In 2013, Alec sat down with the late stage and screen veteran who, among many famous roles, played his mother Colleen Donaghy on 30 Rock. Stritch spoke to Alec about her transition from the Sacred Heart Convent and finishing school to finding herself in the New York theater classes sitting between Walter Matthau and Marlon Brando. She performed for nearly 70 years and throughout career, Stritch comments, "I was the funny kind of offbeat girl. I was never the romantic lead.”
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This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Actress Elaine Stritch has been performing for nearly seventy years. No matter the medium, she brings her characters to life with a playful ferocity that naturally leads to scene stealing performances. Despite her enviable career in film and television, Elaine Stritch is a self professed Broadway baby. A big break came in nineteen fifty when she was hired to understudy ethel Merman in Irving Berlin's musical Call Me Madam. She scared me to death. She's a tough When I got to the end of Call Me Madam, it was mine. It is not so surprising that you feel very strange. Elaine Stritch remained on stage for much of the fifties and sixties, playing such iconic roles is Martha and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf both Vera and Mame in the musical Mame and Amanda in Private Lives by Noel Coward. In venties, she originated what was arguably the role of her career, the acerbic Joanne in Stephen Sondheim's Company and Here's to the Girl who Just Watch Aren't the Best? In a TV documentary about the cast recording of that production, we meet Elaine's toughest critic, herself. Here she is listening to a take of that song she made famous, Ladies Who Lunch Rong, And of course I'm smoking a nice cigarette which helps the situation. Yeah, just to be clear, that's Elaine yelling at the sound of her own voice. That was over forty years ago. But Elaine Stritch has continued to hold herself to impossibly high standards, and she stayed busy, at least until recently. Earlier this year, she announced that she was leaving New York for her home state of Michigan. In April, at Elaine Stritch performed her last cabaret show at the Carlisle Hotel. About a month ago, I really said, I'm I want out of here. I want out of New York. I don't I shouldn't live in New York anymore. It's not for me anymore. It's too fast for me. Or no, it's not too fast. And I changed my mind about that. It's not this. It's not that it's just not for me. This is this is New York Taxi low and it's dinner and tonight and tomorrow and and I can't handle it anyway, because I'm not interested in handling. You just don't want you could do it. You just don't want to do it. Doesn't give me any satisfaction. I don't go home and say, I guess I told them so about a month ago. It had been an idea, and then a month ago you went, I'm doing it. I called up my nephew, who is a great buddy of mine in Birmingham, Michigan, and I said, I'm coming home. What do you think you're going to do there? Oh, you have no idea. I'm just saying a very active life. First of all, nothing. I'm really going to do nothing. I'm gonna wake up and go back to bed and go back to bed. That's exactly right. I want to do it. I want to sleep a lot. What's wrong with us? I would like to wake up and have my oat meal and read the paper and go right back to you, right back to be until about noon. So you're gonna go there and do nothing? And I like to go to dinner. I like to meet my nieces, my nephew's, my cousin's, my you know your relations there by way of who you're two sisters? Your two sisters I had two sisters, were three sisters. I was the baby and they kids in bedroom Detroit. You were in like what Bloomfield Hills or yeah, yeah, yeah yeah your dad. But your dad was someone not in the car business. Daddy was, well, yes he was. He was the BF good ridch rubber. He was in the time. My mother called it the g DBF good Rich Rubber. You got it. What are your two sisters? What kind of lives did they have? No show business? Very very chic, very normal. Normal. Georgine had four kids and Sally had three seven seven guys running around and they're all crazy about me. Why shouldn't I go home? There's nothing to tie me here. It's not the same My career tied me here. I talk career, I talk I part and play and plan and plan and make plan. What am I doing next? What am I going next? And when you get off that merry ground, it gets you get a different stop. What to stop? It is the merry go around broke down? Why do you say that you could keep working but you don't want to? No, I don't want to find parts and look for him, and and and I said the other night, when is pretend going to end? Right? Slowly but surely, alex Is I'm starting to say I don't want to pretend anymore. I want to get up in the morning and I want it to be real. I don't want to I can't believe you're saying this, because it's so I am. It's so much. Maybe as a result of my getting older. I turned fifty a couple of weeks ago, and my wife I got married again, and my wife we're having a baby. And because of all this stuff, I realized I want to be me for change. I want to wake up and I want to say my words and have my thought or not say anything. It's such a self involvement. This, it is. It is. Why do you think you've lasted this long? You know what talent is? Why have you lasted all this time because you're talented? Certainly isn't because people think you're an easy time of it? Because I have to accomplish something in that department almost every day of my life. I have to You've never stopped trying to prove yourself. That's the key, isn't it. No, I got to go and do that part in that soap, in that smoke, I don't care what it is. Or I'm with an old coward on the West End, or I'm with how Prince on Broadway. I'm with all the big, big, big, big shots, and they're directing me well and guiding me well. And I'm I'm. You would approve you belong there with them, yes, And I'm being directed in the way of the big shots, and I'm doing fine. I'm doing fine. I'm I'm, I'm doing fine. But you but there's a point, I'm assuming when did you feel that you're in the room and all of a sudden it's like, I don't need anybody's advice. I know what I want to do. Here's what I do. Was there a time you remember in your life when that changed? I got self satisfied about the parts that I played. For example, well, like I was the I was the funny, kind of offbeat girl. I wasn't. I was never the romantic lead. I wasn't good that kind of looking girl in the movies. I couldn't be that kind of looking girl I was. Well, you could, you could have been look spised, but you just don't want to play it becauseose we're dull parts. Well, yeah, they weren't as good at parts, But I you're a sassier woman, and you played those parts. But I didn't want to be eve Arden. I really didn't. Okay, Okay, that's a good point. Why. Well, because I don't want to be a funny girl that's just cracking wise cracks, or staying up with the you know, with the rollers in her hair, or driving the car while the two leaves make out in the back of the car. You don't want to be that. No, what did you? What did you? I don't want them to make up in the right? What did you sprinkle on top of what might have been eve Arden for you, which it very easily could have been. What did you sprinkle on top of that to make sure that it wasn't eve Arden? What do you do that Eve Arden didn't do. I get dramatic or frightened or reel about something or pain. Yeah, there's a pain. It's not in Arden's work. Something dramatic happens to me in the course of a comedy, right, I don't know. But were always that way? What was I always? What way? Complicating things with the pain of your existence? This thing you tap into. Did you do when you were very young? I think so. I think I did. Were you the complicated one? Oh? I think so. I mean there's very often I would hear around our house where is he lane? And then my mother was and they say oh, and I'd say right here. They were worried about you. Yeah, everybody was worried about me, because when I wasn't accountable, I was. I scared him and I didn't mean to. When did performing begin? For he was a were performer As a child, I was laughing. I was born laughing. And you were funny. Oh god, I was funny. I really was funny, and I made everybody laugh and I wasn't conscious of it. I want to tell you something. I'd love to tell you a line from my life to see if you get this, and I'm going to tell it to you. My mother and dad, as a present to me when I was six years old, took me to Niagara Falls, which was very close to Birmingham, Michigan. And I kept hearing about this, and I was going to wear my new pink coat and hat and I was going to Niagara Falls. And I kept hearing it, and you know Christmas morning, Christmas morning, whatever it was, and and I never said a word. I just sat in the backseat and I just waited. They pulled up Alec to the parking lot in Niagara Falls, and here we are. We're here, Landy, We're here, Come on, get out. And it was just me, Mom and dad. So the two sisters, the old your sisters, you know, the hell with them. And I got very teary eyed and pulled my mother back from the car and said, Mama, what what We're going to go see Niagara Fall? And I asked her if Niagara Falls had a baby? And to me and to my mother and my father, it was one of the most extraordinary dramatic lines of all time. All I was interested in is did this woman Niagara Falls have a baby? Because then I could play with her. And it was the I think, an absolute proof of how lonely and sad I was as a kid. I didn't know what the hell artistic was all out. I really didn't. I knew I had to express myself. I knew I had to express myself, and that's all there was to it. So when you left Michigan, when you left home, you lived at home in Michigan. Your family lived in Michigan until you left home. Did you go to college? No, I didn't go to college, which I graduated from high school where Sacred Heart Convent. You went to a convent. I went to a convent the soccerquer highly educational, big scholastic, scooby doo. You went there for what twelve years? That was your high school? When you left there? Where'd you go to Deshen Residents which was also the soccer cur but it was a residence finishing school for what it was like, um after school stuff, you know, Like I'm trying to think of one of the courses that we took, current events, isn't that? I guess how long were you there? Uh? Two years? Two years after and I went out and majored in dramatics at the new school in Greenwich Village. The finishing school was in the city when you were back in Michigan, Greenwich Village. Slim in New York and you went to finish your school in New York absolutely on ninety one and fifth Avenue. Oh my god, yeah, and I uh, I took these three courses at the school, which is fine. I had a roommate from Chicago who was majoring in journalism, and we were all very sophisticated broads. You went to New School for drama. That was your first acting exposure. What do you think about it when you first I loved it. I sat next to Marlon Brando. That was didn't hurt at all. I don't get you through class. Yeah, Walter Mattha was on the other side of me at the New School. Yeah, we had a very stellar cast. I was getting along fine and having the most fun I've ever had in my what's the first job you ever got? Well, first of all, I was at the studio theater at the New School and we had our own theater and Piscatter directed and Stella Adler directed, and we had all those Stanislavski people. We had more fun, Alex. You couldn't believe it. It was Stella like as a director, heaven she was what made her so very insight, all this kind of dramatics, you know, Laine and Malon and Wolf and you do it. She screamed her head off at us. She was crazy woman, absolutely divine. And when you left that program, what was your first job? Job? Summer stock, Westport, Connecticut, Do you remember what you did? Yeah, um, Craig's wife. I think I did. And people let me say, years ago, they go, what show did you too? And your name a show people have just never heard of. They go, Craig Craig's wife, would you play the saucy nurse? Would you play? I played the aunt, the ant that visited and told craig wife she was full of ship. You started as an aunt, and you're going to finish as an ant. That you're going Now you're an aunt. That's your next that's your that's your role. Now you're an aunt. They're not allowed to call me in because it's so boring. They call me Toddlane because my mother is French. I think they were going to call you lady stretch. I would have them call you her highness. But I just had the most wonderful time in dramatic school. And then what about your first job, Douglas? I did my first play with Kirk Douglas Craig's Um. Wait a minute, wait a minute, I'll tell you in a minute. You and Kirk Douglas, you're on a stage in New York. And also, where is my black bag? Alec Hunter? I need I need orange juice. Hunter, come in place. Can we send Hunter in here plays with the provisions. Hunter Ryan Herdlika, who accompanied Elaine to the studio, came through the door juice in hand. I need some orange juice. Beanies is kicking up, Hunter, My good man, hunters here. All's right with the world. Okay, Well, how about a glass. Yes, that's a clean water. We'll get him a clean we'll go, We'll go get a clean all right, it's all right if you just empty that glass, it's heaven. I need some orange juice. You know that I'm diabetic. Yes, of course I need. The world knows by now, the world. It's okay. You know what I cooded other day. The line of my father's it really is so naughty and just so much fun. Here's looking up your old address. Isn't it a great line? And he said it with no he used that was it. That's right? All right, I'm going to drink this being the oranges now, so we don't have some event here. That's cool, okay, alright, So now that you've had your orange juice and your brain freezes over, Kirk Douglas, what was the show? Do you remember? Now? Woman bites dog that orange juice it's a miracle. Elck, sir, I want to be a case of that orange juice. It's dog, woman bites dog. What did you play in that? If you say his girlfriend but he lived with I didn't even know what that phrase meant. You were a floozy? Well, no, I wasn't. I just but I lived with him and I wasn't married to him. I didn't know what that meant. What do you remember about Kirk Douglas. Oh my god, I loved him, Oh god, I loved him. And what an actor. And he's one of the few men who was as great an actor as he was a star. He was a great actor. He was a great actor. He was a great actor. I loved him, and he loved me. He flipped over me. I've known him for years, and he took me halfway away for the weekend, and then I discovered that I shouldn't go. He took you half way away to Palm Springs and then I said I shouldn't be going. So what did you hit like? I don't know. We were halfway to Palm Beach, Palm Springs things. So you're driving east, we were driving for the weekend, and you decide you didn't want to. Well, I said, I'm getting nervous, because what do you want me to do when we get up here? Oh, Elaine? He knew I was a virgin, so he was ing with that. So what was the first leading role you had on Broadway? Big roll? Take more orangs you so you can remember the big part, big big part I had was Angel the Wings, which was a review, hardest thing in the world to do a review, and that kind of review, like New Faces, was like Leonard Sulman's sketches, And I was the big busted you know, girl in the in the bedroom. I was the I was the piece on the side. Yeah, where are you? Isn't amazing you with this virginal You went to suck or cur and you went to finishing school, and as soon as you're out, God is just tempting you. He's taking Marlon Brando on one side of you, and Kirk Douglas is reven up the convertable to take you to Palm Springs, and you're the flu he here and the piece on the side, the bust defend the towel. But what I was really doing is learning my lines to the play or to the television or to the I was really loving acting. I loved it. I loved pretending. I just loved it. Was being somebody other than I was was my idea of a good time? Was part of that process for you? Learning from people you work with, it you admire. Did you look at other people and say, because I've had that, I mean, I'm not going to say I had it well like Merman? When you worked with Merman, did you learn from Merman? Did you did you know you didn't? I did her part right. I did her There's no question everybody loved everybody, but I know how to do that. And I was so frightened and so terrified, and I was so good in it. Did you feel that she was of that type where just Mermin as Mermaid, she goes out into stuff. She made, you know so long. She'd say goodbye to me from the wings on my opening night and then go sit in the first row. She scared me to death. When I got to the end of call Me Madam, it was mine? You felt that? Well? When do you think you became you? The moment I started to rehearse Mermaid's part, I was doing the new Mermaid, the new everything. That's when you became you. So doing the piece doing Call Me Madam is when you felt things changed for you, You felt you were You're not necessarily now everything I did, everything I did was you know. But when you do a show Elaine Stretch at Liberty, when you do a show that as a memoir of your career, oh yeah, and it is enormously successful, When did you think in your life, when did you reach a point in your life that you felt you were someone who could write a memoir about your life, that you thought it was interesting enough. When did you cross the line and say, yeah, I was convinced by this producer who said, who saw me perform at a Judy Garland special at Carnegie Hall? And what I did was tells Judy Garland stories And I told her was a tribute to Judy. She's gone by this, yeah, and oh boy, I really did know her very well. From where did you first meet her? Party? At a party someplace I don't know. And I loved her. So when I tried out one of my stories on Judy Garland, I mean she tried out one of hers, I said, Judy, I've got an idea, and I sincerely did. I said, I've got a great idea. Why don't we tour Maime, I said to Judy Ghan and she SAIDs divine. She said that sounds great. I said, but here's the good idea, Judy. When I do meme, I go to bed early, and when you do me, you go to bed early, and then the other one does vera. She wan to switch on and off. She bought that idea. She's listening now and she's saying okay, okay, okay, and she's counting up the songs, what songs she has? What you know? And after this long pause she looks at me and said, what about Matteni's And I thought it was one of the on these things I ever heard in my whole life. That Judy Garland wanted to know what about mannis? That's how she carefully. She wanted her her career planned so she could be able to get loaded when she wanted to. And you know it was her way of treating a very serious discuss. So you did a tribute thing where you told stories about her. And that's when someone pitched the idea to you of doing a memoir of your career. That's right, what vaguely said, you tell a story to an audience the like of which I have never heard. That's true. I was that the opening night at the Public, when that Liberty opened at the Public, and everyone who was had a pulse in New York. Everyone who was alive that night came to that opening at the Public. Everybody in the theater came. They went crazy, They went crazy. It's lovely, God, it's lovely. Success is lovely. It's so hard, and it's such hard work, but it's so gratifying. What's the hardest thing about it for you? What's been the hardest thing? Do you find it hard to fear? The fear of what that you won't be able to perform, the fear that I'm just going to forget and I'm gonna not not so much forget. But it's the fear. It's the fear. And that was when I was not drinking at all, and I didn't drink anything to get my talent out, but all my life I had. Have you ever done a show, I'm sure you've done countless shows. You ever done a show where you're sitting backstage thinking what am I doing here? How did I get myself into this? Or were you always engaged by what you were doing. I was always engaged always. You never took I was leading up to it or coming down, you know, I I was trying to get it behind. You never regretted doing anything? Never? No, Wow, that's incredible. No, I never never regretted doing anything on the stage. You never How was that possible? Because I just one every time I walked out there, you know, that old expression of that I own the stage. Elaine Stritch has never regretted anything she's done on stage, but there are many who regret not seeing her one woman show, Elaine Stretch at Liberty on Broadway in two thousand two. News Week called it abiding hilarious, even touching tour de force tour of Stritch's career and life. In a minute, Stretch tells me a secret and very personal moment she had on stage during the run of Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf? This is Here's the Thing by Alec Baldwin. In the past twenty years, TV and film have introduced Elaine Stretch to a new audience. She garnered Emmy's for her performances in Law and Order and in Thirty Rock, where she played Mike Charagor's mother, The Irascible Colleen donahe well, wo whoa, whoa, whoa? This must be the one. Uh Phoebe welcome? No, no, no, welcome, mother, this is not pee, this is not Phoebe. Well, why the hell not? I mean, just perfect. I ended up liking Tina Fey an awful law and very quietly all by myself. Did you enjoy doing the show? No, you didn't know why. I didn't have any fun with with comedy. I did with you for a while, but then it got a little bit too routine for me and I wasn't challenged. I didn't have a challenge with it. But I mean I was fine, but u oh, I don't know, Alexi just wasn't. Would you think TV is not your No? I think TV is fine with me. I nothing's nothing's wrong with it. I love TV, I love comedy. I loved working with you. It was almost like we need It was something that I did two weeks ago at the Carlisle when they said challenged me to do a show and just go out there and do a show for an hour and a half. And I accepted the challenge and did it. And how did it? I didn't have any rehearsal or anything how did it go? Fantastic? And Warren Baby people like Warren and and it came I adore both of them. And he said, I've got to get three cameras on this. This is terrifying. You know the fact that I did it with no rehearses. Winged it exactly. It's a good way of putting it. But you don't want to wing it anymore. It's so hard, My god, is there any place you can perform if you have a notion? If you're sitting there in Birmingham, Michigan, and you decide you want to get up and you want to do a show, you want to do an hour and a half, like you are their facilities there that you're dialed into the you can go. I go up to ann Arbor and I rehearse it. But I wouldn't I just say, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm going to learn three songs. I have to learn them sort of. And if I go up in the lyrics, it doesn't matter who's your piano player, your company, and he's feeding you the lyrics all the time. Well, he amusingly, that's part of the act. Well, I've never heard a laugh like this but the other night when I said, Rob, what is that and I'm out of control, I don't know that's what it is, and he was and I was hit, you know, like I said, okay, but I mean we got to start over then, don't we? Alec I mean Rob? And he said yes. So we went to a new song and I sang it straight through with no mistakes, and they went crazy. I sang a Sunheim song. Um, everybody says don't. Everybody says don'tbody says don't. It is said right that song. God, it just goes so fast and furiously, and then they went nuts. I mean, when you do know something by heart, they really go give him one. Yeah, that's it, that's it. So we did. So we with the with the the Are you okay? Yeah? I think so. Um, did you ever want to do a drama in your later years? I mean in the last years, I was just cut out for it, cut out for it. Were what's the less drama you did on stage? Edward All be Um lady from Dubuq No No, No, Three twelve Women No. I was asked to do that. I didn't do it. It's too much to learn. M A delicate Ballot, one of the best players ever written in the whole world, and also a play for me. What did you like about the part? What did you like about it? Was very quiet and very subtle, subtle, like forget about it and just and I just went about my business on that stage and I did everything. I drank too much, I talked too much. I I did exactly as I pleased. I went upstairs when I want him to go upstairs. I was absolutely all over the place and not promising anything to anybody. It was unbelievable. Who directed Jerry Gutierres, who is the best director with aside from George Wolfe. The two of them were what does it? No? No? No, help illuminate this for people, because this, to me is a very important question for you, and that is you're so self directed. You know you've got the talent, you've got to feel good, but baby, you got so many bullets in your chamber, it's not funny. And you come out there you're loaded. And what does the director do for you? How does the director help you? Oh, he makes me feel comfortable about myself. For instance, George Wolfe when he did my one woman show. He has a way of laughing that he had. When he laughs, he falls on the floor. He throws himself on the floor because he's got to do that. He's got to go. He goes crazy when he laughs, and he's laughing and he's and that will make me listen to a director that will that will tune me in. Isn't a nice one. A director gives you confidence, Oh my god, I've worked with so many of them. Were not that they undermined you, but they certainly didn't give you any confidence. They they almost resented the implication that they do that. They kind of looked at you like, well, you're getting paid all this money, you just get up there and do it. I'm not I'm not here to help you know. They don't help you at Oh there's no mentoring or care or whatever. It's very very strange. But Wolf you loved, and Gautier as you love. Oh God, Now tell me about performers in the latter part of your career that you worked with. It you love? Did you love Bernadette? I am assuming you just love adored here and I and I kind of ran her. I was her older sister, her older everybody, and I made her laugh until she just went crazy and vice versa. I want a little more orange juice, Gang Hunter Hunter. That beeping sound we've been hearing periodic? Is that a glucose meter? What's that? What's that thing that went off? Where's mine? It's ducks com it's telling us to enter the blood sugars. Oh my god, I forgot all about them. We're done with Oh are we? Okay? Do you want to take a break and do it now? A minute? Go right? A hell? Please do it now? We should wait. I wouldn't want it in the post that you were hospitalized on my account because Alec Baldwin refused to allow me to administer my diabetes treatment. Oh boy, okay, this is right away. I'm going to do it now. Okay, there we go. I don't have my ladies and gentlemen. Okay, Elaine Stretch and Hunter, the ever trusty Hunter are squeezing droplets of her blood onto a device, so I know to tell us that we've nearly killed her here, okay, okay, and then it's done. And then and you want to keep it at what number? It's not a matter of keeping. It's just entering them. What they are now? That are two hours after I'd love to do mine too. While we're at it, Let's have a let's have a prick our finger and squeeze it on the glucose meter. Party stop that, Alex, Listen, there's another BB. This is why you're so glad we're not doing this on television because to see this happening, it's really unsettling. And we've done both of them. Now, done both of them. And what number you have any where do you want to be? Doesn't have to be That's fine, that's good, it's cool. Okay, she's cool. Oh oh, I know what I wanted to tell you. I want to tell him something that I that I got the nerve to tell John to tourists. Now, when you told John to touro what you wanted to tell him, it's something that meant a lot to you, Because we will edit that you called him to tourists. A lot of people have. Alex Baldwin called John to tourists. What did you want to tell John to? Trying to tell somebody something about me and acting that sort of I thought kind of represented something about me that I had had courage to tell. And the thing was that I, Oh, how can I tell you this. Will you tell me that your secret and I'll tell you mine? All right? My secret is is that? How can I put it to you? Yeah? My secret is in Virginia Wolf. When I was playing Virginia Wolf, I am sometimes I get fuzzy when I'm telling a story. Now and it's we had in comment go ahead. I wanted to tell something intimate about myself to John about when he was interviewing me. I told him that when I was doing Virginia Wolf, and when George and Martha had their scene together and George said, our son is dead. You know the big scene. Our son, he yells in my faith is dead, and I went no. At the height of my force, I said no to him, and I had an orgasm for the first time in my life. Yes, really, so, so this is this is how important that moment was on stage to me. This is unbelievable, you know. So it's safe to say this is a very I'm not gonna I'm gonna sound like I'm making a joke here, but I'm only half making Honey. I just think it speaks volumes about you, about what a real uh creature of the theater? You want that the only time you ever had an orgasm, was saying the words of a homosexual man. I mean it this far from a heterosexual orgasm as you could possibly No. I think I'll be very particular about who he casts very Did you have a good relationship with him? You're close. He's very tough, but he's and he's very fond of me. I got two last questions for you, and I want you to give me a simple answer to this first question. I've met a lot of people in this business, and I've worked with a lot of people who were powerful. Julie Harris played my mother on a TV series, and I work with I work with some great people, you know, great great people. So I'm not so great, but some great ones. And you're one of the great ones I worked with you. But just give me a yes or no if you're capable. And that is, do you realize what you mean to other people who were in this business, how much they love you and how much they admire Do you know I'm beginning to do you into the mic place. Don't talk to you. I'm beginning to because in this business, as you know, especially for people who themselves are very talented and or successful, other talented people, that's like um an aphrodisiac to them. Talent is the greatest aphrodisiac. And everyone basically says, there's no one more talented than you. You're an immensely, immensely incalculably talented woman and people, and you're a gigantic pain in the ass. Sometimes you're a legendary pain in the ass. You're a gigantic pain in the ass. But people don't, you know, they joke about that because they love you. And why do they love you? Because you're so talented, you're so funny, you're whatever. Your timing is impeccable. Now, what are you gonna miss about New York? The personality of human beings in New York? They are so opened and second, they're not watching what they're doing. They're not you know, they're they're not watching their language, they're not watching anything. They're just going through life's day. What yeah, all right, fuck you, you know, and everybody's and they're engaged by every day is an event to New York. Elaine Stritch says she's going to miss New Yorker's and I can tell you that we will miss her too. But she's not out of the spotlight just yet. Elaine Stritch Shoot Me, a documentary about her life, which I helped to produce, recently premiered at the Rebecca Film Festival. The film has been picked up by Sundance Selects for a wider distribution. Are you there, Alex? Yeah, okay, I can hear you, sweet, So you're in the kitchen. I called Elaine up to ask her how the transition was going from New York City to Birmingham, Michigan. I did the right thing moving away from the Carlisle. You know, you get hung up on perks. You live with perks, and then your perks run out because you fall and break your hip and you blah blah blah blah blah, and then you have no um, you have no deal card. You know what I mean. I'll go down and talk to the audience for an hour every night, and you give me my cleaning. Now, that would be a funny TV show to have you be this famous broad, this famous cabaret stage actress, award winning actress. And she moves. Of course, it's a fish out of water story. She moves back with the cousins and the nieces in Birmingham, Michigan and what you're used to is bartering with people. You're walking up to some dry cleaner there and saying, we'll tell you what do I want you to clean? My coach to me and I'll come sing at your kids bar mitzvah. And they look at you like you gotta screw loose, like you want to work. The guy says that'll be sixty please, and the well listen, um, I love it and I miss your humor, like, well, listen to you. I'm not sure I want to work with you again. Yeah, I definitely don't want to work with you again. Definitely don't want to work with me. I think we agree. Yeah, I've been Upstay, there's enough leading ladies and men. Talk to you later. Goodbye, goodbye, my darling, Bye bye. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing.