We Remember Ken Page

Last month, the Great White Way lost one of its brightest stars: Ken Page. In tribute to the beloved actor, singer and Drama Desk Award Winner, “Here’s the Thing” is sharing Alec Baldwin’s 2021 conversation with the Broadway legend. Page was known for his standout roles in the 1976 all-Black revival of “Guys and Dolls” and the original casts of “The Wiz” and “Ain’t Misbehavin’.” However, one of Page’s most iconic performances was in the film “The Nightmare Before Christmas” as Oogie Boogie. This episode also features musical theater royalty Betty Buckley, who, like Page, grew up dreaming of performing on Broadway. Both starred in the original Broadway production of “Cats” – Page as Old Deuteronomy and Buckley in her Tony-Award winning role as Grizabella. Together, these two pioneers helped redefine and transform musical theater over the past several decades. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, it's Alec. On September thirtieth, the Great White Way
lost one of its brightest stars, the legendary Ken Page.
The actor, singer and drama desk winner was known for
his booming baritone and commanding presence in shows like Cats,
the Whiz and Ain't Misbehavin And no one can forget

(00:22):
his iconic portrayal of Oogie Boogie in the Nightmare Before Christmas.
I wanted to take a moment to remember my dear
friend Ken and the joy and charisma he brought to
each and every performance. Ken, you are deeply missed. Here's
my twenty twenty one conversation with two of my favorite

(00:42):
musical theater performers, the late Ken Page and Betty Buckley.
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing
from iHeart Radio. My guests today are two of my
all time favorite musical theater actors, Ken Page and Betty Buckley,

(01:03):
and there are parallels to their stories. Both grew up
dreaming of performing on Broadway. Ken in Saint Louis, Betty
and fort Worth both were cast in the original Broadway
production of Cats, Ken as Old Deuteronomy and Betty as Guizabella,
for which she wanted Tony. Both became key figures in
the vibrant community that transformed musical theater over the past

(01:26):
several decades. In addition to being the voice of Broadway,
Betty Buckley's acting Chops earned her roles as the stepmom
on the hit TV series Eight Is Enough and in
films including Carrie, Tender Mercies, and Frantic. But first, I'm
talking with Ken Page. You may know him as the
voice of Oogie Boogie in The Nightmare Before Christmas. In

(01:50):
his breakout role on Broadway, he played Nicely Nicely Johnson
in an all black revival of Guys and Dolls in
nineteen seventy six. He went on to perform as the
Lion in The Whiz and in the original cast of
Ain't Misbehavior. Ken Page was drawn to musical theater early.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
Yeah. It was my lifeblood. It was the thing that
got me out of where I was to where I went.
It was the thing that kept me going through years
of up and down childhood things. But it was always
musical theater and all of that related world that got
me through. I mean, I remember being ten and eleven,
of course, watching Barbara Streisen's TV specials going. I am

(02:31):
Barbara Streisen, and I would go to the library in
Saint Louis, the big public Library, and in the basement
they had a section of LPs and I would thumb
through all of these Broadway cast albums. I would read
the liner notes. And this one lady when I first
couple of times that came, she was a little trevitas, like,
what are you doing in here? And she saw, you know,
I'd be sitting on the floor reading Broadway cast album

(02:55):
liner notes, and I'm sure she thought, is this child
from Mars the deal? Right? But I started to educate
myself that early about musical theater because it just fascinated me.
And of course the own two only things that I
really saw was the Tony Awards once a year, and
I would see all the shows and I was fascinated
by it. And we had this grand outdoor theater still

(03:17):
have in Saint Louis call At that time it was
the Municipal Opera and now it's called the Muni, so
a lot of people in the business know the Muni.
And that was the first time I saw a live
production on stage. It was Oklahoma with Robert Horton as curly,
and he came out on a real horse, and all.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
Those people in Missouri demand know less, they must have
a real horse.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
That's right, show me, show me state. So he came
out on a horse, and of course, when you see
something like that, you fall in love with it. And
subsequently I saw a lot of shows. And it was
the theater that made me really fall in love with
musical theater because I could see it. And then it
was the theater that inspired me to move to New York.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
And what did you study voice acting?

Speaker 2 (03:58):
I did? I did. I went to two years at
Fontvon University in Saint Louis in a scholarship. I like
to say this because now I'm over fifty, I can brag, right.
I received a scholarship in art music for vocal performance
and theater, and I chose theater subsequently. At the same
time those two summers, I did seasons at the Muni

(04:19):
in the ensemble I start when I was eighteen.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
Those two shows at the Muni were those your first
two shows you did? Had you been doing shows when
you were younger? When did you start performing in front
of people?

Speaker 2 (04:30):
In front of people? Really? Sixth grade, I was part
of a thing here in Saint It was called the
Bellerman Speech League, which my cousin had been in, but
it was one of those competitive citywide things. So that
was really the first time I stepped in front of
people performing. And then of course in high school I
did your usual high school musical's Funny Girl, Oliver, Hello Dolly,

(04:52):
Fiddler on the Root. And it was that that led
me to audition for scholarship or college, which I got.
I wish at the time, I'd own about Juilliard and
Goodman and schools like that, but they really didn't promote
it because the idea was stay here and go to school,
and Saint Louis has a very home grown mentality that way,
and it really wasn't promoted to me to audition for

(05:14):
the Goodman, which was only in Chicago, and certainly not Juilliard,
which was New York. And I think, not to be egotistical,
but I think I might have really been able to
get into those schools.

Speaker 1 (05:25):
And so for you, I wonder it's like, and again
I'm going to say this eleven times during the course
of this interview, but you're so talented. I mean, you
are so talented. You're like the male musical theater Annie
Oakley like boom boom boom.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
Anything you can do, you can do better than him.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
But if you'd gone to those fancy schools, Yeah, what
would have changed everything? You think?

Speaker 2 (05:49):
So everything? Oh sure, Because first of all, to go
to any of those schools, you're living away from home.
So that's the first big change, which means you explore
your life, never mind the education, and you explore your
life differently. For me, I think being away from Saint
Louis would have made a big difference in how I
explored what I was doing. My mentor, God bless and

(06:09):
rest him, Don Garner, when I realized that I wanted
to go to New York, I went to him and
I said, look, I think I want to go to
New York. If you shut the door to his office,
he says, all right. I didn't say this, but I
think you will learn in the next two years in
New York what you would It would take you six
years here to learn if you go and apply yourself
and really do what I think you would do or

(06:31):
will do. And indeed, by the two years when my
class graduated, I was in my first Broadway show, which
is an all black revival of Guys and Dolls. Ah
ta da ta da.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
Yeah? And how long did that run? Not long?

Speaker 2 (06:47):
Now?

Speaker 1 (06:47):
What do you attribute that to?

Speaker 2 (06:49):
Well, it was very controversial because one it was an
all black version of something, and then this is mine
you'se nineteen seventy six, so things hadn't moved quite nearly
as far as they have come thus. And also it
was Guys and Dolls, which is a sacred musical theater piece.
And there were people who were pro because you know,
pro Bailey's version of Hello Dolly had already happened, and

(07:10):
people thought, oh my god, that was wonderful, So dus
Guys and Dolls. But I think because Hello Dolly is
such the whole from Thornton Wilder on, it's such an
open book of who these people are. Guys and Dolls
was a very specific New York Jewish idiom. So there
were people who thought we had no business tampering, tinkering,

(07:31):
toeling with Guys and Dolls. And then there were other
people who thought, thank god, there's some different energy on
it and our production, the arrangements, and we couldn't change
a note of the music. But that's all another story.
The arrangements had a sort of a a disco kind
of thing running under it, and when you hear the
Broadway cast album Night, it's really very electric and alive.

(07:52):
People loved it. Those who loved I remember may I
say rex Read said something about saying that thongs stood down,
you're rocking the boat, and he said, I turned it
into a gospel stomp, and it was just terrible. Oh
Rix was unkind to here, I'd say, yeah, oh God,
but he was unkind to everybody, but he was specifically.
But it was interesting because I always remember thinking, even

(08:14):
then at twenty one, I thought, we didn't Frank Lesser
write a gospel number. Isn't that what this is supposed
to be, these people in the Saber Soul Mission and
its gospel tings. And so for all we really did
was took it the next step towards what he was
writing to begin with, which I think the last eight
measures of the song go sit down, you're rock and
sit down, sit down, sit down, you're rocking the boat,
blah blah blah blah. Well they allowed us to change

(08:36):
that to the Devil drag you under socie you never
blow sit down, sit down, sit down, sit down, which
took it in another direction. Well, that was successful enough
that the audience would scream and carry on and they
loved it. So then they wrote an encore, which is
completely new, and sometimes the encore would get two and
three renditions a night. Thank god I was twenty one,

(08:57):
you know, because the people would stream and they'd applaud,
they go on and Joe Marshall, god Resten was our drummer.
It was really he who decided. He'd listened to the
crowd and he'd look at me and he'd listened to
the crowd, and then he'd hit the drum bill. But
DA had a dream, and the more the people screamed,
of course we'd do it again and again again. So
I'm saying that to say that was one of the

(09:19):
things out of that show that kept it going, frankly,
because people came to see what was new in Guys
and Dolls.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
You weren't in the Wiz prior to Guys and Does No.

Speaker 2 (09:31):
I've seen that written a few places, and I always
try to correct it because Guys and Dolls was nineteen
seventy six, and I didn't go into the Whiz until
late seventy six, almost seventy seven.

Speaker 1 (09:41):
So you go from one adaptation of a sacred musical
to another adaptation of someone. I'm sure you also were
impersonating in the bathroom with a brush in your hand,
Judy Garland, when you go do the Wiz, was it
a different ball of wax there? And the way you
were treated with adapting Wizard.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
Of Oz with a plodcast, Oh god ya Goodias because
the Wiz was unapologetically black, even though based on L.
Frank Baums and the music and so forth. But the
Wiz open and that was a blockbuster. It wasn't at
first they actually had their closing notice up and then
Ken Harper went to twentieth Century Fox. They invested in

(10:20):
a TV commercial and it was so great. And then
they went to the churches in Brooklyn. Stephanie Mills belonged
to the biggest church, African American church in Brooklyn. They
went to them. They then went to Sister brother churches.
All of these people started buying tickets and came in bustlows.
And we know the dollar rules. So as long as
there were people there, the show was going to keep running.

(10:42):
By virtue of it staying where it was. The word
of mouth picked up and then other people started coming.
It finished that story to say that by the time
it got around to the Tony Awards, they were nominated
for eleven Tony Awards. I think they won six.

Speaker 1 (10:54):
So guysendals nicely, nicely, the Lion and the Wiz, and
these are not lead roles. You're playing more supporting roles.
And the next thing is Ain't Misbehaved in seventy eight?

Speaker 2 (11:05):
Correct? Right?

Speaker 1 (11:06):
And when you do that, you get a lead role
in Ain't Misbehaving?

Speaker 2 (11:09):
Yeah? Well, you know, I mean it's interesting because the
five characters, if you will and am misbehavin were all
supporting people. So the five of us really were the leads,
but we were used to being supporting people, so we
supported each other in the way that we had supported
other people in productions, which made it a very powerful ensemble.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
When did you notice that you walked in the room
and everybody sat up and they were like, it's ken,
you know what I mean, Like you really the town
started to adopt you, that you were part of a
business in an industry in New York.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
That was the blessing of Guys and Dalls is that
I did a beloved role and by me having some
sort of a personal signature on it. It separated me
from the great WK. So Broadways sort of said, who
is this I remember Clive Barnes. I didn't know who
he was at the time, but he wrote a sort
of love letter in The Times and saying who is

(12:02):
this guy? Where did he come from? People called me
up saying, did you read that thing at the Times
this morning? Clive Barnes wrote you a love letter? And
I'm like, well, who is Clive Barnes? First of all,
They're like, okay, why is he writing me love letters? Why?
Why is he writing me love letters? But what it
did was it opened the door to Broadway and it
said this guy is Broadway caliber. Wherever he came from,

(12:23):
welcome dot dot dot. So it sort of sucked me
right into the center of the Broadway community immediately, and
then to get to do the Whiz behind it, which
was a huge, huge, huge hit and still very much
at the top of the list of appreciated shows. I'll
tell this story and I think you'll know what I mean.
I had done a club act at Le Mouge. You know,
it was a big disco, but it was also a

(12:44):
big club there too. I did a tribute to all
of the black shows that were running on Broadway at
the time, and there were many at the time, and
I sort of linked them. I did a number songs
from Raisin and The Wiz and of course Guys and
Dolls and a couple of and I would link them
together with He's on on the road, Okay, let's go on,
we go, He's on down, He's on down, rude to
raise it and blow it. And some of the people

(13:07):
from The Wiz came to see my show because I
was in Guys and Dollars and they'd heard, so they
called me in shortly after Guys and Dolls closed, And
I had auditioned for The Wiz before, and I just
knew I was perfect for it because I'd seen the
out of town try out in Detroit, and I went
in and I sang men O line and they said,
thank you, that's it. I know I'm right for this.

(13:31):
Put How dam you say that like that? So when
it came back around, my agent said, well, you know,
they want to see you at the Majestic Theater and
I said, I auditioned for The Whiz. They didn't like me.
He said, no, no, I don't think you understand they saw
your club act. They want to see you at the
Majestic Theater. They're not having auditions, they're auditioning you. So

(13:51):
I said, oh shit. So I went in and Ken
Harper indeed was there, and I sang the songs and
he walked down to the edge of the stage and
he shook my hand and he says, are you busy
for the rest of the afternoon? And I said no.
He said, good, then go down and get your costume measurement.
And it took me a minute to understand that. Men
I got the part. I was like, why, what do
you want? How wonderful? Yeah, he said, So in answer

(14:14):
to your question, I would say, that's the first time
people sat up when I walked in the room. But
it was still different because they invited me into the room.

Speaker 1 (14:24):
Broadway star Ken Page. If you enjoy listening to conversations
with the greats of musical theater, be sure to check
out my conversation with another Broadway star, Kelly O'Hara.

Speaker 3 (14:38):
Even after eight shows a week, I find myself kind
of dealing with all of this, all of my innards
out there. It's how I filter, it's how I process,
I think and It's why I'm not quite tired of it.
For the most part, I find that I go inside
it as opposed to just dealing with it all out.

Speaker 1 (14:59):
Here hear more of my conversation with Kelly O'Hara that
Here's the Thing dot org. After the break, ken Page
talks about learning comedic timing from some of the best
in the business. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to

(15:26):
Here's the Thing.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
I dream last night. I got on the boat to Heaven,
and by some chance I had brought my dicilong and
there I stood, and I hollowed. Someone faid me, bought

(15:50):
the passage. Stay to right from raw for all the
people all sense it. Sit Down, you're rocking the boat, Yes,
rocking the boat.

Speaker 1 (16:07):
That's Ken Page performing sit Down, You're rocking the Boat
from the nineteen seventy six Broadway revival of Guys and Dolls.
During his tenure on Broadway, Ken Page would often perform
solo in smaller clubs. Oftentimes, his castmates and other performers
were his best audience.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
With the Broadway community, especially back then. You were in
that show at that time, but you were still part
of a larger community. At large. However long you'd been around,
chances are you'd worked with just about anybody or everybody
at some point. So there was this serious sense of
community that supported people new people. I can't even tell you.

(16:49):
I remember doing again Guys and Dolls eight Burrows, who
of course was a towering figure in the musical theater.
Him teaching me about comedy timing. He said, look, these
jokes are fun you know what I'm saying. I said, well,
I assume here, but you got to do a three
rhythm thing for him to work. If you break the rhythm,
they're not funny. And my example was I came out

(17:09):
with a sandwich and Nathan says, hey, nicely, where you been,
And I'd say I had to get something to eat.
I felt a little faint, and I would just say
the line crickets. You could hear NAT's fart. It was
that quiet, you know. And he said to me, no, no, a,
you got to take two beats before you speak, take
a bite of the sandwich, and then you say the

(17:31):
line with your mouth full, and it's funny. And I thought, well,
that's very specific. I don't know, you know, maybe I
don't want to do that. Hey, he wrote it. He
ought to know, right, So I did it. He says, hey, nicely,
where are you been? And I stopped and I took
a bite of the sandwich. I would I heard a
good trummery eat. I felt the little faint roaring laughter,

(17:52):
So you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (17:53):
Right?

Speaker 2 (17:54):
And I thought to myself.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
Learn, learn, learn, Isn't it true?

Speaker 2 (17:59):
People were general, not only in the production, but they
were generous to tell you things.

Speaker 1 (18:04):
So getting into that whole thing of like, you start
to feel more emboldened.

Speaker 2 (18:10):
Sure, I think with each show successively you become more
and more aware of what you have that's yours, that
is applicable to whatever situation you're in. But it takes.
It's a process to you get that sort of confidence
that while I'm going to sing this song, there's something

(18:30):
I do with my boys, with my intention with this
that that is particular to me, that's going to make
this sing, you know what I mean? And with amous
behavin of course, the opportunity was golden because there was nothing. Hello,
there was a stack of Xerox music that Fats Rolla
and other people wrote, and then that was it.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
Who shaped that? Who was responsible for shaping that?

Speaker 2 (18:53):
Well, we all were. I'm going to say that now
on record, because Richard Maltby was a wonderful director in
many ways, and he certainly put us together. Murray Horowitz,
who was the jazz afficionado, and Arthur Fario, who was
our choreographer. It was really this combined effort of everybody.
Needless to say, five African American performers brought much of

(19:15):
what you saw from our own selves. There was no
written characters. There was no scenario that we were following.
It was just a matter of you walk in the
door and she walks over to you and she sayings, baby, baby,
what is the matter with you? Well, you got to
know who you are, what your intention is, what you're

(19:36):
trying to do. All that had to be provided by
the actor who was us right, And that was the
way the show really was created. I mean, you know,
it was set up.

Speaker 1 (19:47):
So A'm misbehavin and then you go into Cats. Now,
you were in the original company of Cats, an original
Broadway cast. Yes, you were in the original You were
in the original Broadway company of Cas.

Speaker 2 (20:03):
I was and our American Daughters in nineteen twenty six. Yes,
betdy Lynn Buckley and Harry Groener.

Speaker 1 (20:13):
Oh amazing, Eddie Buckley, Oh my god. So how did
that come together?

Speaker 2 (20:18):
Well, we want to say first, it was a huge
hid in London, so it had already sailed the seas.
It was just coming in our direction. But that was
part of what made it such a big deal for Broadways,
because it was such a huge hit in London and
they were going to do the American production.

Speaker 1 (20:34):
And how do you get summoned to that?

Speaker 2 (20:36):
Well, weirdly, because they were seeing people for six months
for the show. Everybody who could crawl on fore legs
was there auditioning. And I didn't think there was anything
in the show for me. I just thought it was
a dance show and it was about people and leotards,
not me. And I went out and paid any attention
and I went to the closing performance of Ain't Misbehaving

(20:58):
on Broadway. I wasn't in the show by that point,
but I went to the closing performance and Bernard Jacobs,
Bernie Jacobs was there and he came up to me
and said, Kenny, have you been seen for Cats? And
I said no, no, I haven't. I He says, I
want you to go in. I want you to blah blah, blah,
so oh Deuteronomy. I think it's a good role for you.
I didn't know anything about it. He said, go up

(21:18):
to Vinnie Lift's office and get the music, and I'm
going to have them call you in now. Footnote. They
had not called me in, and I was certainly someone
who was on the scene well enough by that point,
but I guess they did not see me the way
Bernie saw me. But he says, that's it. You're going
to go in and that's what it's going to be. Right.
So am there learning the addressing of cats. I'm going

(21:41):
over the song. I had to audition for the show,
and Amelia, my late dear dear friend Amelia was in
the room next to me, and she said, i'd hear
you in the shower page. You've heard of Sek, she said,
And I would think, okay, not so good yet, but
it'll get there right.

Speaker 1 (22:00):
Work on that.

Speaker 2 (22:00):
It was great, so we come back. I go in
and by this point it's the last week of the
auditions and they were really calling a lot of people's
names and throwing them around. So I go in on Monday.
I sing and they said okay, great, So they said
come back on Friday, and could you possibly he said,
could you possibly learn a dramatic monologue?

Speaker 1 (22:23):
I thought, oh, f me from the show or from
some other source.

Speaker 2 (22:27):
Something anything, just a monologue, and I or not to
be here. Yes, I'm thinking, ain't it a musical? So
I go. I learned I luckily had done this monologue
and a show I did about Louis Armstrong. I played
the character Joe Oliver, his mentor. So I had a monologue. Okay,
so I come back. I do the monologue again. Trevor
comes in the stage after the monologue and he says,

(22:49):
your talents are many fold and manifest. I thought, well,
if that wasn't the kiss of death, I was like
thank you for playing game in the.

Speaker 1 (22:59):
British way of saying thank you.

Speaker 2 (23:02):
You know. So I go out Fire Island for the weekend.
They're announcing it on Monday, and this is Friday, and
I thought, I'm out of the city. I don't want
to be here. So I get back Monday morning. The
phone rings and it's Tyler Getchel and he says, oh,
Kendage is Tyler Gotchel? I said, yes, Tyler, good morning.

Speaker 1 (23:20):
How are you?

Speaker 2 (23:21):
I want to say, tell fuck around, just tell you
what's up? I said, I'm good. I'm good. He goes, well,
we were wondering here in the office if you'd like
to play old Deuteronomy and cats for us, and you know,
you not feeling when your heart like sinks and rises
at the same time. And I thought, yeah, yes I will,
I would please, Yes, I'll take it.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
How long did you do the show?

Speaker 2 (23:42):
Two years?

Speaker 1 (23:43):
Did you find that?

Speaker 2 (23:45):
You know?

Speaker 1 (23:46):
Two years? I mean, my god, two years of your life.
Every night? What happens during the arc of the two.

Speaker 2 (23:53):
Years many things. The beginning, of course, is exciting because
it's the opening and this and the energy and that
carries you almost a year. Then it settles in like, okay,
now they're coming to see what they've heard about, which
means second phase, You've got to deliver the show. It's
not just a matter of coming out there on the
energy of being fabulous and amazing. Now you've got to

(24:15):
deliver them the show that they have paid this high
price ticket to see that they've heard is amazing. I
like to say that's the second phase. You've got to
meet the standard of the show, not just your own standard.
And then the third phase is where I think it
becomes a matter of being a professional where you know
what you're supposed to do, you know the temperature of

(24:35):
the show, you know what it's supposed to do. If
you know what I mean and you do it, it
isn't always inspired, because some nights you do not feel it,
but you have posts road marks that you hit that
gets you through the show, and your technique will carry
you the performer. The show will carry everyone, but your

(24:56):
technique will carry you personally. And I think also it
has a lot to do with how you were trained
and you know how you came through the ropes as
to how you do that. I came from the old
school of you know, you give it or all you
hit it. And if you're doing that, you're not even
conscious of it being maybe boring or a little rote,
because you always find yourself in the doing.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
You know, you're considered one of the great great performers
in the musical theater and you walk into the room.
What does a director have to offer you?

Speaker 2 (25:26):
Well, you know, I will use someone as an example,
Michael Griffe, who directed many wonderful things, but Rent was
among them. And I've worked with Michael twice. We did
a production of Brandy Newman's Faust. I love Michael Grife
because he's one of the and I you know, I
admit I'm not easy because I've been around a long time.

(25:46):
So if you don't know something, you better know something.
That's what I'm leading to. Yeah, And my feeling is
if you know something, I'm down with it. Tell me
what you know. But if you don't know anything, you
cannot fake it out with me. Because I see you
as my grandmother. You say I knew where you were
going before you knew where you were going. It's real,
you know what I mean. Michael Grif is one of

(26:07):
those directors where and he's so like open and interested
in what you think, and not in the sense of
you get to do whatever you want. That's not it
at all. It's like, well, let's talk about what is
it that you think.

Speaker 1 (26:18):
There's no bad ideas. There's no bad ideas.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
Oh, there's no bad idea. And I did another show
with him called Most Wanted, a musical, which was believe
it or not, a musicalization of the Kunanan murder. Oh God.
It was really actually very very good and dark and
so forth. It was too dark for people. This is
before the TV movie and all that sort of stuff,
and people were freaked the fuck out.

Speaker 1 (26:39):
This is the VERSACEI murder.

Speaker 2 (26:41):
Yeah, yeah, you did a musical about that, Yes, Holy,
a wonderful musical. And of course Persashi was the end
of his murdering spree. What was the name of the show,
post wanted?

Speaker 1 (26:53):
Oh my god? And what year was this produced?

Speaker 2 (26:55):
Oh god, about fifteen years ago at La Joya playhouse.

Speaker 1 (26:59):
It didn't transfer, it didn't go anywhere.

Speaker 2 (27:01):
They talked about it. We did another reading thing of
it in New York. I played a drag queen named
Stormy Leather. Oh God, thank you, thank you. I'm here
all week. Yeah. And I had this great song called
never Saw It Coming, which was about how you do
these things in life and you never see it coming.

(27:23):
You think you're going to do this, you're going to
be that you're going to do and then something else
happens and you never see it coming. And the first
line of the song was I met a bitch the boy,
which gives you a setup. I knew a bitch. The
boy had it all class, money, everything and so on
and so forth. Very deep, very dark show. Anyway, Michael

(27:43):
says to me, and I'm doing the thing and it's working.
You know, it's doing well. I said, Michael, I keep
having this feeling. I said, would you mind if I
can I smoke? And this is the example of Michael
Grive And he looked at me as only he can.
He goes, I wish you would please do? I said yes, yes,

(28:03):
And it changed the whole feel of it because one
the lighting and the cigarette smoke and the whole thing.
And it gave me something to start with. And I
exhaled on the first note, you know, all that kind
of shit you do. And it made it a thought
rather than a delivery of a thought.

Speaker 1 (28:18):
It was a Burrows and the sandwich all over again.

Speaker 2 (28:20):
That's right. Hey, Hello, if I could take an inhale
on this cigarette and exhale and go I met a boy,
oh baby, bitch had it all? It set up a
whole different thing, you know.

Speaker 1 (28:34):
Now, La New York, LA New York, LA New York.
Saint Louis. How did the Great Ken Page decide? Saint
Louis is where I need to be in this point
in my life?

Speaker 2 (28:46):
Well, other than your mom, well that's kind of I mean,
if it were only you know, it was my mom,
my stepdad. I have two aunts, one of whom I'm
in charge of her care now she's in a facility.
But I knew Alec that they were all getting older.
And the older I got, the more I started to
understand they weren't these wizard people that I thought they

(29:06):
were when I was young. They were vulnerable. There were
needs that they had that they didn't even know how
to be yen to address. And as they got older,
they couldn't, you know, sort of jockey their way through
it. It was becoming more of an issue how to dot
dot dot and not, you know, to put it all
on them. It was as easier to be here, and
I did a calculation of could I still work from here?

(29:29):
And I had initiated a show that I don call
Page by page, which is an autobiographical two hour one
hand and blah blah blah, and I went all over
the country with it. That's how I kept my bills paid.
I took I got on the road like an old
actor does, and I sang my songs and I got
my check and I touched a lot of people. But
I could do that from Saint Louis.

Speaker 1 (29:50):
Of course, show business, whether it's sports, music, entertainment, the
African American performer gets into the same limo. He's picked
up to go to the show. He's got the star
dressing room. Everything is when you're making money for them.
Everything is as fluffy and as comfortable for the white
or the black performer. But whoever roadblocks for you in
that area?

Speaker 2 (30:10):
Oh are you getting all the time? It's a constant.
I can say that, and I don't mean that to
be evasive. It's a constant from the time. I think
of when I started in seventy six with guys and dolls,
where people would say to my face, how dare you
that's wk's roll? And I'm thinking, but I'm up there
eight times a week. I'm doing it, on on on,
through many things Cats. When I was casting Cats, there

(30:32):
were people black and white who just were not having it.
The white continuency thought someone white should have, of course
been cast. Why did they cast me. My brothers and
sisters were like, well, you've gone over to the enemy,
you know what I mean. But mind you, any one
of them would have certainly been happy to have the part.
So it's a constant. In Hollywood. It was very difficult.

(30:55):
There were many auditions. I went on Alec where they
just wanted me to just be more urban, which was
a code. You know. I did one show where I
played the owner of a diet company. Okay, that's funny enough.
I'm a big guy. But as the progression of the
rehearsals went on, they said, well, you're going to come
in eating a candy bar. I thought, come on, you know,

(31:16):
it's funny enough, you don't have to put a candy bar.
By the time we got to filming, they gave me
a giant, oversized hershey bar that I was to walk
in with, and those kinds of things. That's just sort
of on the one side, but it is a constant
and it continues, you know. And because I have been
around a long time and I am sixty seven years
old as of yesterday. You know what I'm saying, I

(31:37):
know what's up. And people try to bullshit you with
stuff that they're trying to veil, or you know, they're
really being racial, or they're being prejudicial. My generation, we
were the beneficiaries of the idea we better do the
right thing because people are watching. The generation before us
was we can do anything we want because nobody's watching.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
You know, my kids are obviously going through the catalog
of films, and they wanted to start watching Nightmare before Christmas.
And of course there's nothing more thrilling in my life
than being captivated by a performance of you as Oogie
Boogie and me sitting there on a couch with my
kids and going, I know him, I know him, And
they're like, my kids are gonna be like, oh please,
I never seen night Before Christmas and I see it

(32:19):
like six months ago, and we watch it. You know,
the kids want to watch every movie twenty times, and
so we watch it. It's very inventive. And inside of
that song it defines your talent. You do so many things.
What makes you one of the greatest performers in the
history of the musical theater ever, is the acting inside

(32:40):
the singing. How did that go down?

Speaker 2 (32:42):
As a child, like I said, in my room, playing
cast albums and being everybody on the album and so forth.
That was the beginning of all that for me, because
you know, for me, I wasn't seeing anything. I was
only hearing it. Right, So when night Member Before Christmas
came around, I thought, oh my god, I'm gonna get
to do what I've been tipping around for years.

Speaker 1 (33:04):
Man, Do you ever? Man? Do you ever? You feel
that song you've got there's so much great acting inside
that song, and and and you're vocalizing. I produced you
in a show one time. Yes, And I think the
deepest I ever fell in love with another man, I'm
a straight guy. But the deepest I've ever fell in
love with the man was when he sang you with me.
We're going to sing one phrase of this ready whispering

(33:26):
bo temy Ta in love. You sang that song, and
I melted in the earth. The sky is the most
beautiful soul. And you are of the people I've known
in this business, one of the most beautiful souls I've
ever met in my life. You're so talented, well that

(33:48):
is beyond kind. I love you, and I love your talent.

Speaker 2 (33:51):
I love you back.

Speaker 1 (33:57):
Actor and singer Ken Page. Betty Buckley grew up dreaming
of singing her heart out and in the stuff of legend.
On her first day in New York City, Betty Buckley
landed a part in the Broadway musical seventeen seventy six.
That early success gave her a chance to prove to

(34:19):
herself and the folks back home she was ready.

Speaker 4 (34:23):
My mom had been a singer dancer growing up, and
she was very good, very talented, but my father, when
he married her, told her she couldn't do that anymore.
My father was a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force.
When I was in the fifth grade, he retired and
he became a college professor. He was a really brilliant guy,
but he was very opposed to show business. And my

(34:45):
mother had this extensive cast album collection and all the
great singers and everything, and she sang around the house
all the time. So I was exposed to all that
very early on and loved it. And she took me
to see my first musical, which was The Game with
the original Bob Fosse choreography, when I was eleven, and
when the number steam heat and I remember where I

(35:08):
was sitting in the theater, and there was this energy
that just went up to my head. What I've learned
as an adult was an epiphany, you know, and it's
just like boom, that that's what you're going to be
doing for the rest of your life. So then from
age eleven, I became fixated on that.

Speaker 1 (35:24):
What did you do with that fixation?

Speaker 4 (35:25):
Well, I listened to Bye Bye Bertie all the time,
and I told my mother, you know, I could play
one of the teenagers in that, And when she was
mad at me, I would run down the hall into
her room and slide in on my knees and do
the whole speech that the kid does to Conrad Bertie,
tell us, oh beautiful one, tell us how you make
that glorious salady?

Speaker 1 (35:43):
One less kiss?

Speaker 4 (35:45):
Yes exactly.

Speaker 1 (35:45):
I worked around my house for years. My mother would go,
when are you going to do your homework? I go, baby, well,
kiss really sublime mold. I mean, I knew that song exactly.

Speaker 4 (35:57):
That was his junior high talent show that I wanted
to be in. But I was really short forever. I
was like four feet eight inches tall forever, and I
grew all at once. In one summer, I thought I
would be short forever, and I thought, well, maybe I'll
be the first girl jockey, you know. But anyway, there
was this talent show and I came home and I
knew they would never ask me to be in it.

(36:19):
But I'd studied dance with my aunt since I was three.
She was a dance teacher and my grandmother, so I
had these two very powerful female role models that were
performers and artists, and I told my mother I wanted
to do Steam Heat and the Junior High Talent Show.
And my mother was like, oh, that's interesting because the
guys who were the choreographer and the director of that

(36:41):
just opened a dance studio in Fort Worth. I will
call them. So she called them and said, my daughter
wants to learn Steam Heat and they said, well, can
she sing? And I was like yeah, because I sung
in the church choir, but they always put me in
the back row and told me to blend in, you know.
So I sang and they said no, no, Betty, sing
as loud as you can. So I knew I had
this giant voice.

Speaker 1 (37:00):
When did you know you had a giant voice? When?

Speaker 4 (37:03):
Because I was constantly singing with all the great lady
singers in my bedroom to their albums and basically imitating them.
And I knew I had this like sound, but I
didn't know its value because our choir teacher would always
put me on the back row and really get annoyed
because my voice cuts through, you know, and I was
trying so hard to sing soft, but it still has

(37:25):
this resonant edge. So they told me to sing as
loud as I could, so I did and I just
felt unleashed, and they were like, oh my god. And
those guys made me realize I had this unique voice.
So they gave me the original Fosse choreography and I
got in the Junior High Talent show and I brought
the house down. They all went nuts, and from that

(37:47):
time I was like little bitty Betty Buckley with this
giant voice. Then my mother became this like huge stage mother,
and she was constantly entering me and everything, and my
father was going nuts about it. And then I got
my first professional job when I was fifteen. I played
the role of Dainty June and Gypsy at our local
theater and I joined Equity and all that stuff, and

(38:09):
then I worked there every summer, and so I had
a lot of experience by the time I got to
New York.

Speaker 1 (38:16):
What got you to New York?

Speaker 4 (38:18):
Well, I was recruited to enter the Miss for Worth pageant.
I hated beauty pageants. I mean, I'm sorry to say
all that, because I have friends and beauty pageants and
I won a lot of scholarships.

Speaker 1 (38:30):
And it wasn't for you. Shall we say?

Speaker 4 (38:32):
I was this budding young feminist. I was a charter
subscriber to Miss magazine, and Glorious Steinham gave me words
for all these feelings of inequity that.

Speaker 1 (38:40):
Ethel Merman meets Gloria Steinem that's a good one.

Speaker 4 (38:44):
I'll take that. But you didn't want that, No, I
was embarrassed by it. I remember once I won the
Miss for Worth pageant, because I was basically recruited to
do that, and then I was in the Miss Texas pageant.
Didn't win the talent competition, which was really strange. So
I was a runner up to Miss Texas, I think

(39:05):
second runner up or something. But the producer of the
Miss America pageant was there, and I was invited the
following year to be a guest entertainer at the Miss
America pageant. And this agent saw me on television sing
and dance, and they asked me to fly to New
York right after the Miss America Pageant to audition for them.
So it was Ashley Famous Agency which became ICM, and

(39:27):
there was a very famous agent named Eric Sheppard. I
sang for these like eleven or twelve agents, and he
just stood up and said signer and he walked out
of the room. So this responsible agent, Roger has who
went on to become a big Broadway producer. He's a
really nice, wonderful guy, still a great friend. He said, well,

(39:48):
what do you want to do? And I said, I
have to go back and finish college or my father
will kill me. So he he was like, Okay, do that,
and when you finish college, you'll come to New York.

Speaker 1 (39:56):
And you did finish TCU for journalism. Yeah, why why a.

Speaker 4 (40:00):
Journalism because my mother had been a journalist. My dad
thought that being a journalist was a complimentary profession for
a wife and mother to the husband. But that my
purpose in life, as all young women should have, he thought,
was to be married and have children. But I didn't
want to do that. I wanted to go to New York.
And I knew what my voice would sound like, and

(40:23):
I knew how it would affect people. And then when
I was thirty five and I was in my dressing
room at the Winter Garden, they brought in my recording
of memory after we'd made the record, and I heard
the recording and that vision flashed back of when I
was thirteen, and I was like, oh, it took from
age thirteen to thirty five but there it is. So anyway,

(40:46):
this agent kept calling me after college and asking me
to come to New York, and I was at that
point I was really experiencing I think PTSD because I'd
been with Miss America on a USO tour and Miss
America and I and one other girl went into all
the intensive care units and all the hospitals in Japan,

(41:06):
and we also toured all the military bases in Korea.
I was like, my dad is wrong. War is not noble.

Speaker 2 (41:14):
You know.

Speaker 4 (41:14):
My father was a real hawk and he really believed
in the nobility of war and stuff. And I came
back really changed, and we were in a consistent debate
about the validity of a show business career, which he
thought was beneath me. And I was very confused about
it all. And I was also in love when I
was a senior with this Dallas cowboy quarterback and he

(41:36):
turned out to be he broke my heart. So when
I came back, I thought, okay, forget my show business aspirations.
Because I was a journalism major and I'd written for
this newspaper quite a lot. I even had a teen
page when I was in college for the Fort Worth Press.
So I had a job there, and I thought, Okay,
that's it. I'm just going to do this, and so
the agent kept calling and he got me to come

(41:58):
see this show in Dallas my mother, which was an
industrial show that Flip Wilson, the comedian was doing with
a band called Your Father's Mustache. So they called me
up on stage and had me sing. And the only
song I knew Mike key and was You Made Me
Love You. So I sang it and the audience went nuts,
which was great. And then Rogers talks to the buyer

(42:20):
and they offered me a job to put me in
this show but to pretend I'm an audience member in
all these different cities. And they offered me a lot
of money. It was way more than I was being
paid at the Fourth Press. So my father couldn't deny
the job the money, and so he reluctantly let me
do that.

Speaker 1 (42:39):
When I think of you, I think of the acting
and the singing, and the acting is in the singing.

Speaker 4 (42:44):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (42:45):
When you teach people, you teach acting or singing.

Speaker 4 (42:48):
I've taught for the Terry Shribers School for years and
years and years, and I used to teach scenes, study
and song interpretation. And I was teaching these five day
workshops maybe three times a year for them whenever I
was in New York.

Speaker 1 (42:59):
And what do you teach them about how the acting
influences the singing?

Speaker 4 (43:03):
Well, that's complicated. I was really fortunate that in seventeen
seventy six I worked with all these incredible actors. There
were like thirty men and two women, and they really
mentored me, and they were like, set me down when
I was twenty one and I'd gotten that show my
first day in New York City because of this wonderful agent,
Roger Hess, who got me to New York and shepherd

(43:23):
me into that and so I got that audition, which
was amazing. So they sent me down and said, look, Betty,
this is what you're good at, this is what you've
got talent wise, and this is what you need to learn.
Go here, go there, do this, And so I did
because I loved musical theater. I loved but it used
to be called musical comedy, right, So there was like

(43:44):
a dancing course and a singing chorus and you know,
everything was separate, and everything was like you know, SHOWBZ,
and so I wanted. I really my favorite actresses were
Kim Stanley and Geraldine Paige and later on Rolands, and
I was like, oh my god, what it must be
like to have that skilly dramatic actions. Yeah, to do

(44:06):
like really psychological portraits, to like bring raw truth to
a theater and film, And you know, I wanted to
be that skilled and I wasn't. So I was really
lucky that in that time period I did some Broadways shows.
And then I got that TV show eight Is Enough
and not eight is Enough. I went to my dailies
and I was like, wait a minute, I get I

(44:28):
see ten seconds of good work over there when I'm
in the doorway. Why can't I bring that same quality
to the scene work right? What's wrong with me? And
I was also studying with Stelle Adler. I never put
my work in front of her. I took her acting class,
I took her script analysis class in New York, and
I took her script analysis class again in LA. While
I was on It Is Enough, I knew I wasn't

(44:49):
a good enough actress to keep my sense of self
respect or whatever, you know. If she gave me her
like searing critiques, I wasn't ready. So that was a Okay.
I learned a lot in the back row taking copious notes.
But that TV show was great because I really was
able to see what worked and why you were.

Speaker 1 (45:09):
On that for two seasons, three seasons? How many?

Speaker 4 (45:11):
Four?

Speaker 1 (45:12):
Four seasons? Dick Patten.

Speaker 4 (45:14):
Yeah. And then on the heels of Eight Is Enough,
I got the wonderful classic American film Tender Mercy starring
Robert Duvall, with a Horton foot script directed by Bruce Beresford,
and I was like, oh my god, she's an alcoholic
country western singing show.

Speaker 2 (45:31):
General.

Speaker 4 (45:31):
It was like written for me.

Speaker 1 (45:33):
There's your chance.

Speaker 4 (45:34):
It was amazing, and I learned so much working with
Duval and Wilford Brimley and Ellen Barkin. And they wouldn't
let me see my dailies until I finished the job.
And then they brought me in on a Saturday and
had me sit down and look at my scenes back
to back. And I sat there in that little screening
room and I was like, oh, okay, I know how
to do this now when you're.

Speaker 1 (45:56):
There, you're in Los Angeles. Eight is Enough was what
the late seventies, mid seventies.

Speaker 4 (46:01):
Was seventy nine to eighty one.

Speaker 1 (46:04):
So when you're out there doing you shot it in California.
And when you're out there and you go from a
show that I recall was a successful show that was.

Speaker 4 (46:12):
A hitch the show it's huge.

Speaker 1 (46:13):
Why don't you just stay out in California and camp
out there and pursue movies and television? Well? Were you
just addicted to singing on Broadway?

Speaker 4 (46:22):
Well? I knew I was going to sing on Broadway,
and I had this brilliant teacher and I was flying
back to work with him every six weeks, which the
Heads of eight is enough mocked me for I remember
this guy passed me in the parking lot and I
was driving a Bundy rint Wreck and he had a
black Porsche A he sleek, black hair and wore black
clothes and he's like, where are you going? And I'm like,

(46:43):
I'm going to New York for my voice lessen. He goes,
you have such delusion of grandeur, Betty, You'll be lucky
if you play American Mothers the rest of your life.
And I was like, we'll see, Greg, We'll see.

Speaker 1 (46:53):
Isn't that horrible?

Speaker 2 (46:54):
God?

Speaker 1 (46:54):
That makes me?

Speaker 4 (46:55):
They were really weird guys, I mean, and they were mean,
really mean, But anyway, I survived all that, and so
I got this tener Mercies and then I got Cats.
That following on the heels of that Tener Mercies was
actually released in the winter. That Cats opened in October.

Speaker 1 (47:14):
But is that what you want to go? From Tender
Mercies to the next movie?

Speaker 4 (47:18):
Yeah, that would have been great, But my dream was
to bring like, really that authenticity to the musical theater
to originate, right, and so those of us who were
fortunate enough to work in the musical theater, we changed
the face of the musical theater in that time period,
you know, with Sondheim, Fosse, all that. It. It evolved

(47:40):
from musical comedy to musical theater. And Grizabella in Cats
Singing Memory was my first opportunity to bring that level
of dramatic intensity to the musical theater stage. And I
knew it was my turn, and I knew I was
ready to do that.

Speaker 1 (47:59):
So had you been off an attractive role in a
film on the heels of Tender Mercies, you would have
passed because Kats was what you wanted to do.

Speaker 2 (48:06):
That's what I think.

Speaker 4 (48:07):
That's a weird exercise. Would I have passed? I don't
know everything. I'm sharing with you. I learned in retrospect
and but honestly, growing up I didn't think I was beautiful,
and I aspired to the musical theater. Then I met
Brian de Palmer and auditioned for his film Fandom of
the Paradise. He didn't cast me, but several months after
that he took me to dinner and gave me the

(48:29):
book Carrie and said, read this book. I want you
to play the gym teacher.

Speaker 1 (48:32):
Awful gym teacher.

Speaker 4 (48:34):
She was a great character. So that was a great
film debut that he gave me the opportunity to do.
And then from that movie I got it is enough
Now it is enough. Was at the time I thought
I'd made a horrible mistake taking a job. Why because
I was like working in a factory and in retrospect
only it was where I needed to be to learn

(48:57):
the next thing.

Speaker 1 (48:58):
Well, no, Cats, I mean, there's not much to say
about Cats. I think that hasn't been said obviously. It's
this iconic and your performance and there's a song which
we don't need to go into now that you sing
that is this kind of dream state everybody goes into
when they sing this song.

Speaker 4 (49:14):
Good description that's accurate a dream state.

Speaker 1 (49:17):
Yeah, I think that a lot of the music and
cats is a dream state. It's really it's just you
have to suspend.

Speaker 4 (49:22):
It's moving art. It's like an art installation.

Speaker 1 (49:25):
Yeah, you can't have any preconceptions of what, just to
sit there and go with it. Yeah, And it's like
it's like and when I think about that, what I
think about is you work hard. Yeah, in the theater,
people work hard. Did you have any ongoing injuries pains?
Did you suffer physically from your years of working in
the theater.

Speaker 4 (49:43):
Yeah, My knees were shot after two years of suns
at Boulevard, running up and downstairs twelve times a night,
and then repetitive choreography. I had a shoulder replacement in
my right shoulder was replaced in September, which I'm really
grateful I did it. Then the the surgeon was great
and that apparatus is great. I'm really grateful. I'm gonna

(50:03):
have to have a knee, probably both needs replaced, but
I'm gonna start with one. But you have to be
in a process either with a great osteopath or chiropractor
or the other thing. I've found out recently that's very
disturbing to me. Is I've had because of working in
these dusty old theaters that they never keep clean and
mold in the atmosphere and stuff. I've had repetitive bouts

(50:24):
of bronchitis for years now and it's created a kind
of asthmatic lung condition that I have to work with now,
which is not nice.

Speaker 1 (50:36):
Singer and actor Betty Buckley be sure to follow Here's
the Thing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever
you get your podcasts when we come back. Betty Buckley
talks about the challenges of playing Norma Desmond and Andrew
Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard. I'm Alec Baldwin and this is

(51:08):
Here's the thing. Betty Buckley worked with famed British director
Trevor Nunn twice, first in Cats in nineteen eighty two,
then again in Sunset Boulevard in nineteen ninety four. In
the intervening years, Betty Buckley's confidence in her own vision grew.

Speaker 4 (51:27):
First of all, he's a genius and the way he
directed us in Cats, and the way he put all
that together was really unbelievable. I mean, no other Cats
company had that kind of amazing bomb. We did improv workshops,
theater games and at least a month of rehearsals and
a couple of weeks on our hands and kneess cats,

(51:49):
but just incredible Grotowski theater games and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (51:53):
What does he have to offer you when you do Sunset?

Speaker 4 (51:55):
Well, it was interesting because they flew me to London
and my audition took an hour. I've never auditioned that
long in my life. They brought me in a week
in advance and taught me all the songs and then
told me I had to sing them in Glenn closest
keys and I was like, no, I won't be singing
them in Glenn closest keys, and so the music director

(52:16):
was a little floxed about that, and then he kept
coming up on stage directing me and directing me. And
I'm a meditator, so whatever they threw at me, I
just stayed in my focus and did what they said.
And then when I got the part, I was been
back in London in this rehearsal process and I was like, okay.

(52:37):
So I brought in mythological references the Greek drama Medusa Medea,
and he was interested in that, and then he would
listen really closely, and then he'd say, okay, show me,
and then I would show him what I meant, and gradually,
over a six week rehearsal process to eight weeks, I
saw him liking what I was doing right, and and

(53:00):
then he gave me rain to interpret it that way.

Speaker 1 (53:04):
You'd earned the right to do it your way.

Speaker 4 (53:06):
Yeah, And so then we opened and it was like
a huge success, and I was just like, oh, yeah,
you know. So then I got New York and they
were very nervous because the New York Times they followed
me around to do this big feature in the Arts
and Leisure section, and it was really nice. This writer

(53:27):
was really great, but the angle the editor wanted was
is she a big enough star to replace Glenn Close?
So they were really nervous that my interpretation because it
was so vastly different from what Glenn Close had done.
It was vastly different from what any of them had done,
and so they got nervous. And he was very nervous.

(53:50):
Trevor None, Yeah, and I one day in rehearsal, he
was very nervous and very upset, and I was like,
what's going on? And so I started crying because I
couldn't understand what he wanted. And when I was crying,
he said this, this, this is what's missing. And I

(54:10):
was I said what what? And he goes this and
I was like wretched because I've felt wretched. He goes
wretched and I said oh. And then I just stopped crying.
I said, why didn't you just tell me that? Where
do you want wretched? And so I got really calm
and he goes okay, and then we went through the
whole script and he goes here, here, here, and here,

(54:32):
and I'm like, okay, I said, that's all you got
to do. Just tell me what you need.

Speaker 1 (54:36):
Now, Betty Buckley, I want to get to something else.
The power of your voice and the uniqueness. Where does
the power come from?

Speaker 4 (54:45):
Can I just share with you a moment I had
with you when we were younger. Yes, we were at
a big public theater benefit years ago and you were
part of it too, and I sang Aquarius and it
was a very powerful performance and you were watching me

(55:06):
and you just like shook your head and I was
like so touched by that, like because I felt so
seen and cherished and valued by you. Thank you, So
you ask where my power comes from. It comes from
a spiritual connection. Right. It's like I believe that at essence,
all human beings are connected. Like I have a heart

(55:29):
that's beating that wants to love and be loved. You
have a heart that's beating that wants to love and
be loved. At that essence, we are entirely the same.
Our stories are different, but that I am no, that
essence is the same. Since since I was like twenty
six years old and I've been on this quest, I
thought there has to be a handbook. And I found

(55:49):
that there's like this core body of truth in every religion,
in every major philosophy on the planet. So I found meditation.
While as Enough, I went my ex husband Peter Flood,
took me to a meditation class after my first season
on Eight Is Enough, And then I learned that I

(56:09):
could use meditation in my work, and that there was
this higher consciousness in me that was the creative force
that if I made myself an instrument of that, good
things happened. And I was a witness about that as
surely as the audience was. And I learned how to
do that before cats and before tender mercies and then

(56:31):
my work just changed and everything opened up and the
power that I was able to access as an instrument
of that consciousness, that's where it comes from. Is I'm
meditating my way through that, and it's like being in
a way on mister Toad's wild ride, right, Because when
you have a part like Norman Desmond that you can

(56:54):
go all out, full tilt boogie to quote Janis Joblin,
then this it's like holding to this montra, holding to
this focus point and then let everything happen. That's how
I work.

Speaker 1 (57:06):
You are on an island of your own in terms
of your talent and your uniqueness. It's just it's unbelievable.

Speaker 4 (57:12):
It's Unbelievaikia Alec, I feel humbled by your compliment. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (57:15):
Well. Listen, we interviewed Ken, my old friend Ken, and
the thing the two of you also have in common
other than cats is you both went home. Ken moved
back to Saint Louis. Yeah, he moved back to take
care of his mom.

Speaker 4 (57:26):
Isten't he the greatest guy ever. He and I had
a dressing room right next to each other at the
Winter Garden, so we were really close pals. He's a lovely,
lovely man.

Speaker 1 (57:36):
Well, let me ask you this one more question, which is,
if I'm on iTunes, which of these albums would you
say is not your favorite? Which ones you're particularly fond of?

Speaker 4 (57:45):
Ghostlight, the two bone Burnett produced is a beautiful album
that's very haunting. And Teabon and I grew up together
in fourth and he made the first recording of my
voice when we were both like seventeen. But so ghost Light,
and then my recent stuff that I really love is
Story Songs and Hope.

Speaker 1 (58:04):
Thank you for taking the time to do this. My
love to you, Ali, thank you, and good luck down there.

Speaker 4 (58:09):
I adore you and I'm so happy to connect with you.

Speaker 1 (58:11):
Thank you, My thanks to Broadway legends Betty Buckley and
Ken Page. I'll leave you with Betty singing as if
we never said goodbye from Sunset Boulevard Live at Carnegie Hall.
I'm Alec Baldwin and this is Here's the thing from
iHeart Radio.

Speaker 4 (58:30):
The Whispered Conversations.

Speaker 2 (58:35):
In Old the clouded Halloway.

Speaker 4 (58:40):
So much to say, not just today, bottle.

Speaker 2 (58:49):
Well, madness, Well, body.

Speaker 1 (59:00):
May guess everything says if we never said about.

Speaker 2 (59:11):
Yes, everythings, as if we never said good.

Speaker 4 (59:27):
We taught the world

Speaker 2 (59:33):
You waste to dream,