Rick McKay's FOLLOWING ELAINE - ELAINE STRITCH AT LIBERTY - Opening Day Verite Footage

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ELAINE STRITCH footage, as promised. This is never-before-seen footage we shot the day of Elaine opening ELAINE STRITCH AT LIBERTY at the Public Theater here in NYC. The show would get rave reviews the next day and the decision would be made to move the show to Broadway, where Elaine would win the Tony Award at last. This was Elaine's idea, but it didn't stop her from having me ride in the limo to the opening night party and screaming at me the entire way that I had ruined her opening night by "making" her work too hard. But, she LOVED the attention and being in front of cameras again. And you couldn't stay mad at Elaine for long - so I soon learned not to bother. She had most people in her life trained to behave that way as well ;-)

Watch for Elaine putting the hotel staff through their paces, coaxing a song out of her doctor, opening her heart up to me and her make-up girl at Sak's, grilling her uber-patient assistant Rick Borutta to find out who sent her flowers as she rated and berated each arrangement, warming up with the brilliant and loving musical director Rob Bowman - and one of my favorite shots: the planet's last two pterodactyls grazing on a hilltop - in other words, gossip columnist Liz Smith and Elaine running into each other on the first floor of Saks Fifth Avenue.

This is SUPER low-resolution footage as we edited on AVID when storage and processors were expensive and you didn't go full resolution till it was finished. The sound is all over the place as well. Sorry. This was a cuts-only, very, very rough edit early in the process, and, I have never shown it - but, I think Elaine would like it. Although I produced and directed the piece for PBS, at this early point in the edit the executive producers nixed my opening shot of Elaine warming up with Rob, saying, "We will lose every viewer under 50 when they see those 80 year-old legs." And they said no one knew Liz Smith - so she was out, too. And they decided that the whole opening day stuff was useless. But, of course, your erstwhile documentarian/historian/filmmaker held onto the rough cut as he thought someday that someone might find it of interest. So, someday is now - and I hope you do.

Elaine - they broke the mold. You were a pain in the ass, but I loved you. And by the way, those "boring is as boring does" roses that you see Elaine dismiss? She ended up giving them to me after beating me up in the cab. Oh, well - it's the thought that counts ;-)