Early stage career Stritch made her stage debut in 1944. Her later Broadway debut was in
Loco in 1946, directed by
Jed Harris, followed soon after by
Made in Heaven (as a replacement), and then
Angel in the Wings (1947), a revue in which she performed comedy sketches and the song "
Civilization". Stritch understudied
Ethel Merman for
Call Me Madam, and, at the same time, appeared in the 1952 revival of
Pal Joey, singing "Zip". During out-of-town tryouts in Boston, Coward was "unsure about the dramatic talents" of one of the leads, opera singer
Jean Fenn.
Joe Layton suggested "What would happen if...we just eliminated [Fenn's] role and gave everything to Stritch? The show was very old-fashioned, and the thing that was working was Elaine Stritch. Every time she went on stage [she] was a sensation." The reconstructed 'Sail Away' opened on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theatre on October 3, 1961", In 1966, she played Ruth Sherwood in the musical
Wonderful Town at New York's City Center, and appeared in an Off Broadway revival of
Private Lives in 1968. , and
Jane Russell, on the set of the Broadway musical,
Company (1970–72) She was the original performer cast in the role of Joanne in
Stephen Sondheim's
Company (1970) on Broadway. After over a decade of successful runs in shows in New York, Stritch moved in 1972 to London, where she starred in the
West End production of
Company. On tour and in stock, Stritch appeared in such musicals as
No, No, Nanette,
The King and I,
I Married an Angel, and in
Mame as both Vera Charles (opposite
Janet Blair) and Mame Dennis.
Television Stritch's earliest television appearances were in
The Growing Paynes (1949) and the
Goodyear Television Playhouse (1953–55). She also appeared on episodes of
The Ed Sullivan Show in 1954. She was the first and original Trixie Norton in a
Honeymooners sketch with
Jackie Gleason,
Art Carney and
Pert Kelton. The character was originally a burlesque dancer, but the role was rewritten and recast after just one episode with the more wholesome looking
Joyce Randolph playing the character as a housewife. as her younger sister, Eileen Sherwood, an aspiring actress. The sisters, natives of
Ohio, live in a brownstone apartment in
Greenwich Village. The one-season series aired opposite
Hawaiian Eye on
ABC and ''
Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall'' on
NBC. She also co-starred in
The Trials of O'Brien with
Peter Falk and
Joanna Barnes. The series ran for 22 episodes on CBS Television between September 18, 1965 and March 18, 1966. In 1975, Stritch starred in the British
LWT comedy series ''
Two's Company'' opposite
Donald Sinden. She played Dorothy McNab, an American writer living in London who was known for her lurid and sensationalist thriller novels. Sinden played Robert, her English butler, who disapproved of practically everything Dorothy did and the series derived its comedy from the inevitable culture clash between Robert's very British stiff-upper-lip attitude and Dorothy's devil-may-care New York view of life. ''Two's Company
was exceptionally well received in Britain and ran for four series until 1979. In 1979, both Stritch and Sinden were nominated for a BAFTA TV Award for Two's Company'', in the category "
Best Light Entertainment Performance", losing out to
Ronnie Barker. In 1980, Stritch starred in another series for LWT, ''
Nobody's Perfect (the British version of Maude—not to be confused with the 1980 American series of the same name, which aired in the UK as Hart of the Yard'') playing Bill Hooper alongside
Richard Griffiths as her husband Sam. Unsatisfied with the Anglicised scripts, Stritch herself adapted the original American scripts for all but one of the fourteen episodes (Griffiths handled the remaining one). Other British television appearances by Stritch included
Roald Dahl's
Tales of the Unexpected. Although she appeared several times in different roles, perhaps her most memorable appearance was in the story "
William and Mary", in which she played the wife of a man who has cheated death by having his brain preserved. She appeared on
BBC 1's children's series,
Jackanory, reading, among other stories,
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by
Roald Dahl. After returning to the United States, she appeared on
The Edge of Night as vinegary nanny Mrs. DeGroot, then was cast as a regular on the short-lived
The Ellen Burstyn Show in 1986. She appeared as the stern schoolteacher Mrs. McGee on three episodes of
The Cosby Show (1989–90). She had a recurring role in
Law & Order (1992, 1997) as Lanie Stieglitz. Other roles included Judge Grace Lema on
Oz (1998); and Martha Albright (mother of
Jane Curtin's character) on two episodes of
3rd Rock From the Sun (1997, 2001), alongside her Broadway co-star
George Grizzard, who played George Albright. On April 26, 2007, she began guest appearances on the NBC sitcom
30 Rock as
Colleen, the fearsome mother of
Alec Baldwin's lead character,
Jack Donaghy. Stritch was reportedly considered for the role of Dorothy Zbornak on
The Golden Girls but, as she related in her show
Elaine Stritch at Liberty, she "blew her audition". The role was cast with
Beatrice Arthur. She was seen on
One Life to Live (1993), replacing fellow stage legend
Eileen Heckart as Wilma Bern. In 1996, she appeared on an episode of
Late Show with David Letterman as a woman who believes host
David Letterman is her
pool boy.
Film roles Stritch appeared in more films in her later years than the early part of her career. In an interview in 1988, it was noted that "Making movies is challenging to Stritch since she considers herself a novice." She said: "I'm fascinated with it. And I want to do more of them." She was asked why she waited so long to make movies since she apparently enjoys it so much. "You do a movie for, like, three months and then you're finished. You do a part in a play and it's like going into a roomful of audiences for a year." Early in her career, she appeared in
Three Violent People (1956) starring
Charlton Heston, as the hotel proprietor pal of
Anne Baxter, and then co-starred opposite
Rock Hudson and
Jennifer Jones in the
David O. Selznick remake of
A Farewell to Arms (1957) as Hudson's nurse. In
The Perfect Furlough, she co-starred opposite
Tony Curtis and
Janet Leigh. She had a showy role as the lesbian proprietor of a bar in the cult film
Who Killed Teddy Bear? (1965), which starred
Sal Mineo. She played a "tough-as-nails" nurse in the remake of
The Spiral Staircase (1975) and was praised for her performance in
Providence (1977). When she returned to the United States in the mid-1980s from London,
Woody Allen cast her as the former movie star mother in his drama
September (1987).
People magazine called her performance "acclaimed" and wrote "Though the movie has received mixed reviews, Stritch's roaring presence, like Godzilla in a stalled elevator, can't be ignored." Allen later cast her in his comedy
Small Time Crooks (2000) in which she played a "snobby socialite".
Rex Reed wrote of her performance: "Elaine Stritch can still stop you in your tracks with a meaningless, drop-dead one-liner (which is all she gets here)." She joined the ensemble of
Cocoon: The Return (1988) as an apartment manager who helps widowed
Jack Gilford get over his wife's death. Among her co-stars were former
Goldilocks co-star
Don Ameche and
Gwen Verdon. She played
Winona Ryder's loving grandmother in the film
Autumn in New York (2000). Stritch had a rare co-starring role in the comedy
Screwed (2000), playing Miss Crock, who becomes the intended victim of a kidnapping by her disgruntled butler (
Norm Macdonald). She appeared in the comedy
Monster in Law (2005) starring
Jennifer Lopez and
Jane Fonda, playing Fonda's former mother-in-law .
BBC Radio In 1982, Stritch appeared on an edition of the long-running BBC Radio comedy series
Just a Minute alongside
Kenneth Williams,
Clement Freud and
Barry Cryer. The show was described by long-time chairman
Nicholas Parsons as being among the most memorable because of the way Stritch stretched the show's rules. She described Kenneth Williams as capable of making "one word into a three-act play".
Later stage work After her husband,
John Bay, died from brain cancer in 1982, Stritch returned to America, and after a further lull in her career and struggles with
alcoholism, Stritch began performing again. She appeared in a one-night only concert of
Company in 1993 and as Parthy in a Broadway revival of the musical
Show Boat in 1994. In 1996 she played Claire in a revival of
Edward Albee's
A Delicate Balance, with
Variety writing: "Equally marvelous is Stritch, with a meatier role than her recent foray as Parthy in '
Show Boat.' To watch her succumb to the vast amounts of alcohol Claire ingests, folding and refolding her legs, slipping – no, oozing – onto the floor, her face crumpling like a paper bag, is to witness a different but equally winning kind of thespian expertise. It's a master class up there."
Elaine Stritch at Liberty Her one-woman show
Elaine Stritch at Liberty, a summation of her life and career, premiered at New York's
Public Theater, running from November 7 to December 30, 2001. It then ran on Broadway at the
Neil Simon Theatre from February 21 to May 27, 2002, and then, also in 2002, at London's
Old Vic Theatre.
Newsweek noted:
A Little Night Music Stritch appeared in the Broadway revival of the Sondheim-Wheeler musical
A Little Night Music from July 2010 to January 2011, succeeding
Angela Lansbury in the role of Madame Armfeldt, the mother who remembers her life as a courtesan in the song "Liaisons". The AP reviewer of the musical (with the two new leads) wrote "Devotees of Stritch, who earned her Sondheim stripes singing, memorably, 'The Ladies Who Lunch' in
Company 40 years ago, will revel in how the actress, who earned a huge ovation before her first line at a recent preview, brings her famously salty, acerbic style to the role of Madame Armfeldt." The theatre critic for
The Toronto Star wrote:
Cabaret Stritch performed a
cabaret act in New York City at the
Cafe Carlyle in the
Carlyle Hotel, where she was a resident from 2005 until she left New York in 2013. Her first show at the Carlyle was titled "At Home at the Carlyle".
The New York Times reviewer wrote: Between musical numbers, Stritch told stories from the world of stage and screen, tales from her everyday life and personal glimpses of her private tragedies and triumphs. She performed at the Cafe Carlyle in early 2010 and in fall 2011 in ''At Home at the Carlyle: Elaine Stritch Singin' Sondheim...One Song at a Time''. ==Personal life==