Interview: Rue McClanahan
To billions of TV viewers around the world Rue McClanahan is that sharp-tongued tart of a southern belle Blanche Devearoux on the '80s mega-hit—and perpetual re-run riot—The Golden Girls. Nowadays, McClanahan can once more be found snapping one-liners like they was pancake batter crackling up from a sizzling hot griddle as Madame Morrible in the mega-hit Broadway musical Wicked. Still, with the phenomenon of Golden Girls, plus nearly 200 other TV and film credits to her resume, folks forget that in the Oklahoma native actually got her start on the New York stage. After a Broadway debut opposite Dustin Hoffman in 1968's Jimmy Shine, TV producer Norman Lear tapped McClanahan for recurring roles on his classic shows All in the Family and Maude. In the early '70s, McClanahan juggled east and west coast lives—appearing regularly on television in LA, as well as replacement duties on Broadway in Neil Simon's California Suite and David Rabe's Sticks and Bones—before settling down with an Emmy Award-winning career and quite a few husbands in Hollywood. Triumphing over breast cancer several years ago, McClanahan finally returned to the Great White Way, playing the Countess de Lage in the Roundabout's 2001 revival of The Women. The experience excited her so, that, this season, McClanahan accepted the invitation to wow the crowds at the Gershwin each night. We recently caught up with Rue—on her day off, no less—to chat about her first Broadway musical, how the Big Street's changed since the '60s and just how difficult it was to keep Dustin Hoffman on script.
So, how are you enjoying doing the show?
Oh, I'm having fun—not as much fun as a real play would be, you know, with a challenging role—but for a musical, it's pretty spectacular.
Of course you've done many musicals in stock, as well as the Nunsense TV movies. How come it's taken you so long to do one on Broadway?
Well, I was so lucky and successful in television that it kept me busy out [in LA]. Then I met this wonderful man that I'm married to [Morrow Wilson] and moved to New York. Actually, it took a while for people to realize that I was here—that I really wasn't still in LA. I mean, I've been in New York since '97! Then I did The Women and The Vagina Monologues and a lot out-of-town stuff. Finally I did a play for the director, you know... [Joe] Mantello out at Sag Harbor a few years ago. And when I was suggested for the part [in Wicked] he said, "Oh, yeah! She'd be perfect!" And they just offered it to me.
What have you been enjoying most about playing in a musical on Broadway?
Hmmm... What's most enjoyable about it? Well, I just take it as a whole. I don't divide it into categories. But I like the humor of it, of course.
I can imagine, with nearly 2,000 people in the audience—all that energy coming at you each performance.
Ha! That's certainly one of the best things! It's nice to go into a huge hit that's already running.
Are your Golden Girls fans coming to see you?
Oh, yeah. I'm getting a lot of fan mail at the theater. They offer to meet me out front before I go in—to sign this and that, say "I love you"... And they haven't even seen the show yet [Laughs]. But they'll say "I'm getting tickets," or "Yes, I've seen it and love it." They're still mixing Blanche with Madame Morrible.
There must be whole families who've grown up with you on television coming to the show.
They're mostly grown-up kids and their parents. It's really a lot of 14 to 20 year-old boys... and their mothers.
You've actually done a couple of TV movies involving the world of Oz—1978's Rainbow and 1990's The Dreamer of Oz . Now with Wicked, do you have something going on with Frank L. Baum that we don't know about?
You know [Laughs], not consciously. But I do see that as some kind of spiritual connection because it just keeps coming along. Isn't it odd?!
Was Wicked inevitable?
No, I think it 's just been one of those serendipitous things. The first movie was with Andrea McArdle [a biopic about the early career of Judy Garland] and then John Ritter did the second one [a biopic about Oz author Frank Baum], where I played the prototype of the Wicked Witch.
What was working with John Ritter like?
Well, I did a play with John for PBS called Who's Happy Now? by Oliver Hailey, in which he plays a boy from 16 to 36. And working with him was just wonderful. I had just previously seen him at a little theater in California when he played the one that comes out of the stump in The Tempest, and he as so funny and so convincing and so outrageous, I'd never seen it played like that before. Then we did Who's Happy Now?, then Dreamer of Oz. And then I asked him to do the narration on Nutcrackers by Danny Goggin the Nunsense Christmas show. John took time out of his busy schedule and did the narration, a little funny piece of the play. And that was very shortly before he died.
Was he as humorous off stage as he was on?
He could be. He was sunny and up and full of energy and talk. A real personality. He was a clown, really a physical clown. And he didn't really get to tap in on that in Three's Company. But he had that talent, the physical, the body. Of course Tex Ritter [singing-cowboy movie star of "B" westerns in the '30s and '40s] was his dad, and he was always kind of disturbed by that. He wouldn't talk about that much. But really, John was an awfully good actor.
Speaking of awfully good actors, you made your Broadway debut in a play called Jimmy Shine with Dustin Hoffman.
Is that right? Did I? [Laughs.]
And I was wondering if you could tell me a bit about that experience.
Oh, it was amazing. It was right after The Graduate. And about half of the country's teenage girls were enthralled with Dustin. And a bunch of 'em came to see Jimmy Shine. There'd be, what always seemed like, hundreds of 15-year olds out by the stage door every performance. It was just like the Beatles or something. One girl came to see it 22 times. She sat in the front row so often that they finally invited her to come back and meet us. Then she invited us to a big Christmas party in her East Side [New York] apartment. She was ga-ga over him. The fans just ignored everybody else, of course. But it was so much fun. And [in Jimmy Shine] I had this wonderful scene with Dustin that was really funny and I enjoyed that immensely. Now, of course, when Dustin is disciplined he's funny. When he's not disciplined he gets very lackadaisical. I had to get ... I mean, he gets off the script and ad-libs.
Really?
Oh, yeah. After we opened I had to get the stage manager to call a rehearsal with him and me every two weeks! Get him back in line! And he did it. He'd get back in line, doing the script—for about five or six nights. Then he'd start "inventing" again. And with Jimmy Shine, if you just play it the way it's written, it's very funny. But I think Dustin was getting bored. I mean, it was kind of amusing. I didn't get upset over it or anything.
Has Broadway changed much since you were working here in the '60s and '70s?
Oh, are you kidding me? It is unrecognizable. In those days, there were plays on Broadway. You know, drama. Plays without music. You know the old concept of "plays." Which is what I love. Cause a play allows you to explore the character. A musical is just very shallow and, you know, it's mostly there for the music. You don't really get to play characters and scenes, it's all sketches, little bits between songs. Now it seems all the plays are really done Off-Broadway. But the circus aspect of Broadway now is predominant. It's Disney. It's children's stuff. Spectacle. Flying. A circus. And I don't know how many millions and millions and millions of dollars are spent on these productions, but it's all like Vegas or something. That's how it's changed.
When you did The Women, it was a pretty astonishing cast. If I name a few of your co-stars, what's the first thing that comes to mind. Cynthia Nixon?
Redheaded.
Jennifer Coolidge?
Hilarious.
Kristen Johnston?
Tall.
Your Out to Sea film co-star, Walter Matthau?
Oh...irreplaceable.
How about the man who put you on TV's All in the Family, Norman Lear?
A genius.
Have you invited him to come see Wicked?
No, cause he's got Wicked in California! [Laughs.] But I did just send him a big box of tennis balls.
Is he a big tennis player?
I have no idea. [Laughs.] But he used to play tennis. And we used to live next door to the tennis club [in LA], and they were always batting their balls into our yard... and I'd collect 'em. Boxes of 'em. So I sent him a box with a picture of him and me dancing at some wedding in the '70s, and a picture of me as Madame Morrible—just to see what I looked like now.
In a box of balls?
Yeah, well... [Laughs.] Not that he needs 'em. Cause he's got 'em, I'll tell ya.
Very Blanche. Speaking of, I was wondering if your Golden Girls co-star Bea Arthur—who was famous on Broadway for appearing in Mame—had any advice for you about going into Wicked?
She hasn't even acknowledged that I'm in it.
Oh. Well, you wanna ask her anything via this interview on Broadway.com?
Oh, I don't need her advice, honey.
See Rue McClanahan in Wicked at the Gershwin Theatre, 222 West 51st Street. Click for tickets and more information.
