Elaine Stritch

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Elaine Stritch, (born on February 2, 1925 in Detroit, Michigan) is an Irish-American actress and singer with a brassy, rough voice known for her brash, vocal characters.

Stritch was born to a wealthy, devoutly Roman Catholic family, and is the niece of the late Samuel Cardinal Stritch, Archbishop of Chicago. She trained at the Dramatic Workshop of the New School for Social Research in New York City under Erwin Piscator; other students at the Dramatic Workshop included Marlon Brando and Bea Arthur. Her Broadway debut came in the revue Angel in the Wings. Stritch was standby to Ethel Merman for the Irving Berlin musical Call Me Madam while simultaneously singing the song "Zip" in the 1952 revival of Pal Joey. Stritch later starred in the national tour of Call Me Madam.

She has been successful in Broadway musicals, such as Sail Away by Sir Noel Coward, Company by Stephen Sondheim, and the most recent musical revival of Show Boat, which also starred Lonette McKee and John McMartin.

Once a very heavy drinker, she became a teetotaler after being diagnosed with diabetes.

She played the first Trixie Norton, the burlesque dancing wife of Art Carney's Ed Norton, on Jackie Gleason's first Honeymooners sketch on television, but was replaced by the less glamorous-looking, but more wholesome Joyce Randolph the following week.

She is best known for her stage work, having been nominated for the Tony Award four times:

Best Featured Actress in a Play for Bus Stop, 1956
Best Actress in a Musical for Sail Away, 1962
Best Actress in a Musical for Company, 1971
Best Actress in a Play for A Delicate Balance, 1996

In 1972, she moved to London, England, where she lived in considerable luxury in a suite at the Savoy. She starred in the West End production of Company. She stayed in London to work on stage and in British television, having married a younger Canadian actor named John Bay; their happy marriage ended when Bay died of brain cancer in 1982. For ITV she appeared in the London Weekend Television comedy series Two's Company opposite Sir Donald Sinden. She played Dorothy, an American living in Britain who was famous for her lurid and sensationalist thriller novels. Sinden played Robert, her butler, who disapproved of practically everything Dorothy did; this was the essence of the series, the culture clash between Robert's very British stiff-upper-lip attitude and Dorothy's devil-may-care New York view of life. Very well wrtitten and superbly performed, Two's Company was exceptionally well received in Britain, despite being buried in the 'graveyard slot' of Sunday at 10.30's. Stritch and Sinden also sang the theme tune to the programme.

She made other appearances on British television, notably in Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected (1978 - 1989). Although she appeared several times in different roles, perhaps her most memorable appearance was in the story William and Mary, in which she played the wife of a man who has cheated death by having his brain preserved. As Dahl said in his introduction to the episode, humour should always be used in horror stories, in order to provide light to the shade, and that was why Stritch had been cast - "...an actress who knows a lot about humour."

She became a darling of the British chat show circuit, appearing with Michael Parkinson and Terry Wogan many times, usually ending the appearance with a song. She also appeared on BBC One's iconic children's series, Jackanory, reading, amongst other stories, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

After her husband's death, Stritch returned to the US.

In 2002, her one woman show Elaine Stritch at Liberty won the Tony for Best Special Theatrical Event. The show itself, in addition to the rehearsal process and Stritch's backstage struggles with, among other things, alcoholism and diabetes, are documented in the D.A. Pennebaker film of the same name.

The film went on to win several Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Variety or Music Program for Stritch, who famously quipped, "I know that most of you who just won an award are thinking 'Hah! I'm glad I won and you didn't!'".

She has made many cameo appearances in films, such as Woody Allen's Small Time Crooks. She was reportedly also considered to play Bea Arthur's role of Dorothy on The Golden Girls, but, by her own admission, offended the producers by improvising profanity into the script. She is good friends with gossip columnist Liz Smith (journalist), and they share the same day of birth February 2, albeit 2 years apart.

She is spoofed in the Forbidden Broadway songs "The Ladies Who Screech" and "Stritch", parodies of "The Ladies Who Lunch" and "Zip", songs she performed in the musicals Company and Pal Joey, respectively.

External links

[elainestritch.com]

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