At 88, Elaine Stritch bows out for good

With “Elaine Stritch at the Carlyle: Movin’ Over and Out” which runs from 2 – 6 April one of the greatest stars of the stage leaves it for good. Elaine Stritch, with her signature leggings and white blouse, offered a cabaret that was more talk than song, and her colleagues turned out in force.

At the Cafe Carlyle for the opening was Bernadette Peters, Tony Bennett, Liza Minnelli, Michael Feinstein and even Tom Hanks who has just made his Broadway début. It is a convenient venue for Stritch who for the last 10 years has lived above the cafe in the hotel, Room 309!

Now fragile after two recent falls and a hip replacement, she told the New York Times that it was the end of an era. She is stopping her stage activity, but as an actress maybe she hasn’t given her last turn. She told the Times,

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. 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!

Playbill reported her comment,

I’ve been up all night, all my life, now I can go to sleep at 9.

But it won’t be easy for this veteran performer.

It’s going to be hard to turn my back on you guys, for a little while at least. But I have to. I’ve just got to take it easy. Wish me well and I’ll do the same to you.

As she made the trip from the stage to her dressing she quipped,

Everybody pay their bill? It’s a shocker!