Interview: STAGE AND SCREEN STAR STEFANIE POWERS DRAWS ON PERSONAL EXPERIENCE FOR 'LOOPED'

Performances and Tickets:

Now through May 5, The Majestic Theatre, 219 Tremont Street, Boston; tickets are priced from $35-$95 and are available online at www.aestages.org, by phone at 617-824-8000 or in person at the Majestic box office. Show also runs May 7-12 at The Bushnell, 166 Capitol Avenue, Hartford, CT, www.bushnell.org.

When beloved stage and screen actress Valerie Harper recently announced that she had been diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer, it shocked and saddened her legions of friends and fans. It also meant that the star made famous on the television series Rhoda and The Mary Tyler Moore Show would not be able to fulfill her dream of taking Looped on the road in an already scheduled national tour. Harper earned critical acclaim and a Tony nomination for playing the irascible diva Tallulah Bankhead on Broadway. The tour was set to launch at the Bushnell in Hartford, Connecticut in January.

Determined to prevent the tour from being cancelled, Harper immediately enlisted her good friend of many years, Stefanie Powers, to step into the role. Wanting to help in any way she could, Powers (best known for co-starring with Robert Wagner in the television series Hart to Hart) said, 'Yes.' Powers sincerely hoped, however, that she would just be "keeping the part warm" for Harper.

With only nine days of rehearsal, Powers launched the newly rescheduled tour in Fort Lauderdale on February 26, earning rave reviews. Looped is currently playing at Boston's Majestic Theatre through May 5 and will move to the Bushnell in Hartford May 7-12. No additional dates are scheduled at this writing, but the plan is to begin a second run of cities in the fall.

While it is admittedly difficult for Powers to fully enjoy this opportunity, given the circumstances through which she has inherited the part, she is determined to do it justice in honor of her dear friend. She says she feels Harper with her on stage every moment, and she wants to make this tour successful for her, the producers, and the creative team.

Powers is no stranger to playing larger-than-life divas. In 2010 she gave a powerful yet heart-breaking performance as Norma Desmond in the Ogunquit Playhouse's fine production of Sunset Boulevard. There she skillfully avoided turning her character into caricature. She achieves that same delicate balance in her portrayal of Bankhead, as well.

It doesn't hurt that Powers actually co-starred as Bankhead's intended victim Patricia in the gothic horror film Die! Die! My Darling! back in 1965. From that experience she is clearly able to sort out fact from fiction and lace all of the tropes typically associated with the flamboyant, whiskey-voiced personality with truth and genuine emotion.

According to press notes, Looped is based on the actual occurrences that took place when a "looped" Tallulah Bankhead stumbled into a sound studio to re-record (or "loop") one line of dialogue from Die! Die! My Darling! Given her intoxicated state, it took her all day to record that one now infamous line: "And so, Patricia, as I was telling you, that deluded rector has in literal effect closed the church to me." Written by Matthew Lombardo and directed by Rob Ruggiero, Looped is a hilarious, often scathing, and surprisingly touching adaptation of the showdown that ensued between the uptight sound editor and the outrageous legend on that terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

In a recent telephone interview with BroadwayWorld.com, Powers shared her thoughts on her dear friend Valerie Harper, her famous former co-star Tallulah Bankhead, and her career from studio ingénue to mature character actress. Excerpts from that conversation follow:

BWW: Do you feel that you are bringing something unique to Looped since you actually were in Die! Die! My Darling! with Ms. Bankhead?

Powers: I don't know that I am unique in playing someone that I once worked with, but it certainly is unusual. And the circumstances of this - everything to do with this play and how I came to get this role - are unusual. It's very much a part of the emotionality of this particular project. Valerie is a friend of mine. We both had cancer of the lungs at the same time four years ago. We were operated on by the same doctor in the same hospital just a few days apart. So we were sisters in our prognoses. Neither of us had to have chemo or radiation, but unfortunately Valerie hasn't been too lucky with this new cancer. It has nothing to do with her lungs or with what either of us had before. We were both cured of that and we were going to celebrate our fifth anniversary together. That's probably not going to happen now.

This is certainly not the way one wants to get a job, but it's great to feel that Valerie's out there with me every night. She's one of the greatest friends and champions anyone could have. She's been with us all the way. She wanted this tour to go on. She wanted to do it and they were in rehearsals when she was first diagnosed. It was crucial to her that this tour go on. The connection is so unusual and so emotional for all of us involved in this.

BWW: We all deal with life-changing situations in our own personal ways. Valerie's certainly been courageous in being so public about it and in trying to be so optimistic.

Powers: She's the ever ready bunny. She is one of the most remarkable people the way she is handling this. We all know that we are terminal. It's just that some of us know it earlier than others. The way in which we handle it separates the men from the boys, doesn't it? And the way in which she is handling this is commendable, remarkable, touching, and admirable. It is every superlative adjective you can name.

BWW: How has cancer changed your life, not only five years ago but now? Do you feel it's informed your approach to your career or various roles that you may take on?

Powers: It definitely alters people's lives with regard to what they value or where they place their energies. I act now only when and if I can enjoy it. That's more important to me than any other part of this. I only care about the rewards of the work, not the celebrity. I only indulge myself in parts that I normally wouldn't have done previously. I only focus on the things that are going to give me pleasure.

BWW: Do you think you're more daring in the choice of roles you take on?

Powers: Fortunately I'm now being offered more roles that are more daring, but I've always wanted those challenges. I always wanted to step out of that category of ingénue, leading lady. The character parts are the most enjoyable. That's why I became an actress in the first place, to be a character. And in my past if anything I was criticized for having disappeared in the role! (Laughs.) I would have thought that was great! (Laughs.) I once played a woman called Beryl Markham (in a 1988 CBS miniseries called A Shadow on the Sun that Powers co-produced). She was the first person ever to fly across the Atlantic going west. I was blonde and had an English accent. And nobody could tell it was me. CBS was worried and upset that I hadn't played Jennifer Hart as the character! (Laughs.) So they really ripped it apart and did not re-release it. It is available on VHS tape somewhere, but it just disappeared. It ran in many, many markets around the world and in England. But they never reran it in America because they said, "We don't recognize you and we don't know how to publicize it."

BWW: You were messing with their brand.

Powers: There you go! That was always disappointing to me because I truly enjoyed playing that part and, I hope, that I had done her justice. She was from East Africa, and people there were very complimentary, so that was payment enough for me.

She was a remarkable woman. It was 1934 when she flew across the Atlantic, after LindbergH. Lindbergh did it the other way, with a tail wind. She did it with a head wind. Lindbergh had said it couldn't be done, but she did it. She got her ticker tape parade down Atlantic Avenue. Mayor LaGuardia gave her the key to the city. But the man who had financed the airplane was such a bastard that he wouldn't allow her to take the plane and tour the country, barnstorming to make some money. So she was left to use her wits as to how to support herself. She was offered a job in Hollywood as a consultant about Africa on the set of the Tarzan movies. There she met a screenwriter who was a heavy alcoholic and they married and she lived with him in Santa Barbara. Eventually that came to an end and she returned to East Africa to raise horses, which was her first love. There she met a new lover, who was 20 years her junior, and they trained horses together. She finally returned to her childhood home of Kenya, but it was a long process.

The miniseries goes from her death at the age of 82 and backtracks to her early life. She tells her story to a young writer who in fact was our source for this piece. He did an article on her in Vanity Fair once her book had been rediscovered and republished. Her book was called "West with the Night." Tony Richardson directed.

BWW: She sounds fascinating. And certainly this role that you're playing now is quite a character, too. Of course, so many people caricature Tallulah, as they do Norma Desmond, whom you also played...

Powers: That's what we want to avoid at all costs! I want to be sure that people see Tallulah and not Norma Desmond.

BWW: Do you remember the situation that inspired Looped? Are you familiar with that studio recording session?

Powers: No, it would have happened in New York. Our author placed the action in California, but the actual day that this one line was recorded transpired in New York. Somehow our playwright got hold of a pirated tape from that session where she was in fact looped. She arrived four hours late and she was in quite a state. It wound up taking the rest of the day to actually get this line down. And they couldn't edit it out because it was a story point.

This movie was besieged with unfortunate occurrences. It took so long from the time it was filmed to the time it was released. It was released in England first and then released in the states. I think it was released here in 1965. I know that I had my 20^th birthday on the film set because I've got a photograph of us with my birthday cake. I know exactly when it was. It took a good two years before it came out in the states. It was called The Fanatic in England, but when it was released here it was Die! Die! My Darling!

BWW: When you were actually filming did she not get that sentence correct?

Powers: No, what happened was in those days we didn't had radio mikes. There was a boom operator with a microphone on the end of the boom and he ran into some bushes. (Laughs.)

BWW: Oh, no! So it wasn't her fault!

Powers: No, it wasn't her fault. (Laughs.)

BWW: So they got the rustling bushes and they had to go into the studio to redo her line.

Powers: That's right.

BWW: And that line is a tongue twister, anyway. I mean, it's not any easy line to say.

Powers: No, it isn't! "And so, Patricia, as I was telling you, that deluded rector has in literal effect closed the church to me."

BWW: When you worked with Ms. Bankhead you were so young, yet you already had 10 major movies under your belt, right?

Powers: Something like that. I was put under contract at Columbia when I was 16 years old. I had my 17^th birthday on a set. I was doing - I'm visualizing another photograph I have with a birthday cake and with Blake Edwards - it was on the set of Experiment in Terror. So that was my 17^th birthday - on Experiment in Terror. For a long time I kept having my birthdays on movies. It was years before I had a birthday not on a set. (Pause.) Wow, wow, wow. Seems like yesterday.

BWW: You were on the tail end of the studio system. They really worked you, didn't they?

Powers: Yes, they did. I remember doing three pictures a year for five years when I was under contract. And then they sold me to MGM to do a television series called The Girl from Uncle which unfortunately only lasted a year but in that year we did 29 episodes. I can't even imagine. I do remember how tired I was because I was in every shot!

BWW: And it was physical, too. Did you do some of your own stunts?

Powers: A lot of them, yes.

BWW: Back to Looped. You had to jump into this role so quickly. I'm sure it was pretty intense those couple of weeks in trying to get ready. Did you feel that you at least didn't have to start from ground zero since you had this history with Tallulah?

Powers: Well, you always have to start from ground zero when it's a new play. It's always a challenge. This was a particularly big challenge because we had so little time.

BWW: I was looking at the performance schedule - there are no dates past the Bushnell.

Powers: No. the tour was initially five weeks long and then I think they were going to have some down time and then take it out again for a longer run. When this all happened things were changed. Everybody's intention is to continue, but it's too late to get any new bookings this summer, so it will have to wait until the fall.

BWW: What do you feel you'd like people to take away from this regarding Tallulah Bankhead?

Powers: Well, mostly I want people to walk out having been entertained, having laughed and cried and feeling that these people actually did affect each other's lives. And I want people to get to know about her. We've had a wide spectrum of reactions from people who knew who she was from having seen her on stage, television or films to others who knew nothing about her but had gone on line to learn. We've had very positive reactions from a wide variety of audiences. We look forward to having the tour continue.

PHOTOS: Stefanie Powers; Stefanie Powers as Tallulah Bankhead in "Looped;" Stefanie Powers and Tallulah Bankhead in "Die! Die! My Darling!;" Stefanie Powers as Tallulah; Stefanie Powers in "A Shadow on the Sun;" Stefanie Powers with Robert Wagner in "Hart to Hart;" Stefanie Powers as Beryl Markham; Stefanie Powers as Tallulah Bankhead; Stefanie Powers in "Looped;" Stefanie Powers as "The Girl from Uncle"

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