CHEWING THE SCENERY- Rainbow Lip Syncs LuPone's Autobiography!

sang my first show tune when I was just three

My mother knew I'd go far. Sing I, great. I've been a show queen since way before Glee

Now I'm a Broadway star. Not exactly, but my friend has a friend who knows Edina Menzel

You know, I mean, sort of. So things are happening, you'll see. But till my ship comes in, I've got a lot to tell

Let's start chewing the scenery with. Welcome to chewing the scenery with

Me. Turn off your cell phones. On February 16th, I was in my dressing room preparing for the show when I got a call from New York

It was my agent with the news. Although the Andro Lloyd-Weber Company won't confirm or deny

Glenn Close will begin rehearsals as Norma Desmond in New York on August 1st

I didn't take it well. From the beginning of my involvement with Sunset Boulevard I been in a snake pit of innuendo Meryl Barbara Glenn

Every day, I had to read that someone else was singing my songs, or that someone else was taking my place

or that someone else should have taken my place. After months and months of escalating speculation and rumor-mongering

to be handed this kind of public humiliation in the worst population

way, overwhelmed me. The same day my oldest friend in the world, Philip Cagiano, sent me this fax

It reads, Dear Patty, I'm sorry about this nightmare they've put you through, although I admire the

dignity that you've maintained in dealing with such a horrible situation. As Tennessee Williams said

in concluding his memoirs, after all, high station in life is earned by the gallantry with

which appalling experiences are survived with grace. I took batting practice in my dressing room with a floor lamp

I swung at everything in sight mirrors wig stands furniture everything Then I heaved the lamp out the second floor window Not surprisingly Richard Oriol came running in to see what was going on

I've been fired from the New York production, I said. I'm not going on tonight

I don't know when I'll return. Bye. After the story broke, Andrews Pressman told the New York Times that Glenn Close was concerned

that she not be seen as some kind of Eve. Harrington, the backstabbing opportunist from All About Eve

Well, if you don't want to be seen that way, pick up the phone and tell me how terrible

you feel about all this, which he never did. Never. Do I think Glenn Close was complicit in what happened to me

Hard to say, but what I do know is that from the time she was announced in April, I never

heard from her. No good luck from one Norma to another. No congratulations on your opening

No, I'm sorry for what happened. happened to you but I had nothing to do with it Nothing You might think it would have been common courtesy if nothing else Paradoxically I think I was a better Norma after I got fired The Philadelphia Inquirer had said I wasn crazy enough They should have seen me during that last month

Not crazy enough? No sense of holding on by a thread? No white-hot purity under that ragingly destructive fire

Not anymore. There's a scene in the show where Norma is looking at her old movies

and she has a line about being discarded. I owned that line

now. It took a long time, but eventually I let it all go. I've never been one to hold a grudge

I mean, you have to move on with your life, right? Just days before my last performance, I was nominated for another Olivier Award, for the role from which I'd been fired

And I don't believe the category was Best Actress Who Stinks in a Leading Role

Oh, did I mention Glenn Close never, ever called me