Actors - Elaine Stritch

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	Actors - Elaine Stritch

Elaine Stritch, (born on February 2, 1925 in Detroit, Michigan) is a tall, lanky Irish-American actress and singer with a rough voice known for her brash, vocal characters.

Stritch was born to a wealthy, devoutly Roman Catholic family, and is the niece of the late Samuel Cardinal Stritch, Archbishop of Chicago.

She has been very successful in Broadway musicals, such as Sail Away by Sir Noel Coward, Company by Stephen Sondheim, and the most recent musical revival of Show Boat
, which also starred Lonette McKee and John McMartin.

Once a very heavy drinker, she became a teetotaler after being diagnosed with diabetes.

She was the first Trixie Norton, the burlesque dancing wife of Art Carney's Ed Norton, on Jackie Gleason's first Honeymooners sketch on television, but was replaced by the less glamorous-looking, but more wholesome Joyce Randolph the following week.

She is best known for her stage work, having been nominated for the Tony Award four times:

Best Featured Actress in a Play for Bus Stop, 1956
Best Actress in a Musical for Sail Away, 1962
Best Actress in a Musical for Company, 1971
Best Actress in a Play for A Delicate Balance, 1996

In 2002, her one woman show Elaine Stritch at Liberty won the Tony for Best Special Theatrical Event. The show itself, in addition to the rehearsal process and Stritch's backstage struggles with, among other things, alcoholism and diabetes, are documented in the D.A. Pennebaker film of the same name.

The film went on to win several Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Variety or Music Program for Stritch, who famously quipped, "I know that most of you who just won an award are thinking 'Hah! I'm glad I won and you didn't!'".

In the 1970s, she moved to London, England with her husband, a younger British actor named John Bay, who died of cancer about 10 years after they first married. For ITV she appeared in the BBC television series Two's Company with Sir Donald Sinden.

She has made many cameo appearances in films, such as Woody Allen's Small Time Crooks
. She was reportedly also considered to play Bea Arthur's role of Dorothy on The Golden Girls, but, by her own admission, offended the producers by improvising profanity into the script. She is good friends with gossip columnist Liz Smith (journalist), and they share the same day of birth February 2, albeit 2 years apart.

She is spoofed in the Forbidden Broadway songs "The Ladies Who Screech" and "Stritch", parodies of "The Ladies Who Lunch" and "Zip", songs she performed in the musicals Company and Pal Joey
, respectively.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Elaine Stritch ]

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Actors - Elaine Stritch

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