"Shoot Me": Elaine Stritch's Legendary 65-year Run in New York.

I love New York-themed documentaries, but I love them even more when I see them in the city. Around 9PM on a frigid Saturday night last February, I heard godawful noises which turned out to be the beginning of construction on the 63rd Street subway's coolant system.

I used to have a beautiful view from the closet that passes for a bedroom in the glorious 500 feet 1897 4th floor walk-up on 62nd I call home three blessed months a year. I so adored waking up to the view of the sky every morning. When I returned in May, 2013 to see the 15'x8' steel monstrosity, I never thought I'd get used to it, but William James was right that habit is among the most powerful forces in human psychology. I still hate it but I'm over it. 

Sunday construction is rare in LA or Santa Barbara and living in the suburbs (though really all of LA and Santa Barbara is a suburb), the only significant noise comes from gardeners. Figuring that I was safe to walk around naked, I got out of bed without reaching for a robe or t-shirt and peeked from the foot of the bed to see what on earth could be making that racket. 

I solicited opinions on Facebook from city people (amidst many F words in all combinations and permutations) but no one knew what it was. I found out from   MTA guys on the street. They were amiable and to my knowledge none saw me naked. 

Surely I made the day of those guys from the Ironworkers Local 40. I might have opted for damage control, but given they'd seen my entire naked body—and that I'm a bit of an exhibitionist--I just smiled and waved. They probably rehashed the story with their buddies for days: "Hey, you know that job on 63rd? Well there's this broad with long dark hair and long legs in that unit. She walks around naked and seems very friendly." 

I was content to stay home that night after a long day of people watching, eavesdropping and window shopping following my beloved lemon ricotta pancakes at Sarabeth's on 92nd and Mad. But the construction forced me out and I caught the F train to the Sunshine Cinema to see Genius on Home and it was an evening I'll never forget. 

Genius on Hold is the story of Walter Shaw from the perspective of his two children, one of whom was the infamous “Dinnertime Club” ringleader and the most successful jewel thief in American history. The film works both on personal and political levels. On the one hand, it's about a kind, decent technological genius robbed of his passion and livelihood and left with no choice but to use his mental gifts for criminal ends; Shaw invented the black box which allowed bookies to elude the FBI for nearly a decade. 

On the other hand, it's about the evils of monopoly and a compelling reminder that antitrust laws exist for good reason. This documentary should be screened in every high school and college civic studies and American history course. Two professors (Syracuse and St. John's, if memory serves) provide important historical context. While it's impossible not to tear up at several points in the film, Genius on Hold is not a complete downer.

A few months earlier, I saw Eye Has to Travel, the Diana Vreeland story. It's rare for me to see a film twice in the theater but Lincoln Plaza Cinemas is close to Luigi Jazz Centre and when not injured, I'm in class several times a week which makes it convenient to drop in for a show. 

Like the Diana Vreeland film, Shoot Me portrays an iconic New York woman who, pre-Betty Friedan, led a fiercely independent life devoted to her creative passions. Both women's gravelly, distinctive voices are (or were) perfectly suited to their bossy temperaments. I joked to a few ladies in the bathroom that if my father, 89, had been married to Elaine Stritch, now 89 (her birthday was February 2nd), the two would have killed each other. 

James Gandolfini said as much of a potential union with Stritch. Had they met in in their thirties (of course she'd have been in her 50s or 60s), Gandolfini had no doubt they would have had “torrid love affair which ended badly.” The movie makes you sad all over again that this brilliant bear of a man with a heart as big as his talent is gone. I didn't realize they were so close, but it doesn't surprise me.

Much of the film is shot at the Carlyle Hotel, where Elaine resided for years before leaving New York for Detroit, where she grew up a “convent school girl” with a cardinal for an uncle. Her director in Elaine Stritch at Liberty calls her a masterful storyteller and while she's a consummate performer, there have been singers with better technique and phrasing. Part of her appeal in a cabaret setting has always been the picture she paints of life in show business. 

Alec Baldwin is at his best, both when he talks about Stritch's turn as his mother on 30 Rock and when he rehearses a scene with her in a hospital bed. As Baldwin leaves the hospital room, he mutters, “She stepped on my laugh line. Bitch!” “What did he say?” she asks. “He said you stepped on his laugh line, bitch!”

Stritch enjoyed working on 30 Rock but says she's not sure about show business today. Ensconced in her limo, she says everyone is so damned nice, it makes her uncomfortable and not a little suspicious.

The consensus seems to be that Elaine Stritch is not easy. I know all about not easy as the daughter of a man who demands that his coffee cup be pre-heated, that his pancakes be well-done (i.e. burnt), and that his drink arrives within 90 seconds of sitting down at a restaurant and the check delivered within 90 seconds of finishing the meal. It's not a function of age; my father is what a professor of mine called a "high need husband," just as Stritch is a high need performer. 

But the recurrent theme among colleagues and friends alike is that Elaine Stritch is “worth it”  and that she gives back as much as she demands. (I'd say the same of my father.) Hal Prince stresses how vulnerable Stritch was always, however easy this is to miss under that brash and fearless exterior. And in fact, Stritch's fear is a consistent theme of Shoot Me. Over dinner, John Turturro echoes Prince's sentiment, noting that Stritch is without walls or protection. This almost preternatural bluntness is largely what defines her.

I didn't know that her marriage was such a happy one, nor that her husband was so dashing. Sadly, actor John Bay died of brain cancer at 53, after only thirteen years of marriage. Stritch was just 58 and she never found another husband or life partner.

The documentary would not have been complete without Woody Allen, another Carlyle Hotel legend (whose Monday night jazz show I tried but failed to see on my birthday).

Allen does not appear, but we learn of his note to Stritch before September. He explained that he wanted Stritch for the film but knew taking direction was not her long suit. If she felt unable to take (heavy) direction, Allen wrote, they should spare everyone the trouble. Stritch agreed and delivered a fine performance.

Stritch contracted diabetes some years ago and it plays a significant role in her life. I didn't realize that diabetes could result in aphasia or that it was so difficult to control with medication at that age.

Remembering lyrics, even to songs she's sung for decades, is trying. It's a poignant reminder that not even a “lion of a woman” as the New York Times described Stritch in the Sondheim show at the Carlyle, escapes the ravages of time. Before the show's debut, Sondheim sent her a gracious note (signed "Steve") to wish her good luck and to say that she was free to change the lyrics as he wouldn't be there.

When Stritch performed for the first time at Town Hall in 2011, she cut short one rehearsal, explaining it was making her more nervous and that she would either be fine on stage or she wouldn't. She was. (The occasional “Fuck!” was therefore endearing rather than painful.)

After over 20 years of not drinking, Stritch decided late in life to experiment with one drink a day. She does talk about AA in the film, mostly because she met one of her best friends there. My only quibble is the confusing chronology about when she decided that one drink a day was too risky with her diabetes. She makes a joke about drinking during her 2004 Emmy acceptance speech, which surely ranks in the top ten or fifteen such speeches in my lifetime. 

"I try not to drink," she admits, "but shit!". Her exuberant gratitude that she rather than the four other exceptional nominees won is heartwarming rather than egotistical both because of her age and her lifelong inability to accept compliments. We see this modesty when Stritch tours Stella Adler to approve the rehearsal space which will bear her name. She regards two rooms as extravagantly large and finally settles on a modest room. 

My memory for dialogue is excellent, but the film offers one zinger after another, and I was laughing so continuously that I can't remember some of the best one-liners. Her encounter with JFK over two days was at once sweet and amusing. After their second date at a dinner party, he dropped her home in his limo.

She invited him up for a nightcap and JFK said with characteristic frankness that if this meant listening to Glenn Miller records and eating eggs, he wasn't interested. Still a virgin with a Catholic school mentality, this was precisely what she had in mind. He declined the offer and she concluded then and there that “this man was going places because [he] knows how to lay it on the line.”

If you love Elaine Stritch, Broadway and old New York, Shoot Me is a must see. I live about 15 blocks south of the Carlyle and spent my birthday drinking at the legendary Bemelman's, so it was especially meaningful to see her walk the familiar streets of the Upper East Side.

Stritch embodies all that is great about New York. People approach her on the street to say how much they love her and Stritch, in the ubiquitous mink or that crazy multi-colored white fur she unabashedly wears with her trademark tights (PETA be damned!), is always gracious.

In one of the last scenes, Stritch is on the phone with her nephew, whom she informs of her decision to move back to Detroit. She listens for a moment before bursting into laughter and turning to one of her assistants: “My nephew just said, 'Well, you gave it [a shot]. 65 years.” She certainly did. And theater lovers, both in and out of New York, are better for it.