Grey Gardens "Not today, Geraldine" quote?
Grey Gardens "Not today, Geraldine" quote?
#1Grey Gardens "Not today, Geraldine" quote?
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??
blaxx
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/28/05
#4Grey Gardens
Posted: 3/30/13 at 9:41pmLol, 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
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/10/04
#5Grey Gardens
Posted: 3/30/13 at 9:47pmLOL, 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
Broadway Star Joined: 5/21/07
PattyO'Furniture
Featured Actor Joined: 8/12/04
#8Grey Gardens
Posted: 3/30/13 at 11:58pmIn the documentary, Big Edie says this line. Isn't she addressing one of the cats?
#9Grey Gardens
Posted: 3/31/13 at 12:02amI 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 ??
#12Grey Gardens
Posted: 3/31/13 at 12:14pmGeraldine could be a Flip Wilson Reference. He played a wonderful drag character named Geraldine. It used to make me laugh!
#13Grey Gardens
Posted: 3/31/13 at 2:38pmGirls. The question has been answered. It's a quote from "Some Like It Hot."
followspot
Broadway Star Joined: 12/27/11
#14Grey Gardens
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
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/5/04
#15Grey Gardens
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
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