Grey Gardens "Not today, Geraldine" quote?

[EthelMinnelli]

Grey Gardens "Not today, Geraldine" quote?#1

Posted: 3/30/13 at 7:12pm

From Act Two of "Grey Gardens":

BIG EDIE: You need to get a mop and clean this place up.
LITTLE EDIE: Not today, Geraldine.

What's the Geraldine reference? Anybody know??

[PalJoey]

Grey Gardens #2

Posted: 3/30/13 at 7:21pm

Yes

[GavestonPS]

Grey Gardens #2

Posted: 3/30/13 at 8:02pm

Please share, PJ. I'd like to know, too.

[EthelMinnelli]

Grey Gardens #3

Posted: 3/30/13 at 9:39pm

Can you educate the rest of us?

[blaxx]

Grey Gardens #4

Posted: 3/30/13 at 9:41pm

Lol, you asked if anybody knew and he said yes.

Listen, I don't take my clothes off for anyone, even if it is "artistic". - JANICE

[TheatreDiva90016]

Grey Gardens #5

Posted: 3/30/13 at 9:47pm

LOL, Blaxx pointed it out.

"TheatreDiva90016 - another good reason to frequent these boards less."<<>> “I hesitate to give this line of discussion the validation it so desperately craves by perpetuating it, but the light from logic is getting further and further away with your every successive post.” <<>> -whatever2

[eperkins]

Grey Gardens #6

Posted: 3/30/13 at 10:42pm

"Some Like It Hot."

[jpbran]

Grey Gardens #7

Posted: 3/30/13 at 11:36pm

"Well, I never did like the name 'Geraldine.'"

[PattyO'Furniture]

Grey Gardens #8

Posted: 3/30/13 at 11:58pm

In the documentary, Big Edie says this line. Isn't she addressing one of the cats?

[EthelMinnelli]

Grey Gardens #9

Posted: 3/31/13 at 12:02am

I don't recall this from either of the documentaries... Do you recall when she said it? I remember it getting a big laugh when Christine Ebersole said it -- can someone explain ??

[PalJoey]

Grey Gardens #10

Posted: 3/31/13 at 12:38am

Not tonight, Geraldine.

[EthelMinnelli]

Grey Gardens #11

Posted: 3/31/13 at 9:28am

PalJoey - can you explain?

[goldenboy]

Grey Gardens #12

Posted: 3/31/13 at 12:14pm

Geraldine could be a Flip Wilson Reference. He played a wonderful drag character named Geraldine. It used to make me laugh!

[newintown]

Grey Gardens #13

Posted: 3/31/13 at 2:38pm

Girls. The question has been answered. It's a quote from "Some Like It Hot."

[followspot]

Grey Gardens #14

Posted: 3/31/13 at 3:25pm

I've always taken it to be Little Edie's play on "Not tonight, Josephine" -- a comic catchphrase still common in the 1970s (see link) derived from a popular early-century vaudeville song by that name.

"Not tonight, Josephine" as a catchphrase came to mean something along the lines of "That's not going to happen" -- a sarcastic response to a request to do something you have no desire or intention to do.

As for "Some Like It Hot" -- "Not Tonight, Josephine" was that film's original working title, and the phrase is said with the meaning above by Jerry to Joe in the film as a double-meaning gag (Joe's female identity is "Josephine"). "Not today, Geraldine" is not a quote from the film, but it's definitely possible that Little Edie was combining her references.


Not Tonight, Josephine

"Tracy... Hold Mama's waffles."

Updated On: 3/31/13 at 03:25 PM

[ghostlight2]

Grey Gardens #15

Posted: 3/31/13 at 3:32pm

Another, topical quote from that film. It was a joke then - now, not so much:

Joe: "-but you're not a girl! You're a guy - why would a guy wanna marry a guy?"

Jerry: "Security!"


eta: re followspot's commercial: Napoleon was said to have sent a message to Josephine "Home in three days. Don't wash!" If that was true, hard to believe he'd turn her down for some mussed-up hair
"Don't wash!" Updated On: 3/31/13 at 03:32 PM