The Broadway star and Tony Awards winner hosts a one-week long farewell show before she leaves New York to come back home to Michigan.
- Apr 4, 2013
AceShowbiz - Elaine Stritch performed her last stages in New York before she left the city to a place closer to her family. Her last stage entitled "Elaine Stritch at the Carlyle: Movin' Over and Out" will be held until April 6 at the Carlyle Hotel. Tom Hanks and wife Rita Wilson, Liza Minnelli, Martin Short, Bernadette Peters and Tony Bennett attended the opening night on Tuesday, April 2.
The 88-year-old singer especially adored Tom Hanks. "You have no right to be that talented," she said to Hanks. She continued talking for the next 10 minutes, praising his performance on "Sleepless in Seattle" and congratulating him on his Broadway debut. Hanks shouted from his seat, "I love you!" He also said that his opening show was held the night before, "but it pales in comparison to tonight!"
Stritch spent the majority of the show telling personal anecdotes, joking and paying tributes to other entertainers. In fact, Stritch only sang three songs, "How You Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm", a parody of Cole Porter's "You're the Top" called "You're the Pop" and Rodgers and Hart's "He Was Too Good to Me".
In a phone interview with The New York Times in March, Stitch said that she did not want to live in New York anymore. "I loved being on Broadway, but performing has become exhausting, and I just don't want to live in New York anymore. I'm just sick of the competition in New York, the feeling that I always have to rehearse to keep up my performance," she said.
"I don't feel like rehearsing, even though it should be my favorite thing in the world to do. I just don't have the energy, darling. I'm 88! I don't look or always feel it, but I'm 88!" she said in the interview.
