Who

Stritch is a veteran Broadway performer with the outsized personality to match.

Backstory

Born to a wealthy Roman Catholic family in Detroit (her uncle was the Archbishop of Chicago through most of the '40s and '50s), Stritch moved to New York to study acting at the New School and quickly made her way to Broadway. In 1950, she served as the standby for fellow belter Ethel Merman in Call Me Madam; she went on to star in a slew of productions in the 1950s, including a revival of Pal Joey, Goldilocks, Bus Stop, and Sail Away, in which Noel Coward wrote a role in specifically for her. In 1972, Stritch moved to London to star in a production of Stephen Sondheim's Company. She stayed across the pond for a decade, marrying actor John Bay and starring in a popular British sitcom, Two's Company. After Bay's death in 1982, she moved back to the U.S., but laid low for almost a decade. Stritch returned to the stage in the early '90s, winning a 1996 best actress Tony for her work in Edward Albee's drama A Delicate Balance. In 2002 she found major success with her warts-and-all autobiographical one-woman show, Elaine Stritch at Liberty, which was written with New Yorker scribe John Lahr and directed by George C. Wolfe.

Recently

Stritch has dabbled in TV the last few years with recurring parts on 3rd Rock from the Sun and Law & Order, winning an Emmy for her guest role on the latter. In 2005, 2006, and again in 2008, Stritch took to the stage to perform a brassy one-woman cabaret act—a mixture of Broadway show tunes and vintage Hollywood gossip—at her home, the Carlyle Hotel. (A prix-fixe menu at the hotel was even named The Ladies Who Lunch, after the Stephen Sondheim song Stritch made famous.) The baritone-voiced Stritch has had a string of minor film roles in recent years. She was in Woody Allen's 2000 crime caper Small Time Crooks, the Richard Gere romantic drama Autumn in New York the same year, and the 2005 Jennifer Lopez/Jane Fonda debacle Monster-In-Law.

Vice

Stritch has long battled with the bottle, and she's spoken about her alcoholism openly. She recalls having her first drink at 13 and says in her younger years, she used alcohol to combat stage fright. The problem worsened after her husband's death, and Stritch's hard drinking eventually led to her developing diabetes. She says she quit drinking and joined AA after nearly dying from a diabetic attack.

Personal

Stritch was once engaged to Ben Gazzara, whom she dumped to date Rock Hudson. She was married to John Bay until his death from brain cancer in 1982. Stritch now lives on third floor of the Carlyle Hotel, and has a summer house in Sag Harbor.

True story

Her dirty mouth lost her the part of Dorothy Zbornak on The Golden Girls, a role which, of course, went to Bea Arthur. During her audition, Stritch asked a writer if she could jazz up a line about hors d'oeuvre with the word "fucking." She was never called back.