# Elaine Stritch: another legend gone **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 17, 2014, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elaine-stritch-another-legend-gone/693387 "2014-07-17T17:28:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2014, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elaine-stritch-another-legend-gone/693387/1 "2014-07-17T17:28:02Z")
> **[Elaine Stritch, Acerbic Tony and Emmy Winner, Dies at 89](https://variety.com/2014/legit/news/elaine-stritch-dead-1201264068/)** > > Actress Elaine Stritch, star of Broadway hits including “Elaine Stritch at Liberty” and “Show Boat,” who was nominated for multiple Tonys and Emmys, winning three of the latter, has died. She was 8… Elaine Stritch, Acerbic Tony and Emmy Winner, Dies at 89 [Elaine Stritch: Ladies Who Lunch (Company) - AMAZING VERSION](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=virv-1o2KjE) ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2014, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elaine-stritch-another-legend-gone/693387/2 "2014-07-17T18:41:33Z")
It is being reported that she died at age 89. She used to be a favorite performer of Noel Coward in his musicals. She also did some later work on Broadway 😉 Truly one of a kind. Not everyone’s cup of tea, I suppose, but what she did, she owned. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2014, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elaine-stritch-another-legend-gone/693387/3 "2014-07-17T19:35:37Z")
[NY Times obit.](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/18/theater/elaine-stritch-tart-tongued-broadway-actress-and-singer-is-dead-at-89.html?_r=0) It’s just what every true long-time NY-er fears - move out of the city, return to your home town, and you’ll be dead within a year. RIP Ms. Stritch. Loved ya’. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2014, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elaine-stritch-another-legend-gone/693387/4 "2014-07-17T20:47:56Z")
Wow, I was just yesterday listening to a show she starred in (_Goldilocks_) with Don Ameche. She was a major talent, and will be sorely missed. ---
**Author:** ![h.sapiens](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e0b2c6/32.png) [@h.sapiens](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/h.sapiens)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2014, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elaine-stritch-another-legend-gone/693387/5 "2014-07-17T20:50:46Z")
More recently, she was wonderful as Jack Donaghy’s sassy mother, Colleen, on 30 Rock. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a8b319/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_wuzzy)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2014, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elaine-stritch-another-legend-gone/693387/6 "2014-07-17T20:56:06Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > It is being reported that she died at age 89. > > She used to be a favorite performer of Noel Coward in his musicals. She also did some later work on Broadway 😉 > > Truly one of a kind. Not everyone’s cup of tea, I suppose, but what she did, she owned. I was going to mention her links with Noel Coward when I entered the thread. She must have been almost the last of that generation of actors left. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2014, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elaine-stritch-another-legend-gone/693387/7 "2014-07-17T21:01:49Z")
**This anecdote came from conservative pundit and Broadway fanatic Mark Steyn:** \* "In November 2000 I found myself on Ned Sherrin’s BBC show “Loose Ends”, being broadcast live from New York. It was in the middle of the long post-election-night chad-dimpling phase of the Bush-Gore contest and tensions were running high. Everyone else on the show – Elaine Stritch, Michael Feinstein – was pro-Gore, pro-abortion, anti-capital punishment, etc, and the political talk didn’t go so well. But then Ned asked Miss Stritch about her early days on Broadway and she mentioned that “Civilization (Bongo Bongo Bongo)” had been her first solo. “Oh, that’s a marvelous song,” I enthused. “Do you remember who wrote it, Mark?” Ned asked. “Bob Hilliard and Carl Sigman,” I said. “How do you know that?” asked Miss Stritch in wonder. After the show we had a glass of wine and the talk turned to chads again and politics reared its ugly head. But, as we parted, Miss Stritch sportingly said to me, “You’re full of shit. But at least you know who wrote ‘Bongo Bongo Bongo’.”\* ---
**Author:** ![Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kolak_of_twilo/32/73_2.png) [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolak_of_Twilo)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2014, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elaine-stritch-another-legend-gone/693387/8 "2014-07-18T04:27:53Z")
A brilliant performer and a Broadway legend. We aren’t likely to see someone like her again any time soon. One of a kind for sure. [Let’s get one thing straight Skippy…]([YouTube](http://www.youtube.com/watch)? v=OnnGAanLlF8) ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2014, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elaine-stritch-another-legend-gone/693387/9 "2014-07-18T05:25:12Z")
I only really know her from a UK sitcom she was in with Donald Sinden called [Two’s Company](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two%27s_Company_%28TV_series%29). ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2014, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elaine-stritch-another-legend-gone/693387/10 "2014-07-18T11:13:29Z")
Mrs. Cheesesteak got to work with her for one night at a benefit concert. Completely insane. Awesome insane, but insane nonetheless. Two incidents from that night are seared into our psyche’s and have become running gags in the household. The first has to do with accounting for Ms. Stritch’s expenses. She’s haranguing the producer, put this down, that down, add a tip, I tip better than that! The coup de grace is when she tells him “Put a line under it and add it up… why is that line crooked?” The other is when she corralled my wife backstage, handed her an orange and a grapefruit and said “I’m diabetic, squeeze these into a glass.” Backstage, with no utensils or cups, just squeeze some citrus. I asked my wife what she did… “It’s Elaine Stritch, I squeezed 'em. Found a cup somewhere, ripped the fruit apart with my bare hands and squeezed them.” ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2014, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elaine-stritch-another-legend-gone/693387/11 "2014-07-18T17:34:22Z")
I lived on the same street as and went to high school with a guy who had been Elaine’s closest collaborator for the last ten or so years. He arranged all the music for her shows and played piano in her one-woman performances. He’s pretty devastated right now.