Dolores Gray: The Ladies Who Lunch (1977)

[Almira]

Posted: 8/27/11 at 7:42pm

The slide show, while clever, can be distracting. Gray is all you really need.

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gyz-r_tXJc8

Updated On: 8/27/11 at 07:42 PM

[AADA81]

Posted: 8/27/11 at 8:32pm

Love it. Dolores Gray is one of the all-time greats and a personal favorite of mine. Thanks for posting this.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 8/27/11 at 10:41pm

I loved Dolores.

[ComingUpRoses2]

Posted: 8/27/11 at 11:24pm

This is terrific! Anyone heard her "Rose's Turn?" I ADORE it! She does the whole monologue and everything. Wish we had some footage and audio of her in the role. I heard she was stunning.

[egghumor]

Posted: 8/28/11 at 12:24am

Beyond wonderful! I've always LOVED Dolores Gray, but that video is incredible!

thanks, doll! Now pour me another...

[sabrelady]

Posted: 8/28/11 at 2:53am

Saw & met her briefly when she did "Carlotta" in Follies in London, had a broke foot and had to sit our for much of the show but stole it back when she did "I'm Still Here!"

[Gypsy9]

Posted: 8/28/11 at 3:04am

I was fortunate to see Dolores Gray in the London production of FOLLIES in 1987. Her rendition of "I'M STILL HERE" may be definitive.

I love to watch 1950's films which feature Dolores Gray in the cast. She always comes through as a real professional, she always delivers. I wish I had seen her in DESTRY RIDES AGAIN when she co-starred with Andy Griffith. Her song "Fair Warning" Is a winner. She starred in a number of American musicals in London and became the darling of the London audiences. London's gain was our loss, for she starred in very few New York productions.

Updated On: 8/28/11 at 03:04 AM

[AADA81]

Posted: 8/28/11 at 3:51am

Her OBC recordings are wonderful. "Two On the Aisle" is a forgotten treasure where she sings one great song after another and, of course, "Destry Rides Again" is her crowning moment. She also steals the show in the film Kismet. It's not a very good movie, but her "Not Since Ninevah" blows the roof out and it's what made me a fan in the first place.

[AADA81]

Posted: 8/28/11 at 3:54am

Her OBC recordings are wonderful. "Two On the Aisle" is a forgotten treasure where she sings one great song after another and, of course, "Destry Rides Again" is her crowning moment. She also steals the show in the film Kismet. It's not a very good movie, but her "Not Since Ninevah" blows the roof out and it's what made me a fan in the first place.

[After Eight]

Posted: 8/28/11 at 9:46am

Yes, Dolores Gray was wonderful. Beyond wonderful, actually. I too thought she was great in the London Follies. (Loved Daniel Massey and Diana Rigg in that as well). I spoke to her after the performance, and reminisced a little about Sherry. It was a very nice moment.

She brought down the house in Sherry. And she also appered in one of the funniest bad plays I've ever seen, Money Talks, with Helen Gallagher. Now that was one unorgettable evening. I wish the Roundabout would revive that one!

I do miss Dolores Gray.

[goldenboy]

Posted: 8/28/11 at 5:27pm

my favorite delores grey performance with brilliant michael kidd choreography

From Destry Rides Again . copy and past

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG4Mjq0H6Ic&feature=related



Destry Rides AGaion Updated On: 8/28/11 at 05:27 PM

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 8/29/11 at 9:35am

One amazing singer/actress/dancer/woman. A friend worked with her and loved her.

I actually loved the slide show, very funny, kind of like a Lypsinka sketch, although it did distract from the vocals.

Thanks A Lot But No Thanks from It's Always Fair Weather, a great Andre Previn/Comden and Green song is my all time favorite MGM production number and Dolores shows what made her a one and only kind of performer in it:


simply the best

[PalJoey]

Posted: 8/29/11 at 10:08am

And here's her "I'm Still Here," which she performed on this British TV special at an excruciatingly slow pace.

But through video editing magic (and love!) the person who posted this version on YouTube made her sing it at the appropriate pace.

http://youtu.be/QPA0UhnKQkk


Oh--and here's her "Rose's Turn" audio:

http://youtu.be/IMWVIcnBKVA

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 8/29/11 at 12:24pm

Love, love, love me some Dolores Gray. Keep the clips a-comin'
Updated On: 8/29/11 at 12:24 PM

[best12bars]

Posted: 8/29/11 at 12:45pm

I think Dolores is incredibly talented, but her timing has always bothered me. In so many recordings she's either too slow or behind the tempo. In that Rose's Turn clip, she may hold the record for creating a 3-act play out of the intro monologue. It feels like it clocks in at just under two hours. And her "I'm Still Here" ... I feeling shouting, "No your'e not here, you're back there--three beats ago!"

She doesn't always do it, particularly in her MGM days when the likes of Roger Edens would never have let her get away with it. But left her to her own devices or with a conductor that just follows her, she'll slow to a crawl.

All that said, she's a good actress with a great voice. It's just a "timing" thing that occasionally bugs the hell out of me.

Updated On: 8/29/11 at 12:45 PM

[theeatah]

Posted: 8/30/11 at 9:10am

Here's That Rainy Day (1977) Updated On: 8/30/11 at 09:10 AM

[theeatah]

Posted: 8/30/11 at 9:12am

I Got Lost In His Arms (1977) Updated On: 8/30/11 at 09:12 AM

[theeatah]

Posted: 8/30/11 at 9:22am

@ComingUpRoses2

There are at least two recordings of Dolores Gray in Gypsy out there.

There's one from 1976 at the Papermill Playhouse where Dolores clearly decided to go on when she should have been on vocal rest. It's not the kind of recording she'd want fans to her. The Papermill recording has also been erroneously listed as a 1974 London recording.

There's also apparently one from 1982 in Boston, which I'm dying to hear - providing Dolores was in good voice, of course.
Updated On: 8/30/11 at 09:22 AM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 8/30/11 at 9:30am

She had great difficulty learning lines--at least she did in 1983, when I was a young assistant director, assigned to run lines with her whenever her scenes were not being rehearsed.

Privately, she would say them very slowly, frightened that if she increased speed, she would forget the next word. Part of my job was to build her confidence so that she could say them at a normal pace.

People who saw her in the London Follies--including the YouTube poster who sped up that "I'm Still Here"--say that she sang the song at a much faster clip, more like the way she does in the sped-up link. Perhaps she was nervous about appearing on the TV show and slowed down without realizing it.

She was oddly insecure, for someone whose performing persona is the definition of brash. The surprising vulnerability made me fall madly in love with her.

It was during one of those line-running sessions that she dug her fingernails into my hand and said, "I was the greatest Madame Rose...EVER! Because I understood her PSYCHOLOGY."

I did not doubt it. In many wonders, I think it might still be true.

[theeatah]

Posted: 8/30/11 at 9:56am

Thanks for that reminiscence, PalJoey.

It prompted me to dig up this anecodte:

[Producer] Hank [Moonjean] was also on hand for the shooting of Kismet and witnessed Dolores Gray (in her MGM prime) and. . . her mother. According to Hank, Dolores' mom made Gypsy's Mama Rose look like she was standing still. Not a nanosecond of La Gray's performance went by without Dolores looking off to the sidelines for Mama's approval. Like all good stage mothers, Dolores' ma sat in a nearby chair doing her knitting with seeming calm. However, a quick jerk of the head, almost imperceptible to all but those in the know, could either keep the shoot going or bring it to a screeching halt.

Hank especially remembers the day when Dolores was filming Kismet's "Not Since Ninevah." The take completed, an overwhelmed Vincente Minnelli rose from his director's chair and in his most effusive, warp-speed style exclaimed: "Dolores, Darling. I laughed, I cried, I loved every minute of it. I don't know how you do it." Only to discover Dolores' face frozen in anguish. Apparently, Mama had given THE SIGNAL. "No, Vincente, no," DG wailed, "I was terrible, I was awful. I know I can do better. Pleeeeease, give me another chance." And a thoroughly perplexed Minnelli gave in. Now that is a star!


DOLORES GRAY

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 8/30/11 at 10:03am

She's HUUUUGE! And that's one hell of a vibrato.

[theeatah]

Posted: 8/30/11 at 10:06am

You Can't Get A Man With A Gun (1959)

[theeatah]

Posted: 8/30/11 at 10:07am

You Can't Get A Man With A Gun (1966)

[best12bars]

Posted: 8/30/11 at 10:38am

She had a Mama Rose-style stage mother on the set of "Kismet" when she was 31 years old?

That's creepy.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 8/30/11 at 11:30am

That's why she "understood the PSYCHOLOGY."