, “Liaisons”, from my mid-orchestra seat, I could easily hear the music director yelling the lines to her. It was the most unprofessional mess I’d seen not involving a Lupone.

Elaine was a disastrous, deeply twisted fuck of a person.

R54 here. Peters, by the way, was sensational. I’ve had the fortune to see her on stage a few times. She was unforgettable.

Did she have any real friends? I couldn’t imagine being able to put up with her for more than ten minutes.

I loved her in 30 Rock opposite Alec Baldwin. They had excellent chemistry.

I saw her 1-woman show live 3 times and it was fantastic each time. And, each time, I walked away thinking what a fucking nightmare she must be to have any type of relationship with.

Love your idols from afar! Many are total assholes up close.

[quote]Did she have any real friends? I couldn’t imagine being able to put up with her for more than ten minutes.

Elaine, I never thought I'd say this, but 𝗴𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗻𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁.

Elaine's besties were Liz Smith, Bernadette Peters, and Betty Buckley. Whether they were "real friends" I don't know.

I doubt Elaine had even one real friend. She was, like most of us to a degree, a bit of a star fucker, so yes she had some famous "friends", or at least people she enjoyed calling her friends.

Elaine owned and sold her house in Watermill (?), or somewhere in the Hamptons some years before she died. She got a couple million as I recall. I imagine she purchased it for very little decades earlier and made a big profit. I don't think she was broke, or ever lived lavishly or was hurting for cash. Her Carlyle room was not even a suite, it was a very basic hotel room. I'm not sure what she paid to live there, but I doubt it was free, and she certainly wasn't carrying big real estate tax payments or a mortgage ever. I think she moved because she needed help with daily living details and probably made financial arrangements with her nieces and nephews, or other family members to assist her and just let her drink.

I worked as crew on Law & Order. I will always be traumatized by seeing her throw her leg up on the courtroom set’s defence desk to administer a shot of insulin. And all she wore for rehearsals was a long man’s button down shirt and panty hose. Nothing else. At one point she had sprained an ankle so she was in a wheelchair. She was such a nightmare to the PAs and HMU she was referred to as “that bitch on wheels.”

She died in Birmingham, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit (her hometown)

A well-off town. Westchester County-like.

Looks like the live action Lilo and Stritch is a hit!

Dixie Carter was a friend of Elaine's. Elaine appeared on Dixie's Intimate Portrait and talked about how she loved to lunch with Dixie when they were both in New York.

I saw Stritch live twice, both times in “Company,” first the Boston tryout, then later in New York (and both times with Dean Jones). In Boston, the second act of “Company“ was a mess, but Stritch was no help. She seemed drunk, slurring her words, and the conductor was audibly cueing her lyrics. Sloppy work.

About two weeks later, I saw the show again in New York. It was brilliant, everything fit and sleek, and Stritch nailed LWL. (It was also a matinee, attended, no doubt, by many of the subjects of that song!)

An AA friend used to go to meetings she also attended. He said she demanded three chairs together, just to spread out her stuff! Showy prima donna. She may actually have been sober at one point, but her ongoing selfish behavior belied it.

The show I’d have loved to see was “Goldilocks,” which has never been revived. Beautiful score. Funny script. But derailed by a Stritch who just wasn’t endearing. After it was over, Jean Kerr wrote, “If you’re going to put on a musical, never hire a star who drinks.”

My friend Julie was really close with her. Said Stritch taught her everything she knows.

R54 you didn't see Mostel in Fiddler. Talk about a fucked up mess. There's a reason Prince did not renew his contract when his first contract ran out. I can't begin to imagine what he was like to work with. What a horror show to watch. For some reason it is one of the best obcs ever. He wasn't going to fuck that up.

Could u imagine a production starring Elaine Stritch and Betty Buckley? Is there enough Xanax in the United States?

"I dig soft things.... don't you?"

R57 On the 30 Rock outtakes from the show with all the moms, Stritch bitches at Patti LuPone for not knowing the lyrics to the song they sing.

She could be funny from a distance. She was a mean drunk.

R72 how do u view that? Is it somewhere or do u have to buy a dvd?

[quote] She was, like most of us to a degree, a bit of a star fucker

Excuse me?

She reminded me of a mean version of Sylvia Miles. Old, sort of omnipresent, but rough and course. I remember a few times being invited to events and hearing that she may be there. I stayed away.

If she was so legendarily difficult, why did people keep hiring her?

[quote]Her Carlyle room was not even a suite, it was a very basic hotel room.

Was it just her cat, a bed and a chair?

R54 I really got the sense that Sondheim merely tolerated her, and possibly hated her. What she did with Broadway Baby was not his conception of that song. And I remember in that Follies at Lincoln Center documentary, the director/sound people got really annoyed with her.

I wonder what Sondheim actually thought of her I'm Still Here, which she turned into her personal anthem.

To me the miserable old cunt comments here seem to come from reading columns and going along with 'em, no one here really knowing her. She was a tolerable talent, even Major and she could always deliver. She didn't suffer fools gladly and I think she made it her thing. She was aware of her talent. Still, off a stage, as at dinner with her when she had a house in Sag Harbor, she could be exhausting. Demanding. She really was a creature able to just bunk in to a hotel room and make it her home. Let '60s, yeah he had a bit of time out of the public eye; all here must know the Times story she gave, aging actress in NY finds work hard to find, besides, no one in theatre knows as much as she did, and if anyone out there knows more than she, do call. Short days later the phone rang, "Elaine, this is Hal Prince and I know more than you do." And in. time came COMPANY. But through it all, always a little unsure of herself, she came through. All accolades well deserved.

R80 I ADORE the woman. Here she is on Theater Talk. And seriously if you havent seen this, as a patron of DL, you must. Here she is, about a year before her death. As funny, engaging, and simply fabulous as ever. A world class raconteur who learned at the feet of Noel Coward.

A pain in the ass? I have no doubt. But a singular talent who's like we shall not see again.

She reminds me of Elizabeth Ashley in some regards. The theater was such a home to these eccentric women and they may have been kooky, but were always fabulously entertaining to watch. Geraldine Page, Sandy Dennis, Maureen Stapleton were others. Put them on the stage in even the most mundane shit, and just watch them go. You couldn't take your eyes off of them.

Lupone is the last of a dying breed.

She’s nothing at all like those others. 😵‍💫

Elaine with Ellen

Elaine behaved in person like people behave now online.

R74 I think that content is available on the Criterion Film application.

When she died Tina Fey said something along of the lines of "she was funny but a lot, like a lot a lot".

[quote]r54 The mugging — in A Little Night Music, yet! — diagnostic levels of narcissism and scene-stealing. Ham like you’ve never seen. Which was one thing. But, during her one and only song, “Liaisons”, from my mid-orchestra seat, I could easily hear the music director yelling the lines to her. It was the most unprofessional mess I’d seen not involving a Lupone. Elaine was a disastrous, deeply twisted fuck of a person.

Yet she touted herself as one of the premiere interpreters of Sondheim.

[italic]LINE!

[quote]r54 during her one and only song, “Liaisons," I could easily hear the music director yelling the lines to her. It was the most unprofessional mess I’d seen not involving a Lupone.

! ! !

WHAT excuse is there for a seasoned professional being so unprepared?? Was she drunk during the whole rehearsal process and nothing stuck? Was her memory really going completely? Or (scary thought) was she honestly fine, yet bizarrely acting out, for attention?

I was 13 when I saw Company too. Didn't feel too young to have seen it. Took the bus into the city from Jersey. Didn't tell my parents. They would have said no. Original cast except for Jones. Admired Kert's body in his jockey shorts. Wondered if women always kept their breasts covered when they were in bed nude when they were talking to men. Went to Lenny because I thought it was a musical. It wasn't. Might have been too young for it because it was very very intense and we didn't even talk that way in the school yard. Still it remains one of the best Broadway shows I ever saw in my life. God bless you Cliff Gorman wherever you are.

I'm not religious but I wanted to give Gorman a shout out for giving one of the greatest performances I have ever seen in my now long life. Dustin Hoffman in Fosse's film might as well have been on Captain Kangaroo.

R72 It’s on the dvd but not worth buying it for.

[quote]She was a tolerable talent, even Major and she could always deliver.

Nope. Not even close.

Screaming for lines nearly every performance of Night Music - because she'd gone back to drinking, as well as a concert she did at Town Hall later on where out of thirteen songs she screwed up/forgot lyrics to TWELVE of them, and only Ladies Who Lunch she barely made it through without fucking it up.

She berated her accompanist, the blonde gay guy (Rob?), who must be a saint as if he wasn't doing enough to help her. She was nasty to him while pretending to adore him. She also tried unscripted story telling, but it was nothing like "At Liberty" which had top notch direction and writing. She ended up giving weird Stephen Sondheim hosannas as if he were dead (he was alive), almost like they'd had a romance!

Elaine was a sad mess and she did NOT "always deliver".

Write up of her farewell appearance at the Café Carlyle (2013)

[quote]...What wasn’t clear to everyone right away was that Stritch had to be in control of the room. ... She also didn’t like it when people messed with the mood she created; this happened, rather painfully, during the Sondheim section. She is, of course, famous for singing his songs, and has made them her own—“The Ladies Who Lunch,” from “Company”; “I’m Still Here,” from “Follies”—but finds them demanding, especially now. “You can’t get better than him. But let me tell you how hard he is to sing, honest to God! What’s that art school—it’s like being locked in the john at Juilliard!” She first met Sondheim, she said, at an elegant party on Park Avenue decades ago, full of rich people. “They said, ‘Elaine, sing!’ They used to ask me to sing and make ’em laugh at parties.” Sondheim was to accompany her, and asked her to sing her favorite song; she had said that it was Rodgers and Hart’s “He Was Too Good to Me.”

[quote]“And Sondheim said, ‘Holy Toledo, Elaine, that’s my favorite too.’ And I sat down next to Steve Sondheim, and I dedicated it to him, as I do tonight, with all my heart,” Stritch said. She sat down on the stool. The room was quiet—focussed and grateful. “Guess who made my stay in New York twice as joyful? Stephen Sondheim.” Bowman played the piano, and she sang. “He was too good to me.” It was beautiful, tender, sad. But a few lines later, by accident, instead of “I was his queen to him,” she sang, “He was a queen—I was a queen too,” and got laughs. The laughter felt generous enough—the familiar camp laugh of the musical-theatre crowd, a crowd made comfortable by the intimacy of the café and the love in the room—but she hadn’t meant the joke, and the laugh upset her. “That was [italic]unintentional!” [/italic]she said. People kept laughing, thinking that she was having fun, but she wasn’t. “I don’t play dirty, and that’s not very nice. Get it out of your lives, it’s not going to do you any good.” She sang again. But the next line was “I was gay now.” A man seated to the side of the piano—Riedel—laughed. She turned toward him. “Are you having fun?” she said acidly. “That’s another one you picked up.” She sang more lines, back on track, and that was nice too. “I’m so sorry that that happened,” she said to the room, as Bowman played more notes on the piano. “But let it happen with love and respect, and not bullshit like that.” The crowd was startled—weren’t we all having a good time?—and sorry. People clapped to show their support. When Stritch sang again, the mood was good.

Yikes! R94 and Michael Reidel was a friend too.

I’m still not sure what Elaine Stritch’s talent was

She was best dealt with no closer that Row E.

[quote]She reminded me of a mean version of Sylvia Miles.

Yeah, but Elaine didn't show up to catered events with a plastic bag in her purse for "leftovers".

I saw a film in 1977, The Sentinal. Sylvia Miles had a role as a neighbor to Christian Raines. Sylvia had a "roommate" played by Beverly D'Angelo. In one scene, Christina's character is in their apartment and Beveryly starts graphically masturbating in front of her. Someone in the theatre loudly said 'DISGUSTING!" Someone else sai "You'd prefer it was Sylvia?" Broke the mood of the film.

I detested Stritch in A Delicate Balance (I was sick of the typical Albee “let’s get drunk and reveal everything” schtick) but her one woman show was magical.

I was near the last row of the theatre but she was able to focus the audience completely. Amazing theatre. Sadly the commercially released video doesn’t do it justice.

She was great in that, as a counterpoint to Rosemary Harris.

Supposedly she's the basis for Jimmy Kirkwood's girlfriend in "P.S. Your Cat is Dead' (I forget the characters names, it's been a long time since I read that book)

R101 But Rosemary Harris is kind, elegant, sophisticated, and classy.

Elaine was a mean old drunk who preferred scotch to people.

One trick pony - screechy angry old lady, rinse, repeat

I saw her show at The Carlyle—maybe 2006? It was a blast. When she was being escorted from the stage through the crowd, she stopped in front of me, took my face in both her hands, and kissed me on the forehead. All my friends were stunned, as was I. Everyone around us was asking who I was and if I knew Elaine. I have *no* idea why she did that to me and no one else. I’m a nobody. I was cute, though. Maybe she thought I was someone she knew…who knows?

Anyone who put Barbara Cook into her place is capable of the right kind of cuntery when needed, no matter how awful she was.

She was no Vivienne Segal.

She was certainly a phenomenon--I've rarely known of anyone who was more insanely determined to steal the show and suck up all the oxygen every time she appeared in anything, which is why it became hard for her to appear in anything other than one-woman shows or interviews. She had great comic timing (which was her greatest gift), but she was pretty overwhelming. In comparison, other dedicated stage scene-stealers like Zero Mostel and Dorothy Loudon practically look like shrinking violets.

[quote]She was certainly a phenomenon That is my cue to leave this thread.

Elaine Stritch was a guest at a holiday party thrown by DL Legend, Miss Arlene Francis.

If you ever go to the Williamstown Theater Festival (in Williamstown MA) you know they have a place in another part of town where the cast of the current show will perform songs and sit with the audience, post-show. They also have (or had, when I used to go) guest performers. Very casual. One time Elaine Stritch showed up. No announcement or sign, or anything. I was outside at the time and saw her come in--two guys had to assist her up the stairs. She then sat at a baby grand piano with a pianist and he played and she sang and told funny stories. She was great. Extremely entertaining. That's the only time I saw her perform. She had a lot of presence and held the complete attention of the room.

I think it’s crazy that she started drinking again, after quitting provided the climax for her hit show.

I mean, had she NO SHAME??

lull

R120 she had to be paid to attend. ;)

R110^

[quote] That is my cue to leave this thread.

Oh good: then my post worked.

Tell us the Barbara Cook story, r106.

Barbara Cook always seemed good natured. She had problems of her own with alcohol - I imagine the two did a fair amount of drinking together before Cook got sober in the 1970s.

She mentions Stritch in this interview:

[quote]Q: You had a somewhat contentious working relationship with the late Elaine Stritch.

[quote]A: I wouldn't say contentious, because we never really worked together aside from one benefit at Lincoln Center. She could be difficult, but my God, she was so talented. I always thought that she and I would be good together in concert. We never did do it, but it's just as well: I think it would have driven me crazy.

[quote]Q: Is it true that she gave herself an insulin injection right in the middle of a quiet ballad at one of your shows at Feinstein's at Loews Regency?

[quote]A: (laughs) Yes. She was what I would call a professional diabetic. She would constantly take shots with other people around. She was unusual that way. Most people would look for a private place, but not Elaine.

I have an aunt who administers her own diabetes shots in public, like at a restaurant. I never understood why she does that, since some people get very squeamish when they witness someone having an injection

[quote]I imagine the two did a fair amount of drinking together

Why in the world would you imagine that, r118?

There's an interview out there from around 2008 where the interviewer askes her about her sobriety (the question assumed, of course, she was still sober) and she just completely avoided the topic. In retrospect it's clear she'd started up again.

That's why it's never a great idea to make big, public pronouncements when you get to be sober. It's tough to maintain.

Poor dear Stritche.

Elaine Stritch was what my grandmother would've called "a real handful."

Elaine with Rosie O'Lesbo

She and Bud had good chemistry on “The Cosby Show”.

Go to 6:07...

R125 OK, now I understand why she was an alcoholic.

The reason she drank, r126 was NYC New Haven NYC New Haven NYC New Haven and a snowstorm and shoes that were too big.

[quote]r16 She was originally cast as Ursula in The Little Mermaid. She was let go because she wasn't following instructions on how to sing "Poor Unfortunate Souls".

From notstarring . com

[italic]"Howard Ashman, the Disney animated film's lyricist, clashed with the great Broadway star Stritch. The actress was let go from voicing the role of Ursula, even though the production design team had begun creating character designs with Stitch in mind."[/italic]

Wow, think of the residuals she could have made off that.

What a stupid cunt.

Just take it from me, she’s was extremely high maintenance.

She could obviously be self-sabotaging, r128.

Children would rather be praised than punished, but they'd rather be punished than ignored.

R127 Wow, all that rushing around and for what? Zip.