75th may refer to:

• 75th (Mississauga) Battalion, CEF of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, formed in 1915
• 75th (Stirlingshire) Regiment of Foot, a British Army line infantry regiment
• 75th Academy Awards honored the best films of 2002, held on March 23, 2003
• 75th Air Base Wing, a wing of the United States Air Force based out of Hill Air Force Base, Ogden Utah
• 75th Airlift Squadron (75 AS), part of the 86th Airlift Wing at Ramstein Air Base, Germany
• 75th Avenue (IND Queens Boulevard Line), a local station on the IND Queens Boulevard Line of the New York City Subway in Forest Hills, Queens
• 75th Avenue-61st Street Historic District, a national historic district in Ridgewood, Queens, New York
• 75th Bombardment Squadron, an inactive United States Air Force unit
• 75th Carnatic Infantry, an infantry regiment of the British Indian Army
• 75th Cavalry Division, a cavalry formation of the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War
• 75th Cavalry Regiment (United States), a United States Army cavalry regiment
• 75th Delaware General Assembly, a meeting of the legislative branch of the state government
• 75th Expeditionary Air Support Operations Squadron (75 EASOS), a combat support unit
• 75th Field Artillery Regiment (United States), an Field Artillery regiment of the United States Army
• 75th Fighter Squadron (75 FS) is a United States Air Force unit
• 75th Fires Brigade (United States), an artillery brigade in the United States Army
• 75th Grey Cup, the 1987 Canadian Football League championship game that was played at BC Place Stadium in Vancouver
• 75th Guards Rifle Division, a Red Army infantry division during World War II and afterwards
• 75th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment, an infantry regiment that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War
• 75th Indian Infantry Brigade, an Infantry formation of the Indian Army during World War II
• 75th Infantry Division (Germany), a German division in World War II
• 75th Infantry Division (United States), a division of the United States Army in World War II
• 75th Infantry Regiment (United States), a Regular infantry regiment in the United States Army
• 75th meridian east, a line of longitude
• 75th meridian west, a line of longitude
• 75th Ohio Infantry, an infantry regiment from southwestern Ohio in the Union Army during the American Civil War
• 75th Oregon Legislative Assembly convened beginning on January 12, 2009, for its biennial regular session
• 75th parallel north, a circle of latitude that is 75 degrees north of the Earth's equatorial plane
• 75th parallel south, a circle of latitude that is 75 degrees south of the Earth's equatorial plane
• 75th Police Precinct Station House, a historic police station located at Brooklyn in New York, New York
• 75th Ranger Infantry Regiment (Airborne), the United States Army Ranger unit of the Vietnam War era
• 75th Ranger Regiment (United States), a Special Operations light infantry unit of the United States Army
• 75th Regiment Indiana Infantry, an infantry regiment that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War
• 75th Regiment of Foot (Invalids), an infantry regiment of the British Army from 1762 to 1768
• 75th Reserve Division (German Empire)
• 75th Street – Elderts Lane (BMT Jamaica Line), a skip-stop station on the BMT Jamaica Line of the New York City Subway
• 75th Street (Grand Crossing) (Metra), an electrified commuter rail station along the Metra Electric Main Line in Chicago, Illinois
• 75th United States Congress, a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government

See also[link]

• Ankara 75th Anniversary Race Course, a horse racing track at Batıkent neighborhood in Yenimahalle district of Ankara, Turkey
• California's 75th State Assembly district, one of 80 districts in the California State Assembly
• CMLL 75th Anniversary Show, a professional wrestling major show event produced in 2008 in Arena Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico
• Maserati Birdcage 75th, a concept car created by automobile manufacturer Maserati
• National Football League 75th Anniversary All-Time Team, chosen by a selection committee of media and league personnel in 1994
• 75 (number)
• 75, the year 75 (LXXV) of the Julian calendar
• 75 BC

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Quincy Jones
Quincy Jones attending an after-party of a tribute to his work at Life Restaurant, Los Angeles, CA on October 1, 2008
Background information
Birth name	Quincy Delightt Jones, Jr.
Also known as	Leigh Warren
Born	(1933-03-14) March 14, 1933 (age 79) Chicago, Illinois, United States
Genres	Rhythm and blues, funk, soul, big band, swing, bossa nova, jazz, hip hop, rock and roll
Occupations	Musician, conductor, producer, arranger, composer, film composer
Instruments	Trumpet, French horn, drums, vocals, piano synthesizer
Years active	1951–present
Labels	Columbia, Mercury, Qwest
Associated acts	Lionel Hampton, Dizzy Gillespie, Toots Thielemans, Sarah Vaughn, Aaliyah,[1] Michael Jackson, Rod Temperton, The Brothers Johnson, Frank Sinatra, Eddie Van Halen, Dinah Washington, Dean Martin, 2Pac, Patti Austin, Tevin Campbell, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Will Smith, Trey Songz
Website	quincyjones.com

Jones in 2004 at the World Economic Forum in Davos

Quincy Delight Jones, Jr. (born March 14, 1933) is an American record producer, conductor, arranger, film composer, television producer, and trumpeter. His career spans five decades in the entertainment industry and a record 79 Grammy Award nominations,^[2] 27 Grammys,^[2] including a Grammy Legend Award in 1991. He is particularly recognized as the producer of the album Thriller, by pop icon Michael Jackson, which has sold more than 110 million copies worldwide,^[3] and as the producer and conductor of the charity song “We Are the World”.

In 1968, Jones and his songwriting partner Bob Russell became the first African Americans to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song "The Eyes of Love" from the Universal Pictures film Banning. That same year, he became the first African American to be nominated twice within the same year when he was nominated for Best Original Score for his work on the music of the 1967 film In Cold Blood. In 1971, Jones would receive the honor of becoming the first African American to be named musical director/conductor of the Academy Awards ceremony. He was the first African American to win the Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, in 1995. He is tied with sound designer Willie D. Burton as the most Oscar-nominated African American, each of them having seven nominations. At the 2008 BET Awards, Quincy Jones was presented with the Humanitarian Award. He was played by Larenz Tate in the 2004 biopic about Ray Charles, Ray.

Early life[link]

Jones was born in Chicago, the oldest son of Sarah Frances (née Wells), an apartment complex manager and bank executive who suffered from schizophrenia, and Quincy Delight Jones, Sr., a semi-professional baseball player and carpenter.^[4] He sometimes ate rat as a child^[5][6] Jones discovered music in grade school at Raymond Elementary School on Chicago's South Side and took up the trumpet. When he was 10, his family moved to Bremerton, Washington and he attended Seattle's Garfield High School. It was in Seattle that Jones, 14, first met a 17-year-old Ray Charles^[7] and developed musically under the tutelage of Robert Blackwell.

His brother, Richard Jones, is a federal district court judge in Seattle, and has presided over several very high-profile cases, including the notorious Green River Killer Gary Ridgway. ^[8]

In 1951, Jones won a scholarship to the Schillinger House (now Berklee College of Music) in Boston, Massachusetts. However, he abandoned his studies when he received an offer to tour as a trumpeter with the bandleader Lionel Hampton. While Jones was on the road with Hampton, he displayed a gift for arranging songs. Jones relocated to New York City, where he received a number of freelance commissions arranging songs for artists like Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Gene Krupa, and his close friend Ray Charles.

Musical career[link]

In 1956, Jones toured again as a trumpeter and musical director of the Dizzy Gillespie Band on a tour of the Middle East and South America sponsored by the United States Information Agency. Upon his return to the United States, Jones got a contract from ABC-Paramount Records and commenced his recording career as the leader of his own band.

In 1957, Quincy settled in Paris where he studied composition and theory with Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen. He also performed at the Paris Olympia. Jones became music director at Barclay Disques, the French distributor for Mercury Records.

During the 1950s, Jones successfully toured throughout Europe with a number of jazz orchestras. As musical director of Harold Arlen's jazz musical Free and Easy, Quincy Jones took to the road again. A European tour closed in Paris in February 1960. With musicians from the Arlen show, Jones formed his own big band, called The Jones Boys, with 18 artists—plus their families—in tow. The band included jazz greats Eddie Jones and fellow trumpeter Reunald Jones, and organized a tour of North America and Europe. Though the European and American concerts met enthusiastic audiences and sparkling reviews, concert earnings could not support a band of this size, and poor budget planning made it an economic disaster; the band dissolved and the fallout left Jones in a financial crisis. Quoted in Musician magazine, Jones said about his ordeal, "We had the best jazz band in the planet, and yet we were literally starving. That's when I discovered that there was music, and there was the music business. If I were to survive, I would have to learn the difference between the two." Irving Green, head of Mercury Records, got Jones back on his feet with a personal loan and a new job as the musical director of the company's New York division, where he worked with Doug Moody, who would later go on to form Mystic Records.

His 1960s breakthrough and rise to prominence[link]

In 1964, Jones was promoted to vice-president of the company, thus becoming the first African American to hold such an executive position in a white-owned record company.^[9] In that same year, Quincy Jones turned his attention to another musical arena that had long been closed to blacks—the world of film scores. At the invitation of director Sidney Lumet, he composed the music for The Pawnbroker. It was the first of his 33 major motion picture scores.

Following the success of The Pawnbroker, Jones left Mercury Records and moved to Los Angeles. After his score for The Slender Thread, starring Sidney Poitier, he was in constant demand as a composer. His film credits in the next five years included Walk, Don't Run, In Cold Blood, In the Heat of the Night, A Dandy in Aspic, Mackenna's Gold, The Italian Job, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, The Lost Man, Cactus Flower, and The Getaway. In addition, he also composed "The Streetbeater," which became familiar as the theme music for the television sitcom Sanford and Son, starring close friend Redd Foxx.

In the 1960s, Jones worked as an arranger for some of the most important artists of the era, including Billy Eckstine, Sarah Vaughn, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, and Dinah Washington. Jones's solo recordings also garnered acclaim, including Walking in Space, Gula Matari, Smackwater Jack, You've Got It Bad, Girl, Body Heat, Mellow Madness, and I Heard That!!.

He is well known for his 1962 tune "Soul Bossa Nova", which originated on the Big Band Bossa Nova album. "Soul Bossa Nova" was a theme for the 1998 World Cup, the Canadian game show Definition, the Woody Allen film Take the Money and Run and the Mike Myers movie Austin Powers in Goldmember, and was sampled by Canadian hip hop group Dream Warriors for their song, "My Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Style".

Jones was also responsible for producing all four million-selling singles for Lesley Gore during the early and mid-sixties, including "It's My Party" (UK #8; US #1), "Judy's Turn To Cry" (US #5), "She's A Fool" (also a US #5) in 1963, and "You Don't Own Me" (US #2 for four weeks in 1964). He continued to produce for Lesley until 1966, including the Greenwich/ Barry hit "Look of Love" (US #27) in 1965.

Jones's 1981 album The Dude yielded multiple hit singles, including "Ai No Corrida" (a remake of a song by Chaz Jankel), "Just Once" and "One Hundred Ways", the latter two featuring James Ingram on lead vocals and marking Ingram's first hits.

In 1985, Jones scored the Steven Spielberg film adaptation of The Color Purple. He and Jerry Goldsmith (from Twilight Zone: The Movie) are the only composers besides John Williams to have scored a Spielberg theatrical film. After the 1985 American Music Awards ceremony, Jones used his influence to draw most of the major American recording artists of the day into a studio to record the song "We Are the World" to raise money for the victims of Ethiopia's famine. When people marveled at his ability to make the collaboration work, Jones explained that he'd taped a simple sign on the entrance: "Check Your Ego At The Door".

Starting in the late 1970s, Jones tried to convince Miles Davis to re-perform the music he had played on several classic albums that had been arranged by Gil Evans in the 1960s. Davis had always refused, citing a desire not to revisit the past. In 1991, Davis, then suffering from pneumonia, relented and agreed to perform the music at a concert at the Montreux Jazz Festival. The resulting album from the recording, Miles & Quincy Live at Montreux, was Davis' last released album (he died several months afterward) and is considered an artistic triumph.^[10]

In 1993, Jones collaborated with David Salzman to produce the concert extravaganza An American Reunion, a celebration of Bill Clinton's inauguration as president of the United States. In 1994, Salzman and Jones formed the company Quincy Jones/David Salzman Entertainment (QDE) with Time/Warner Inc. QDE is a diverse company which produces media technology, motion pictures, television programs (In the House, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and MADtv), and magazines (Vibe and Spin).

In 2001, he published his autobiography, Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones. On July 31, 2007, Jones partnered with Wizzard Media to launch the Quincy Jones Video Podcast.^[11] In each episode, Jones shares his knowledge and experience in the music industry. The first episode features Jones in the studio, producing "I Knew I Loved you" for Celine Dion, which is featured on the Ennio Morricone tribute album, We All Love Ennio Morricone. Jones is also noted for helping produce Anita Hall's CD, Send Love, which was released in 2009.

Work with Michael Jackson[link]

While working on the film The Wiz, Michael Jackson asked Jones to recommend some producers for Jackson's upcoming solo record. Jones offered some names, but eventually asked Jackson if he would like for him to produce the record. Jackson replied that he would, and the result, Off The Wall, has sold approximately 20 million copies and made Jones the most powerful record producer in the industry. Jones's and Jackson's next collaboration Thriller has sold a reputed 110 million copies and has become the highest-selling album of all time.^[12] Jones also worked on Michael Jackson's album Bad, which has sold 45 million copies. Bad was the last time the pair would work together in the studio, although an audio interview with Jones features on the 2001 special editions of 'Off The Wall, Thriller and Bad.

In a 2002 interview, when Jackson was asked if he would ever work with Jones again he replied, "The door is always open".^{[citation needed]} However, in 2007, when NME.COM asked Jones a similar question, he said "Man, please! We already did that. I have talked to him about working with him again but I've got too much to do. I've got 900 products, I'm 74 years old."^[13]

Following Jackson's death on June 25, 2009, Jones said:

Work with Frank Sinatra[link]

Jones first worked with Frank Sinatra when he was invited by Princess Grace to arrange a benefit concert at the Monaco Sporting Club in 1958.^[15] Six years later, Sinatra hired him to arrange and conduct Sinatra's second album with Count Basie, It Might as Well Be Swing (1964). Jones conducted and arranged 1966's live album with the Basie Band, Sinatra at the Sands.^[16] Jones was also the arranger/conductor when Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr., Dean Martin, and Johnny Carson performed with the Basie orchestra in St. Louis, Missouri, in a benefit for Dismas House in June 1965. The fund-raiser was broadcast to a number of other theaters around the country and eventually released on DVD.^[17] Later that year, Jones was also the arranger/conductor when Sinatra and Basie appeared on The Hollywood Palace TV show on October 16, 1965.^[18] Nineteen years later, Sinatra and Jones teamed up for 1984's L.A. Is My Lady, after a joint Sinatra-Lena Horne project was abandoned.^[19]

Brazilian culture[link]

Jones is a great admirer of Brazilian culture and a film on Brazil's Carnival is among his recent plans: "one of the most spectacular spiritual events on the planet";^[20] Simone, whom he cites as "one of the world´s greatest singers",^[21] Ivan Lins,^[22] Milton Nascimento and Gilson Peranzzetta, "one of the five biggest arrangement producers of the world"^[23] stand as close friends and partners in his recent works.

Media appearances[link]

Jones had a brief appearance in the 1990 video for The Time song "Jerk Out". Jones was a guest star on an episode of The Boondocks in which he and the main character, Huey Freeman, co-produced a Christmas play for Huey's elementary school. He appeared with Ray Charles in the music video of their song 'One Mint Julep' and also with Ray Charles and Chaka Khan in the music video of their song "I'll Be Good to You".

Quincy Jones hosted an episode of the long-running NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live on February 10, 1990 (during SNL's 15th season [the 1989–1990 season]). The episode was notable for having 10 musical guests^[24] (the most any SNL episode has ever had in its 30-plus years on the air): Tevin Campbell, Andrae Crouch, Sandra Crouch, rappers Kool Moe Dee and Big Daddy Kane, Melle Mel, Quincy D III, Siedah Garrett, Al Jarreau, and Take 6, and for a performance of Dizzy Gillespie's "Manteca" by The SNL Band (conducted by Quincy Jones himself).^[24] Jones also impersonated Marion Barry in the then-recurring sketch, "The Bob Waltman Special". Quincy Jones would later be producer for his own sketch comedy show, FOX's MADtv.

Jones appeared in the Walt Disney Pictures film Fantasia 2000, introducing the set piece of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. Two years later he made a cameo appearance as himself in the film Austin Powers in Goldmember.

Jones during NASA's 50th anniversary gala, 2008.

On February 10, 2008, Jones presented at the Grammy Awards. With Usher he presented Album of The Year to Herbie Hancock.

On January 6, 2009, Quincy Jones appeared on NBC's Last Call with Carson Daly to discuss various experiences within his prolific career. Also discussed was the informal notion of Jones becoming the first minister of culture for the United States — following the pending inauguration of the 44th U.S. President, Barack Obama. Carson Daly indicated the U.S. as being one of the only leading world countries, along with Germany, to exclude this position from the national government. This idea has also been subject to more in-depth discussion on NPR^[25] and the Chronicle of Higher Education.^[26]

On December 12, 2009, Jones performed at a private reception for USAA employees at the Alamo Dome, in San Antonio, TX.

On February 5, 2011 Quincy Jones appeared on CBS's Late night show with David Letterman.

Awards and recognition[link]

Discography[link]

Personal life[link]

Jones in December 2010

Jones has been married three times and has seven children:

• to Jeri Caldwell from 1957 to 1966; they had one daughter, Jolie Jones Levine.
• to Ulla Andersson from 1967 to 1974; they had two children, Martina Jones and son Quincy Jones III;
• to actress Peggy Lipton from 1974 to 1990; they had two daughters, actresses Kidada Jones and Rashida Jones.
• Jones also had a brief affair with Carol Reynolds and they had a daughter, Rachel Jones.
• Jones dated and lived with actress Nastassja Kinski from 1991 until 1995. In February 1993, their daughter Kenya Julia Miambi Sarah Jones was born.^[27]

For the 2006 PBS television program African American Lives, Jones had his DNA tested; the results found that through his patrilineal line (Y DNA), he is of European ancestry, and through his matrilineal line (mt DNA) he is of West African/Central African ancestry of Tikar descent.^[28] In a BBC interview, Jones said he had discovered that his father was half Welsh.^[29] The series revealed that Jones' family hails from an area in Cameroon known for its music. On hearing the information, Jones said: "I would have never guessed." On his mother's side, Jones is a descendant of Betty Washington Lewis, president George Washington's sister.^[30]

Jones has never learned to drive, citing an accident in which he was a passenger (at age 14) as the reason.^[31]

Social activism[link]

Jones's social activism began in the 1960s with his support of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Jones is one of the founders of the Institute for Black American Music (IBAM), whose events aim to raise enough funds for the creation of a national library of African American art and music. Jones is also one of the founders of the Black Arts Festival in his hometown of Chicago. In the 1970s Jones formed The Quincy Jones Workshops. Meeting at the Los Angeles Landmark Variety Arts Center, the workshops educated and honed the skills of inner city youth in musicianship, acting and songwriting. Among its Alumni were Alton Mc Clain who had a hit song with Alton Mc Clain and Destiny, and Mark Wilkins who co-wrote the hit song "Havin' A Love Attack" with Mandrill and went on to become the National Promotion Director for Punk / Thrash record label Mystic Records. For many years, he has worked closely with Bono of U2 on a number of philanthropic endeavors. He is the founder of the Quincy Jones Listen Up Foundation, a nonprofit that connects youths with technology, education, culture and music. One of the organization's programs is an intercultural exchange between underprivileged youths from Los Angeles and South Africa.

In 2004, Jones helped launch the We Are the Future (WAF) project, which gives children in poor and conflict-ridden areas a chance to live their childhoods and develop a sense of hope. The program is the result of a strategic partnership between the Glocal Forum, the Quincy Jones Listen Up Foundation and Hani Masri, with the support of the World Bank, UN agencies and major companies. The project was launched with a concert in Rome, Italy, in front of an audience of half a million people.

Jones supports a number of other charities including the NAACP, GLAAD, Peace Games, AmfAR and The Maybach Foundation.^[32] Jones serves on the Advisory Board of HealthCorps. On July 26, 2007, he announced his endorsement of Hillary Clinton for president. But with the election of Barack Obama, Quincy Jones said that his next conversation "with President Obama [will be] to beg for a secretary of arts,"^[33] prompting the circulation of a petition on the Internet asking Obama to create such a Cabinet-level position in his administration.^[34][35]

In 2001, he became an honorary member of the Board of Directors of The Jazz Foundation of America. Jones worked with The Jazz Foundation of America^[36] to save the homes and the lives of America's elderly jazz and blues musicians including those who survived Hurricane Katrina.

Jones and his friend John Sie, founder of Starz Entertainment, worked together to create the Global Down Syndrome Foundation, the founding of which was inspired by Sie’s granddaughter, Sophia, who has Down syndrome.^[37]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Quincy Jones

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Quincy Jones

• Official Quincy Jones Website
• Quincy Jones Discography at iMusic.am
• Archive of American Television interview
• Mix Interview: Quincy Jones
• American Masters - Quincy Jones: The Story of an American Musician
• Quincy Jones at the Internet Movie Database
• Association for Computing Machinery Video Interview with Quincy Jones
• Quincy Jones speech on the importance of Cultural Diplomacy throughout the world, Beijing, China, May 26, 2006
• Quincy Jones's oral history video excerpts at The National Visionary Leadership Project
• Video clip of Quincy Jones's speech on education at the American Film Institute for the 2006 ACM Computers in Entertainment Scholarship Awards (November 4, 2006)

Elaine Stritch
Elaine Stritch, in 2009
Born	Elaine Stritch (1925-02-02) February 2, 1925 (age 87) Detroit, Michigan
Occupation	Actress/Vocalist
Years active	1944–present
Spouse	John Bay (m.1973-1982; his death)

Elaine Stritch (born February 2, 1925) ^[1] is an American actress and vocalist. She has appeared in numerous stage plays and musicals, feature films, and many television programs. She is known for her performance of "The Ladies Who Lunch" in Stephen Sondheim's 1970 musical Company, her 2001 one-woman show, Elaine Stritch at Liberty, and recently for her role as Jack Donaghy's mother Colleen on NBC's 30 Rock. She has been nominated for the Tony Award five times in various categories, and won once, for Elaine Stritch at Liberty. Stritch is also a three-time Emmy Award winner.

Biography[link]

Early years[link]

Elaine Stritch was born in 1925^[2] in Detroit, Michigan to Mildred (née Jobe; 1893-1987), a homemaker, and George Joseph Stritch (1892-1987), an executive with B.F. Goodrich.^[3] Her family was wealthy and devoutly Roman Catholic.^[4][5] Stritch's father was of Irish descent and her mother was of Welsh descent. Samuel Cardinal Stritch, former Archbishop of Chicago, was one of her uncles.^[6]

Stritch trained at the Dramatic Workshop of The New School in New York City under Erwin Piscator;^[7] other students at the Dramatic Workshop at this time included Marlon Brando and Bea Arthur.^[8]

Beginning stage career[link]

Stritch made her stage debut in 1944. However, her Broadway debut was in Loco in 1947, directed by Jed Harris,^[9] followed soon after by Made in Heaven (as a replacement) ^[10]and then the revue Angel in the Wings (1947) in which she performed comedy sketches and the song "Civilization".^[11]

Stritch understudied Ethel Merman for Call Me Madam, and, at the same time, appeared in the 1952 revival of Pal Joey, singing "Zip".^[11] 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. She was the lead in 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."^[12] During out-of-town tryouts in Boston, Coward was "unsure about the dramatic talents" of one of the leads, opera singer Jean Fenn.^[13] "They were, after all, engaged for their voices and...it is madness to expect two singers to play subtle 'Noel Coward' love scenes with the right values and sing at the same time."^[13] 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 in New York on 3 October."^[13]. 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.

Stritch became known as a singer with a brassy, powerful voice, most notably originating on Broadway the role of Joanne in Company (1970). 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 has appeared in such musicals as No No Nanette, The King and I, I Married an Angel, and both as Vera Charles (opposite Janet Blair) and Mame Dennis in Mame.

Television[link]

Elaine Stritch in 1973, by Allan Warren.

Her 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 the pilot for Honeymooners sketch with Jackie Gleason, Art Carney and Pert Kelton. The character was originally a burlesque dancer, but the role was rewritten and recast with Joyce Randolph playing the character as an ordinary housewife.^[7]

Stritch's other television credits, include 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.

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 famous 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 seasons until 1979, despite being buried in the "graveyard slot" of Sundays at 10:30pm. 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. Stritch and Sinden also sang the theme tune to the programme.

Other British television appearances 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. In his introduction to the episode, Dahl observed that humor should always be used in horror stories, in order to provide light to the shade, and that was why Stritch had been cast, as "an actress who knows a lot about humor". Stritch became a darling of the British chat show circuit, appearing with Michael Parkinson and Terry Wogan many times, usually ending the appearance with a song. She appeared on BBC One's children's series, Jackanory, reading, among other stories, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl.

After returning to the U.S., she appeared on The Edge of Night as vinegary nanny Mrs. DeGroot, then was cast as a regular on the short-lived The Ellen Burstyn Show in 1986. She appeared as the stern schoolteacher Mrs. McGee on three episodes of The Cosby Show (1989–1990). She followed later with appearances on Law & Order (1992, 1997) as Lainie Steiglitz; as Judge Grace Lema on Oz (1998); and as Martha Albright (mother of Jane Curtin's character) on two episodes of 3rd Rock From the Sun (1997, 2001), alongside her Broadway co-star George Grizzard, who played George Albright (the names George and Martha were a play on the characters Stritch and Grizzard played in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf).

Stritch was reportedly considered for the role of Dorothy Zbornak on The Golden Girls but, as she related in her show Elaine Stritch at Liberty, she "blew her audition".^[14] The role was subsequently cast with Bea Arthur (who had appeared with Stritch in 1956 in the television series Washington Square).

More recently, she was seen on One Life to Live (1993), replacing fellow stage legend Eileen Heckart as Wilma Bern. She has had recurring roles on Law & Order (1992, 1997) and 3rd Rock from the Sun (1997, 2001).^[15] On April 26, 2007, she began guest appearances on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock as Colleen, the fearsome mother of Alec Baldwin's lead character, Jack Donaghy.^[16] In 2008, Stritch appeared as herself in an episode during the second season of The Big Gay Sketch Show. She was spoofed during the first season as well as the second season.

Movie roles[link]

While Stritch has made it clear she prefers working on the stage,^{[citation needed]} she has in recent years appeared in more films than the early part of her career. In an interview in 1988, it was noted that "Making movies is challenging to Stritch since she considers herself a novice." She said: "I'm fascinated with it. And I want to do more of them." She was asked why she waited so long to make movies since she apparently enjoys it so much. "You do a movie for, like, three months and then you're finished. You do a part in a play and it's like going into a roomful of audiences for a year."^[17]

Early in her career, she appeared in Three Violent People (1956) starring Charlton Heston, as the hotel proprietor pal of Anne Baxter,^[18]and then co-starred opposite Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones in the David O. Selznick remake of A Farewell to Arms (1957) as Hudson's nurse.^[19] In The Perfect Furlough, she co-starred opposite Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. She had a showy role as the lesbian proprietor of a bar in the cult film Who Killed Teddy Bear (1965) which starred Sal Mineo.^[20] She played the role of the "tough-as-nails" nurse in the remake of The Spiral Staircase (1975)^[21] and was praised for her performance^{[citation needed]} in the comedy-drama Providence (1977).^[22]

When she returned to the United States in the mid 1980's from London, Woody Allen cast her as the former movie star mother in his drama September (1987). People Magazine called her performance "acclaimed" and wrote "Though the movie has received mixed reviews, Stritch's roaring presence, like Godzilla in a stalled elevator, can't be ignored."^[23] Allen later cast her in his comedy Small Time Crooks (2000) in which she played a "snobby socialite". Rex Reed wrote of her performance: "Elaine Stritch can still stop you in your tracks with a meaningless, drop-dead one-liner (which is all she gets here)."^[24]

She joined the ensemble of Cocoon: The Return (1988) as the earthy waitress who helps widowed Jack Gilford get over his wife's death. Among her her co-stars were former Goldilocks co-star Don Ameche and Gwen Verdon.^[17] She appeared in Out to Sea (1997) as Dyan Cannon's wise-cracking mother and "danced up a storm" with the other characters.^[25] She played Winona Ryder's loving grandmother in the film Autumn in New York.^[26] Stritch had a rare co-starring role in the comedy Screwed (2000) playing the nasty Miss Crock who becomes the intended victim of a kidnapping by her disgruntled butler (Norm Macdonald).^[27]

BBC Radio[link]

In 1982, Stritch appeared on an edition of the long running BBC Radio comedy series Just a Minute alongside Kenneth Williams, Clement Freud and Barry Cryer. The show was described by long-time chairman Nicholas Parsons as being among the most memorable because of the way Stritch stretched the show's rules. It was on this occasion that Stritch famously described Kenneth Williams as being able to make "one word into a three-act play".^[28] She also appeared as Martha in a radio adaptation of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (she understudied Uta Hagen in the same role during the show's original Broadway run, performing during matinees before taking over the role entirely).

Later stage work[link]

After John Bay's death from brain cancer in 1982,^[29] Stritch returned to America. After a lull in her career and struggles with alcoholism, Stritch began performing again in the 1990s. She appeared in a one-night only concert of Company in 1993 and as Parthy in a Broadway revival of the musical Show Boat in 1994. In 1996 she played Claire in a revival of Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance, with Variety writing: "Equally marvelous is Stritch, with a meatier role than her recent foray as Parthy in 'Show Boat.' To watch her succumb to the vast amounts of alcohol Claire ingests, folding and refolding her legs, slipping -- no, oozing -- onto the floor, her face crumpling like a paper bag, is to witness a different but equally winning kind of thespian expertise. It's a master class up there."^[30]

Her one-woman show, Elaine Stritch at Liberty, a summation of her life and career, premiered at New York's Public Theater, running from November 7 to December 30, 2001.^[31] It then ran on Broadway at the Neil Simon Theatre from February 21 to May 27, 2002. Newsweek noted:

Now we see how At Liberty, the amazing one-woman show Stritch is moving to Broadway from the Public Theater this week, acquired the credit, "Constructed by John Lahr. Reconstructed by Elaine Stritch". "The reconstruction means I had the last say", she says. "Damn right I did." ... In case you didn't notice, Stritch is not the kind of woman who goes in for the sappy self-indulgence that pollutes most one-person shows. In fact, At Liberty is in a class by itself, a biting, hilarious and even touching tour-de-force tour of Stritch's career and life. Almost every nook and cranny of "At Liberty" holds a surprise. Turns out she dated Marlon Brando, Gig Young and Ben Gazzara, though she dropped Ben when Rock Hudson showed an interest in her. "And we all know what a bum decision that turned out to be", she says. And then there were the shows. A British writer recently called Stritch "Broadway's last first lady", and when you see her performing her signature numbers from Company and Pal Joey and hear her tell tales of working with Merman, Coward, Gloria Swanson and the rest, it's hard to argue. Especially since she does it all dressed in a long white shirt and form-fitting black tights. It's both a metaphor for her soul-baring musical and a sartorial kiss-my-rear gesture to anyone who thinks there isn't some life left in the 76-year-old [sic] diva. "Somebody said to me the other day, 'Is this the last thing you're going to do?'", says Stritch. "In your dreams! I can't wait to get back into an Yves Saint Laurent costume that isn't mine--but will be when the show is over.^[32]

Elaine Stritch at Liberty played to British audiences in 2002-03. She reprised Elaine Stritch at Liberty at Hartford Stage in June 2008.

She appeared in the Broadway revival of the Sondheim-Wheeler musical A Little Night Music, from July 2010 to January 2011, succeeding Angela Lansbury in the role of Madame Armfeldt,^[33][34] the wheelchair-bound mother who remembers her life as a courtesan in the song "Liaisons". The AP reviewer of the musical (with the two new leads) wrote "Devotees of Stritch, who earned her Sondheim stripes singing, memorably, "The Ladies Who Lunch" in Company 40 years ago, will revel in how the actress, who earned a huge ovation before her very first line at a recent preview, brings her famously salty, acerbic style to the role of Madame Armfeldt."^[35] The theatre critic for The Toronto Star wrote:

"Stritch offers a sophisticated gloss on her by now patented, plain-talking woman who reveals all the home truths everyone ever wanted (or didn't) to hear about themselves. When Stritch tears into her big set-piece, 'Liaisons', about all the affairs in her life, it's not just a witty catalogue of indiscretions but a deeply moving fast-forward through a life filled equally with love, loss, joy and regret."^[36]

Cabaret[link]

Stritch has been performing a cabaret act at the Cafe Carlyle in New York City since 2005 (she is a resident of the Carlyle Hotel). Her first show at the Carlyle was titled "At Home at the Carlyle". The New York Times reviewer wrote

Amazingly, none of the 16 songs she performs have ever been in her repertory, and just as amazingly, you don't miss signature numbers... [L]etting them go has allowed her to venture into more sensitive emotional territory. Interpreting stark, talk-sing versions of Rodgers and Hart's "He Was Too Good to Me", "Fifty Percent" from the musical Ballroom, and Kurt Weill and Ogden Nash's "That's Him", she comes into her own as a dramatic ballad singer.^[37]

Between musical numbers, Stritch told stories from the world of stage and screen, tales from her everyday life and personal glimpses of her private tragedies and triumphs. She most recently performed at the Cafe Carlyle in early 2010 and in fall 2011 in At Home at the Carlyle: Elaine Stritch Singin' Sondheim…One Song at a Time.^[38]

Personal life[link]

Her late husband, John Bay, was part of the family that owns the Bay's English Muffins company, and Stritch sends English muffins as gifts to friends. Said John Kenley: "Every Christmas, she still sends me English muffins."^[39][40] When she was based in London, instead of renting or buying a property Stritch and her husband lived at the Savoy Hotel.^[7] She is good friends with gossip columnist Liz Smith, who shares the same birthday (February 2) as Stritch.^[41]

Stritch has been candid about her struggles with alcohol. She took her first drink at 13, and began using it as a crutch prior to performances to vanquish her stage fright and insecurities. Her drinking worsened after Bay's death, and she sought help after experiencing issues with effects of alcoholism, as well as the onset of diabetes. Elaine Stritch at Liberty discusses the topic at length.^[5]

Popular culture[link]

Stritch's voice and vocal delivery are spoofed in the Forbidden Broadway songs "The Ladies Who Screech" and "Stritch," parodies of "The Ladies Who Lunch" and "Zip", songs she performed in the musicals Company and Pal Joey. In 2009, a parody by Bats Langley entitled "How the Stritch Stole Christmas" (loosely based on "How the Grinch Stole Christmas") appeared on YouTube. On The Big Gay Sketch Show, she was spoofed as a Wal-Mart greeter who's still a theater gal at heart. ("I'm heeere. I'm still heeeerrre." "Here's to the ladies who shop... at Wal-Mart!") This draws inspiration from footage of D.A. Pennebaker's documentary film, Company: Original Cast Album, in which she says "I'm just screaming", self-critiquing during recording "The Ladies Who Lunch". The sketch also spoofs Elaine Stritch Live at Liberty in which she refers to her feat, as a young stage actress and understudy for Ethel Merman in Call Me Madam, where she had to check in with Merman at half hour to curtain in New York, then commute to Connecticut for the out of town tryout of Pal Joey, and on some days make the round trip twice when there was a matinee and evening performance of both shows. In a subsequent episode of The Big Gay Sketch Show, Stritch is spoofed as an airport security guard, who's still "on" and isn't able to tone down her over-the-top antics. In yet another episode, "Stritch" is promoting her self-titled perfume, "Stritchy" in dramatic fashion when she's confronted by the real-life Elaine Stritch, who makes a cameo appearance.^{[citation needed]}

Honors and awards[link]

Tony Nominations[link]

Stritch has been nominated for the Tony Award five times, winning one.