A bird like old woman comes into view on screen wearing no pants, but simply a pair of tights and a white dress shirt. It’s a woman I had never heard of until now. It is Elaine Stritch. Elaine is an 86 year old Broadway star whose unique personality, wit, and brash charm has been praised and loved for many years, and she is about to change my life even though she no longer lives.
A documentary titled Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me chronicles a “day in the life” (really a few months in the life) of Stritch as, at the age of 86, rehearses and performs in a one woman show. Throughout the course of the film she tells stories, and stories are told about her and suddenly you are captivated. Though she seems to be somewhat difficult to work with or for each and every person speaks to the trueness of her personality, to the genius of her talent, and to the passion in her every move. Actors who work along side her tell of her endless scene stealing moments, and directors speak to the fact that when they work with her they know exactly what they have gotten themselves into. Nonetheless, each and every person, over and over proclaims that despite her brutal honesty and eccentricities working with Elaine Stritch is absolutely always worth it.
Stritch tells stories of her two dates with John F Kennedy. She explains simply that she met him one night and he was just too good-looking to leave behind so instead she asked him out. Later, as she tells the story of her husband the man she explains to be her one and only true love we learn she was the one to propose to him. All these stories begin to pile onto one another and this skinny woman suddenly becomes a fearless individual.
Just as you begin to feel that she has no fear and that she is able to live this life of absolute authenticity due to a sense of confidence that is unparalleled the film shows Stritch in the midst of a “diabetes attack”. Suddenly the brazen woman is an old lady, disoriented and scared by her health. As the film goes on she is hospitalized once more and begins to speak candidly about her feelings that this is the ending chapter of her life. That she can feel it, but that “its not all bad” that in fact “dying is easy, comedy is hard”. Suddenly she has reassumed her role as someone to be in wonder and awe of.
As I watched this powerful, old lady I decided that she would be my model for the New Year. That I would live my life, to be authentic and to be brave the way she was. As this resolve came over me the documentary showed a shot of Stritch’s childhood home. I suddenly paused the movie and was shocked. Not only was she from my very own town, but I had in fact been inside her childhood home just this summer. This woman, a new model for bravery , was suddenly someone who was almost too familiar to me. In the end that was Stritch’s charm, she was real. In her performances that are documented over the course of the movie she forgets lines and messes up moments, but it is in her total control of the stage and the audience that her legacy is cemented. It does not matter that she remembers each word or that her voice is perfection, but that she does it anyway. She proclaims on stage that she is happy, happy despite it all. In that moment, as the credits began to play Elaine Stritch forever changed how I see living. So in 2017 I plan to live like Elaine, afraid but brave despite my fears.
