Grizabella, the glamour cat

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Grizabella the glamour cat

Remark the cat who hesitates towards you.
In the light of the door which opens on her like a grin.
You see the border of her coat is torn and stained with sand.
And you see the corner of her eye twist like a crooked pin.

She haunted many a low resort near the grimy road of Tottenham court.
She flitted about the no-man's land.
From "The Rising Sun" to "The Friend at hand".
And the postman sighed as he scratched his head:
"You'd really hat thought she ought to be dead".
And who woud ever suppose that that was Grizabella the Glamour Cat.

Grizabella the Glamour cat, Grizabella the Glamour cat.
Who would ever suppose that that was Grizabella the Glamour cat.

Grizabella is quite interesting. She had a very hard life.
Because the tribe doesn't really associate with many cats from other tribes,
it is sort of not advised to do.
But when she was a kitten, she was hust like Victoria.
She was loved and treated as a beuty for quite a while.

Grizabella is an old cat who has seen better days.
In her youth she was beautiful and glamourous,
but she wanted more and needed to break away from the tribe and go gout into the world.
When she did, she ends up seeing a world she didn't expect to see.
When she finally decides to try and come back to the Jellicles,
She is shunned by the others as if she had betrayed her tribe.

The most famous song from the show, Memory, is firmly in Grizabella's posession.
She sings parts of it two or three times throughout the musical,
but the bulk of the song (and the climax) occurs during her last appearance,
right before Old-D announces who will ascend to the Heavyside Layer.
Jemima joins her for one verse (and incidentally sings a song of the same tune earlier in the show).

Grizabella makes about three appearances. Once, Demeter and Bombalurina sing
about she was once the Glamour Cat of the junkyard and how she currently the most scorned and tattiest.
She sings of her own condition in two seprate songs, one of them a prequel to Memory. Once, she attempts to pose prettily as she once did, failing.
She is scorned by the others in every appearace.
She also ascends to the Heavyside Layer at the very end of song.
If you watch closely, you will see her (almost unrecognizable without her dripping mascara)
in the opening singin "When you're walking alone." (is that it what she used to be?).

Especially the other female cats despice her (I wonder why).
This is why Bombie and Demeter find her so offensive.
Jellylorum and Jennyanydots become terribly protective of Jemima and Victoria,
because the innocence (didn't Victoria lose it in the Jellicle Ball?) of the kittens
see her for who she is, nor for how she lived.
But, of course, when she tries to reach out and have someone touch her, no one will.
It's noy until after Memory that Victoria finally touches her to show approval.
When knowing all of thism it makes the lyrics of Memory more significant that ever.
Listen to them and see what I mean.
She is (like everyone knows) the cat who may begin a new Jellicle life.

Grizabella is considered the "star" female role in CATS.
Technically, however, the only credited characters that have less stage time are
the Rumpus Cat, Bustopher Jones, Growltiger, Griddlebone, Genghis, the crew and Macavity.

Even though it is a "small" role, it's also a somewhat perilous one!
On the West End, Grizabella ascends to the Heaviside Layer by
way of a slippery staircase obscured by smoke.

T. S. Eliot wrote a number of lines about "Grizabella, the Glamour Cat."
However, unlike the rest of the Old Possum poems, these were neither sent to
his godchildren nor bublished: Eliot thought that children might be frightened by Grizabella's sad story.
The unpublished fragments were given to the CATS creative
team by Eliot's widow, Valerie, and the character was built around them.

She is played by:

Elaine Paige: Original London Cast, 1981; Video 1997-98.
She is so...wonderful...

Betty Buckley: Original Broadway Cast, 1982.

Laurie Beechman: Broadway Cast,1984-87 and 1997.
A veteran of such Broadway shows as Annie, Beechman playes Grizabella for five years on Broadway.

Liz Callaway: Broadway Cast, 1990's. The singing voice of Anastasia and several Disney characters,
Callaway was nominated for a Tony for her work in Baby.
Fans of "the Nanny" television show might want to listen closely
to the opening song-- it is sung by her sister, Anne Hampton Callaway.

Sally Ann Triplett: London Cast, 1998.

Lillias White: Broadway cast, c.1990's.

Andrea Bogel:Original Hamburg Cast, 1986.

Debbie Byrne:Original Sydney Cast, 1985.

Eva Almasi: Original Budapest Cast,c.1983.

Gay Marshall: Original Paris Cast, 1989.