Stritch was almost Rose in GYPSY?

[Overkill]

Posted: 9/12/11 at 9:37am

I just read that when Angela Lansbury initially turned down the offer to play Rose in the London production of Gypsy, the producers approached Elaine Stritch. However, according to Styne biographer Theodore Taylor, potential backers didn’t think Stritch had a big enough name so plans were scuttled.

I never knew this! Do you wish the Stritch production had gone through?

[AC126748]

Posted: 9/12/11 at 9:42am

I was able to speak with Stritch at a small gathering about a year and a half ago. The subject of Mama Rose came up, and she said something to the effect of, "the role passed me by when I would have been right for it." It would make sense, then, that she almost had it but didn't get to do it in the end.

[madbrian]

Posted: 9/12/11 at 9:50am

Stritch spent about a decade in London from around 1972, when Company opened in London. She was very successful on stage and television, but I don't know if she was big enough when Gypsy opened there in 1973. But she was still drinking back then, and I would guess that her unreliability was as big a factor as any in her not getting a role like that. That said, she could have been a phenomenal Rose, probably in the way that Tyne Daly was.

[HistoryBoy2]

Posted: 9/12/11 at 10:42am

Stritch's performance of Rose's Turn remains one of my favourites.

[Gypsy9]

Posted: 9/12/11 at 10:45am

Since I am a big fan of Elaine Stritch and a monumental fan of GYPSY, I would have loved to have seen her as Rose. I first saw her in GOLDILOCKS in 1958 when she had a damn good singing voice, and she was still in decent voice when I saw her in COMPANY (1971?). She could have done a bang-up "Rose's Turn" and "Some People" and I can visualize her arguing with Louise in the dressing room scene. I think she would have been better than Angela Lansbury, who I diid see in London in 1973 and who I liked. When Lansbury brought GYPSY to the Winter Garden, she modified her "Rose's Turn" to perform it in such an angry manner that she went totally ballistic which turned me off. It was overkill.

[best12bars]

Posted: 9/12/11 at 10:49am

It's interesting how, even after Company, the theatre community didn't see Stritch as a big enough star to headline in Gypsy. She definitely wasn't as big a name as Angela Lansbury, no question. But I would still have thought she was big enough to "open" a show. I guess not.

Funny how, she became a Broadway legend over time anyway, without really being a "box office star" of the theatre.

[AC126748]

Posted: 9/12/11 at 10:56am

When I got to speak with her, she sounded very mournful about the fact that she never got to play Rose. It was sad--she obviously wanted the role badly but never got the right chance.

[madbrian]

Posted: 9/12/11 at 10:56am

According to wiki, Stritch was actually announced for the lead in the London production, but ticket sales were lackluster, so she was replaced with Lansbury. In 1975, Stritch had a highly successful sitcom in England called Two's Company. Perhaps if Gypsy would have come around after the sitcom, Stritch might have had the box office appeal.

[best12bars]

Posted: 9/12/11 at 11:00am

I'll bet you're right, madbrian. Timing, as they say, is everything.

[AC126748]

Posted: 9/12/11 at 11:00am

Found this with a little searching.
http://www.jameswilliamproductions.com/Pages/gypsy.html

[Gothampc]

Posted: 9/12/11 at 11:38am

Let's just be honest. Stritch has always been a difficult person to handle, drinking or no drinking. She herself admits to wheedling producers of "Call Me Madam" so she could get another paycheck from "Pal Joey".

Couple her difficult attitude with the fact that it's not easy to get working papers for an American actress to do a UK production and the producers probably just decided that it was easier in the long run to find a British actress.

[AC126748]

Posted: 9/12/11 at 11:44am

Actually, it's much easier for an American performer to gain working papers in England than the reverse. And Lansbury had been a US citizen for over twenty years by the time she did GYPSY in London.

[best12bars]

Posted: 9/12/11 at 11:47am

^ I'm sure citizenship would have played into it, particularly if they were hoping for an extended run.

I've no doubt Lansbury has dual citizenship and probably has since her 1940s MGM days. She wouldn't have been part of any "exchange" program for either British or American Equity.

I'm wondering if Stritch has dual citizenship, after her marriage and extended stay in London. She probably didn't have it when they were casting Gypsy. Either way, something like union permissions and work visas could easily have effected the casting decision in the long run (for the "long run").


EDIT: AC126748---working papers may be easier in general to be obtained, but Actors' Equity still operates on an exchange program "across the pond" between the British and American unions.

Updated On: 9/12/11 at 11:47 AM

[AC126748]

Posted: 9/12/11 at 11:48am

John Bay was American, though, wasn't he? How would their marriage have granted her citizenship?

[best12bars]

Posted: 9/12/11 at 11:50am

Ooops! My bad. I thought he was British for some reason. Probably because they lived in London.

EDIT: She stil could have applied for British citizenship during the time she lived in London on work visas, but the process would have taken much longer, requiring sponsors, tests, rituals, rites, and endless paperwork. Just the thing Stritch would have loved!

Updated On: 9/12/11 at 11:50 AM

[AC126748]

Posted: 9/12/11 at 11:51am

Just checked to confirm--he was born in Chicago. I thought he was British for a while too.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 9/12/11 at 12:08pm

"Funny how, she became a Broadway legend over time anyway"

Is she really a Broadway Legend or a self made "legend" who has just happened to be on Broadway? If she hadn't put on her "At Liberty" show, would anyone be talking about her today? She was never someone like Julie Andrews who has had only 4 Broadway shows to her career and is considered one of the biggest Broadway stars of all time. Stritch has 18 Broadway credits to her name (some being benefits and concerts) but was she ever really "legend" status until she decided she should be one?

[best12bars]

Posted: 9/12/11 at 12:25pm

There's no question that "At Liberty" boosted her status or that it was self-made, but her "Ladies Who Lunch" had gained immortal status long before then.

I guess you would have had to be an active theatre-goer back in the '80s and '90s to know what I mean. I remember how thrilled I was to see her in Prince's Show Boat, even though it was a supporting role. Also how great she was in the Follies In Concert cast, pretty much walking off with the show and the documentary about it.

But, as I pointed out, she was never really a "headliner" on Broadway, opening a musical with some semblance of box office clout. She starred in a few shows, but none of them boosted her to the level of "theatre legend."

You know what I think really did it? That "Company" documentary with her struggling painfully through Ladies Who Lunch. When it came out on VHS and then DVD, it put that whole show, song, performance, and performer into a "legend" status.

And at some point when you reach 3,000 years old and have a few memorable moments, you become a legend for being "still here."

Updated On: 9/12/11 at 12:25 PM

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 9/12/11 at 12:34pm

Besty, I was going to say the same thing about the Company doc!

[Gothampc]

Posted: 9/12/11 at 12:35pm

If Stritch had a Dollypop, she would have been a legend.

--Signed Carol Channing

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/12/11 at 12:46pm

Her performance in Company and D.A. Pennebaker's filming of the recording session made her a Broadway legend. Everyone who saw that performance waited and wished for the next 30 years that she did something to equal it. She did what she did.

What didn't happen in her career is pretty much a result of her drinking, as she acknowledged in her one-woman show.

As with Dorothy Parker and the witty drunks of the Algonquin Round Table, the true tragedy of the alcoholic artist is what they might have created while they were wasting their lives getting over hangovers.

[ComingUpRoses2]

Posted: 9/12/11 at 1:42pm

She would have made a stellar Madame Rose for sure. I always wanted to see both her and Bea Arthur in the role. I think they would have been fascinating.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 9/12/11 at 4:34pm

Best12 and PalJoey are right: I didn't see Stritch in COMPANY (Jane Russell had taken over the part) NOR did I see the documentary on the OBC until recently. Yet I would have camped in the snow to get a ticket to anything Stritch did in the 70s or 80s (i.e., when I lived in NYC).

And I only knew her from the OBC album itself and various TV guest appearances she made to promote the show.

ALL THAT BEING SAID, however, Angela Lansbury in GYPSY is one of the great performances of my lifetime. No way could Stritch have been better.

(And P.S. to Gypsy9, I don't know about the performance you saw, but "Rose's Turn" is an angry song. Have you seen the You Tube of Patti Lupone? They sped up the tempo for Lansbury (all the tempos were sped up for that revival), but she was no where near as angry as Lupone is in that clip.)

[Dollypop]

Posted: 9/12/11 at 6:45pm

>>>If Stritch had a Dollypop, she would have been a legend.

--Signed Carol Channing"<<<

How absurd! To imply that one person could raise a performer to legendary status defies logic.

[best12bars]

Posted: 9/12/11 at 6:49pm

How absurd! To imply that one person could raise a performer to legendary status defies logic.*

* See Loretta Swit.

Updated On: 9/12/11 at 06:49 PM