Gillette Checks Into Flamingo Court at New World Stages

Moonstruck is one of my all-time favorite movies and so, it goes without saying that I was blown away to learn that Anita Gillette, the actress who played one of my favorite characters from that film, was appearing a new show off Broadway, playing opposite Jamie Farr of M*A*S*H fame, called Flamingo Court.

Described as "Three condominiums. Two fabulous stars.  One hysterical comedy.", Flamingo Court is a comedy in three condos by Luigi Creatore and directed by Steven Yuhasz. Farr and Gillette take on multiple roles in a three-act play featuring the loopy and endearing residents of Flamingo Court, a South Florida apartment complex.  Each floor is another story with a lesson to learn.  Sex after sixty's no sin.   Where there's a will, there's a way (for your kids to fight over the inheritance).  And love, at any age, can be a new and beautiful thing. The show begins performances at New World Stages at 340 West 50th Street on Thursday, July 17th.

Anita Gillette is a Broadway veteran with fourteen Broadway shows to her credit, including Chapter Two, for which she received a Tony Nomination and the LA Drama Critics Award, Carnival, Gypsy,  Don't Drink the Water, All American, Jimmy, They're Playing Our Song, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Mr. President, The Gay Life, Kelly, and Showboat.

Her film credits include Mona the mistress in Moonstruck; Mitzi (Richard Gere's teacher) in Shall We Dance. And she is no stranger to television, having appeared Quincy and Marathon. She has appeared on every major game show including "Pyramid," "Password," "Matchgame," "To Tell The Truth," "What's My Line?,"etc., etc.   She was a foil for Johnny Carson for at least 50 Tonight Show's, and appeared many times on other talk shows and "The Bell Telephone Hour.

Well, sometimes it can be pretty tough to arrange schedules to talk with people between rehearsal schedules and normal life. Between my schedule and Anita's schedule, I didn't think it was going to happen. But as fate would have it, Anita called me ahead of our schedule and things worked out perfectly for both of us. She is an absolute sweetheart as you should be able to tell after reading my interview with her.

TJ:  We finally connected and I am so happy to talk with you. You must be straight out with rehearsals for Flamingo Court.

GILLETTE:  Yeah. It's a lot of energy and a lot of time. It's especially difficult because Jamie is away at a golf tournament.

TJ:  That's right, I forgot. He's at his golf tournament out in Toledo, Ohio.

GILLETTE:  Toledo, yeah.

TJ:  Anita, are you just having an absolutely wonderful time being back in New York?

GILLETTE:  Well, I live here!

TJ:  Oh, you do? I didn't know that!

GILLETTE:  Yeah. I've been here. Having done fourteen Broadway shows and I don't know how many off-Broadway and regional theatre shows, I was enjoying myself doing television and film stuff for a while. And I hadn't done too much theatre. But the old itch doesn't really go away.

I did Mornings at Seven up in the Berkshires last summer and it was a lot of fun, working with Joyce Van Patten and Debra Jo Rupp. That was fun to do. So I started thinking…there are two things I wanted to do.  One was to put together a one woman show, which I am still in the process of doing. And there's another show that I am doing and that's with Penny Fuller. We're going to do a cabaret thing.

TJ:  How wonderful!

GILLETTE:  The two of us, yeah! She wants to call it Spin Twisters.

TJ:  Spin Twisters?

GILLETTE:  Yeah, because people mistake us for each other all the time. But she calls it Sin Twisters. [Laughing]

TJ:  Very, very funny!

GILLETTE:  Where are you?

TJ:  I am up in Rhode Island. I'm originally from Massachusetts.

GILLETTE:  My son lives in Ipswich, Massachusetts!

TJ:  I know Ipswich…it's right up by Gloucester.

GILLETTE: Yeah!

TJ:  I love it up there. It's a beautiful area.

GILLETTE:  It is. It's really lovely. I love it up there.

TJ:  Hopefully, you will get some time to get up there this summer.

GILLETTE:  I hope so. I tried to get some time off this week since Jamie's not here. I don't want to get used to somebody else's rhythms.

TJ:  It must be a laugh a minute working with Jamie? I talked to him last week and he is just hysterical!

GILLETTE:  Yeah, he's a hoot. A very nice man.

TJ:  Now tell me about your characters that you are playing in Flamingo Court.

GILLETTE:  Well, the first one is Angelina. She's of Italian descent from Brooklyn. She's much more romantic. She's really the ingénue of the piece, I hate to say it. God knows, aging ingénues…that's right up my alley. [Laughing] She's very devoted but she's a liar. She hides the truth and she's deceptive.  She's a good soul but she doesn't know how to get out of where she is. It's wonderful fun and she's in love with Jamie's character, Dominic. She's just a nice girl from Brooklyn!

TJ:  A nice girl from Brooklyn, of course. A nice Italian girl from Brooklyn.

GILLETTE:  A nice Italian woman…older girl. Yeah, how's that?

TJ:  Works for me! And how about the second character you play?

GILLETTE:  My second character is about 15 years older than the first one. She's in her eighties. It's a story of an older couple. These two sketches are really about love. The first one is how it's never too late for love and sex. And the second is that there are all kinds of love. It's a much more serious piece.

TJ:  It sounds like a more poignant piece.

GILLETTE:  It is. It's a very poignant piece. It's about a couple who are absolutely devoted to each other and how they handle the aging problem.

And then third one, I play this hooker.

TJ: [Laughing]   A hooker??

GILLETTE: [Laughing] Yeah! I get to play a hooker. It's a very brief part, very small but it's dynamic. And her name is Chi Chi LaBoomBoom. That's it. She's not young either. She needs glasses and she's looking for work all the time. She fell through the cracks in Social Security. So, those are my three ladies!

TJ:  Have you ever played a hooker before?

GILLETTE:  I did actually. Not exactly a hooker, but somebody of loose morals. Let's say that! Yeah, starting with Sally Bowles in Cabaret. I did a thing with Bobby Lupone called Able Bodied Seamen, where I played Rita. She dressed like one and she acted like one. I don't think she actually got paid. Yeah, I've done stuff like this before. It's always fun to play these kinds of ladies.

As long as you can find truth to any of these ladies, that's what I am hoping to bring.

TJ:  It's nice to play a colorful character.

GILLETTE:  Yeah! Very colorful.

TJ:  How did you get involved with this show?

GILLETTE:  They had asked me last winter to do a reading of it. At that point, I was playing the daughter and there was a black transvestite playing the hooker part. And they changed it around when they did it and asked me if I would not play the daughter. They gave Lucy Martin the daughter and then I would play the hooker. I don't know why they decided that. For one thing that means there would only be five actors instead of six, so I guess financially, it was worth it. And they thought that me playing the daughter after having played his wife and his girlfriend in the first two scenes would be too big a leap for me to play the daughter. Truthfully, the hooker is a lot more interesting, even though it's a brief character.

TJ:  What's the allure for you of performing on a New York stage?

GILLETTE:  It's just to get back on the boards. I had worked with Jamie before. And to get my name around here again in theatre because I haven't done anything around here in quite a while.

TJ:  When was the last time you were in New York on stage?

GILLETTE:  I did the Signature Company and was doing the Paula Vogel season. I did a show called The Oldest Profession, with Joyce Van Patten. But in the middle before we opened, I had a tragedy in my family where my granddaughter got killed in an auto accident and I had to leave.

TJ:  Oh, Anita, I am so sorry to hear that.

GILLETTE:  Thanks. I have done readings and benefits and been singing a lot. I sang at Town Hall and I sang at Lincoln Center. People are starting to remember that I sing. I've been around and been seen and everything. This show is very mild. It's going to appeal to a particular audience…it will appeal to the older crowd. And it's going to find its legs with those people. But it's really sketch material. And Jamie is very funny! He's brilliant at this sketch stuff. I'll lend whatever legitimacy in that sense that I can. I can anchor it here and there. I think it's the funniest when it is anchored in truth and reality. Then the jokes aren't just jokes…they're real and they're funny. That's the way I feel. We're in the middle of working this all out and all the fast changes. We still don't know how we're going to accomplish that.

TJ:  It's amazing though…the magic of theatre, where anything is possible.

GILLETTE:  Isn't it?

TJ:  It really is. What was your first job in theatre?

GILLETTE:  My first professional job in theatre was at the North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly, Massachusetts, which I adore and anytime they want me to come back up there, I will. I did Zorba up there for them and I had a blast.

TJ:  I will have to make sure that they know that.

GILLETTE:  Tell them, yeah! I loved it!! And my kids live up there. I just love that place. 1958 was when I got my Equity card. Isn't that amazing?  Fifty years!!

TJ:  Wow!

GILLETTE:  I couldn't believe. I did a retrospective thing at Lincoln Center of my career. They asked me to do it and I Googled myself. I asked people how many of them had ever Googled themselves?

TJ:  God love the internet. You can find out so much information there.

GILLETTE:  Yes you can! Things I don't even remember…Edge of Night? I did Edge of Night? Then I remember, "Oh yeah! I did!"

TJ:  You have done so much theatre and film and TV work. Do you have a preference?

GILLETTE:  I basically really prefer theatre but I have so much to learn where film is concerned. And that's where I'd like to do more just to learn what I am doing. I don't know that I will get to do more but anytime anybody offers me a job in a film, I'll take it. I've been working with an independent producer who's written some stuff for me and I did one of his movies. And I am going to do another one. I don't get paid a lot of money, but I learn a lot. I think one should never stop learning no matter how old you are.

TJ:  I know that many people will never forget you as Mona, Vincent Gardenia's side squeeze, in Moonstruck. What a great, great film that is!

GILLETTE:  Mona!!! It was lovely. I was fortunate to be a part of a classic like that. Now, I am Tina Fey's mother on 30 Rock and I am also Marg Helgenberger's mother on CSI.

TJ:  The other film that is one of my new favorites is Shall We Dance.

GILLETTE:  I loved it!

TJ:  Miss Mitzi, the dance instructor!

GILLETTE:   I loved doing that. I loved Richard Gere!

TJ:  Yeah, you got to dance with Richard Gere!

GILLETTE:  Oh honey! What a thing that was! Oh!!! What a thing that was. It was remarkable! I really did have a great time. I wish they would have left a little more of the thing in the closet in the film…the behavior thing. And also, they cut out my teaching the mambo when I was a little looped. I did a whole bit. Richard was on the floor, saying, "I can't do this! I am laughing too hard!" But they cut it out of the film. I don't know where that footage is but it was really funny and with those three guys, it was hysterical! Miss Mitzi was not with it…she was a little off.

TJ:  She had her flask to help her through!

GILLETTE:  That's it!!

TJ:  Did you have dance training?

GILLETTE:  I did, but I'm not a dancer. And even if you had Broadway dance training, when you do ballroom…forget all about that. It's completely the opposite.

TJ:  You look so wonderful dancing.

GILLETTE:  Thank you! [Whispering] I fake it pretty well. [Laughing]

TJ:   What do you like to do when you are not working?

GILLETTE:  I like to play with my grandkids! I travel to London…I have a beau in London. He's here right now as a matter of fact. It's been five years and it's wonderful. We have what people call an LDR…long distance relationship. But it's fun…we go back and forth to see each other. I just got back from five weeks abroad with him and now he's here until the 22^nd.

TJ:  Yeah, Jamie told me he was at the theatre when you two were rehearsing a kissing scene and he was a little nervous…Jamie that is.

GILLETTE:  [Laughing] I picked that up! I couldn't believe it!! He's so cute!

TJ:    What is something that people don't know about Anita Gillette?

GILLETTE:   That I am very interested in science. I was married to a physiologist and I almost went into the medical profession. When I got out of high school, I never went to college. I worked for the Army chemical center and I took medical stenography. I Used To take autopsy reports on experimental animals from the guy who was cutting them up. And I Used To sit there with my little steno pad and take down all of the details. So that's something nobody would ever think about!

TJ:  I wouldn't! Boy, am I glad I didn't have to guess!!

GILLETTE:  It's all in science…it's research.

TJ:  You have to write a book, my dear. Let's talk.

GILLETTE:  Thank you so much, TJ!

Would any of you have guessed that…Anita Gillette, scientist?? Thanks, Anita! You are the best!! If you are looking for a cure to the summer doldrums, get over to see Gillette and co-star Jamie Farr, Klinger of TV's M*A*S*H, in Flamingo Court, which begins performances at New World Stages, Stage #2 at 340 West 50th Street on Thursday, July 17th. The official opening night is Thursday, July 31st at 7:00PM.  Performances will be held on Monday and Wednesday through Saturday at 8:00PM with matinees Wednesday and Saturday at 2:00PM and Sunday at 3:00PM. You can get your tickets now by calling Telecharge.com at (212)239-6200 or visit the official website at www.FlamingoCourt.com. Thanks for reading folks, and remember, theatre is my life!  Ciao for now!!