This is very sad news. One thing I was always impressed with is that she really elevated roles that she took. A part like the wife in Lend Me a Tenor or the Baroness in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang could have been completely unmemorable in another performer's hands, but not with her in the part.
I was also always impressed with the physicality she brought to roles. Not that she was running around on stage, but she really inhabited the characters down to their physical gestures. Not a lot of actors pay as much attention to that as she did.
I was fortunate enough to meet her at the stage door after Follies, and she was very gracious and kind. I told her that the thing I remembered most about Chitty, 6 years later, was not the car, but the completely deadpan way she said, "Oopsiedaisies" after accidentally shooting one of her henchmen. It was the first time I had ever seen her on stage, and it's still one of the funniest line deliveries I have ever seen. |
