This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:01] Ben Rimalower: Broken records, the albums you wouldn't shut up about.

[0:06] Daniel Nolen: Broken records, the music our guests can't live without like Judy, Barbara, Liza, Bette, Batty, Audra, Bernadette.

[0:14] Ben Rimalower: We broadcast this podcast with hopes that someday we might get Patty La Pone.

[0:35] Ben Rimalower: I'm Ben Rimalower, and I'm here recording remotely with my lovely, even lovelier in quarantine co-host, Daniel Nolen.

[0:44] Daniel Nolen: Thank you.

[0:45] Daniel Nolen: Hey y'all.

[0:46] Ben Rimalower: We are so excited to be quarrelling streaming with you today, the 1999 episode of Bravo Profiles Betty Buckley in performance and in person.

[0:54] Ben Rimalower: And we're even more excited to be doing it with the lady herself, Broadway Royalty, living legend, Tony Award winner, Betty Buckley.

[1:04] Ben Rimalower: Betty made her Broadway debut as Martha Jefferson in the original 1969 cast of 1776.

[1:11] Betty Buckley: Hi, hi, hi.

[1:15] Ben Rimalower: What are you doing?

[1:16] Betty Buckley: I'm singing her song from 1776.

[1:19] Ben Rimalower: He plays the violin.

[1:22] Ben Rimalower: Here you are.

[1:24] Ben Rimalower: Betty's other fabled Broadway appearances include Sunset Boulevard, Triumph of Love, Carrie, Song and Dance, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Pippin, and her Tony winning turn as the original Broadway Grizabella in Cats.

[1:37] Ben Rimalower: In London, she starred in Dear World, I almost said Friend of the Pod, Dear World.

[1:43] Daniel Nolen: Well, it is.

[1:44] Ben Rimalower: In London, she has starred in Dear World, Promises, Promises, and Sunset Boulevard, and her off Broadway credits include The Old Friends, Elegies, The Eros Trilogy, and I'm Getting My Act Together and Taking It on the Road.

[1:56] Ben Rimalower: And Betty is also a TV and movie star, memorable for her major parts in such films as Brian De Palma's Carrie, Bruce Beresford's Tender Mercies, Roman Polanski's Frantic, Woody Allen's Another Woman, M. Night Shyamalan's Split, and The Happening.

[2:10] Ben Rimalower: Her recurring and regular roles on TV include Supergirl, Preacher, Oz, and four seasons as Abby Bradford on Eight Is Enough, to name just a few.

[2:18] Daniel Nolen: Now you're getting into my era.

[2:20] Ben Rimalower: Betty is a master concert performer who sold out solo bills in the best theaters and other venues, both big and small, all around the world, including her near mythic Carnegie Hall Triumph, recorded live in 1996.

[2:33] Ben Rimalower: A very worthy contribution to her fabulously prolific discography of 18 solo albums and God knows how many cast albums and compilations.

[2:43] Daniel Nolen: Every single one, a desert island disc, a broken record for me personally.

[2:50] Ben Rimalower: And Betty is our first guest to be featured in our theme song.

[2:54] Daniel Nolen: I was gonna say we should sing it live, but we do that for her during the interview, don't we?

[2:58] Ben Rimalower: Yes, yes.

[2:59] Daniel Nolen: And they've the listeners just heard it, so we don't want to overstep her welcome.

[3:04] Ben Rimalower: Welcome.

[3:05] Daniel Nolen: Um do you think Betty liked our singing?

[3:08] Ben Rimalower: I do, I do.

[3:11] Daniel Nolen: You know, I um when she was talking about like singing along to like Judy Garland Carnegie Hall, yeah.

[3:17] Ben Rimalower: I like I'd neglected to mention to her how much I have sung along to her Carnegie Hall.

[3:25] Daniel Nolen: Yes, totally, totally.

[3:26] Daniel Nolen: I'm sure many, many queens have as well.

[3:28] Daniel Nolen: And like it's so um Betty's voice is just so muscular and like um, you know, it's just like really fun to belt along with her because she's just so like I'm from the way.

[3:43] Ben Rimalower: I mean, she just gives it to you.

[3:47] Daniel Nolen: And but she also I was it's so funny as we were getting ready to record.

[3:51] Daniel Nolen: I was uh running around uh doing dishes, and I had her in my underwear, and I had her uh YouTube video cover of Joni Mitchell's River blasting on my speakers throughout the house.

[4:05] Daniel Nolen: And it's so crazy because she makes it her own, yet it still maintains that like she does the and it's like so beautiful, and she kind of it's not like uh just a piano version like the original Joni was, but it has those jazz elements that she weaves throughout it with her um uh with the orchestra uh arrangement.

[4:30] Daniel Nolen: It's all those, those that that what she was telling us about all those years she was playing the Bottom Line with Kenny Werner and their band.

[4:37] Daniel Nolen: And she would do, and that's on her album With One Look, and there's just so many of those albums are all those amazing jazzy arrangements of show tunes and also singer-songwriter stuff like that, and you know, more obscure stuff, pop stuff, jazz standards.

[4:54] Ben Rimalower: And the jazz thing, the arrangements are so like, you know, Joni Mitchell around like uh, you know, Court and Spark kind of onward and until you get to some of her more experimental stuff.

[5:07] Daniel Nolen: But it really has that flavor to it, and it just like it just really reaches down and just like grabs my romantic little heart and squeezes.

[5:17] Ben Rimalower: Well, you have to listen to um actually on that same album of hers, With One Look, which was her third album from I want to say 1994.

[5:27] Daniel Nolen: Um she sings um River, but she also just you made me think of when you said romantic.

[5:34] Daniel Nolen: She does this medley of Two for the Road and When October Goes.

[5:38] Ben Rimalower: Oh, I love those songs.

[5:39] Daniel Nolen: Oh my god.

[5:40] Daniel Nolen: And she does it so beautifully.

[5:44] Daniel Nolen: And like I just remember being like a freshman in college and listening to the album and like looking out the window at like the like leaves changing in the fall, like first semester, and just she'd be like, the children running home beneath the twilight sky.

[6:00] Ben Rimalower: Oh, for the fun of them.

[6:02] Daniel Nolen: When I was one of them, and it just like she was talking to me.

[6:08] Daniel Nolen: And when October goes, the snow begins to fly above the smoky rooms.

[6:20] Daniel Nolen: I watch the planes go by the children running home beneath a twilight's car.

[6:32] Ben Rimalower: Oh, for the fun of them.

[6:36] Daniel Nolen: When I was one of them.

[6:39] Daniel Nolen: And okay, this is my confession.

[6:41] Daniel Nolen: All that that Joni actually, uh there's two on that album when um uh River and A Case of You.

[6:48] Ben Rimalower: Oh, Case of You, yeah.

[6:49] Daniel Nolen: And both of those, I knew the Betty Buckley version before I knew the Joni Mitchell version.

[6:55] Daniel Nolen: And I still really the Betty one is the one that sounds like the real one to me.

[6:59] Ben Rimalower: Betty was like the um Gateway Drug.

[7:03] Daniel Nolen: Judy Collins to Joni instead of and in the way that Judy was totally like all like my mom and like all like the teenage girls who like listened to Judy Collins like pop LPs and that's how they found Joni.

[7:17] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[7:17] Daniel Nolen: Like for me, that was Betty Buckley.

[7:19] Ben Rimalower: You're like, oh yeah, it's Betty Buckley song.

[7:21] Daniel Nolen: I um so many songs though, like I mean, so weirdly, like the whole like Hank Williams, she does on that same album.

[7:28] Ben Rimalower: I love that album.

[7:28] Daniel Nolen: She has a really beautiful version of I'm So Lonesome, I could cry.

[7:32] Daniel Nolen: And like that was the first one I knew, and like um uh yeah, it's amazing.

[7:38] Ben Rimalower: You know what song of hers does that for me that I listen to all the time is um that song Get Here.

[7:42] Daniel Nolen: You can reach me by railway.

[7:46] Betty Buckley: You can reach me by railway.

[7:50] Betty Buckley: You can reach me on an airplane.

[7:55] Betty Buckley: You can reach me with your mind.

[7:58] Betty Buckley: You can reach me by caravan.

[8:08] Betty Buckley: Cross the desert like an amazing.

[8:14] Betty Buckley: I don't care how you get here, just get here if you can.

[8:23] Daniel Nolen: But um, yeah, it's so good.

[8:25] Daniel Nolen: I listen to that all the time.

[8:26] Daniel Nolen: And then I also listened to in the summer, um, in Fire Eye, I listened a lot to the one that they talk about in the documentary that she sent to oh yes, Betty Buckley in 1967.

[8:41] Ben Rimalower: That so she had made that like I don't know, did she do it in a mall?

[8:45] Daniel Nolen: You know, it's very much it's the Betty Buckley equivalent of that record Barbara Streisand made, like where she sang like secondhand rose with her mom.

[8:53] Ben Rimalower: For the record, yeah, and then later on it was released.

[8:56] Daniel Nolen: But so that Betty made that record.

[8:58] Daniel Nolen: She had was still living in Fort Worth.

[9:00] Daniel Nolen: She hadn't moved to New York yet.

[9:01] Ben Rimalower: And she sent it to Roger Hess in that time when he was trying to like get her to move to New York.

[9:06] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[9:06] Daniel Nolen: And what's so amazing?

[9:08] Daniel Nolen: So I saw that this Bravo Profiles documentary on TV when it aired in 1999.

[9:14] Daniel Nolen: And I taped it and like watched it all the time on VHS.

[9:18] Daniel Nolen: And I was haunted by the siren song of Betty singing the two tracks that they play on the on the video.

[9:25] Daniel Nolen: One is One Boy, which she does so well.

[9:28] Ben Rimalower: I mean, it's as good as Anna Margaret, or like what's her name on the Broadway recording, uh Susan Watson.

[9:36] Daniel Nolen: But then she sings the song, which I did not know at the time, but they only played the English half in the Bravo profiles.

[9:43] Daniel Nolen: But she's like, Love me with all your heart.

[9:46] Daniel Nolen: That's all I want.

[9:47] Daniel Nolen: Love.

[9:48] Daniel Nolen: And that was my siren song.

[9:51] Daniel Nolen: Like Betty's young voice belting that out in that like just high bell tone, kind of just pure, sweet, but like really kind of like ballsy still way.

[10:03] Ben Rimalower: It was so alluring to me.

[10:05] Daniel Nolen: And all I wanted was to find that.

[10:07] Daniel Nolen: And I would just like search everywhere, and of course it didn't exist.

[10:10] Daniel Nolen: And then I met Roger Hess when he came to see Lonnie in a class act.

[10:16] Daniel Nolen: And I was like, oh my God, please, you are the one she made that tape for.

[10:21] Daniel Nolen: He's like, Oh yeah, I have it.

[10:22] Daniel Nolen: I treasure it.

[10:23] Daniel Nolen: And I was like, I need a copy.

[10:25] Daniel Nolen: And he was like, well, maybe you'll get one.

[10:27] Ben Rimalower: Oh.

[10:27] Daniel Nolen: And then I kept bugging Lonnie and being like, Did you ask Roger?

[10:27] Daniel Nolen: Did you ask Roger?

[10:31] Daniel Nolen: And he was like, Yeah, Roger says he can't do it.

[10:33] Daniel Nolen: It was private from Betty to him.

[10:35] Daniel Nolen: So that was like in 2001.

[10:37] Daniel Nolen: And then in 2006, I think it was, Betty released Betty Buckley in 1967, that entire album, which is all gold.

[10:47] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[10:48] Daniel Nolen: And still my favorite track is the one you're talking about, where she sings it's I guess it was kind of a popular song in the 60s, uh, quando caliente el sol.

[10:56] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[10:57] Daniel Nolen: And then he sings it both in English and in Spanish.

[10:59] Daniel Nolen: And in sp she sings it in Spanish slow, and then she speeds it up to do that thing.

[11:03] Daniel Nolen: And I just love it so much.

[11:15] Betty Buckley: Love me with all the heart.

[11:18] Betty Buckley: That's all I want love.

[11:22] Betty Buckley: Love me with all of your heart.

[11:25] Betty Buckley: Oh, not at all.

[11:29] Betty Buckley: Just promise me this that you'll give me all your kisses every winter, every summer, every fly.

[11:43] Daniel Nolen: That together with um Elaine Stritch's album, Stritch, where she sings like um, you know, uh, Are You Having Any Fun?

[11:52] Ben Rimalower: Like those are my two just like ultimate like cocktail party jams.

[11:55] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, Elaine Stritch, Are You Having Any Fun?

[11:58] Daniel Nolen: And Betty Buckley, Quando Caliente El Sol.

[12:00] Daniel Nolen: Like, if those songs are playing, I could not be happier.

[12:04] Ben Rimalower: That like that when we are like, I only pray that sometime this summer the quarantine is behind us, and we're like in our house on Fire Island with like an ocean breeze, and everybody else is drinking, and I'm having my diet ginger ale, and we're listening to those songs.

[12:21] Daniel Nolen: I'll be that's my wish.

[12:23] Ben Rimalower: Yes.

[12:23] Daniel Nolen: Well, we'll we're manifesting it right now.

[12:25] Ben Rimalower: Yes.

[12:26] Daniel Nolen: Um, we're projecting it to uh the Lord Above, aka Elaine Stritch smoking a cigarette in heaven.

[12:33] Ben Rimalower: Yes.

[12:34] Daniel Nolen: And Andrew Cuomo.

[12:38] Ben Rimalower: Um anyway, yeah.

[12:41] Ben Rimalower: So that is um, and Betty's just um sprinkled throughout so many of my little playlists that I just play throughout the day to get me through.

[12:48] Daniel Nolen: You know, what are other Betty tracks that you include on your various playlists?

[12:52] Daniel Nolen: Um, you know, I love, you know, I'm a huge Radiohead fan, and I love her recent cover of High and Dry.

[13:00] Ben Rimalower: Oh, so good.

[13:04] Betty Buckley: You kill yourself for recognition.

[13:07] Betty Buckley: You kill yourself to never ever stop.

[13:17] Betty Buckley: You're broken of a mirror.

[13:20] Betty Buckley: You're turning into someone you are not.

[13:28] Ben Rimalower: Don't leave me high.

[14:05] Daniel Nolen: And so, like hearing Betty Buckley, I was like, Oh my god, I fucking love this song. It's a Radiohead song. I can't believe Betty Buckley is covering like Tom York right now. And um she's like so much like she's definitely like obviously like Broadway, like just like true blue Broadway girl. I mean, that's beyond doubt. But she is definitely like in that way. I mean, I guess kind of Patti LuPone is like that too, where they're like a little bit like they're really like cool rock and roll chicks, like in their heart, you know. And uh although, well, this you're not gonna like, um, but you know, I'm so obsessed with the Bette Midler recording of the Bob Dylan song made famous by the band I Shall Be Released, which is on her second album, self-titled.

Yes, so obsessed with that track. And I know it was like a big uh sort of go-to for Bette, like back in the day at the baths and everything. Yeah, and like when I was in college, I was so excited that I was like so into like a Bob Dylan song, and I wanted to play it for my dad, because like wanting him to like, you know, like share my love. And he was like, Ugh, what is what is the drummer doing? What's that synth? Is this disco? She ruined it. She ruined it. And I was just like so sad and offended.

[15:19] Ben Rimalower: Oh, Benji. And so cut to this was like uh summer after freshman year of college. Cut to like later that summer, I am like home alone at my parents' house, and I'm blasting on the living room stereo Betty Buckley's then new album, the London Concert, another fabulous live album of hers. And she does on that album with the BBC Orchestra, this amazing, amazing arrangement of um Unchained Melody. Oh, yeah. And it just like builds and builds, and it's just like so beautiful and rich and big and just fantastic. And um, so I'm just like dancing around the living room, and Betty's just like, lonely rivers flow to the sea. And I'm just like getting my life. And I didn't realize my parents had come home because like it was so loud.

And the song's over, and like my dad's like, that's fantastic. Who is that singing? What an incredible cover. I think that's even better than the original. And I'm like, go fucking figure. He won't get into Bette, but he digs on the Betty. And I love that. You know, it really, but it jibes with what you're saying about her high and dry, too. You know, she just has a way into like the emotional truth of a song that transcends genre and style.

[16:45] Daniel Nolen: Totally. And I like that about her because she's, you know, she's like you said, a true blue Broadway performer. But she's also so, you know, it's about it's not about the biz, just the biz for her, it's about the art. And she's an artist. She's not just well, she's very not showbiz, I feel.

[17:05] Ben Rimalower: Yeah. So it's I mean, I think that's what she was telling us, like about like how Hello Dolly was difficult for her. Because like Jerry Zaks is so showbiz, and that's show is so showbiz. And you know, I think that's why she felt like it took her a long time to like feel like she could enjoy it, you know, because I think like that's not what her go-to is. Her go-to is like something, you know, just deeper, darker, more twisted and complicated, you know.

[17:32] Daniel Nolen: Yeah. Um, yeah, and it's, you know, she um she is not afraid to go in deep and dig deep and find like she tells that story um about uh when she decided on her interpretation for Grizabella when she's all that homeless woman with all like makeup on the street, like although interestingly, we shouldn't say it's all about darkness because what she said that's so interesting about that is like that she realized that it was about sharing her light, actually. And that's true. And what's that? I actually wrote the quote down on my notebook, but it was something about like it was it, it reminded me of something Lonnie Price said to me when I was scared. I was opening my show, um Betty Issues, and um I was like, I'd never performed before, and I was like so nervous.

And um, I was talking to Lonnie, and he was like, just remember it's a give, not a get. You're not going out there trying to get something from the audience, you're going out there trying to give something to them. And that's exactly what Betty basically says about what she learned from this homeless woman, and that that Grizabella is like not oh, feel sorry for me because like I'm past my prime, but like I want to share with you this beautiful gift that I have and the beauty and joy that I've seen, you know.

[18:45] Ben Rimalower: Yes, yes, and it and she said something like, you know, Grizabella, no matter how whatever she's become, like she can still uh see beauty or something like that. And I thought that was so beautiful. Yeah, and you know, Betty doesn't want anybody comparing anything, and that's like harsh as her vibe, and I totally respect that. God bless her. She's like a beautiful child of God, and she can like be love and light and hold hands kumbaya. But we already got the interview in the can, so I can say whatever I want. Betty can't do a damn thing about it. But her version of memory is so much better than all the other versions.

[19:22] Daniel Nolen: It really is. And I'm sorry. Like Elaine Paige, Barbra Streisand have fabulous voices and are thrilling performers, but their memory is like a schmalzy pop song. And Betty thinks that song is always interesting and compelling and dramatic and even more beautiful and thrilling and powerful than theirs. Sorry, not sorry.

[20:45] Ben Rimalower: Sorry, not sorry. I mean, what you're saying is hopefully she'll skip this part of the podcast and not listen to it. Betty skip ahead. No, it's so true. It's like I, as much as I love Barbra, I hate her memory. And even though that was like a huge hit for her. Well, hate is strong. I mean, I do appreciate I hate it in comparison to the others, primarily Betty's.

[21:06] Daniel Nolen: Yeah.

[21:07] Ben Rimalower: Betty's is the only one that I'm into.

[21:11] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, what are the other ones?

[21:12] Ben Rimalower: I mean, Elaine Paige.

[21:14] Daniel Nolen: Elaine is the first one.

[21:16] Ben Rimalower: Barbra. I don't mind hers, but I don't I don't, I mean, honestly, I like Elaine's doing it later in life more than I like her version, like on the cast cats cast album. Like when I saw Elaine do it live, it had a little more like drama to it. I feel like on the cast album, it's very like, I mean, she probably had Andrew Lloyd Webber breathing down her neck. But regardless, though, I mean, you see Betty do it and it's like you're watching like a sunrise over the Grand Canyon. You know, um, and uh, well, the woman that did it uh on Broadway in the revival, it's a good thing I can't remember her name. Oh, Nicole Scherzinger or whatever.

[21:56] Daniel Nolen: No, she did it in London in the revival. She did not come to Broadway.

[22:01] Ben Rimalower: Right. The woman that did on Broadway was another pop song, another pop singer. Uh yeah, yeah, yeah. Um Bleeding Love. Um, I'll think of her. I don't know. She was awful. I mean, her voice was great, but she was terrible. Cut me open and that her name is I don't know her. Um screaming at that. And the woman that replaced her was much better. And I went back and saw it a couple of times. Uh and she was actually, she did something really amazing. I basically basically did the entire like climax like in one breath. It was kind of just like exciting, like watching like an amazing um like athlete, you know.

[22:38] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, I was not a fan.

[22:40] Ben Rimalower: But uh Mamie Parrish, that was the woman that that replaced her, and she was fantastic, but still, it is nothing. I mean, whether you're watching Betty do it in concert today, or on the Tony Awards performance in Costume as Grizabella, or there's an amazing um from I think it was the 1989 Tonies when Angela, one of the times Angela hosted when they do this thing about like 11 o'clock numbers. And so um the first she introduces Betty, and Betty comes out and she looks fantastic. She's wearing this like silver, like um iridescent, like long coat over this like really tight black velvet or black silk, maybe like um strapless like halter and like these like long black like palazzo pants or something, and she sings comes out and just sings memory, and it's like she might as well be in costume.

I mean, she's giving you like the weird, like trembling fingers on the end, like it's just and she it's so thrilling. And also Larry Kurt does being alive, which is pretty great, and Angela does send in the clowns, which is great, um, for the 11 o'clock numbers.

[23:48] Daniel Nolen: But um but is anyway. What I was the point is every single time you see Betty do memory, it's like she takes you, it's weird. I mean, it is very much like Patti doing Don't Cry for Me, that on one hand, she takes you really back to this like moment, like in the play in the character, but also at the same time, she makes it feel very much like it's about her in the real real-time moment.

[24:16] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, and it's like completely spontaneous and like happening in front of your eyes, like authentically.

[24:23] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, I like that. Um, I mean, it's kind of we've we talked about it in some of the concerts, how like whenever people perform this song, like I felt that way when who was it? Um Jerry Orbach was singing, try to Remember. It's kind of like you need to like elevate it and take it to a new place whenever you're doing a song out of context, you know.

[24:46] Ben Rimalower: I mean, I don't know. Jerry Orbach had that frickin' direction of like having to like walk through the dressing room with the camera. I mean, I don't know if anybody could have rescued that staging. I don't know if we should blame him or not.

[25:00] Daniel Nolen: But uh yeah.

[25:04] Ben Rimalower: But I wanna uh it's so interesting. They I want to go back to what you said about Angela singing Send in the Clowns. Is that I saw your little face have a little moment when I said that.

[25:12] Daniel Nolen: I was like, what's this?

[25:13] Ben Rimalower: My little face.

[25:15] Daniel Nolen: Um is that's not an 11 o'clock number.

[25:19] Ben Rimalower: Well, if you're going by my strict definition from last week when I went off on Sondheim and into the woods. Uh no, it was it was during our live stream.

[25:30] Daniel Nolen: Oh yeah, sorry.

[25:32] Ben Rimalower: Um, I mean, it's it doesn't have the 11 o'clockness that I like to think of like a rose time.

[25:39] Daniel Nolen: Send in the clowns, yeah, it is. It's like at the it's like, isn't it like the middle of act two?

[25:46] Ben Rimalower: No, you just think that because act two hardly has any songs. So like I always think of act two as uh of night music. I always think of the Miller's son as the 11 o'clock number.

[25:55] Daniel Nolen: Um, I don't even remember which comes first in terms of the chronological order.

[26:03] Ben Rimalower: Well, Angela Lansbury in the 1989 Tony's shows too was first sent in the clowns. I mean, Angela didn't want to sing the Miller's Son. Um, I mean, I don't know. You this show, yeah. I mean, 11 o'clock number is not a real thing. It's not like looking at the human body and being like, no, that is the left ventricle, not that. Like, I mean, 11 o'clock number is it's something like um, you know, it's like the upper west side. It means what you want it to mean.

[26:31] Daniel Nolen: Go on.

[26:31] Ben Rimalower: Okay. Like, you know, you could argue that it's send in the clowns because it's Desiree's song and she's a more important character. Or, and it's like obviously the most famous song like in the world. So it kind of has 11 o'clock vibes about it. You could also maybe argue it's the Miller's Son because that's a little more like big and belty and showstopper-y, yeah, but also not really.

[26:53] Daniel Nolen: Like the truth is, most audiences are like, oh my god, send in the clowns.

[26:57] Ben Rimalower: Whereas the Miller Sun, they're like, What?

[26:59] Daniel Nolen: The Who in the Prince of Wales?

[27:01] Ben Rimalower: What are you talking about?

[27:03] Daniel Nolen: So, like, you know, and even though like we're gay for San Time, and like we're like the Miller's son, she's gonna belt a D.

[27:09] Ben Rimalower: Like, general audiences are like, what is this weird song?

[27:13] Daniel Nolen: I don't know. You know, like I think for the general audience, sending the clowns is the 11 o'clock number.

[27:18] Ben Rimalower: And as far as as far as your point about like chronologically, I think you're right that it does come before.

[27:25] Daniel Nolen: It's only one, it's only one track ahead, but there is like a bunch of books shit that happens.

[27:30] Ben Rimalower: No, no, no, they're like back to back.

[27:33] Daniel Nolen: Like those things happen very close to each other.

[27:35] Ben Rimalower: They happen within like they're both within 20 minutes of the end of the show.

[27:39] Daniel Nolen: Yes, yeah, yeah, that that is true.

[27:41] Ben Rimalower: Um, I mean, the Miller's Sun happens like weirdly, like right after that scene.

[27:45] Daniel Nolen: It's like all very close together.

[27:46] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, you're right, moments.

[27:47] Daniel Nolen: I actually did I tell you I recently uh went by the way, fun fact, Betty Buckley played Desiree.

[27:53] Ben Rimalower: We need to get this.

[27:54] Daniel Nolen: Betty played Desiree in a BBC concert version of music in the 90s.

[28:00] Ben Rimalower: Like when she was in Sunset Boulevard in London in the 90s, people like lost their fucking minds.

[28:06] Daniel Nolen: And she did the BBC concert and she did the BBC um a little night music, and she was just like all over the place in London at that moment.

[28:15] Ben Rimalower: I like that.

[28:16] Daniel Nolen: We need to get that recording of A Little Night Music.

[28:18] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[28:18] Daniel Nolen: And I know just who to ask for it.

[28:21] Ben Rimalower: Who?

[28:22] Daniel Nolen: My friend Kevin Daly, uh friend of the pod on Twitter.

[28:27] Ben Rimalower: He has all the Son Pimp stuff.

[28:29] Daniel Nolen: He and David Levy both. They can get you anything you need.

[28:32] Ben Rimalower: All those BBC concerts.

[28:34] Daniel Nolen: That's how I got that um BBC concert of MAME with Julie McKenzie.

[28:40] Ben Rimalower: Mmm.

[28:44] Daniel Nolen: I love that.

[28:45] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[28:46] Daniel Nolen: There was also a BBC concert of Follies around that time where Donna McKechney played Phyllis.

[28:54] Ben Rimalower: Um, even though she had also played Sally in the Paper Mill Playhouse production.

[29:00] Daniel Nolen: Interesting.

[29:00] Ben Rimalower: I would have, I mean, I guess she could do either, but I would have.

[29:03] Daniel Nolen: No, no, she's a Sally.

[29:04] Ben Rimalower: I think it's weird that she played Phyllis.

[29:06] Daniel Nolen: I'm just telling you facts.

[29:08] Ben Rimalower: Okay, calm down.

[29:09] Daniel Nolen: Um, anyway, okay, let's wrap this up.

[29:18] Ben Rimalower: Let's wrap this mother up.

[29:19] Daniel Nolen: Um, so long story short, we stan Betty Buckley.

[29:24] Ben Rimalower: For some reason, when I was in high school, I was obsessed with this idea of like Betty Buckley playing Mary Martin roles.

[29:32] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, I like that.

[29:33] Ben Rimalower: And when I was in high school, I believed that Betty Buckley had played Peter Pan on Broadway.

[29:38] Daniel Nolen: I don't know why I thought that.

[29:39] Ben Rimalower: You have to understand this is before the age of like IBDB or anything.

[29:43] Daniel Nolen: But in my mind, Betty Buckley was like one of the great Broadway Peter Pans.

[29:48] Ben Rimalower: And I really wanted her to star in a revival of South Pacific.

[29:52] Daniel Nolen: And I used to agonize in my mind over like when she would do this Broadway revival of South Pacific and who was the right person to star opposite her.

[30:04] Ben Rimalower: For the uh Some Enchanted Evening guy role.

[30:08] Daniel Nolen: Emile DeBeck, yeah.

[30:10] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, yeah.

[30:11] Daniel Nolen: Because I didn't know opera stars, but I kind of wanted Betty to have a proper operatic bass, just like Mary Martin and Florence Henderson had had.

[30:19] Ben Rimalower: But I also didn't know the names of any operatic bass I.

[30:23] Daniel Nolen: So um I was like, I was like, hear me out.

[30:29] Ben Rimalower: Could Mandy Pading do it?

[30:31] Daniel Nolen: Absolutely not.

[30:32] Ben Rimalower: Correct.

[30:33] Daniel Nolen: Um, anyway, okay.

[30:35] Ben Rimalower: Well, let's talk to Betty Lynn B.

[30:41] Betty Buckley: Broken Rag, broken wreck.

[30:45] Ben Rimalower: It's Betty Buckley.

[30:47] Betty Buckley: How are you?

[30:49] Ben Rimalower: Oh yay, Betty.

[30:51] Betty Buckley: Hi.

[30:51] Ben Rimalower: Hi.

[30:52] Betty Buckley: Hi.

[30:52] Ben Rimalower: How are you?

[30:53] Betty Buckley: I'm good.

[30:54] Betty Buckley: I'm so happy to see you.

[30:57] Ben Rimalower: You look beautiful, Betty.

[31:00] Betty Buckley: Oh my god, I put on lipstick and makeup for you.

[31:02] Ben Rimalower: Oh my god.

[31:03] Betty Buckley: I'm honored.

[31:04] Betty Buckley: I haven't had any on for days.

[31:07] Ben Rimalower: You and Ben are both wearing competing athleisure gray.

[31:10] Betty Buckley: I know.

[31:10] Ben Rimalower: Sorry to have to sound like we have different corporate sponsorships.

[31:14] Betty Buckley: It's the quarantine advice.

[31:17] Ben Rimalower: How to stay engaged.

[31:20] Betty Buckley: I'm obsessed.

[31:21] Betty Buckley: Oh, by the way, I was texting with I don't know if I've ever told you that I'm friends with your niece Erin.

[31:26] Ben Rimalower: Oh no, you never did.

[31:27] Betty Buckley: Did you? She is uh actually Daniel and I are both in writing group with her at the public theater.

[31:31] Ben Rimalower: Oh, that's right, yes.

[31:32] Betty Buckley: So cool.

[31:33] Ben Rimalower: And so she said to send you her love.

[31:35] Betty Buckley: How do I like it in a writing group.

[31:37] Betty Buckley: I tried to write a couple of songs for the last Carlisle gig I did.

[31:42] Betty Buckley: And so I ended up writing this one song.

[31:44] Betty Buckley: But Nino Christian Jacob, my pianist, the director, collaborator for about 10 years, I guess.

[31:51] Betty Buckley: And we've done several albums together.

[31:52] Betty Buckley: He's great.

[31:53] Betty Buckley: I mean, and he scored two movies by um Clint Eastwood.

[31:57] Betty Buckley: I had this whole fantasy of writing this song.

[31:59] Betty Buckley: So I, you know, we're gonna be at the Carlisle for two weeks, and it turned out to be one week.

[32:03] Betty Buckley: But you know, some of my great experiences at the Carlisle were with Elaine Stritch, you know.

[32:08] Ben Rimalower: Yes.

[32:09] Betty Buckley: Um, in my first experience at the Carlisle was um they uh Earth a Kid had got sick.

[32:18] Betty Buckley: And so the guy that was booking the room, who was this guy named Jerry Cravit.

[32:22] Ben Rimalower: Do you remember his?

[32:23] Betty Buckley: Oh, sure, yeah.

[32:23] Ben Rimalower: He called me and had me come in and sub this one weekend for Earth a Kit.

[32:29] Betty Buckley: And it turned out to be the biggest snowstorm in New York history.

[32:31] Ben Rimalower: Oh, like maybe there were five people at each of that weekend.

[32:36] Betty Buckley: It was ridiculous.

[32:37] Ben Rimalower: And then I started working there and had some really nice long-term engagements there uh for a number of years, and then I moved over to Feinstein's at the Regency for a period of time, and they were really good to me, uh, especially right after I moved to Texas, because you know, I was really bereft of New York.

[32:53] Betty Buckley: I made this big decision to move to a ranch in Texas, and then I got down here and I was I knew I had to do it just for my soul, you know, and my heart, and I needed to ride these horses and find this cutting horse and all that.

[33:05] Ben Rimalower: But at the same time, I was really missing New York.

[33:08] Betty Buckley: I mean, really missing New York.

[33:09] Ben Rimalower: So um, so Feinstein's kept booking me back like six weeks, eight weeks, a month-long engagement for several years.

[33:17] Betty Buckley: So I had this like extended engagement in New York, living at the Regency Hotel, which was special.

[33:22] Betty Buckley: And in that time period, Elaine had moved from the Carlisle to the Regents.

[33:27] Ben Rimalower: Yes.

[33:27] Betty Buckley: Oh my early engagements at the Carlisle, Elaine lived at the hotel, and she would come down and stand at the bar and critique me during my show.

[33:41] Ben Rimalower: It was like amazing, you know.

[33:43] Betty Buckley: I was like, and but anyway, I love her.

[33:46] Betty Buckley: I just love her.

[33:47] Betty Buckley: We had this like really weird relationship.

[33:50] Betty Buckley: Um, I actually met her when I was like 22 years old.

[33:54] Betty Buckley: Um, a friend of mine, our mutual friend from 1776, gave like a brunch at his Upper West Side apartment and invited me and invited, you know, uh Elaine.

[34:04] Betty Buckley: And I was like so fascinated by her.

[34:07] Betty Buckley: But from that point, whenever I was troubled in any way about making some big decision, and I, you know, I have a propensity for making decisions to shoot myself in the foot, you know, repetitively throughout my history.

[34:20] Betty Buckley: And she would really I would run into her on the streets in New York, and she would take me to coffee and say, What's going on with you?

[34:28] Betty Buckley: You know, and I'd be like, nothing.

[34:29] Betty Buckley: And she's like, Yeah, there is.

[34:30] Betty Buckley: And then she would advise me on what I should and shouldn't do.

[34:33] Betty Buckley: And one time I was in a Broadway show, and she came backstage after the performance and went through the backstage area into followed all the way across the stage to my quick change booth.

[34:46] Ben Rimalower: I hadn't even taken off my costume.

[34:48] Betty Buckley: Oh my god.

[34:49] Betty Buckley: And was like, like, where is she?

[34:50] Betty Buckley: Where is she?

[34:52] Betty Buckley: And she comes into the quick change room and says, What's wrong with you?

[34:56] Betty Buckley: And I'm like, nothing, Elaine.

[34:57] Betty Buckley: I'm fine.

[34:58] Betty Buckley: And she's like, No, you're not.

[34:59] Betty Buckley: Tell me what's wrong with you.

[35:01] Betty Buckley: So I begrudgingly, you know, shared with her this scenario that I was really uh really upset about something business-wise, and there was no good alternative.

[35:13] Betty Buckley: She told me the story of a musical she did before she did uh Sail Away with the Power thing, and how Noel Coward had come to see her in that.

[35:25] Ben Rimalower: Goldilocks was it?

[35:27] Betty Buckley: I don't know the show.

[35:28] Betty Buckley: Yes.

[35:29] Betty Buckley: And uh told her how great she was, and and it was a very similar experience to what I was having.

[35:34] Betty Buckley: And so she said, Who cares?

[35:37] Betty Buckley: Just do this.

[35:38] Betty Buckley: And she said, and go do it now.

[35:40] Betty Buckley: And she sent me out into the streets to solve this situation.

[35:43] Betty Buckley: And um, anyway, she was I I really think of her, people said you should write a book, and I think I would call it Elaine Stritch's My Guardian Angel, you know, because she's so I wanted to write this song.

[35:55] Betty Buckley: So I wrote this.

[35:56] Betty Buckley: I haven't written, yeah, I used to write songs as a hobbyist.

[36:01] Betty Buckley: I yeah, I just I don't I don't think I'm a yeah, I think I'm I don't know.

[36:06] Betty Buckley: I I'm very judgmental of my lyrics.

[36:09] Betty Buckley: And so I tried to write this thing and Christian wasn't having it.

[36:13] Betty Buckley: And I wrote these two pieces.

[36:14] Betty Buckley: One was about Elaine Stritch and the other was about this experience I had watching Judy Collins at the Carlisle.

[36:20] Betty Buckley: And I thought it'd be really cool to have these two songs.

[36:22] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[36:23] Betty Buckley: So he he f I finally got him to write the music for the Elaine Strish song.

[36:26] Betty Buckley: And uh, he didn't really get my other song.

[36:28] Betty Buckley: And it was more like a um, it's it's a very sweet little story.

[36:34] Betty Buckley: It's like more like a story than a song.

[36:36] Betty Buckley: We finished the song uh for Elaine Stritch, and I debuted it at the Carlisle.

[36:40] Betty Buckley: It was really cool.

[36:41] Betty Buckley: And um, I'm I'm happy about that.

[36:43] Betty Buckley: So now he's finally finished the music for this other piece, which is more like verse, you know, in a story, and it's really lovely.

[36:51] Betty Buckley: And I want it to be like an animated short.

[36:57] Ben Rimalower: I love that.

[36:58] Betty Buckley: But anyway, this is all about the writing thing.

[37:00] Ben Rimalower: Yeah, right.

[37:01] Betty Buckley: So I thought about these two scenarios, these two songs for months before I sat down and started working on them.

[37:08] Betty Buckley: And then when I started working on them, I would spend hours in a sitting just like trying to, you know, and then trying to figure out to explain it musically to Christian.

[37:17] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[37:17] Betty Buckley: And then I would go and suddenly I would have this inspiration on the street of hearing this piece of music.

[37:21] Betty Buckley: I thought that really fits.

[37:22] Betty Buckley: And then I'd find it on YouTube, and then I'd I'd do my lyric over that piece of music so you don't understand what I was going for.

[37:29] Betty Buckley: And then finally, like but I feel so insecure about my writing, and it's crazy because I'm I have a journalism degree.

[37:36] Betty Buckley: I've worked on newspapers and everything.

[37:37] Betty Buckley: I know how to write, but it's like I don't I just like, oh, it's so hard.

[37:37] Ben Rimalower: It's so hard.

[37:42] Betty Buckley: Well, I definitely think you should come to our writing group because it's so much about getting that that confidence and getting over that nonsense, you know.

[37:51] Betty Buckley: And I I have a wonderful, actually, he's in our writing group, but he's living in LA now, so he hasn't been coming.

[37:56] Betty Buckley: But there's the guy that directed my plays.

[37:59] Betty Buckley: Um, his name Aaron Mark, and he also wrote and directed um that show Empanada Loca that Daphne Rubin Vega did that was like you would have loved this show, Betty.

[38:10] Ben Rimalower: It was like the Sweeney Todd story, but it was this one woman show, and she was the Sweeney Todd character.

[38:16] Betty Buckley: Oh, cool.

[38:17] Ben Rimalower: She, but she so she was a massage therapist in Washington Heights, this Dominican woman, and the Mrs. Lovett character who we never meet was her boyfriend who made empanadas out of the people that she gave the massages.

[38:30] Betty Buckley: Oh, it's so gross.

[38:31] Ben Rimalower: It was brilliant.

[38:32] Betty Buckley: Anyway, he's so smart, Aaron Mark, and he said to me, Writing happens in your fingers, not in your head.

[38:38] Betty Buckley: Oh, and that was like carried on these for like months in my head, and then when I've got down, it was so fucking weird.

[38:44] Ben Rimalower: You could be 12, you could be 25 songs further now if you'd, you know.

[38:48] Betty Buckley: But anyway, but I wanted to ask you this one of the things that came up for me re-watching this wonderful Bravo profile is about you having gotten a journalism degree.

[38:57] Betty Buckley: And I'm so curious.

[38:58] Betty Buckley: I mean, the first thing I thought was, well, even if you hadn't gone and done 1776, even if you hadn't met Roger Hess, if you'd been in journalism, it wouldn't have been too long before you were, I don't know, hosting a morning show, and next thing you know, in a Broadway musical, you know, I could still see the past.

[39:19] Betty Buckley: I I didn't, I really owe my career to Roger Hess.

[39:22] Betty Buckley: It's like uh, you know, my father, I uh my father was uh a very strict person, and I'm really glad it was my father because he was really tough.

[39:33] Ben Rimalower: Yeah.

[39:42] Betty Buckley: So she was getting my dance classes and getting sneaking me out of the house for that all during my growing up.

[39:48] Betty Buckley: And this caused great fights between my mother and father, which was then when my talent, the clarity of my talent manifested itself around age 11.

[39:58] Betty Buckley: Uh it was it was not um a happy environment, so to speak, around my talent.

[40:06] Betty Buckley: So I have a lot of consternation about that or remaining, you know, I've had to be in therapy since I was 21 years old to resolve to basically to give myself permission to do what I'm here to do, which is sing and act and tell stories, you know.

[40:20] Betty Buckley: So were there things though words, but anyway, that's it in another. It's fascinating. I mean, but it's were there things that you didn't get to do because of your father? Because like watching that Bravo video, it seems like you played Dainty June in Gypsy, and then you were going to do uh Miss Texas. I mean, it seems like, yeah, my mother, my mother made all those things happen. You know, when I was 11 and she took me to see Pajama Game with the original Flossy choreography, I was enchanted. And I had this like epiphenal moment, epiphany of that that's what I would be doing for the rest of my life when I saw the steam heat number. And then I came home a couple months later and told my mother I wanted to learn that for our junior high talent show.

And it just so happened that the guys that were the choreographer and the lead dancer on that show were a couple named Ed uh Holliman and Larry Howard, and they decided they were tired of touring and doing you know, dancing on Broadway and touring, and they had done a lot of Broadway um tours for Fossies material and stuff, and they were great uh um neophytes of I mean not neophytes, um what's the word I'm looking for? Um acolytes, the you know, the a Fosse, yeah. He's like so they knew everything. Um, and so my mother they opened a dance studio that same fall that I wanted to audition for this junior high talent show called The Monik Fallers, and I wanted to learn Steam Heat. I just knew I had to do that.

And my mother, and I could dance, you know, because my training since I was three with my aunt, and so she called them because she saw that their ad in the newspaper, said my mother, my daughter wants to learn steam heat. Um, and they said, Well, bring her in for so I she booked me a private lesson, and I went in and they just said, you know, can you dance? I said, Yeah, and they said, Can you sing? I said, Yeah, and they said, sing this. I got steam heat, so I did, but and they said, No, no, sing it as loud as you can. So I was like, you know, because I knew I had this giant voice because I'd been practicing in my bedroom, you know, like for years.

[42:28] Betty Buckley: Well, what would you sing in your bedroom? Well, I would imitate my mother had this amazing cast album collection of every Broadway show, and I loved all that, but I also had um she also had some of the great lady singers. And somehow or another, we got the Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall album, and I could match her note by note and tone by tone. I can sing that whole album, and I was fascinated with the fact that I could sing exactly like Judy Garland, do you know, when I was really young, and um my other favorite singer was Michael Jackson, and I remember like singing to Michael Jackson's, you've got to be there looking out over this Texas plane. We had a split level house, and my bedroom had a little a balcony on the back of the house, and I would stand out on the balcony and sing to this plane with this old windmill and stuff, this cattle pasture.

And I would, I knew one day I remember this moment. Um, it was like two epiphany. One was when I saw Steam Heat and knew that's what I would be doing, that that's what I was here to do. And the second was when I was 13, after I had uh started performing all the time. Well, what happened was I learned Steam Heat from these guys, and they took me out as a student. I said tap ballet jazz with them. They choreographed Steam Heat with all the original choreography and all the hat tricks and the whole bit. My mother had this little tiny black suit made with the bow tie, and I had the little tie shoes and the whole bit, and I loved it. It was so cool. And um I did the number at the they put me on right before the senior girls can line, you know, and um and the I'll never forget that breathless silence of an audience, and then everybody went crazy.

And that it was my that was the beginning of my being an 11 o'clock number specialist. That's what I do. I'm the 11 o'clock number specialist. And um, so I remember running off stage to this big ovation, and the the principal, Mr. Bostuk was like, go back, go back, take another call. And so I ran back out for my curtain call, you know. It was like it was so much fun. So at the beginning it was super fun, and then my mother started entering me in these contests, you know, where I'd be competing against a boy who played an oboe and a ballerina who couldn't stay on point from Nakadochas, you know, it's like stuff like that. And I was like, this is where I got really sensitive to comparisons, which I talked to you about then.

Yeah. I was like, how does a boy playing an oboe and a dancer who can't stay on point compare to a 11 year old 11-year-old or 12-year-old singer? How do they rate that? You know, it's like, how does that compare? I couldn't grasp it. And then when I was 15, they entered me in them as teenage pageant, which I was like, oh my God. And my dad approved the pageants, which I never understood. I never understood the hypocrisy of that because I was like this budding young feminist, and I didn't really find a language for my feelings about feminism. Like I observed the indiscretions of our neighbors, you know, this guy who was having an affair on his wife, and I was their babysitter, and I was just like, uh, you know, and I I couldn't understand so many, like, why were women given this certain set of principles or more a moral standard, and men didn't have the same one.

I couldn't understand that because as far as I could see, we were all equal. I didn't like the pageant thing, and um, then I was recruited when I was 18 for the Miss Fort Worth pageant. I didn't like that, but I got Miss Fort Worth, and then I was in the Miss Texas pageant, which was like a four-day event or something, and I didn't like that. But um, I sure got a lot out of it. You know, I got all these scholarships, and and I was then invited to uh be on the Miss America pageant when I was a junior in college as one of the guest entertainers to represent all of the girls in America who don't make it to Atlantic City. So basically I represented all of the losers, you know. That was my big claim to be.

What did you sing there? Uh oh, I sang a lot of things because we did some group numbers and then I did some solos. And this great arranger, Glenn Osser, who was a brilliant arranger, he wrote these beautiful orchestrations for me. And I picked this one of the songs I sang in one of the preliminary nights was No Easy Way Down by the Springfield. Yeah, he wrote me a beautiful chart of that. And um, so that was my, you know, I was working with big orchestras in the Miss Fort Worth competition, the Miss Texas competition, and then the Miss America pageant. So, yeah, I was and I we did it. Oh, we did on the clear day, uh, oh, hurry it's lovely, I think. And all this stuff. Anyway, that was a blast, and it was because of being on television that Roger Hess's assistant had this woman that was their friend call and say, You're you should get your boss to watch the squirrel on television.

And so they did, and they called me in Atlantic City and had me fly to New York to audition for all these agents, or about 12 agents. And that used to be Ashley famous, and it's now ICM. So this major agent there that worked with Roger named Eric Shepherd. I remember him standing up after my I sang and said, Sign her and walked out of the room, you know. So Roger became my responsible agent along with Eric. And um he said, Well, what do you want to do? And I said, You know, I gotta finish school, my dad'll kill me. I gotta do that. And so I was a journalism major, but at the theater program at TCU, there was a guy named Dr. Jack Cogdall, who had been my mother's, he'd been the director and she'd been the choreographer of a college show they did at Texas Tech, and so which is where she went to school, and so she said, Oh, Dr. Cogdall, Jack Cogdall, go tell him you're my daughter.

So I took a survey of theater course from him when I was a freshman, and I was there on journalism scholarship from all the work. I had a teen column when I was in high school on the local newspaper, you know, uh, a teen page actually, where I would go out and get interviews with all the various high schools in in Fort Worth and write about all these kids and what they were up to, and it was super fun. And so that was my job, and I was a rodeo reporter at the Fort Worth Press, and I, you know, just hung out at the rodeo grounds and found stories and would write future stories and stuff.

[49:04] Daniel Nolen: So, do you ever miss that? Did you ever want to do more of that at later points in your in your life?

[49:10] Betty Buckley: I can't say that I missed it too much. I've written some things, I wrote some stuff for Miss Magazine when I was younger, and here and there. Dr. Cogdall, when I introduced myself to him, he took an interest in me because of my mother having been his friend. And he quickly sussed out that I had this difficult father and in a difficult home situation that I wasn't really free to make my own decisions for my career path. He instituted a theater minor program at TCU. Wow. Where there hadn't been one before, just so I could be involved with the theater department. So I was a journalism major theater minor, but then he then started picking projects that I could do every year. Like he gave me my first play.

I played Mrs. Antrobus and Skin of Our Teeth when I was like a junior or something. And I remember having profound experience on stage of doing this monologue about women and women's deity and rights and stuff, and feeling really passionate and emotional about that. And that's the first time I felt that on stage in front of an audience, you know. And then um my senior year, he picked Brigadoon so I could play Meg. You know, he cast me as Meg and Yeah, you know, the guy, you know, and he gave me so much experience. And then I started working, I started working professionally at Casamanyana, our regional theater, when I was 15. I played Dainty June in Gypsy, and that was my first professional job.

And I danced in West Side Story as Baby John's girl. And then every year after that, I played uh I did something at Casa. I played 80 Annie, I think when I was 18. I played Sue in Oklahoma, I played Susan in a Desert Song, Maisie in the Boyfriend. Um I had a lot of experience by the time I got to New York, you know. But the summer after I graduated, they invited me to go on this USO tour with Miss America. She and I were 21, and Charlotte uh Sims, who uh was also 21. And the rest of the girls know there were about six of us or seven or six, I guess, seven, seven of us. And they uh we were the three oldest, and they would take us into all the intensive care units because we were 21 and the other girls were younger, um, to see all these young soldiers that were dying.

And you know, from and I saw when I was 21, I saw firsthand, experienced firsthand, the results of war. And I had my first love affair when I was 21, my senior year in college with this uh backup quarterback to the Dallas Cowboys, and he uh, you know, took six months to woo me, but having wooed me could care less, you know. And that was my first like realization of what that game was all about. And he broke my heart. I mean, he devastated me. And the sad thing was my parents, I had this other boyfriend who was a TCU football player, and he was just bereft because I, you know, started dating this guy, but he gave me a bad time too, so whatever. It's like that's no problem. But um uh so this guy was so savvy, the the football, the Dallas Cowboy, he would literally come and hang out with my parents and bring them gifts and wait for me to come home, you know, which would really mess with my boyfriend.

So I, you know, I'd never been pursued like that. So of course I was like, oh, you know, and this guy obviously is in love with me, and dah da. And um my father's like, you will be a virgin until you're married and so it was like it was really uh difficult right the guy so I had had you know I really thought I was gonna marry this guy and then I went on this USO tour and he was writing me ardent love letters and blah blah and and it was just gross and um so when I got back um I've had no incentive to move to New York I just was like I'll take my job at the newspaper this I'm I'm in involved with this jerk and you know I didn't have the word asshole at that point um and um so I was just working at the paper and Roger keeps calling you you gotta come to New York got to come to you I was like oh I can't my dad doesn't want me blah to do that and um and I'm but I had no heart for it anyway because I everything seemed futile because of what I'd experienced in the hospitals in Korea and Japan of all the Vietnam wounded I've never seen anything like it my father having been a lieutenant colonel in the air force believed in war he believed that war was righteous and I was like a child of the 60s and I'm like no but Roger Hess was the reason he got me out of Texas.

[53:55] Betty Buckley: He called me and said, "Come, you and your mother come see this, what do they call those shows? Um, forgot the name of it. Um, they used to do them all the time, these shows. Oh, like an industrial." Industrial show, thank you. And so my mother and I went to Dallas and saw this show starring Flip Wilson and a band called Your Father's Mustache. And so Roger told them I was a singer. So they brought me up on stage, and Roger did this knowingly because the buyer was in the audience from B.F. Goodrich. And I, the only song I knew, the key I sang it in was "You Made Me Love You." So I told them "You Made Me Love You," and whatever that key was. So I did "You Made Me Love You," and everybody went crazy.

And so the buyer says, "Let's put her in the show." So they paid me a bunch of money, which was crazy. It was way more than I was making at the newspaper. And the newspaper was so nice, they were like, "You know," but I just had to travel on the weekends, and so my dad couldn't deny the money, and so he had to let me go. I mean, I was 21 at this point, I should have been able to go, right? And so we went to where all did we go? We went to San Francisco, Atlanta, Chicago, and the last stop was Philadelphia. And Roger says, "Just train it in from Philadelphia and I'll get you another. I've got another industrial show for you at Gimbal's Department Store for six weeks. So we'll try the city for six weeks, and then if you don't like it, you can go home."

And again, for good money. So I called my newspaper and I said, "I've got this job for six weeks," and they were like, "Go, go," because the only people in Fort Worth that didn't want me to go do this was my dad. You know, everybody else was like, "Yes, yes, you've got to go sing on Broadway." And you know, because I knew, oh, that's why I forgot to do my other epiphany when I was singing on the balcony to Michael Jackson, "You've Got to Be There." I was 13, and I had this epiphany of who I would grow to be and how my voice would sound and how it would affect people. And then years later, when I was 35, and I'd done the cast album for Cats, and the engineer and the producer brought the album into my dressing room with the winter guard for me to hear the final mix.

And I'd been very frustrated on the recording session because I didn't think I sang it as well as I knew how to sing it. I just felt a lot of pressure, and I was like, "Oh," and so I didn't like it. And they were fine, they were like, "We've got it, we've got it, get out of here." And I'm like, "No, I've got to do it again. It's not good enough," and whatever. So I was really dismayed. I thought I hadn't done it well. So they brought it in and played it for me. And I was like, "Oh, okay." And then I had this really remembrance of my 13-year-old epiphany. And I remembered the moment standing in the balcony door and looking out at the plane, and how I knew that I would grow to be this kind of singer, and I'd have this voice that would affect people a certain way.

And I'd studied at that point for 13 years with Paul Gavart, who's an incredible teacher. And so memory, learning how to sing "Memory" in Cats brought me through the doorway of my potential that I'd been studying, studying, studying for so many years to learn how to do, but it took a long time, and finally there it was, and I heard it, and I was like, "Oh, it took from age 13 to 35, but there it is." And then suddenly learning how to do "Memory" with, you know, the direction of Trevor Nunn and working with Andrew and wonderful Julian Lynn and, you know, doing that show. That was the, I think, was my master's thesis. Like, that was my master's dissertation, and I came through the doorway of my potential with that show.

And before that, on Eight is Enough, I did that for four years, and that was one of the hardest jobs of my life, mainly because of the producers. They were terrible people and cruel. And so I kept going to the dailies. They didn't want me to, but I needed to learn how to act better. And I didn't think I was a good enough actor. So I went and I just...

[58:15] Daniel Nolen: You hadn't done Tender Mercies yet, right?

[58:19] Betty Buckley: That was after.

[58:24] Daniel Nolen: Oh, that late.

[58:25] Betty Buckley: And then it came out right after Cats opened. So just Carrie was the only thing you had done on camera before using us. So you had Carrie, then Eight is Enough, and then Cats, but no, then we shot Tender Mercies that winter, and then Cats, and then Tender Mercies came out after Cats opened.

[58:47] Daniel Nolen: So your master's degree was a double major in film and musical theater.

[58:51] Betty Buckley: That's right. Those are my two master's dissertations, and it was after those two projects. But see, I've been studying film acting by literally getting to do 29 episodes a year for four years, watching my dailies, saying, "Okay, that 10 seconds over there in that footage that works. This doesn't, why?" And then at the same time, I was studying with Stella Adler in LA. In LA and in New York when I was in New York, I took her acting classes and her script analysis classes, which were amazing. And I learned so much, but I was too afraid to work for her. I never put my work in front of her. I stood in the back row and dug down and just took notes because I never, I knew I wasn't strong enough to survive her critiques because I knew I wasn't there yet.

Just watching her work with other young actors, like it was amazing. Her demonstrations when she, I remember this girl was doing Ophelia, and she was like, "No," and she did so, and she demonstrates, and she was like, I don't know, in her 60s or 70s or something, and her demonstration, she suddenly became this girl. It was like, "Oh my god," you know, she was amazing.

[1:00:17] Daniel Nolen: Betty, were you always like, one thing I feel like I've just known intrinsically from when I first became aware of you was that you're a seeker.

[1:00:26] Betty Buckley: Yeah, you know, and when you were just like in your early 20s and, you know, doing 1776 and Promises, Promises. I mean, before all this phase, were you always that way? Were you always just learning and seeking and on this sort of spiritual path from that right now?

[1:00:45] Betty Buckley: Well, maybe in the beginning was just learning to how to heal the wounds from my family experience and how to give myself permission. I mean, I did 1776 for seven months, and I was really confused because this boyfriend, the original lover I had when I was, you know, in TCU and the Dallas Cowboy. Whenever I would become successful or visible again, he would chase me again. And so it took me years to free myself of that. It was like a nightmare, and um, but he, you know, it was really an impossible situation for me because I knew he was lying, you know, and I knew, um, but you know, it was a horrible thing to extricate myself from, and then when I got Promises, which was a year in London alone, I was away from the influence of my family, I was away from this guy, and so, and I mean that was scary.

And talk about lonely. Oh my god. So learning how to deal with aloneness and again kind people that helped me along the way, and having this kind of attention. I was the young leading lady at 22 in London. I was nominated for Best Actress by the Evening Standards Awards. I sat next to Laurence Olivier at those awards. I was pursued by Richard Harris and Topol, and I had lunch one day with Dudley Moore and Robert Mitchum and some others, and I, you know, and I was just this young girl that was like, and because of the whole experience with my father, I didn't ever know when men liked me. I didn't know my, I just didn't know things. I don't know how to explain it. I was definitely naive, and so I didn't know so many things, and so yeah, and then there were other Americans in the cast with right Tony Roberts and was Donna McKechnie in that company also?

[1:02:57] Daniel Nolen: And then she left.

[1:02:58] Betty Buckley: But I would stand backstage and watch her dance every night. She was so great, so great. And I got to work with Michael Bennett and Charlie Blackwell, who was this amazing stage manager who directed us into the show, and then I got to work with Bacharach and David and Neil Simon and everybody. They got to give us that cast album to last for the agents. But there's no chaperone. You're like a kid and you're in London on my own, and I'm like, you know, I knew nothing. And so, yeah, but I, you know, I learned a lot. And so then I had to, when I came back to New York, and I went back into 1776. Oh, you know, I needed help, you know, so I saw therapists and stuff.

[1:03:44] Daniel Nolen: I mean, was that a crazy idea for you coming from Texas? Like, what would your parents have thought in 1970 about you going into therapy?

[1:03:53] Betty Buckley: Uh well, it was pretty, uh, yeah, that was confusing. Like a weird, that was like a weird thing for you to do for that. Um, I should tell you some good things about my dad.

[1:04:04] Betty Buckley: Yeah. So I was doing Getting My Act Together and Taking It on the Road. I did it for like three months on my hiatus from Eight is Enough at the end of the second year, I guess. And then at the end of the third, during at the end, no, I guess it was the height is between year two and year three, maybe no year three and year four. And so then Gretchen opened it in, Gretchen Cryer opened it in LA, and they asked me to replace Gretchen, and I was doing Eight is Enough, so I was shooting Eight is Enough at daytime and doing Getting My Act Together at night, which was hard, you know, both of those things. So I was making good money in that time period, and I was thinking every year I would consider buying a house, and I lived at the Chateau Marmont Hotel. So I was doing this play, and I thought, "Okay, I'm gonna get a house," you know. And so I finally found this little house, but I thought it had some structural issues in my life.

[1:05:00] Betty Buckley: In LA?

[1:05:00] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, in LA.

[1:05:00] Betty Buckley: And my father was, um, he wrote a textbook on construction management and was an architect, among his other talents. He had many. And so he was a poet, he was a painter, he did all these things. And um, he's a brilliant guy. And he, uh, he was out there on some consulting trip anyway. So I invited him to come see this house to advise me if I should buy it or not. And he liked that I was asking for his opinion and stuff. And so then he came to see me in Getting My Act Together that night. And so I was taking him back to his hotel in my car afterwards, after the show. And he says, "You know, buddy Len, I was always worried about you going into show business because I think you have a very fine mind.

And I thought that would be a really waste of your intelligence." And he said, "But I see tonight and watching you in the play that you really care about people, don't you?" I said, "Well, I think so, Dad." And he said, "And I think what you're doing is really good for people. I think that your work tonight really touched people, and I can see that you're very sincere. And I want to tell you, I admire that." And I said, "Wow, Dad, that's great. Thank you so much." You know, like being an actor, evolutionarily historically, we're part of the healing arts, you know. Journalism actually goes quite nicely with, you know, acting storytelling because the original storytellers were the balladeers, the original newspaper journalists were the balladeers that went from town to town to town and sang the news.

[1:06:43] Daniel Nolen: Well, so speaking of that, what when did you bring that empowerment of starting to create your own work to tell the stories that you want to tell, not just in auditioning for other people's things or being asked to do them, but when you do these concerts and cabaret shows that are so personal and so artistic in how you do them, how did that, um, because I know like that first album you recorded live, that was not your first concert.

[1:07:10] Betty Buckley: I mean, that was like what, '87. In jazz clubs and stuff since I was in college. I was a college cheerleader, you know, and so I thought like these jazz ladies I really loved. I mean, apart from Judy Garland and those albums, they all had mature, husky voices, you know. So I would go out and scream at the football games to get my voice sound really husky because I thought my like lyric soprano mezzo, high soprano mezzo girl was too it sounded too girly to me. And I wanted one of these darker voices. So imagine how stupid that's how naive and stupid I was. Silly. I mean, maybe stupid is all right, but silly. Now I look back at that and was like, Betty Lynn, why would you do that? Why didn't you cherish what you had there?

But I didn't, you know, and um, but I sang at this place called Casa del Soul with these jazz musicians, and you know, and I sang uh I worked with this jazz um pianist named James Davis, and we did lots and lots of concerts, and so I really started concertizing and stuff. From the time I was Miss Fort Worth, I was asked to do shows in college and um all that. So yeah, I had a lot of experience doing that, but I guess my first invitation to do cabaret work was oh well, my first concert was after Cats. I did the Rosoli album that became it was a was so that really was your first you hadn't done anything even small three night concert event to raise money for the homeless at St. Bart's church and so we had the I don't know the uh the where the the presence of mind to record them and um we shot them on video too that nobody ever uh released those but they it's kind of like uh it's kind of a raw looking tape you the footage and stuff but um so one of the people that was at that concert was Charles Scribner who um along with uh his friend at um Rizzoli decided to finance that record and release it that was my first recording and so that was pretty cool um but then I was asked to do some cabaret at Rainbow and Stars that you know on top of the yeah sure and it was a beautiful room and um but I I just thought well I'm a singer I didn't know I had to talk to the audience.

I remember we just filming and uh somebody else being in the front row and they were really perplexed because I all I did was sing you know and my friends were like you've got to talk to the audience I was like well I don't have anything to say what do they want to what are we talking about and so I try to talk about the songs and that and and then there's this guy I don't know if you remember maybe this is pre-year time uh Bob Harrington who wrote for Backstage? He uh uh but was this kind of a cabaret authority, and he had this four whole formula of what he thought cabaret should be. And he would write reviews about my work saying, you know, it's beautifully sung, but it's not cabaret, and I'd be like, What how is it not cabaret?

And you know, and then he or a couple of reviews trash memory in the context, and I was like, Memory is my child, right? So I memory out of the show in an act of vengeance, you know, because I was so mad about anyone commenting about memory, you know, and because that was my the jewel. So I took it out of the show one night, and I remember uh this proper Bismarck, Bismarck Irving, I think it was the uh proprietor of Rainbow and Stars or the the Metro D. And he the dressing room was one of the bathrooms, it was like ridiculous. And so he comes back and he goes, Betty, he said we had people asking for their money back because you didn't see memory. Okay, and so I put memory back in the show, you know.

So anyway, um, I did it just has been this long process of learning what to, you know, how to talk to people on stage and how to, you know, and then oh, then Alan Pepper at the bottom line was fantastic. He booked me there and he became like this wonderful friend and patron, and he would but and then by then I'd started forming my own band. And um I thought when you started working with Kenny Werner, yeah, Kenny and Jamie Haddad and Tony Marino, and I still work with Tony and Billy Drews. That was my band, and I found them. Um actually, I was looking for new musicians because I've been working with this pianist named Keith Herman, who we developed this whole memory version because he was my rehearsal pianist in Cats, and we were together in a room for like four hours every afternoon working on one song, you know.

And so we had this version we called space memory. We just took it apart. We did it as a country western song, we did it as a jazz piece, we did it as a rock and roll piece, we did it in every conceivable fashion to just break it up because I was like, you know, what are we gonna do with this? And it was through that process that I found my interpretation of it. Um which you know was that whole thing, but we came up with this arrangement. I just one day there was this map on the wall, and it was like a map of the stage, and then where the orchestra was behind the stage, you know, behind the set behind the tire. Oh the I mean the boot, you know, it was in this room. The pit singers and the orchestra were back there, yeah.

And we only saw them on video, right? And so, and they only heard us on speakers, right? So I was like, Keith, you're gonna be back here, and I'm gonna be over here. I had this pointer stick with the map that Trevor used, and I said, So I want you and I to be like think. And and he said, Okay, and so then I went in one day and I said, Okay, Keith, just start playing what you like, just take the chords and just play what you like. And so he did this improvisational version, and I it really inspired me to sing it in a way that was like so connected and whatever. And so we developed this thing and we repeated, and I said, This is called space memory. And I'm like, I'm sure if Andrew hears this, he's gonna love it.

The whole thing. So I went to Trevor, and this is a kind of naive tail, right? Silliness, and I said, Trevor, we have this new arrangement of memory. You have to hear, and he's like, So he makes his appointment with us two days hence to come in and hear space memory. And we were so nervous because he was clearly, you know, like, what is this? And we didn't know each other very well and stuff, you know. But it was like, so we did it, but we did a kind of faltering version of it. And he goes, right, now do it exactly the way Andrew wrote it. And I was like, okay. And so fortunately he protected us from Andrew ever hearing space memory. So but the thing was that our improvisational version had really informed, and it was filled with these beautiful, you know, spacious chords and stuff that I still use in my uh, and then my friend Michel Columbier, who's this brilliant French composer that orchestrated my first concert after at Carnegie Hall, uh used some of our spacey things.

Well, then Keith was is a composer, and uh he didn't really want to be my pianist, so I ran into um who was it I ran into on the streets. I think it was David Sanborn. No, was it? Could it be? Yeah, I think it was. And I I just said, I'm looking for a new band, and he's he gave me Jamie's name, the percussionist, and he said, Jamie will know who the guys are. Call him. So Jamie gave me two pianist names, uh, Bill Mays and Kenny, and I called them both, and Kenny returned my call and um made an appointment with me right away, came over and he played in my apartment in New York, and it made me cry. I was like, Great, you want to be my piano player? And he's like, Yeah, and I was like, You're my MD, you're my piano player.

So then we start collaborating to create these uh collections of music for the bottom line, and then Alan Pepper uh kept booking us there. So we kept doing new collections, new collections, and we were doing really innovative jazz versions of because they were brilliant jazz musicians. And Kenny would say, you know, nobody's ever gonna understand this. They're not, you know, because the the Broadway purists were like, Oh, you know, what is she doing? Now everybody does it, but I nobody really had at that point. Yeah, and um, so this record company, a guy named Mort Drosness that had worked at Columbia, he was starting his own label called Sterling Records, and he started he wanted to record us.

So we did five albums for him, and Alan would book us there a couple of times a year, and then that just kept generating new collections of music, new collections of music, and then that's how that happened. And I worked with that group of musicians for 20 years, and we did like a lot of CDs, yeah.

[1:16:23] Daniel Nolen: And then you've been so prolific, and they all have so much of their own character and yours and such great songs, and we've done 18 CDs, so incredible. You know, that I've done 18 CDs, and that group I I don't know, we did a bunch, and then I met Christian because Kenny was less and less available because he was doing his own thing, and Christian would come in and work with me, and then um we reached a point, Kenny and I where we decided to let the relationship go. It'd been you know 20 years, and uh I asked Christian, well, I found Christian listening to the the albums of the Tierney Sutton band, which is a brilliant jazz singer, yeah. Christian is one of the founding members of that band with Tierney and that group of them, and they're incredible musicians.

So I called the musicians union in LA to get his number and I called him and I said do you ever work with other girl singers? Yeah. Um and it's been interesting because most of the time he's available for stuff it's like been there's been very rarely that there's been a conflict. And I I found Terry Gedris, my sound man at the bottom line and he's worked with me ever since then so since 1998 seven or something like that. So that's a long time.

[1:17:40] Betty Buckley: That venue is such a loss I'm so happy that now you're playing Joe's pub too.

[1:17:46] Daniel Nolen: Yeah I love Joe's pub. It has the same feel.

[1:17:48] Betty Buckley: But I called Alan after I saw this Bravo special I wrote him an email to thank him for for his patronage because he literally made me and my band available by booking us there consistently and was very loyal to me in that time period and them the quality of the musicianship that we were bringing and then Rosnus recorded those five albums suddenly reviewers that had reviewed us the concert got what we were doing when they could listen to the album and then we got started and Kenny had already said you know they're never going to understand this until they can sit down and really listen to it basically when I first started working with Kenny we coarranged everything and I would say okay here's a book of you know I would chime this and I had books of paintings you know like by great master painters like realists um impressionists, um, surrealist painters, and I would say, okay, the scenario of this is um, you know, the singer is this character, she's telling this story, but the environment is this, and I want washes of sound that are like this color, and I would show him the painting.

[1:19:06] Daniel Nolen: Like I remember we did a painting based of an arrangement of the very thought of you that um is a beautiful standard, and I based it on Monet's The Lilies, you know, yeah, and uh, and so I said I want washes of color that are like this, and I want it very impressionistic, and um, that's the arrangement we created, and then I used that as an introduction in a concert we did in at the University of Las Vegas, and uh Steve Wynne was in the audience.

[1:19:41] Betty Buckley: Wow.

[1:19:41] Daniel Nolen: And he was like, and he comes backstage and he goes, I have that painting, I want to show it to you.

[1:19:47] Betty Buckley: And so he uh invited me to see to go see this performance of O.

[1:19:53] Daniel Nolen: And so he held the curtain so we could get to see O after our concert, and then he took us to uh his gallery and in uh the Bellagio Hotel and showed us the painting that I based the arrangement on.

[1:20:07] Betty Buckley: How cool is that?

[1:20:08] Daniel Nolen: Wow.

[1:20:10] Betty Buckley: Well, yeah, he should have given it to you.

[1:20:17] Daniel Nolen: That was really cool, so we could get there.

[1:20:19] Betty Buckley: I felt all posh about that.

[1:20:21] Daniel Nolen: Yes, well, you are.

[1:20:22] Betty Buckley: I mean, you know, Betty, I have to say, like, I I'm for someone on the outside of your career who's just been such a fan, just you know, for my whole life, and just you know, treasured your albums so much.

[1:20:36] Betty Buckley: I mean, they've been such touchstones for me, you know, and it just I think that anyone would think of you as just an unquestionable star of the American stage. I hope that you have at least at this point that sense of having arrived. Oh yeah, I mean, I tell my students, you know, talent used to be a word for money, like so many talents. So it was a rate of exchange. But basically, my theory is that if you have a talent, you come into the world with that particular talent as a means of exchange, but it's your job to take responsibility for the talent and make it grow and polish it. Like I, you know, I think of becoming a finer and finer actor as really equated with becoming a better and better human being.

So it's like it's almost like the notion of, you know, Michelangelo with a marble, and it's like, how do you do that? And he says, I just rub away everything that doesn't belong. And it's the same thing in terms of becoming a storyteller and actor, you just keep rubbing away everything that doesn't belong until the essence of your being can shine through basically. And um, so yeah, so and I'm like it's a having a talent is a responsibility, and um, and I mean it's a gift and a responsibility.

[1:22:07] Betty Buckley: Yeah, I'm grateful, I'm grateful that I had this mother who because I'm fundamentally, I think a very retiring person. You know, I'm pretty like I'm a couch potato. I like to have a good cup of coffee and hang out, watch good movies and read good books and talk to friends, you know, it's like and so to like get me up to do something usually and I'm trying to work on that instead of waiting to be hired, you know, um, to generate creativity, which is why I'm grateful for the musicians that I work with and stuff and the places that want to that are loyal to our concert bookings like now, like the bottom line used to be in now Joe's Pub. Now I'm supposed to be doing Joe's Pub in November for eight performances.

So we've got to generate some new stuff for that. I'm really grateful for my collaborators, and I'm super grateful for the people that have opened doors for me or kind of kicked me in the ass along the way, like Elaine or Charlie Blackwell, the stage manager who facilitated me getting that second audition for Promises Promises. You know, I don't know if you know that story, but um, yeah, I think it's in the raw doc. It's so good. Yeah, it's like those people, you know, and Roger Hess and um on and on, acts of kindness, you know, and my teachers and my therapists are everything, you know. Um yeah, it's just I wouldn't be anywhere without all of that.

[1:23:42] Ben Rimalower: But then you pay it forward. I mean, you know, I love seeing all the, well, when you were first singing "Stars in the Moon," Jason Robert Brown was an up-and-coming new composer. And now he's also a Broadway legend, but you know, Joe Iconis, and um, you know, if there's a constant sense of renewal and reinvestment and you know, re-upping that I see with you.

[1:24:04] Betty Buckley: Oh, thank you. Thanks. Yeah, I think it's important. I think it's important to really, you know, I think I've really learned in playing Dolly Levi this past year that joy is a choice. You know I think I was under the illusion a bit of an illusion before that that you know joy was a byproduct of either the job or the relationship or you know like uh getting a great job and achieving some kind of excellence in that you know and uh you know it's a byproduct of something for some reason I thought that I guess I wasn't even conscious that I thought it but it became very clear to me in this past year of the opportunity and the blessing to get to play Dolly Levi that joy is a choice and it's hard it's hard because to do that show eight times a week for a year for 13 months you know on the road across America it was like at my age you know 71 then turned to 72 was unbelievably difficult but fantastic you know to rise to the occasion of the challenge of that and I have an incredible physical trainer named Pat Minocchia who has a gym in New York called La Palestra and he's is that the guy you were doing Pilates with in the Bravo video Patrick Strong and he was amazing he's a great Pilates teacher I believe he's still in New York you were an early adopter by the way I think that was nobody knew what Pilates was in 1998.

[1:25:30] Betty Buckley: Back then so Minocchia I'm training with him now uh online two times a week since the whole shutdown but I you know I call he's trained me for every big job since Patrick Strong was a part of the whole Sunset Boulevard thing too I trained with Patrick Strong since Cats. And then Patrick started to um he wants to work with just ballerinas then just dancers, I think. So Minocchia has been with me since back in that same time period. And his made me super strong for every one of these big, big Broadway things I've done. So I called him and I said, you know, they want me to do Dolly on the national tour. And he goes, here's your assignment now. And then he kept working with me for the year. I lost 40 pounds. And I was like in incredible shape. I didn't even know that was possible. You know, and then to reclaim my Broadway voice, which I haven't used, you know, I because I've been singing on microphones, you know, for this time. So that was a real blessing.

[1:26:32] Ben Rimalower: But I was so thrilled I got to see you in it, Betty. And the thing that you said just now about joy as a choice. I mean, it's funny because I know you were talking, I think, about you personally making that choice and going on that tour and the rigors and all that. But that's so much what the I mean, I guess it really is what the show is about. But it was about what I always say when I tell people how wonderful it was to see you in that part was that, and I love that show, and I saw all the Dollies. And by the way, I don't know if I told you this part two of our first conversation when we had lunch when I was begging you to write a book. Um, and we you and I had both just seen Bette Midler do Hello Dolly.

Right. You were just dazzled by it. And I was like, yeah, and you were like, Ben, you're wrong. And I listened to you, and I went back and I saw it, and I was like, this is dazzling, you know. So I loved all the Dollies, but the thing that really stuck out for me about your Dolly was that I really felt that she was the protagonist when you played her. I really just saw this human being that I related to, you know. And when you would sing the songs and I would have that dazzling Diva Betty Buckley feeling, it would almost be like an afterthought because I was really watching you go through this experience and literally choose joy. There was a moment in um before the parade passes by.

[1:27:46] Betty Buckley: Say that again. You just froze. I didn't hear that.

[1:27:51] Ben Rimalower: Oh, sorry. Um the, you know, the dazzling diva Betty Buckley thing was there for me, and it, you know, and the songs and all that, but it was almost an afterthought to this protagonist journey that I was relating to watching this human being, even though I'd seen the show so many times. And the moment that really stuck out, and it's literally what you're saying, choosing joy was in before the parade passes by. I think you sang the first part, and then Cornelius and Irene come through, and the world is full of wonderful things. And I there was this moment, you it must be the staging. I'm sure they all did it, but the way that you did it, where you started, you made the choice to do the choreography. And I saw you with this just very pronounced decision to start doing the footwork. And it was like it was the whole show happened right in that moment. It was so breathtaking, and I'll never forget it.

[1:28:45] Betty Buckley: Thanks, Ben. Thanks. Choosing joy. Learning how to play that character, you know, and incorporate my specific skill of kind of a uh a I don't even know how to put it into words. Um you know, it was it was confusing to, I mean, because I felt like I was going to comedy school with Jerry Zaks and Louis. I learned, you know, I've learned um, I mean, I played comedy, but not that kind of specifically timed.

[1:29:18] Betty Buckley: Sure. And so the direction was, you know, and so how to bring my emotional truth to that was um was you know learning another set of skills. And so because you know, it was the first time I've ever done a part where I didn't know my specific purpose as to why I because I never saw myself cast in that role. So it took me some months, um, the I'd say the first five months of the tour actually, to really find myself in the role, and um it wasn't until we did um uh Costa Mesa. I had been sick, I missed a number of performances, and then I came back for the last four, I think, of that run, and the hall was perfect acoustically in Costa Mesa. And I walked out on the stage and um and my sound man found me for the first time in the tour.

I mean, he from time to time found me in these other halls, but it wasn't consistent, and he and I were constantly trying to because I couldn't always hear, and then I would push too hard, and you know, it was it was a problem trying to figure that out, and so suddenly because of the acoustics of the hall, he suddenly had the pocket for me, and so I knew exactly where to sing, and I could just stay in my body the way I'd been trained to do uh with all my teachers to just stay inside yourself and let the audience come to you. And so I suddenly was able to incorporate everything I knew for the first time instead of the you know that thing.

[1:30:51] Ben Rimalower: Right. Is that making any sense?

[1:30:54] Betty Buckley: Or yeah, I mean, it's just funny because I know I saw you before that in Miami, and it was such a fully realized performance in my sense. I just I didn't really know for myself uh what exactly I was there for until that experience. And then I suddenly realized it and I was like, oh, this is familiar. And then and then I was home free from there. Um yeah, it took some time, but like I say, most of the time when I go into a project, I know my purpose in it up front, you know, what with Sunset. Um, you know, they flew me to London to audition me and stuff, but they gave me a week to learn all the songs, and I saw the show, not with Patty, I saw it with her understudy because she was on vacation.

I saw it with Patty later, and I saw the show and I knew exactly from that experience what I needed to bring to it, you know, and what I was sure was necessary, and they had made these decisions to go in this other direction. Um, and the whole scuttlebutt happened with Glenn and Patty and da-da-da. And fortunately, when I came into rehearsal, I mean, fortunately, I had the support of Pat Strong in that time period too, my trainer, to keep my focus on my work. But and I had this great relationship with my therapist Aur Celia, and her counsel through that one helped me get the job through the audition process and not confront anybody with my opinions, because she would say, you know, you don't have to tell anybody what you're gonna do or what your plan is, you just have to like hear the guy and let it like you, and then she would suggest things she would say, you know, br British people don't want to talk about in psychological references because that's all that interests me really so let's steer away from that in your conversations with Trevor.

And I'm like, Okay, so smart. And then she said, you know, let's see if there's some classical references we could bring into this. So I for the first couple weeks of rehearsal, I was like just doing what he told me, and then I started to introduce ideas like uh, you know, Trevor in Greek mythology, Medea, Medusa. Um, you know, the when you like hurt the feminine, you know, you're gonna suffer that kind of and goes, Oh, show me, and then I would be like, Okay. And so I would show him a little of what I had in mind, and then it I kind of gradually worked like that. And so he afforded me my own interpretation, which was really generous of him. And then um, we came to New York with it, and we went through a similar process of him finally trusting my interpretation, and then he came back to the show three months later, and he saw the audience's response to it, and he was like, the audience, the audience, and because I was I was interpreting it with what I thought was a contemporary consciousness about um how you know women really feel, not the ideas of make I don't know, it's it I I don't mean to digress into that whole thing, but um yeah.

[1:33:59] Betty Buckley: Well, it's so fascinating to me. I mean, I only ever saw Glenn in the role in LA, and then I saw her now, just when they did this revival at the palace, you know. But I've watched the videos of you and Patty and Elaine and Patula and Colin Schneider.

[1:34:15] Daniel Nolen: You didn't see us do it.

[1:34:17] Betty Buckley: No, I'm so heartbroken. Oh my god, we have to end this conversation next. Trust me, it's the regret of my life. It's on YouTube, my whole show is on you.

[1:34:27] Daniel Nolen: Oh, I've watched that many, many times. Trust me, I did. Oh, yeah, several, including your closing night, which is spectacular. I mean, you're so the audience is so insane, and then you're so visibly moved by it.

[1:34:41] Betty Buckley: Um, but it's so funny, it's so interesting to hear you mention classical theater as a reference point because that's what I thought. I was watching a clip of your final scene, and coming down the staircase, it has that Greek tragedy proportion to it. And when you say, like, this is my life, there is nothing else. It's it's so enormous. I mean, it's like it's it's you know, I I we I don't want to get into comparing divas because I know you don't go in for all that that shit, you know. But you know, but I think part of the reason that probably they were so taken with what Glenn was doing, and you know, because it had the size to fill that house. And I thought you were doing that size, but for real, you know, and it's like it's even on this TV, even on this bootleg, yeah.

You know, it's it's so it's so hard. How do you break through a bootleg video on YouTube? You know, that's um that's a that's a lost in translation moment. But I was watching this and you just grabbed me, you know. And I just I I I really I it's my one of my biggest regrets is not seeing you in Sunset.

[1:35:50] Daniel Nolen: That was so fun. The two years I had on that show were just a freaking blast. Is that the longest you ever did one role?

[1:35:58] Betty Buckley: No, I did uh Pippin when I was 24. I you know, when in I replaced Jill Clayburgh six months into the run as Catherine, and I did that for two years and eight months.

[1:36:09] Daniel Nolen: Oh wow. Is that where you met Dean Pritchford?

[1:36:14] Betty Buckley: What?

[1:36:14] Daniel Nolen: Is that where you met Dean Pitchford?

[1:36:16] Betty Buckley: Yeah. Uh-huh. He was my first Pippin because he was the standby for John Rubenstein. So I rehearsed with him, and he came back and directed me into the show, which was really generous.

[1:36:27] Daniel Nolen: And did you did he say, Someday I'm gonna write you an amazing part, Betty?

[1:36:31] Betty Buckley: Dean? Yeah. Uh no. We were we were but really close friends. In fact, I just was working out in my little um rim where I've got all my gym equipment and stuff, and I have there that I've been carrying around with me for a million years. And I look at them like, why do you keep dragging all these books around? Give them away, give them to a library. But on that shelf was is a dictionary. Uh that uh a Webster's dictionary, like a beautiful dictionary. That was Dean's gift to me with his perfect handwriting, you know, as a dedication in the front. And so, and I taught Dean, I taught Dean how to take care of his skin.

[1:37:14] Daniel Nolen: So I was like, I became his like skin mentor about how to take care of his skin, and he has beautiful skin to this day. So yeah, we're so really not crazy. I was his date to the Oscars when he won for Oh for fame flash dance.

[1:37:30] Betty Buckley: Yeah, I was his date.

[1:37:32] Daniel Nolen: Oh, amazing.

[1:37:33] Betty Buckley: Yeah, he had so many great ones. He was my date too, at a bunch of you know, red carpet things, and he would say, You've gotta you've gotta play the room, you've got to like go around the room, and I'm like, No, I don't. He's like, Yes, you do, come on. He would make me say, oh he's like real good at all that stuff.

[1:37:49] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, well, we we all need that friend, right?

[1:37:53] Betty Buckley: Well, I mean, I I could do a hundred, a hundred hours on you, Betty, but I didn't even talk about music. It's like we didn't even get to that.

[1:38:01] Daniel Nolen: Well, you know, we'll have to have you back and do a proper broken records episode just about an album.

[1:38:06] Betty Buckley: This isn't a proper broken records episode. This is corn streams. We're on the Bravo Profiles uh uh quarantine episode.

[1:38:13] Daniel Nolen: Yeah you're doing your quarantine episodes.

[1:38:16] Betty Buckley: Oh yeah. So we're talking about the Bravo profile Betty Buckley, and we have the most special guest in the world we could possibly dream of. And we have to, I don't know if you noticed, Betty, if you've listened to our episodes, but you are our first guest who we actually mention in our theme song.

[1:38:32] Daniel Nolen: Really?

[1:38:33] Betty Buckley: Yeah, yes.

[1:38:34] Daniel Nolen: Yes, we kind of go through our list of leading ladies.

[1:38:40] Betty Buckley: I listened to the whole Linda Eater thing.

[1:38:42] Daniel Nolen: Yeah, it's just up up top the the theme song we have before each episode. We go through a list of all our favorite leading ladies.

[1:38:49] Betty Buckley: Oh we could sing it for her live.

[1:38:53] Daniel Nolen: Uh broken records, the albums you wouldn't shut up about.

[1:38:58] Betty Buckley: Broken records, the music our guests can't live without like Judy, Barbara.

[1:39:03] Daniel Nolen: No, I've been wrong. It's like Judy, Barbara, Liza, Bet, Betty, Audra, Bernadette.

[1:39:12] Betty Buckley: All right. Nice list.

[1:39:14] Daniel Nolen: Thank you.

[1:39:16] Betty Buckley: Okay, so I have one other story for you. Uh please.

[1:39:19] Betty Buckley: This is when I decided I want to be a concert artist. I went to see in my early 20s, I got a standing room ticket at Philharmonic Hall for a Sarah Vaughn concert. Oh, you know, I'd studied her albums when I was in, you know, when I was growing up, besides the Judy Garland album, I studied uh Sarah Vaughn.

[1:39:39] Betty Buckley: Um oh god. Jesus, uh Nancy Wilson, um Ella Fitzgerald, um god, there's several. And so I was a good ones. All these a fan of all these brilliant ladies. And um, so I I got a standing room ticket to see it, was totally sold out, Philharmonic. I'm standing in the back of Philharmonic, and she comes on with her jazz trio that she's worked with for a million years, right? And sings this amazing concert, and she sang this song Um Everything Must Change, which I love is one of my favorite songs. And which you did so brilliantly at Kind of. Anyway, I love the song, but because of her, and so um I remember being so transported by her interpretation and the beauty of it, and then the whole audience is just in that breathless silence, and then they went crazy. And I that was the epiphany where I was like, I have to experience this, I have to be a concert artist.

[1:40:44] Betty Buckley: I see myself working with you know these amazing musicians for years that I've worked with, and I'm gonna do that. And I don't know how, and I'm not I don't know how I'm gonna find those guys, but I'm gonna do that. And I was like 22 at that point. And then years later, my ex-husband introduced me to a brilliant uh pianist named Keith Jarrett. Do you know who that is?

[1:41:08] Daniel Nolen: Keith Jarrett.

[1:41:10] Betty Buckley: You've got to listen to him. He's amazing. He's an improvisational pianist and um a genius beyond, and he has a bunch of albums out. Anyway, my ex-husband Peter, who's one of my is still one of my best friends, uh, called me. We had separated, and he had a new apartment on the Upper West Side, just down from where my apartment was. And he said, Come over. I, you know, he was also a brilliant cook. He said, I'm gonna make dinner and we'll have a bottle of wine, and I want you to listen to this musician.

[1:41:40] Betty Buckley: And so he puts this album on, and it's four sides of a vinyl records, two vinyls called the Bremen LaSan concert of Keith Jarrett. And it's it's I remember the boxes like navy blue with green, and I love jazz musicians from the time I was a teenager, you know, from working with jazz musicians in Fort Worth and stuff. And then I'd spend all my babysitting money when I found Brazilian music, and then we had a record store in Fort Worth called Record Town that was run by Sumter Bruton, who was my drummer, and his son was Stephen Bruton, who is this brilliant guitarist that I worked with years later. We we were friends in high school, and um he it was adorable. This whole family was great, and they still have the Record Town uh record store at the TCU campus now.

[1:42:28] Betty Buckley: So, anyway, that exposed me to world music, like musicianship from all around the world. So I love jazz musicians and I love Brazilian music and all these great influences in the music that I loved, and so I had all these records by these great jazz instrumentalists, and I loved them as much as I loved Broadway and Broadway storytelling and great lady singers. And so Peter had me sit down, he said, because he you know, I talk a lot, he was like, Don't say a word, we're gonna listen to this whole album.

[1:43:01] Betty Buckley: And we were drinking this great bottle of red wine and stuff. This is after dinner, and I didn't say a word, and he played all four sides of this work, and it just transported me to this other way. You have to study this guy, he's amazing. Anyway, that changed my life. So I became this like Keith Jarrett debuté, and whenever I sometimes like I've flown to LA to see him play at Disney Hall, but I'm like one of these ardent, passionate fans. And the last time I saw him at Carnegie Hall, um, I went backstage and I'm in the line, and I'm standing uh behind um oh, that great piano player, pop singer, I can't remember his name right now.

[1:44:44] Betty Buckley: Anyway I'm like all lined up with all these other people that are there to adore Keith Jarrett, and so his wife at that point, he's divorced now, but his wife he'd been uh ill and she had nursed him through this thing, and so I was like, Oh, thank you so much for taking care of Keith. Oh, Betty, we know who you are. He was showing nice, and I was like, Keith, you know, and he's like, mm-hmm, very cold, right? And so I've you know, I've seen him outside other stage doors, and I'm like, Mr. Jarrett, it's Betty Buckley. Like, I love you so much. And he's like, mm-hmm.

[1:44:59] Betty Buckley: Anyway, at one of his concerts, I went to see him at Alice Tully Hall, and it was actually a classical concert. He's playing piano with a classical uh with an orchestra of classical music, and I had this vision of exactly my band and exactly what I looked like. And I came on stage in my vision, and I knew the music that I was going to do. I didn't know what it was. I just knew how it was going to make people feel. And then after that, I ran into David Sandborn on the street, and he gave me Jamie's number, and I told you all that. And then I found my band right after that.

[1:45:35] Betty Buckley: So I believe in spirit and I believe in soul. And I believe in the specificity of the guidance that can take you to the next thing. And we just have we have to be aware of the messages and we have to be aware of the signs, and that's all.

[1:45:51] Daniel Nolen: Well, I hope you're getting a guide telling you to write a book.

[1:45:59] Betty Buckley: And uh just it's such a treat to talk to you. And it was really fun talking to you guys.

[1:46:07] Daniel Nolen: Thanks for listening to Ben Remillauer's Broken Records on Broadway World. For more episodes, visit Broadway World, iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever podcasts do be.

[1:46:18] Daniel Nolen: Come back next week for our Quarrent Stream of Sondheim, a celebration at Carnegie Hall, an all-star event for the ages featuring Betty Buckley, Bernadette Peters, Patty Lupone, Liza Minelli, Dorothy Louden, and Glenn Close. Findable on YouTube via our broken records corn streams playlist as uploaded under the veiled title Musical Theater Masters Serenaded by the Greats in 1992.

[1:46:40] Betty Buckley: What Queen came up with that?

[1:46:41] Daniel Nolen: This one. It's on my YouTube channel. And be sure to check out our new twice-weekly live stream video chat. Tuesday, Thursday, April, August. Available on the Broadway World Facebook page and the Broadway Podcast Network YouTube channel Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10:30 a.m.

[1:46:58] Daniel Nolen: This episode was edited by me, Daniel Nolen.

[1:47:00] Daniel Nolen: Thanks to Emmy-winning composer and lyricist Lance Horn for the Broken Records theme song.

[1:47:05] Daniel Nolen: Follow us both, Ben Rimalower and Daniel Nolen on all y'all's socials.

[1:47:08] Daniel Nolen: That's Ben Rimalower, B-E-N R I M A L O W E R.

[1:47:14] Daniel Nolen: And that's Nolen with an E, not Nolen with an A.

[1:47:17] Ben Rimalower: It's Nolen with an A, isn't it?