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Peter Harris Elaine Baker Biography & Facts

Elaine Stritch (February 2, 1925 – July 17, 2014) was an American actress, known for her work on Broadway and later, television. She made her professional stage debut in 1944 and appeared in numerous stage plays, musicals, feature films and television series. Stritch was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1995. Stritch made her Broadway debut in the 1946 comedy Loco and went on to receive four Tony Award nominations: for the William Inge play Bus Stop (1956); the Noël Coward musical Sail Away (1962); the Stephen Sondheim musical Company (1970), which included her performance of the song "The Ladies Who Lunch"; and for the revival of the Edward Albee play A Delicate Balance (1996). Her one-woman show Elaine Stritch at Liberty won the 2002 Tony Award for Best Special Theatrical Event. Stritch relocated to London in the 1970s and starred in several West End productions, including Tennessee Williams' Small Craft Warnings (1973) and Neil Simon's The Gingerbread Lady (1974). She also starred with Donald Sinden in the ITV sitcom Two's Company (1975–79), which earned her a 1979 BAFTA TV Award nomination. She won an Emmy Award in 1993 for her guest role on Law & Order and another for the 2004 television documentary of her one-woman show Elaine Stritch at Liberty. From 2007 to 2012, she had a recurring role as Colleen Donaghy on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock, a role that won her a third Emmy in 2007. Early life Stritch was born on February 2, 1925, in Detroit, Michigan, the youngest daughter of Mildred (née Jobe), a homemaker, and George Joseph Stritch, an executive with B.F. Goodrich. She had two older sisters, Georgene and Sally. Her Catholic family was well-off. Her father was of Irish descent, while her mother had Welsh ancestry. Cardinal Samuel Stritch, Archbishop of Chicago from 1940 to 1958, was one of her cousins. She trained at the Dramatic Workshop of The New School for Social Research in New York City under Erwin Piscator, alongside Marlon Brando, Bea Arthur, and Harry Belafonte. Career Early stage career Stritch made her stage debut in 1944. However, her Broadway debut was in Loco in 1946, directed by Jed Harris, followed soon after by Made in Heaven (as a replacement) and then Angel in the Wings (1947), a revue in which she performed comedy sketches and the song "Civilization". Stritch understudied Ethel Merman for Call Me Madam, and, at the same time, appeared in the 1952 revival of Pal Joey, singing "Zip". Stritch later starred in the national tour of Call Me Madam, and appeared in a supporting role in the original Broadway production of William Inge's play Bus Stop. In 1958 she originated the leading role of Maggie Harris in the musical Goldilocks. She starred in Noël Coward's Sail Away on Broadway in 1961. Stritch started in the show in a "relatively minor role and was only promoted over the title and given virtually all the best songs when it was reckoned that the leading lady...although excellent, was rather too operatic for a musical comedy". During out-of-town tryouts in Boston, Coward was "unsure about the dramatic talents" of one of the leads, opera singer Jean Fenn. They were, after all, engaged for their voices and...it is madness to expect two singers to play subtle 'Noël Coward' love scenes with the right values and sing at the same time. Joe Layton suggested "What would happen if...we just eliminated [Fenn's] role and gave everything to Stritch? The show was very old-fashioned, and the thing that was working was Elaine Stritch. Every time she went on stage [she] was a sensation." The reconstructed 'Sail Away' opened on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theatre on October 3, 1961", with Stritch giving what Howard Taubman of The New York Times said "must be the performance of her career." In 1966, she played Ruth Sherwood in the musical Wonderful Town at New York's City Center, and appeared in an Off Broadway revival of Private Lives in 1968. She was the original performer cast in the role of Joanne in Stephen Sondheim's Company (1970) on Broadway. After over a decade of successful runs in shows in New York, Stritch moved in 1972 to London, where she starred in the West End production of Company. On tour and in stock, Stritch appeared in such musicals as No, No, Nanette, The King and I, I Married an Angel, and in Mame as both Vera Charles (opposite Janet Blair) and Mame Dennis. Television Strich's earliest television appearances were in The Growing Paynes (1949) and the Goodyear Television Playhouse (1953–55). She also appeared on episodes of The Ed Sullivan Show in 1954. She was the first and original Trixie Norton in a Honeymooners sketch with Jackie Gleason, Art Carney and Pert Kelton. The character was originally a burlesque dancer, but the role was rewritten and recast after just one episode with the more wholesome looking Joyce Randolph playing the character as a housewife. Stritch's other television credits included a number of dramatic programs in the 1950s and 1960s, including Studio One. In the 1960 television season, Stritch appeared in the role of writer Ruth Sherwood in the CBS sitcom My Sister Eileen, opposite Shirley Bonne as her younger sister, Eileen Sherwood, an aspiring actress. The sisters, natives of Ohio, live in a brownstone apartment in Greenwich Village. The one-season series aired opposite Hawaiian Eye on ABC and Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall on NBC. In 1975, Stritch starred in the British LWT comedy series Two's Company opposite Donald Sinden. She played Dorothy McNab, an American writer living in London who was known for her lurid and sensationalist thriller novels. Sinden played Robert, her English butler, who disapproved of practically everything Dorothy did and the series derived its comedy from the inevitable culture clash between Robert's very British stiff-upper-lip attitude and Dorothy's devil-may-care New York view of life. Two's Company was exceptionally well received in Britain and ran for four series until 1979. In 1979, both Stritch and Sinden were nominated for a BAFTA TV Award for Two's Company, in the category "Best Light Entertainment Performance", losing out to Ronnie Barker. In 1980, Stritch starred in another series for LWT, Nobody's Perfect (the British version of Maude—not to be confused with the 1980 American series of the same name, which aired in the UK as Hart of the Yard) playing Bill Hooper alongside Richard Griffiths as her husband Sam. Unsatisfied with the Anglicised scripts, Stritch herself adapted the original American scripts for all but one of the fourteen episodes (Griffiths handled the remaining one). Other British television appearances by Strich included Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected. Although she appeared several times in different roles, perhaps her most memorable appearance was in the story "William and Mary", in which she played the wife of a man who has cheated death by having his brain preserved. She appeared on BBC 1's children's series, Jackanory, reading.... Discover the Peter Harris Elaine Baker popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Peter Harris Elaine Baker books.