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