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That Darn Blog !?*@#!
 Elsa Lanchester: SHE'S ALIVE! is in NYC now, written by and starring me, presented by Spin Cycle, with my favorite husband, Mark Nutter, on the keyboard. We opened last Friday to a gloriously responsive crowd of nears and dears and a few strangers--but honestly, mostly people we love--who couldn't have been more loving. It was SO MUCH FUN.
I posted audience and media responses all over this website, so take a look. Lots of love. As I've said before, I am incredibly lucky. The next Elsa show is tomorrow night. Second shows are notorious letdowns: less adrenaline, less excitement, a smidge of laziness that you just can't afford on opening night. . .human nature, right? So I'm over-using social media by trying to drum up business and maybe a little, I dunno, frisson?! Hope? Fun? Excitement? It all makes me feel like I'm 8 years old, pacing up and down our block of military housing in Rantoul, Illinois, shouting,"Come to the big show!" the summer I produced/directed the definitive production of "Sleeping Beauty" in my front yard. I played the prince, because frankly, the boys in the hood couldn't act, and the girls didn't want to play a boy. I didn't mind. I wanted to play ALL the parts. My one stroke of 3rd grade directorial genius was to cast the twins, Elaine and Mary, as Aurora and the Witch, respectively. Doppelganger Good and Evil! They even had English accents (military kids often sound foreign--remember Kathleen Turner?), and of course I was/still am a sucker for British actors. They weren't great actors, but they looked fabulous. The day of the actual Big Show, several of the kids didn't show up, but the show was Big anyway, at least for me. It was a tour de force. "Real encouragin'", as Ruth Gordon would say. See the above photo? That isn't little Me and my merry band of Military Brats--it's Elsa Lanchester's "Children's Theatre", where she taught show biz know-how to neighborhood children, armed with her new Isadora Duncan credentials and some sort of funding from a charity agency. She was just a teenager at the time--and soon turned her attention to more adult entertainment at her Cave of Harmony, the hangout for young London intelligentsia. Famous thinkers and writers and directors and actors and movers and shakers, all when they were young, too. I imagine Elsa in her wonderful crepe paper skirts and homemade sandals, with her pre-Raphaelite-turned-flapper hairdo, taking tickets and serving tea and singing and dancing and performing topical washer woman skits with Hermione Baddeley, Angela's sister. Wanting to control everything, wanting to play all the parts. True redhead behavior. Think she beat a drum up and down the streets of London, shouting "Come to the Big Show"? Or did she let the audience find her? I wish I knew. Banging my own drum was much more fun at 8 than it is now. I kinda suck at it. Tickets are available at www.spincyclenyc.com. We're at the Laurie Beechman Theatre on W. 42nd Street, Fridays only, 7 PM, till November 3rd. My supportive, multi-talented, husband, Mark Nutter, is playing the Prince (and the piano) in this production--but I gave myself the best role in this show, the title character. No more twins---I get to be the English one, Good and Evil and Flashy and Vulnerable and All Things Elsa. Come see us, OK? I promise it'll be even better than my "Sleeping Beauty" masterpiece. I'm much bigger now, so this Big Show is BIG! Come to the Big Show!!!
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  When I was in high school, a million years ago, back in O'Fallon, Illinois, I'd occasionally shop in the closest big city, St. Louis, with my friend Kathy. Her parents let her borrow their Lincoln? Cadillac?--some kind of huge boat of a car, and we'd drive across the Mississippi River to Famous-Barr or Styx, Baer and Fuller to buy school clothes. Well, Kathy bought clothes. She had the family credit cards and SAID she had permission to use them. I never doubted it. My father didn't believe in credit cards and he didn't have enough money --or inclination--to let a teenager choose her own wardrobe. Kathy shopped. I watched. Then we had lunch. Across the Mississippi, on the Missouri side, was a shack, right on the river banks as you come off the bridge, called Trader Bob's Tattoo Shop. Kathy and I chatted about getting tattoos: where, what image we'd choose, and why. . .I had read, probably in 16 magazine, that Cher had a tattoo, of a peace symbol or a rose or a heart, on her back or her breast or her buttock--I was never sure, but all of those variations seemed possible because that's where I'd get mine, and what I'd choose. Peace or love or flower power, preferably hidden. Kathy was more adventurous than I. More daring. I'm so lucky and so thankful that she never threatened to stop at Trader Bob's. I would have gone through with almost any dare in my adolescent desire to be cool or brave or sexy or anything I wasn't. I've often wondered if Kathy ever got inked. I haven't. I'm one of those older women who calculates how much that inky picture on that nubile butt will distort once that skin goes south. Nothing like a wrinkly old peace symbol, right? But I've seen some lovely body art--and am, frankly, amazed by the number of beautiful Bride of Frankenstein tattoos there are! They're everywhere! If someone can explain it to me, please do. Do the wearers/bearers know who she was? I mean, beyond the iconic makeup? Do they wonder? I SO hope some young women with Bride iconography will come to the show and talk to me about their choice. Did their high school shopping buddy, cooler than they were, dare them to do it at some rundown shack on the banks of the river? Do they have regrets? Or was it a well-considered decision? Are they proud to represent the First Girl Monster? I hope so.   "To have a career, be lucky. If you're not, GET to be."--Ruth Gordon
It has taken me quite awhile to put this idea into practice. I believed it to be true--but somehow couldn't apply it to myself and my own career. Feeling UNlucky is a huge disadvantage, though-- holding yourself back, comparing yourself to others, feeling cheated. Isn't that a bore? So get lucky! You're alive, right? You have aspirations! You might even have more talent than you know! You're ahead of the game in so many ways. Of course, I'm older now, and the perspective of age helps. So many people want to do what I'm doing, I remind myself, but they just can't allow themselves. Maybe they're just smarter than I am. I couldn't do anything else; this life chose me. Maybe they're scared. So am I, most of the time. Maybe they're more talented than I am, good for them, but maybe they haven't figured out the Luck Thing yet. Maybe they're younger, which is a really good place to start feeling lucky. The best, in fact. Elsa Lanchester seemed to go blithely through life, making her own luck. When you start out with no money or education and end up with a healthy career in a mansion in Hollywood--you'd better consider yourself lucky. If you don't, you're not very smart. She chose to be happy. “Luck is believing you’re lucky.“– Tennessee Williams That's the big secret. Thanks, Tenn. Williams was very, very lucky. And very, very talented. And it couldn't have been easy to be him--but he understood the concept of luck. His plays are often about victims and victimizers, which is, let's face it, sometimes just a point of view. If you aren't focused on how lucky you are, you may be focusing on feeling victimized. And that, as my mother would've said, just "isn't attractive". Attractive in more ways than one. Get it? Attract people and thoughts and things that reflect and enhance your great good luck. Others might hope your luck will rub off on them. Make sure it does. When Movieland was ignoring or simply underestimating Elsa, she returned to her roots, the live stage, or "vaudeville", as she called it--at the Turnabout Theatre, where she performed for almost twelve years and had the great good luck to meet Forman Brown, who wrote wonderful songs just for her. Elsa wasn't even much of a singer--but became a smash anyway, doing what she liked most: being part of a company, singing. "I've been lucky. I'll be lucky again."--Bette Davis Well, YEAH. Even sad sacks have had lucky days! I am, by nature, and by chemistry, depressive. I'm SO lucky I didn't off myself as a teen. I've met such interesting people since then--and I've had a lot of experiences and feelings I never knew I'd have. So, yeah. Bill McCutcheon, an amazingly generous character actor I had the great luck to work with in St. Louis told me, YEARS before he'd won a Tony--to give up on the half-empty glass attitude. He said, "You've had breaks in the past. Even being cast in a high school play was a break. Trust that those breaks will keep coming. Cream rises to the top. You're the crême de la crême." Thank you for that, Bill. "I was lucky. Lucky, lucky, lucky". --Angela Lansbury And you worked hard. Hard, hard, hard, sometimes playing mothers to people who were older than you, people who had fewer chops, bigger egos, and way more money. Sometimes having difficulties in your family life, but being smart about the things you could control. You had stamina. Longevity. And a boatload of talent. Hard work, and simply living a long life equals lucky. Maybe timing is a lucky charm; talent isn't even the main ingredient. We've all seen that, right? “I was lucky. I found what I loved to do early in life." --Steve Jobs Me too. But I'd have been lucky if I'd found it later, too. It ain't over till it's over. I'm so grateful for figuring that out. Elsa loved to dance at an early age, and became an Isadora Duncan student for a short time. As a teen, she started a children's theatre in London, and even found funding for it. She created a nightclub in her teens, made work for herself, and became the avant-garde "cool" girl of London, with friends like James Whale, who later cast her in a little Hollywood film called THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN. (Be nice to your friends. You never know--their luck may come first.) "Comediennes are the lucky ones, because if you're funny, you can be 125 years old and they will still accept you." --Joan Rivers Whew! I'm not 125 years old quite yet, but I'm funny sometimes, so there's hope. And did Joan Rivers know about tenacity, or what?!! Her career only got better and brighter as she grew older. She remains a role model for women in show business. Any business, really--she was funny and savvy and determined and KIND and stayed relevant over the years. Elsa had a sylph-like body in her youth, and a quirky, irreverent, Puckish sense of humor. She and her friend Angela Baddeley were a comedy duo in their twenties, playing scrubwomen who discussed the news of the day. Eventually, she began playing maids and nannies and nurses in film, no longer elfin--but still in demand. I think Joan Rivers is right. In summary: No big message here. I'm just reminding myself that I'm lucky! I wrote and performed a show where there wasn't one before, about a woman who inspires me. Some people even liked it! Many have been kind enough to encourage my work and my fancies, and to urge me to keep going. Of course I'm not where I hoped I'd be, nobody is, but--I'm still here. And considering the other option. . . I'm grateful to you if you're still reading this. I hope you have a fabulously lucky day, week, and year, and that you occasionally place pennies face-up on the sidewalk so that you may share your sense of wonder and good fortune with others. I am incredibly lucky. So are you, if you think you are.  I have conversations with her in my head. Not surprising, since over the years I’ve read so much by and about her, talked about her endlessly, watched so many of her films, listened to all her songs, and have, of course, written a play in her voice. Not surprising, since I’ve even dreamt of her several times—in dreamland, she and Charles are so kind and encouraging they feel like old friends.
She tells me that if she’d only known I was going to be devising this show, she’d have left me some money to get it right, because I’m not getting it quite right. She wants more costumes and she wants me to learn some of her dance moves. “People who know me will expect these things”, she says. She’s not happy with the way some of her benefactors are handling her bequests. At least I listen to her, she says. They haven't even read her books. She’s confounded by so many tattoos of the Bride image, but oh well, it has nothing to do with her, really. It’s all Jimmy Whale’s doing. And that awful Jack Pearce, the makeup man at Universal. That’s what people want permanently etched on their bodies, not her. “Poor silly cows”, she sneers, “one day those bloody Brides on their young shoulders will sag to their elbows.” She has advice for me, of course. She thinks I should lose weight, if it bothers me so much, it doesn’t bother her at all, and she thinks I shouldn’t worry about wrinkles and gravity and whether to try filler and Botox: “Don’t be stupid. You’re wasting precious time. Just stop looking in the mirror.” She thinks I’d be happier if I had a garden. Or at least learn the names of plants. And spend more time out of doors. “You’re PALLID”, she says. She wants to know why it takes me so long to finish my projects. “Actors are a dime a dozen”, she says, “good writers aren’t. Keep at it till you’re good.” She thinks my attempts at honesty are funny. “You hide behind manners”, she says. “It’s so English of you. Try being more American. That’s what I did.” She hopes the story of her marriage is of help to some people, and that the story of her life in show business will amuse others. She tells me to remind everyone that she was a writer, too. She says to embrace life without guilt. And to sing. She says everyone would be much happier if they’d sing and dance more. She chastises me constantly, about so many things: vocalizing, warming up, exercise, minding my blood pressure, my posture, my diffidence, my wine intake, and above all avoiding gossip. “These things are CRUCIAL”, she says, “but suit yourself. What do I know? I’m only dead.” Except, as I remind Elsa and myself, the title of my love letter is "She's Alive!"--which, lately, she IS. At least to me.  Elsa Lanchester and the Oscar-winning actress Ruth Gordon were good chums. Both noted their first meeting in their memoirs. Of Ruth, Elsa said,"We got to know her very well and very quickly." And Ruth reported,"The Laughtons liked me and I liked them. Was it based on admiration? Mine for them was boundless". What did the two have in common? Both actresses, both unconventionally attractive, witty, a bit scandalous (Ruth was having an affair with Jed Harris, the married producer), both partied with the intelligentsia of the day, and both were clothes horses. As a girl, Ruth's mother's sewing skills kept her in style. Never mind that she wasn't even quite five feet tall. Ruth managed to impress with her fashion sense, even as a struggling young actress, and as an older woman she could tell you what she wore to almost every important event in her life. Read her memoirs; she's a hoot. Elsa grew up with even less money than Ruth, and an "advanced" mother who wouldn't have had the time or inclination to sew. Elsa was pretty much on her own. She learned to make sandals and tunics from Raymond Duncan, Isadora's brother, continuing to wear them long after her stint as an Isadora-ble. When she opened the underground Cave of Harmony nightclub in London, she built her own costumes out of crepe paper and sometimes wore tuxedo jackets and top hats, ages before Marlene Dietrich. Early in their relationship, Elsa said that Charles was nervous that her somewhat shabby clothes would make a bad impression on his smartly-dressed mother. So he took her to an expensive dressmaker, chose her outfits, and thereafter supervised her wardrobe! Years after his death, Elsa said she was still influenced by Charles's wonderful, if controlling, sense of style. When Ruth (not Elsa) got a screen-test to audition for the Widow Judson in "Ruggles of Red Gap" opposite Charles, he talked her up to the studio bigwigs. He even chose her audition wardrobe--hair and makeup included! She didn't get the job, but she got other films afterwards, based on Charles's glowing recommendations. "God damn it! Why can't I do that for Elsa?" he grumbled. I'm sure Elsa and Ruth thought the very same thing. Elsa's advice for a happy life included: "Keep each person separate in your heart. Don't have two sex patterns going at the same time. And don't ever join a conversation about something you know nothing about." In her books, Ruth also imparts wisdom. Her favorite refrain is "Never face facts". Another bit of advice is "Live each day as if you have a fitting tomorrow" (my paraphrase). From photos of young Elsa Lanchester, it looks as though she lived by that rule. She remained slim and fashion-conscious well into her fifties, appearing in period gowns that enhanced her hourglass figure, and then at the Turnabout Theatre, where she changed into three costumes an evening--one for each featured song. Later, when Elsa went on tour with "Elsa Lanchester Herself", her private music hall, she changed costumes six times a night. These fabulous costumes are described in the review below from 1960--and they take up almost as much room as the critique of her show! In my version of Elsa's cabaret act, Elsa Lanchester: SHE'S ALIVE!, she tells her life story through song--and can't changE costumes because her dresser has jumped ship. Not to face facts, but--I don't have Charles's bank account, I don't have a dresser, AND--I have certainly NOT been living as if I have a fitting tomorrow! I DID have a fitting earlier this week, however, with a wonderful costumer named Kelly Neuls. She is amazing--she made a silk purse out of, well, out of ME and a second-hand gown from the 1990's. It looks like something Elsa would've actually worn in her shows! I'm almost inspired to start eating for tomorrow's fittings again. . .like I did 20 years and 20 pounds ago. I can just hear Elsa and Ruth saying it's high time! PS: Here's Kelly. If you're in the Chicago area and need a costume wizard--look no further: fb.watch/mQwxwcz4jW/ AND: below is the glowing review about Elsa's cabaret act and her fabulous costumes! With gratitude to author MJ Simpson, whose Elsa bio is slated for a Spring '24 release.   Solo shows are everywhere these days, maybe you’ve noticed. There are festivals, workshops, how-to books, gurus, all for helping actors and singers and dancers and writers and storytellers keep their careers (and spirits) aloft by going solo.
Apparently, solo shows are cheaper to produce than big productions. Easier to manage. Thing is, “solo” shows aren’t solo. Mark Nutter, my above-and-beyond-husband who writes music and plays piano, is onstage with me almost the whole time. Lucky me! I’ve been bugging people who knew Elsa to share memories and point me in the right direction for YEARS now. I’m being sound-designed by wildly over-qualified dear friend/techies, and am forever grateful to the incredibly generous person who holds the rights to Elsa’s music. I’ve found someone lovely to help me memorize lines; have hired a fabulous vocal coach; am beyond grateful to all the writing groups and teachers who’ve helped hone what I want to say; and am blessed to personally know a mega-talented transcriber of music. I just met a genius costumer yesterday, who is gonna make me look better than I have in ages. I’ve trawled libraries for research, friends for support, and the internet for folks as in love with Elsa as I am. (They’re out there.) I’ve corresponded with Elsa’s literary agent, had breakfast with her editor, and spent a delightful day in London with an Elsa expert, MJ Simpson, who showed me places she’d lived and worked. Mr. Simpson’s in-depth book about our mutual obsession, BRIDE OF THE HUNCHBACK, will be released in the spring. And briefly, let me sing the praises of Ron Lasko and Chip Duckett of SpinCycleNYC. I worked with these wonderful fellas a million years ago, and am delighted and so thankful for their support, good humor, experience, and PR chops. So “Solo” ain’t solo. Everything takes a village, somehow. Most one-person shows are based on the writer/performer’s personal experience of tragedy or coming of age or discovery or survival. I, too, wrote and performed one like that, ages ago, about the amazing women in my family--and decided it just wasn’t for me. I do admire people who can create something beautiful and moving and universal out of their own lives, but truth be told, I was embarrassed to re-enact important events of my own life and to present people I love as characters. Anyway, as Fellini noted, “All art is autobiographical”. So—there will be enough of me in the Elsa piece. MORE than enough, in fact. My absolute favorite solo shows have been more like Hal Holbrook’s MARK TWAIN TONIGHT. Solid impressions of extraordinary human beings, in-depth explorations of fascinating lives and creative minds. There are so few actors as Zen as Holbrook, though, right? Judith Ivey’s Ann Landers in THE LADY WITH ALL THE ANSWERS was truly memorable. That script holds up on its own, too. And, to me, the solo piece about Capote, TRU, was glorious when I saw it on Broadway. Robert Morse, always a favorite, was impeccable, indelible, as Capote. But when I read it on the page? Not so much. Funny how that works. Mary Louise Wilson’s take on Diana Vreeland, FULL GALLOP, is a “solo” show I wish I’d seen (though she added a sort of walk-on maid, to avoid the “solo” stigma). I so admire her as an actor, and as a writer. Everyone I know who saw her Diana Vreeland can still quote from her script! Ms. Wilson also wrote a terrific book about the experience of creating her solo piece, noting all the setbacks and triumphs that led up to the career turning point of FULL GALLOP. Her book is called MY FIRST HUNDRED YEARS IN SHOW BUSINESS, and is well worth a read. If you’re thinking of writing a solo show—read her book first. My “solo” effort, ELSA LANCHESTER: SHE’S ALIVE, will be considered cabaret by some, a play by others. Too much talking for cabaret, too much music for a solo play. It’ll keep changing, I’m sure. It’s a form that can handle change. Elsa, of course, had her own solo show called ELSA LANCHESTER HERSELF, same title as her autobiography. She and her husband, Charles Laughton, worked on it together, he as director—though it was advertised as “Censored by Charles Laughton”, not "directed". Laughton himself enjoyed performing solo for years, touring all over the States, reading and telling stories. When he was too ill to perform, Elsa filled in for him with her very different brand of solo—decades before the solo show craze. If you’ve read this far, thank you! Come see my show, will you? I’ll only LOOK alone onstage. And I might even try to get the folks in the audience to join in and make it a bit less “solo”—why not? ELSA LANCHESTER: SHE’S ALIVE! *Chicago September 15, 2023, 7:30 PM Venus Cabaret Tickets: www.mercurytheaterchicago.com *Rochester September 20, 2023, 7:30 PM Theatre at Innovation Square Tickets: https://rochesterfringe.com/tickets-and-shows/elsa-lanchester-shes-alive *NYC October 6-November 3, 2023 The Laurie Beechman Tickets: https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/1173177  Lots of Brides, obscuring the Groom. Photo by Tina McKenna Even hardcore Bride of Frankenstein fans sometimes get the hair wrong. Understandable, probably, since the film was shot in black and white, but Elsa Lanchester’s hair was naturally a dark auburn, so the Bride of Frankenstein was a redhead, too. Elsa’s own very unruly mop was shaped over a sort of wire cage, with the white streaks placed on each side. They’re not symmetrical—take a look, it’s a wonderful touch. In her autobiography, ELSA LANCHESTER HERSELF, Elsa writes much too briefly about the making of the Bride. I want to know everything! How James (Jimmy) Whale, an old friend from her youth in London approached her to play it; what she thought when she first saw herself in the Bride drag; if she ever thought it would be such a hit; and did she regret having done it? I doubt that, somehow. Elsa didn’t seem to regret much. Apparently, the makeup process and the actual shoot were annoying and painful. She didn’t like Boris Karloff much, and she REALLY didn’t like Jack Pierce, the makeup designer, who wouldn’t deign to respond to a pleasant “Good morning”. The Bride’s eyes were propped open so that Elsa couldn’t blink for long stretches of time, and the makeup you can now learn from YouTube tutorials took hours to complete. Never mind about being entirely wrapped in gauze—ever so carefully, by a nurse, she says. Elsa reminds us that she also played Mary Shelley, a much more enjoyable role than the Bride, and even got to be pretty for a change! The Mary Shelley dress was gorgeous—yards and yards of lace. But Elsa’s decolletage was a focus of the newly appointed Code censors, and some of her precious footage had to be scrapped due to the revealing bodice. In her 1983 book, Elsa writes that if you want to shut her up, just ask her about that Bride movie. The book was released fifty years after the film, and by then she had been in SO many more films and plays and television shows and cabaret acts and radio broadcasts. . . She had received a Golden Globe award for Witness for the Prosecution, had been nominated for two Best Supporting Oscars, and had starred in an all-but-forgotten TV series. How galling to be asked about four minutes of hissing like a Regents Park swan! But horror fans are tenacious. We hang on to memories of our favorite monsters. Many of us grew up with the classic Universal films on Saturday morning television, a quieter, gentler world of monsters than the post-Night of the Living Dead gross-out and slasher flicks. By today’s standards, Universal monsters are almost quaint. The Bride and her husband have been “costumed performers” at Universal Studios for ages, right there next to Spongebob and Scooby Doo and fake Marilyn Monroe, ready and waiting to pose for your vacation photo ops. I’m not sure how much The Bride of Frankenstein had been analyzed during Elsa’s lifetime. Certainly not as deeply or as obsessively as it has been dissected now. The gender issues, dark humor, subversive sexiness, sly references, extraordinary camera work and editing, even the soundtrack to the film have all been subjects of academic study. There is a fascinating new book out called THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, essays about all of the above, edited by Emma Westwood. It’s readable and relatable and so much fun, especially if you love the film as much as I do. I warn you, though, it’s on back order—mine took months to arrive! My solo play about Elsa, ELSA LANCHESTER: SHE’S ALIVE! takes place in 1962, twenty years or so before she published her autobiography. "My” Elsa hasn’t made peace with the Bride of Frankenstein yet. She’s older, matronly, dealing with how to stay creative, and how to come to terms with her longtime husband’s illness. She’s probably not recognizable as the Bride anymore—more likely identified as the dotty aunts and nannies and nurses and maids that she played later. But time does something funny for us, if we’re lucky. On one of her last Johnny Carson show appearances, Elsa talks just a bit about being approached by children, who, prompted by parents, ask if she’s really the lady who played the Bride. She mentions having seen “Young Frankenstein”, the Mel Brooks film. She even says that Madeline Kahn was awfully good in it. She says it’s nice to be remembered. And she says she has had the happiest life of anyone she knows. The surprise of that last statement brought tears to my eyes. Elsa told me exactly why I have to continue with this piece. For HER, of course, for her indelible memory, her wonderful story, her oddball legacy, and for us women of an age, and, yes, for myself--when people don’t recognize younger me in old photos-- or even in my current face. Nobody, not even an icon, gets to choose how they’re remembered. Black hair or red? Symmetrical or asymmetrical? Lanchester or Lancaster? I think we just keep doing what we’re doing. We work and live and love, in hope that we make a difference for the good, and remind ourselves to be grateful if anyone remembers us at all. 
 You may have heard that Elsa Lanchester was an Isadora Duncan dancer in her childhood. She remained a dancer for decades: taught as a teen, had a short stint as a "snake dancer", performed the Arabian dance in "The Nutcracker", danced in the smash hit revue "Riverside Nights", at her own nightclub, The Cave of Harmony, and in at least one film, the wartime curiosity "Thumbs Up" (which is worth seeing, if just for the fun she seems to be having).
Elsa was also an adept physical actor. She starred in several silent films in Britain and was touted as the "female Charlie Chaplin". In the theatre, she garnered raves as an athletic Ariel to her husband Charles Laughton's less successful Prospero, and as Peter Pan to his Captain Hook. She was exhilarated by flying onstage, even though a few of her ribs were broken in a harness mishap. What she couldn't really do was sing. But she loved music, enjoyed collecting songs from the music halls of her childhood, and--she sang anyway. She parodied Victorian songs, put her own special twist on traditional tunes, and learned phrasing and modulation for comedy or pathos. The characterization, of course, came easily to her. In 1930's Hollywood, newly transplanted Elsa missed performing in variety--what she liked to call vaudeville. She said she hated making films and being in plays, and especially hated waiting for work to show up. So in 1941, when she heard about the Yale Puppeteers' new Turnabout Theatre in West Hollywood, she volunteered to be a guest star: three songs a night, three different costumes, and three completely different characterizations. Again, she was a smash hit, largely due to the talents of the Turnabout's brilliant composer/lyricist, Forman Brown. He wrote songs specifically to Elsa's strengths, and those songs became Elsa's property in exchange for performing gratis. She stayed at the Turnabout for twelve years, leaving with a cache of tailor-made material for her subsequent club acts. But could she sing? Charles Laughton called Elsa a "diseuse", not a "chanteuse", a talk/singer like Rex Harrison, not a Julie Andrews songbird. Not exactly the highest praise for someone who loved to sing as much as Elsa did. But she embraced that definition, and made it part of her, as we sometimes say today, brand. Like her voice or not, Elsa had a unique sound, and she cultivated it. In "ELSA LANCHESTER: SHE'S ALIVE", my tribute to Elsa's extraordinary life and music, I perform several of the early music hall songs Elsa collected, and I'm thrilled to say I've been given permission to perform some of Forman Brown's witty, wistful tunes! I'm beyond grateful. The hard part is deciding which songs to sing--there are so many, and they're so much fun to sing! But can I sing? I ask myself that question daily. I USED to sing. I've sung all my life: with my mother and sister, in choir, in chorus, in high school shows, in a rock band (briefly), as a folk singer--and in musicals where I was actually PAID to sing! In my youth, I studied voice, attempted art songs and arias, with no delusions of becoming the next Renee Fleming. I stopped trying to sing years ago, too anxious to be vulnerable in front of people. I convinced myself my voice wasn't good enough, because music was so important to me. Now, here's where Elsa has been an inspiration! (How lucky am I to have found her?) I realized that I don't HAVE to sound great--I have to sound like her, only a tiny bit better! Whew! At the end of her life, Elsa was still studying voice. Not to sing onstage, but for the breath, the stamina, and for the sheer joy. I've started taking vocal lessons again, and I am loving it, too. Does my voice sound like it did when I was younger? Of course not. The break in my poor old larynx is as big as--well, it's pretty honkin' big. Any woman of an age can tell you all about it, and sometimes it's pretty disheartening. That's when I hear Elsa say,"That's what makes us distinctive! USE IT! Just don't forget to BREATHE, Towser! Have FUN!!!" So, OK. Call me a Diseuse. I don't mind at all. Much.  When I moved to LA in the 1990's, it seemed like everyone I knew suggested I re-invent myself. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what they meant. Was I supposed to pretend that everything up to that point hadn't happened? Keep the facts but give them a new interpretation? Were they telling me to lose weight? Or just dye my hair (again), change my name, and hope for the best? Ruth Gordon is my go-to guru. So I decided to employ Ruth's version of re-invention--"Ignore the Facts". In an address to a Quincy, Massachusetts high school graduating class she once said (this is a paraphrase),"When I was young, if I had accepted the facts-- that I was not pretty, too short, bowlegged, with not enough talent, money, or contacts to be an actress, I never would have won an Academy Award". Something like that. Fill in your own blanks. I wrote the above paragraphs back in New York, when I was prepping a show I'd written called BITCH!, based on the autobiography of Lady May Lawford (Rat Packer Peter's bigger-than-life mother). I had been desperate to sit on the "other side of the table", as actors like to call it--the side where the power sits: producer, director, writer, casting person, et al. I wanted for once to make the choices, not to be the expendable people-pleaser hoping to be chosen. The Actor. Sigh. It didn't turn out that way. No offense to the brilliant Joe Kinosian, who played Buddy, Lady Lawford's as-told-to. No offense to lovely Melinda Buckley, our director, or to anyone connected with the piece!! No offense to the six or so talented women who did early readings of that little bitch of a show, but--only one understood the character, and there was no way she'd actually do the play. So I ended up playing the role myself. An Actor. Sigh. The Little Red Hen again. My growing pains were excruciating. I'm revisiting this idea of Reinvention now, because-- obviously I'm older, I'm unexpectedly married, I'm spending a lot of time in the Midwest again, and, well, Covid changed things. Covid forced me to sit with change. (Literally. My expanded backside is proof.) But Covid also provided time to finish writing projects, to take Zoom classes with some extraordinary teachers, to read more, to value my life and friendships a little more, and to question the so-called facts about myself. I'm typing this from Evanston, Illinois, a town I lived in from the ages of 17-21, during college. Strange to say, over the years, I've changed more than Evanston has. I haven't worked in the Chicago area since the 70's, so I can't quite call myself an actor here. I'm an actor when I'm in NY or LA, where people sometimes remember my work. What I've mostly done here is write. And I love writing. I get to write roles that I can't possibly play. I get to make choices. What does all this have to do with Elsa Lanchester? She was born a bastard (as she called herself), and raised by parents who disdained wealth. They were poor but "advanced" thinkers of their time. Elsa had almost no formal education, was an Isadora Duncan dancer at age 11, taught her own dance classes by age 14, started a children's theatre when she was a teen, founded a nightclub that became the rage of intellectual London (while still a teen), was sculpted and painted and glorified in song and poetry and novels, was touted as the "female Charlie Chaplin" for her silent film roles, was a popular singer (though she couldn't really sing), became an actor (though she never really enjoying acting), then married her soulmate, who turned out to be gay, moved with him to Hollywood, appeared in quite a few films, changed from a sylph to a matronly character actress, won a Golden Globe, was nominated for an Oscar, amassed wealth, collected art, wrote books, rekindled her singing career in Hollywood, then toured as a singer (though she couldn't really, you know, sing). Were any of these changes intentional? Was all of it chance? Did she know she was re-inventing herself? Did she ever imagine that her inky, iconic likeness would permanently adorn the bodies of thousands of Bride of Frankenstein fans? Is re-invention just a waiting game? A dear friend of mine who has re-invented himself MANY times says he thinks it always starts with a decision made out of desperation. I wonder. Can we even judge our own re-invention? Or is it up to others to say we're someone new? And my hero, Ruth Gordon--the girl from Quincy, Mass, who never faced facts?--the good pal, by the way, of Elsa Lanchester?--she dropped her last name (Jones), got kicked out of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1914 or so but didn't tell her parents, stayed in New York, and got an acting job-- without any training. Then she married Gregory Kelly, a matinee idol who died much too young, had an affair with the notorious married producer Jed Harris, gave birth out of wedlock when it just wasn't DONE (she went to Paris for awhile), became an unlikely Broadway leading lady, met Garson Kanin, then a boy wonder 16 years her junior, married him, wrote brilliant plays and films, created memorable roles onstage and film, and became a symbol of eternal enthusiasm. Is re-invention just a matter of luck, or a decision to get lucky? Must it be a conscious act? Could re-invention be the natural result of living through a personal crisis, a change of locale or an everyday epiphany? Is it really self-realization? And can anyone re-invent herself, anywhere, anytime? I'm still counting on it.  Ruth Gordon and Elsa Lanchester, Masters of ReInvention, with Charles Laughton, Elsa's husband.
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