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"Patti LuPone: A Memoir"

Part of the fun of a Big Name memoir is seeing the crazy celebrities who surround the crazy-celebrity-storyteller.


Like Katie Couric, Patti LuPone wants to "go there": She doesn't really hold back. She says, after Juilliard, she went into development hell with "The Baker's Wife," a "bad" musical. She says Zero Mostel was on the producers' wish list, but Mostel said no. "Mostel must have known, or sensed, something."


The producers then went with Topol -- who "certainly wasn't in the same league as Zero Mostel."


Next, LuPone makes her way to "Evita," and she speculates that New York didn't embrace the show right away because -- well -- Eva herself was a fascist. But people came around. Also, LuPone recalls a backstage visit from Lana Turner. "When I was in Argentina," said Turner, "the police took my passport from me. I couldn't understand why. Eventually, I was shown into a private room for an audience with Evita, and Evita said, You are the reason I wear my hair this way. And she gave me my passport. And I left."


LuPone's tackiness comes through in her Tony Awards stories. She recalls losing a Tony to Joanna Gleason, and she complains that Gleason "looked like the tin man." I'm not sure what Gleason's appearance has to do with the Tony Award, and given that LuPone is so much more famous, this feels like a case of "punching down."


Additionally, LuPone complains that she lost the Tony for "Sweeney Todd," a show that seemed to have LOCKED DOWN new awards for its female lead. LuPone doesn't even mention LaChanze by name -- and certainly doesn't mention that LaChanze is her own kind of legend, or that LaChanze gave a terrific performance in "The Color Purple," despite having somewhat recently lost her husband in the collapse of the Twin Towers.


I'm touched by the "Gypsy" chapters. Arthur Laurents was losing his long-time partner, Tom, and Tom said, basically on his death bed, "You need to go on and direct a new version of your great musical." LuPone speculates that Tom "assigned" the "Gypsy" project to Arthur, because he knew that Arthur would be bored as a widower. "Gypsy" would be a useful distraction.


I'm sort of reeling from my Covid booster shot, so I'll stop here. I like LuPone's book.

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