RO: Our next guest has been nominated for 4 Tony Awards,
received an Oscar monimation for her role in Barbra Streisand’s "Prince of
Tides" and made us all laugh in "Frankie and Johnny". Take a look.
<showing clip of water pouring scene from "Frankie and Johnny">
Please welcome Kate Nelligan!
Hi Kate!
KN: Hi, now I have to, Gabe, I have to, my son is in the green room. He
said if I don’t get a Koosh Ball, I’m done, I’m finished as a mother.
RO: Now do you think he'd want the Koosh Ball with the shooter or maybe
the big bird Koosh?
KN: Oh no. No Big Bird.
RO: He wants the shooter?
KN: Yes.
RO: I know Gabe. I know he needs a lot (of Koosh Balls) because if you
shoot em, you loose em.
KN: Thank you so much! Thank you, thank you! Everything’s gonna be
OK now. I don’t have anything…he said I had to say "Hi Gabe!". Hi
Gable, it’s Mama! When you left the green room he said, "It’s Rosie.
She’s real but then she’s pretend."
RO: Because we used to live in the same building and I would see Gabe
frequently.
KN: That’s right. And you were the "Sesame Street", you
were the number "1". And you came on ….so you were the biggest news of his
life.
RO: He knew me on the roof and then he knew me on "Sesame
Street". It’s hard to explain when you’re four.
KN: We had an herb garden on the roof of the building and Rosie’s
apartment was up there and Rosie and Parker would come out and we’d hang out and pick
herbs. It was very nice.
RO: And tell everyone what Parker used to do.
KN: Parker used to eat the gravel.
RO: That’s right.
KN: My son was saying the Latin names of the herbs and Parker was eating
gravel.
RO: No, a little bit intimidated, but I worked through it cause there is
an age difference.
KN: There is an age difference. Let’s not get competitive.
There’s a HUGE age difference.
RO: But you get that as a mom, don’t you?
KN: Competitive! You haven’t done the auditioning for the schools,
for kindergarten. Honey, show business! We’re talking sing and dance and deliver.
RO: You're not kidding!
KN: You go and you Hokey Pokey for all of these institutions and you
smile and you grovel and you promise to donate money and maybe somebody will take your
kid.
RO: Does he get what you do for a living?
KN: He says mama is an "address".
RO: An "address"? <laughing>
KN: Not an actress, she’s an "address". And when I go to
the show at night – we call it, we can’t say "play" because
"play" is play in the playground so we call it a "pretend" and the
opening night can’t be an opening night because then it has to be a box and you have
to open it so it’s the beginning of the "pretend".And he called me up on
the opening night which is the beginning of the "pretend", and his father had
told him that what you say to an "address" on the opening is "break a
leg". So he practiced and he practiced and he practiced "break a leg" and
the phone rings in my room and I pick it up and it’s Gabe and he says, "Hi Mama.
This is Gabe. Break a nail!" <laughter>
RO: He is adorable. Now speaking of the play. It is a wonderful play. "An
American Daughter".
KN: It’s a great play. "An American Daughter"
by Wendy Wasserstein, the hottest, hottest, funniest play in New York.
RO: It is. It’s a wonderful performance you give. You, Hal
Holbrook…..
KN: Hal Holbrook, the greatest American actor. I’m sorry. I have
worked with Olivier. I’ve worked with the greats. I am on stage…You cannot,
ladies and gentlemen of America, miss the opportunity to see….He’s 72 years old.
You’ve got to go now and see the greatest living American actor, Mr. Hal Holbrook.
RO: He’s very striking looking too. Boy, isn’t he? I was in the
4th row. He’s very striking.
KN: He’s a beautiful man. The first week of rehearsal, end of the
first week of rehearsal, I was totally in love with him. And I said "Hal, are you
interested in a fourth wife?" Because he’s had three, and he sort of thought
about it because he’s married to Dixie Carter and he said, "I don’t think
Dixie would like it." But he’s a great man, a great actor.
RO: Yeah, and right he was. She sat next to me in the audience.
KN: I heard!
RO: Could you see us? Cause I was thinking are we distracting?
KN: I couldn’t see you but I can see, I can see the front row and I
can see the second row and I can HEAR the front row and the second row. On the second
preview a lady.... the curtain goes up and I’m standing on stage and I’m
pretending to watch myself. I play a surgeon general nominee. And I’m watching my own
speech from earlier that day and I’m home and I’m cleaning up the living room
and I’m watching the television which is really the audience and I’m looking and
I’m looking and a lady is looking through her program and she nudges her friend and
says, "Oh, I know her. She used to be very big!"
RO: Oooooh.
KN: Do they think I’m dead? Do they think I’m deaf?
RO: They think you’re not there.
KN: So one night a few years ago I was doing a play and Jaqueline
Onassis, Mrs. Kennedy was in the audience in the second row. She used to sit near the
front because if she sits near the back everybody turns and watches her through the whole
thing. So she had to sit in the first or second row.
RO: That was very nice of her to do that.
KN: Yeah, it was exciting.
RO: Seriously, most people wouldn’t be that courteous. Were you
distracted?
KN: Totally, totally.
RO: Sure. What were you doing? What play?
KN: I was doing "Plenty".
RO: "Plenty". I bet I have that program. <picking up stack
of Playbills"> I do.
KN: You have these programs?
RO: What a coincidence. I saw you in this.
KN: I don’t have these things.
RO: You don’t have them?
KN: I don’t save because you know you don’t want to be one of
those old ladies who bores their friends with <acquires British accent> "in the
National The-ah-tah in the ah-ly thah-ties when the the-ah-tah waaaas the
the-ah-tah"…….and so you don’t, I didn’t save anything.
RO: You think that people who save stuff are kind of crazy? <audience
laughs>
KN: You save, I bet you save everything!
RO: I save everything!
KN: You do, don’t you.
RO: Every little scrap piece if it’s documented in a book.
KN: You know all that stuff.
RO: These are my own Playbills. I have every….
KN: They are not!
RO: Kate! "Spoils of War". I saw "Serious…..
KN: Get a life! <Rosie feigns hurt> <KN laughs> Rosie, get
out! Get a life!
RO: You’re hurting people! You’re hurting people! <mock
weeping> <KN continues to laugh> No, you don’t have any of these? "Moon
for the Misbegotten"?
KN: I can’t bear it. I can’t bear it.
First of all, first of all, <picking up "Moon" Playbill> who needs to see
that 12 years ago they looked beautiful, and now they look old?
RO: No, you don’t look old.
KN: I mean, it’s true. I don’t watch my movies. I haven’t
seen anything of myself on the screen since 1984 when I looked very… Who wants to
watch themselves get old?
RO: Katie, I can’t believe you’d say that. Do you remember when
I first met you?
KN: Yes I do.
RO: Where was it?
KN: We were in, well, the reading for "Fatal
Instinct…..Attraction"
RO: So wrong!
KN: No?
RO: So wrong!
KN: When did we really meet?
RO: Go back.
KN: When?
RO: Go back to your Oscar nomination premiere party.
KN: Oh my god! Oh Rosie!
RO: OK. That’s right. Barbra Streisand, Prince of Tides, at the
table with my agent, walked over, I said to you, "Without a Trace", loved that
movie, the whole thing…
KN: And I, and I said to you then, "Get a life".
RO: You did. You said it then and you say it now. <KN laughs> And
you’ll be happy to know I haven’t. You forget that.
KN: I forgot! You….
RO: Don’t you know Kate if I didn’t have this show I’d be
a stalker. Alright, so get it down pat. <KN still laughing> Now since you don’t
have these, I’m giving you these.
KN: Speaking of stalkers, George the gate man that you had on the show...
Rosie moved out of the building. We won’t say anything more about where you went or
anything like that. Rosie moved and we have a gate man at the building who gets Daily
Variety, who is a show biz addict.
RO: His name is George.
KN: George came on the show. It was the making of his life. Rosie left
the building. George has been on mega-doses of anti-depressants since the day the moving
van pulled away.
RO: No, really?
KN: He has never recovered.
RO: Bring this <handing her the Big Bird Koosh> for George. I know
he’ll like it. And take these (Playbills) home because I want you to have something.
KN: Thank you so much. <kisses Rosie>
RO: There you go. Another $1,000.00. "An American
Daughter" is at the Cort Theatre right now. Go see it.
