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A Few Minutes with Georgia Engel
I was fortunate enough to speak with her just before she left for a rehearsal a few weeks ago, and I was like a star-struck rube, knowing I had only 15 minutes to conduct a professional interview with Georgette (girlfriend then wife of Ted Baxter) from The Mary Tyler Moore Show AKA Loretta Smoot from The Goodtime Girls AKA Shirley Burleigh (Howard’s wife) on Coach and AKA, recently, as Robert Barone’s mother-in-law, Pat MacDougall, on Everybody Loves Raymond. As you can see, I watch way too much television, but here I was, chatting with the love of my life from the 1970s. Other guys fell for Mary or Rhoda, but I was smitten with Georgette. And that breathy, little-girl whisper which has become her trademark is for real! In this conversation, she really did have me at “Hello.” “What did you say your name was again?” she asks, and once I repeat it and the necessary identification I always give she remarks, “What a pleasant voice you have….thank you so much for calling.” OK, she probably does say something to that effect to all her interviewers, but I didn’t care. I knew she would enjoy answering my questions, chatting with me, giving me my 15 minutes of fame…I mean, my 15 minutes of interview time. I ask her why she needed rehearsal for a show she had done in LA and on Broadway. “Oh, my, this is a whole new ball game. I took a little time off to go back to California for ‘pilot season’ – although nothing worked out – and for some other work, and when I came back to New York I met with a whole new cast (the touring cast). It’s the same show, of course, but it’s all new people, re-staged numbers, and a different dynamic, so we rehearse.” That tour dynamic is something Georgia looks forward to. “You have to remember that I started touring rather late in life, after being in the business for around 27 years, but I absolutely love it! There’s just such an excitement about going from city to city, experiencing the lovely theaters, working with local crews and musicians. But I must admit that eight shows a week can get to be a bit grueling – that one day we have to travel is usually my day to collapse!” she laughs. But she’s loving every minute of the stage experience, especially since the stage is where it all began for her. Right out of college, she landed the plum role of Minnie Fay in Hello, Dolly! with Phyllis Diller for a few months, then finished a year-long run with the legendary Ethel Merman. “I was so lucky to get that,” she explains, “I mean, I turned 21 when I was doing it and already had my Equity card!” After Hello, Dolly! she joined the original production of House of Blue Leaves; she played “Mickey” (and served as Sandy Duncan’s understudy) in My One and Only for nearly two years. She then did a limited run in The Boys from Syracuse as the Seeress, and she co-starred as Sister Mary Leo in Nunsense: The 20th Anniversary Tour as well as Sister Amnesia in Nunsense and Nunsense Jamboree. In 2002 she found time to fit in a limited, two-month run as the “Seeress” in The Boys from Syracuse. She gave me a not unexpected answer when I asked her which she enjoyed most: TV, stage, or movies. “Well, I haven’t done that many movies, so I can’t say too much there, but I have loved my stage and TV experiences so much that it’s almost overwhelming!” she explains. “When I think of my times with Mary Tyler Moore, Coach, and Everybody Loves Raymond, I think of only happy experiences. Even some of the shows that didn’t work out so well (The Betty White Show, The Goodtime Girls) still gave me happy experiences. And I always worked with some of the best in the business.” “And maybe the theater is my favorite because it’s where I started, where I am now, and where I’ll be in Cleveland at your beautiful Palace Theatre,” she adds. “I’ve learned that Playhouse Square is the second-largest performing arts center in the United States, and that the lovely theaters there almost didn’t make it past the 1970s.” “Cliff Bemis,” she explains, “is originally from Cleveland, and I’ve learned that he was in the cast of Jacques Brel that played there for over two years, trying to raise money for the first theater’s restoration. Cliff, by the way, is probably the nicest guy in the world.” Bemis will be joining Georgia in the tour as Mr. Feldzieg, the well-known 1920s Broadway producer. “Then, too,” she adds, “Cleveland native Jack Lee, the renowned Broadway conductor, is a mentor of mine – has been for years – and he has told me wonderful things about Cleveland and the Palace. So I’m very much looking forward to it!” |
Georgia Engel is coming to Cleveland as Mrs. Tottendale in THE DROWSY CHAPERONE, playing an absent-minded dowager who exchanges spit-takes with her butler and wondering why she is wearing “this dress!” She is reprising the role she originated when the show previewed in Los Angeles in 2005-06, and moved with it to Broadway in spring 2006.