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Fashion House But Can They Sing? Unshackled The Graduate





Thanks to the generosity of the people of Portland, Oregon 
THE GRADUATE touring company was able to raise over $22,000
 in donations for Save The Children and Doctors Without Borders
 to aid the victims of the Tsunami.  
Please visit Morgan's Activism page to find out more about these charities,
and to make a donation.
Morgan is signing a limited edition photo of herself as 'Mrs. Robinson'
for the first 100 people who send in a donation of $50.00 or more.

 


Morgan Fairchild plays Mrs. Robinson
 in the touring company of "The Graduate," 
which visits Las Vegas this week.

Fairchild shows 
she still has what
 it takes in 
`The Graduate'
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Las Vegas Review-Journal
 By KEN WHITE
REVIEW-JOURNAL

     A warning for audiences attending "The Graduate" this week: There's nudity in a key scene, but don't expect to see a whole lot, says the play's star, Morgan Fairchild.
     She takes on the classic role of Mrs. Robinson in the touring company of the play, which is part of the Broadway Las Vegas series, in performance today through Sunday at Cashman Theatre.
     Fairchild doffs her towel in a key scene, which is lighted with discretion, according to the actress who has appeared in a host of TV shows, including "Flamingo Road" and "Cybill."
     "All of us who've done the part have had some trepidation" about the nude scene, Fairchild said in a recent interview while on the road. "It is discreetly lighted, and I cling to that, that the audience doesn't see much."
     Not that Fairchild has let herself go.
     She says the tour's opening night audience of college students responded favorably when the towel dropped, Fairchild said.
     Although the movie starring Anne Bancroft and Dustin Hoffmann is a dark comedy, "this is a bit lighter in treatment," Fairchild says. "It's not exactly the same as the movie."
     The movie's ending was ambiguous, with audiences deciding for themselves whether Benjamin and Elaine remain together. The play's ending retains "a certain level of ambiguity," Fairchild said.
     Taking on a role made famous by another actress can have its drawbacks, but Fairchild remembers having only "a tiny twinge" of anxiety before taking on the role of the boozy seductress. 
     "The movie came out so long ago, younger members of the audience haven't seen it, so I'm not competing there," she said. "And some older people don't remember the movie that well."
     When the movie is remembered, it's for such famous lines as "Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me."
     Based on the novel by Charles Webb and the screenplay by Calder Willingham and Buck Henry, the touring production also stars Nathan Corddry as Benjamin and Winslow Corbett as Elaine.
     Taking place in 1960s California, the play centers on Benjamin, who has just gotten out of college and is hanging around the family abode, undecided about his future. Mrs. Robinson seduces him, but he falls in love with her daughter, Elaine.
     For background on the character, Fairchild didn't read the novel. "I thought there was enough about her in the script to delineate who she was," Fairchild said. "She's a functional alcoholic, a concept that wasn't known back then. Nice families didn't have alcoholics. She's just bored to death with her upper middle-class life. She drinks like a fish, a sort of female Dean Martin."
     Playing Mrs. Robinson has been "very rewarding, creatively. She's a fun character, so twisted and strange. She's an iconic character, and complicated."
     While the play is not a musical, it does contain music from the era, including "Sounds of Silence" and "Mrs. Robinson" by Simon & Garfunkel, and songs by the Mamas and the Papas, the Byrds and the Beach Boys.

 

 

Washington Post Feature - 
Morgan Fairchild
Coo, Coo, Ca-choo
by Chip Crews

Wilmington, Del.  -  By  rights Morgan Fairchild should stand at least six feet tall. The idea that all that temptation, all that menace, all that vixenly va-va-voom should be at home in a preposterously taut 5-foot-4 1/2-inch package must defy some law of science.

But there she is, live and very much in the flesh. And each of the aforementioned signature traits is in evidence in her current endeavor: starring in the road company of "The Graduate." She plays Mrs. Robinson, the sexy and frustrated matron brought vividly to life by Anne Bancroft in the 1967 movie. (The play opens here Tuesday for a week-long stay at the Warner Theatre.)

Bancroft, you'll remember, was a lustrous-dark spider, having her wicked way with Dustin Hoffman's fly. Fairchild's version is, as implied, more of a blond fox. But then the stage version itself is far different in tone from the film -- lighter and considerably less subversive. That, she says, is because the play is based on the novel by Charles Webb, rather than the screenplay.

The story, set in California in 1963, is the same: Young Benjamin Braddock, just out of college and very confused about the world, has a life-changing encounter with the predatory wife of his father's business partner. Fairchild, 55, has given a lot of thought to Mrs. Robinson and her earlier days.

"She's living in that repressive society, and it's very difficult for her," she says. "I mean, this is pre-Beatles, it's pre-pantyhose, it's pre-pill, it's pre-Women's Lib, it's pre -- 10 years before Roe v. Wade . . . She got pregnant and had to get married. . . . I think she just feels trapped. I mean, she's just like this bird fluttering against the wall and drinking to anesthetize the pain of her wings getting broken."

And hey, a drunken bird can get mighty desperate.

Having completed her matinee, Fairchild has settled in at a corner restaurant table to talk about the show and her career. Her pink zippered sweater, pants and dangling earrings contrast sharply with Mrs. Robinson's wardrobe, which ranges from a party dress that fits like candle wax to, well, nothing at all. "The Graduate" has at times been bloodied by critics, but that nude scene, performed on Broadway by Kathleen Turner, has made the play famous.

"I've had so many people come up and ask our crew guys or ask me after the show: Was I wearing a body stocking? And I have no idea why they think that. It's billed that way, it's in the contract: I have to do it nude. I'm not out there in, you know, little bikini thongs or a body suit."

Today's rather elderly audience took her altogetherness in stride. But that isn't always the case.

"You look out and see binoculars in the second row and it's a bit daunting to come out and do the nude scene," she says, laughing. "You know they're just looking for wrinkles and cellulite."

Fairchild can afford to laugh, because even up close she displays very little in the way of wrinkles or cellulite. Her body, in fact, is kind of amazing, which takes work when you're 55.

 "As a kid I loved ballet, and I remember that Baryshnikov had said that he had to warm up an extra five minutes every year older he got," she says. "By now I'm up to, you know -- two hours of warm-up!" She laughs again.

Fairchild is a self-made woman, in more ways than one. She was born Patsy Ann McClenny and grew up in Dallas, and at 9 "I was a little fat pudgy kid with big thick glasses, and I was quiet and never said a word, you know -- teachers loved me, straight-A student."

The teachers may have loved her, but the other kids called her Fatsy Patsy.

Fatsy Patsy knew what she wanted, and in short order the glasses were gone. She went on a regimen of hard-boiled eggs and grapefruit, "which is not a fun diet," and the extra weight disappeared as well. "It was the first step in creating Morgan Fairchild," she says. "You have to be willing to think of yourself differently if you're going to make a transition."

That same steel has served her well in Hollywood. After a four-year run on "Search for Tomorrow" in the mid-'70s, she joined the ranks of the prime-time temptresses of the next decade on "Flamingo Road" and, later, "Falcon Crest." She's made her share of movies, a lot of them with titles like "Shattered Illusions," "Criminal Hearts" and "Even Angels Fall."  Her guest appearances on multiple sitcoms -- "Murphy Brown," "Roseanne," "Friends," "That '70s Show," you name it -- have gained wide approval, partly for her willingness to kid her image. And then there was that series of Old Navy commercials and a stint last fall as a judge on a reality show called "He's a Lady."

But almost every time Fairchild pops up, whether on television or here in Wilmington on her way to Washington, on some level it's about sex. "Well, unfortunately, honey, that's the way they see me," she says good-naturedly.

Well -- yeah. But then there's a reason that's the way they see her.

She continues: "The business of Hollywood, if you don't have other things going on, it will eat you up and spit you out. . . . If you take what those people and that social structure think of you -- if you let it govern your life -- you might as well just kill yourself." She laughs. "And so -- I don't. I've always had all these other interests and, fortunately for me, I've always had a brain."

Her other interests include medicine -- she's been a voice of sanity on the AIDS front for years, pointing out early that it was a disease, not a plague from God. She also is fascinated by paleontology and foreign affairs. (She's appeared occasionally on "Nightline," "Hardball" and "The O'Reilly Factor," among others, to parse current events.) And once in a while those interests will dovetail with an acting job.

Take "Gospa," a 1995 feature set in Bosnia in which Fairchild played a nun -- just think about that for a minute -- with Martin Sheen and Michael York.

"Going to Bosnia and Croatia during the war to play a nun," she muses. "The movie was about Medjugorje, which is a Catholic pilgrimage place over there in Bosnia. [We were] losing sound takes to the shelling. . . . I like doing things that people don't expect me to do. Consequently, you know, for me, I've actually got a kind of interesting life."

The American ambassador was very hospitable, she says, and the two became friends. "I got to go into . . . Serb-held territory, and stuff like that, which is always kind of fun," she says. "And so one day I said, 'You know, if you're going anywhere that I would be allowed to go, a refugee camp or anything like that, I would love to go.' And he was very sweet and called up and said, 'Well, you know, I'm going over into this no-man's land today, there's a big meeting of generals and stuff, and we can go to a refugee camp, and I can show you a couple of cities.'"

So off they went to a bombed-out village.

"And this Polish U.N. guy comes over, and he speaks English -- 'Oh, Morgan Fairchild, we have your series in our country -- what are you doing here?' And all these press people, because it was a meeting of generals -- 'Morgan, what are you doing here?' "

She got a view of war that day that was both chilling and privileged, and it sounds far less safe than, say, facing an audience in Wilmington.

"This is the kind of stuff I like to do," she says. "So like a lot of the other actors, when we're in Zagreb, you know, they'll be at the casinos every night, and I'm hanging out with the war correspondents to find out what's really going on."    "So you may not have seen the movie. I had a good time making the movie because I learned a lot."

Fairchild has long enjoyed the friendship of political figures, scientists and journalists, and she can be outspoken on national affairs. During last year's election campaign, however, she was relatively muted. This is because at one point she dated John Kerry. It must have been a while back, because she's lived with producer Mark Seiler for more than 15 years.

"Long time ago," she allows quietly.  But don't ask her how long they saw each other. She won't say, and the laugh that follows doesn't entirely cover an edge in her voice.

The next topic is another of her un-favorites: On its biography page, the widely trafficked Internet Movie Database quotes something called Celebrity Sleuth magazine on the subject of her measurements -- before and after implants.

"Uh-huh," she says, sounding vaguely amused. "Uh-huh. I have no idea how they would ever know, and I have no comment."

Whatever. Fairchild is a smart lady who knows her way around the movie business, and she's found ways to survive.

"Maybe the hardest thing is that you -- the very thing that sort of made you famous, that people in some ways think you are . . . is the same thing that sort of traps you so that they won't let you come read for, you know, something you might like to do. . . . So it's a bit of a gilded cage. . . . It's nice to be thought of as attractive and all of that. On the other hand, it curtails you somewhat, too."

As an example, "They won't let me read for 'West Wing,' just to play, you know, a normal person. Or 'ER,' to play a doctor -- the things I'm actually good at. I mean, I'm pretty good on foreign policy -- they won't even let me come read for that. They don't think you look right. I'd come in and read with my hair in a bun and my glasses and stuff with no makeup on. It's Hollywood."

Yes, it's Hollywood and, she well knows, in some ways an actor is a commodity.

"When I've got all the makeup on and all the spit, polish and glue together, I look fine," she says. "But I know what I really look like, and I'm still that same little kid under there. I don't think I look that great. I think I did a good job of creating Morgan Fairchild." Big laugh. "But I created her." 

 

 

ONSTAGE: In 'The Graduate,' 
Fairchild proves she still has legs. 
And so does her career.
Jay Croft - Staff
Thursday, January 27, 2005


Photo Credit:  Jim Graham
SINCE HER DAYS as a '70s TV bombshell, Morgan Fairchild has worked steadily in nighttime soaps ("Flamingo Road," "Falcon Crest"), on countless guest spots and in a string of Old Navy commercials with savvy to match the sizzle. Some 25 years ago, when People magazine called her "too sexy for TV," Fairchild memorably quipped, "I'm this year's blonde and I have no intention of being last year's."

You can catch her this weekend in the flesh (literally --- she's starkers on stage in one scene) in "The Graduate," seducing the naive title character as the alcoholic, self-loathing Mrs. Robinson. Oscar-winner Anne Bancroft burned the role into Hollywood history in the iconic 1967 movie. Kathleen Turner (Fairchild's transsexual ex-husband on "Friends") introduced the nudity on Broadway two years ago. Fairchild, 54, called on a break from L.A.

You're a famous sex symbol and a woman of, as they say, a certain age. What's it like to expose yourself every night on stage?

Absolutely terrifying, honey. Absolutely terrifying. Every woman I know who's played this part, we've all tried to weasel out of it. But it's in the contract, so you have to do it. (Laughs.)

Are people being respectful or prurient?

Some of them are respectful, but when you look down and see the binoculars in the front row, you realize that some people are just there to check you out for wrinkles and cellulite.

Is Mrs. Robinson evil, misunderstood or just lonely? 

She's a little of all of the above. She doesn't see herself as evil. She would like to see herself as dangerous. I think she sees herself as a desperate housewife.

You've been around a long time. What's the secret?

I've been very, very fortunate. But also, I have a different attitude . . . every five years, you have to reintroduce yourself to a new audience. When Old Navy called, some of my lady friends in Beverly Hills said, "Oh, why are you doing that? You should be doing Neimann's or Saks," and I just said, "Do you know the target demographic for Old Navy stores? Thirteen-year-old boys. Do you know the target demographic for the networks? Thirteen-year-old boys."

Do you still get a discount?

(Laughs). No. I never even asked them for a discount. The clothes are not very expensive to begin with. Talk to me about Versace, and I'll ask for a discount.

 

A COMMAND PERFORMANCE
Put on your best show at the office, with a little help from some stage pros
The Dallas Morning News
November 21, 2004
by Nancy Churnin  

You're about to give a big presentation to your colleagues. You've got butterflies, a mouth drier than the Sahara and a flurry of self-doubts: What if someone puts down your ideas? What if your one opportunity to impress the boss goes horribly wrong?

That's the time to ask yourself what you have in common with Morgan Fairchild. The Texas-reared Hollywood celebrity, who has addressed crowds of half a million on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. was painfully shy growing up.

Ms. Fairchild went into acting because she couldn't stand in front of her fifth-grade class and give an oral book report.

"For three days, I stood there and nothing came out! I was mortified," she recalls. "My mother finally told me to ask myself one question, 'Who out there was I truly scared of?' Since there was no one individual I was afraid of, why should I be afraid of them all together? That made sense to me, and I was finally able to stand up there and bark out my report. But the upshot was that, after that, my mother made me start taking acting classes 'to bring me out a bit.' "

Here are tips from Ms. Fairchild on how to deal with hecklers.

After so many years in the public eye, Morgan Fairchild says she still felt "very vulnerable" about taking her clothes off to play Mrs. Robinson in the national tour of The Graduate that played at the Majestic Theatre in November. It was hard not to think about all those people in the audience "checking for wrinkles and cellulite," she says.

"For the nude scene, I just remember what my mom used to tell me when I was a kid starting out, 'Don't look like you want to rush offstage!'" She also used to say, 'Hold your head up high, throw your shoulders back and smile like an angel -- and you will own the room.'"

And she did just that. Her tips on public speaking:

* Speak to a crowd as if you were talking to two people you know well at lunch. Keep it conversational and moving along.

* Look a few in the audience directly in the eye now and then.

* Don't get bogged down in minutae.

* Don't lecture or talk down.

* Do compliment them for the dedication to the cause or issue that brought you all together. It's hard for people to dislike you when you've just told them how great they are.

 

Backstage with dresser Lucy Martinov
in Anchorage

 

HAIL TO THE CHIEF
What Would Morgan Fairchild Do If She Were Running for President?
The Dallas Morning News
Fri, 21 May 2004
REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS

Most politicians would give anything to have the name identification of actress Morgan Fairchild, 54, a Dallas native who graduated from Lake Highlands High School . Ms. Fairchild's roles have included nuns and kissable villains. In her personal life, she has dated Johnny Carson and presidential candidate John Kerry. Most recently, she has appeared in Old Navy ads and has taken comedic turns on Friends and That '70s Show, which booked her as a guest star this week. Here, in an interview with staff writer MichaelGranberry, is what candidate Fairchild said she would do:
    
   Why should we elect you?
    
   Because I'm the smartest blonde you're gonna get this year. And I clean up good.
    
   How would you raise money for your campaign?
    
   Sell all of my old evening gowns.
    
   Your campaign slogan?
    
   Red River or Bust.
    
   Top three campaign promises?
    
   No more deficit spending - except at Neiman's. No mullet haircuts - ever. And unlike some presidents, I think "nuance" is a good thing and very helpful in reaching out to allies. Plus, a kiss on the cheek.
    
   What would late-night comedians say about you?
    
   Well, I hope they would say what the editors at Esquire said a few years back: "Looks like a centerfold, sounds like a senator."
    
   Whom would you appoint to your Cabinet?
    
   I like Willie Nelson for secretary of agriculture. (We won't ask what he's cultivating.) ... Secretary of defense would be Bill Parcells because he is real good on defense. Go Cowboys!
    
   What would you legalize?
    
   I would legalize medicinal marijuana. And that's because of all the work I've done with AIDS patients over the years. It's the only thing that has helped them keep food down. It made a big difference in the quality of their lives.
    
   Name a reason to go to war.
    
   Attack, imminent threat or really bad fashion taste.
    
   What three objects must you have in the Oval Office?
    
   I'm not that attached to objects, so there's nothing I need to get by. I'm a true Texas woman - big hair, big eyelashes but a real frontier person underneath.
    
   Who would be your running mate?
    
   Ahnold - a true bipartisan ticket.
    
   If you could create a new department, what would it be?
    
   The Department of Ethics, which is something America seems to be losing sight of these days. Responsibility, accountability, telling the truth and doing the right thing.
    
   Your victory song?
    
   "Sympathy for the Devil."
    
   What would be your first act in office?
    
   Roll back any anti-choice legislation and give more funding to medical research and stem-cell research.
    
   What is most beautiful about America ?
    
   The Grand Canyon and a field of Texas bluebonnets.
    
   What's the one thing you would do to make America better?
    
   Write a new law that requires provocation before you invade a country.

 

Veteran Hollywood vixen 
takes on Mrs. Robinson

Kyle Lawson
The Arizona Republic
Nov. 7, 2004 12:00 AM 

 

If you've seen the pictures, you know the answer.

How does 54-year-old Morgan Fairchild feel about shedding her clothes in The Graduate, the latest attraction in Gammage Auditorium's Broadway in Arizona series?

Good.

Like Goldie Hawn, Susan Sarandon and others of her generation, Fairchild has kept it together - and then some. Glamorous, fit, dauntingly sexy, she seems to have tapped into Ponce de Leon's fabled Fountain of Youth.

It's fitting that Fairchild's latest role is as Mrs. Robinson, the quintessential "older woman" made legendary by Paul Simon's song and Anne Bancroft's performance in the 1967 film co-starring Dustin Hoffman and directed by Mike Nichols.

Born Patsy Ann McClenny in Dallas, Fairchild has been an icon of sophisticated elegance on television, from her start as Jennifer Pace on the daytime soap Search for Tomorrow - one of the first of the great afternoon soap vixens - to the prime-time hits Dallas and Falcon Crest. Most recently, she played Chandler's mom on Friends.

We caught up with the actress at the Tony Adolphus Hotel in Dallas, where she's staying while performing in The Graduate.

QUESTION: To start, can we settle a couple of trivia questions? Were you really Faye Dunaway's stand-in in Bonnie and Clyde, and do those legs on the famous film poster for The Graduate really belong to your Dallas co-star Linda Grey and not to Anne Bancroft?

ANSWER: Both true. Linda still has great legs, by the way.

Q: We'll find out if that's true of you. You're nude in The Graduate, aren't you?

A: Yes, I am. It was that or don't do the tour. The scene is brief and dimly lit. We've performed the show in the Bible Belt and, so far, no one's walked out. (Laughs) I think it's very brave of me.

Q: Any qualms?

A: Well, you know, it ain't where it used to be. Thirty people from my high school are coming to see me in Dallas. How's that for fear?

Q: Did you ever see yourself as Mrs. Robinson?

A: When the movie came out, I wanted to be Elaine, her daughter. It feels odd that, all these years later, I'm Mrs. Robinson. I find that I'm explaining the period to the other people in the show; even the director wasn't born in 1967. It was a different time, more naïve than now. It was just before the big emphasis on the pill, even before pantyhose. Lots of things we take for granted were still in the distance.

Q: What did you think of the character?

A: She was sort of puzzling to me. She seemed so hard. I wasn't sure why she wanted to seduce the young guy. That was much more scandalous then; it even makes headlines now. But do you know what's really funny? Dustin was 30 or so, too old to play the boy, and Anne wasn't much over 40, making her too young for Mrs. Robinson.

Q: The producers wanted Doris Day to play the part. Would that have worked?

A: I think so. It would have been a very different interpretation, but she was more versatile than she got a chance to show. They wanted Charles Grodin to play Benjamin (the Hoffman role). He held out for more money. I'm sure he's still kicking himself.

\Q: You've played some of the great scamps. Which was your favorite?

A: They were all fun for different reasons, but I really loved Racine (on Paper Dolls). She was such a smart-mouth, and so am I. But probably Mrs. Bing (on Friends) was the best. Wasn't she something? She'd say anything. Definitely different from any other mother on TV - and I loved having Kathleen Turner as my husband!

Q: You got your first break on Search for Tomorrow. A lot of performers put down the soaps, but you never have. Why?

A: Honey, I was grateful for the job. I had done theater, commercials and some low-budget films, but I had a family to support, and when I went to an audition, it was because I needed to get the job. Casting directors would always tell me that I was "too porcelain - we want real people and you don't look real." I originally auditioned for a three-day part on Search for Tomorrow. I didn't get it but they liked me and put me in as Jennifer and built up the role when they saw that I could handle it. Susan Lucci and I became the first great bitch goddesses of TV.

Q: One Internet biography describes you as the epitome of the elegant, successful businesswoman. What did your high-school yearbook predict?

A: I can't remember what it said - if it said anything. I was married when I was 17, which would have been my senior year. Acting came later, after the divorce. In high school, I was interested in medicine and paleontology. I have no regrets about the acting, though. Anything that scares the hell out of you is a good challenge to take.


Blues Central, Anchorage
The Graduate Grand Tour


 

 


 

Former ‘Falcon Crest’ vixen takes over ‘hot mom’ role in ‘The Graduate’
Chris Page
Tribune
November 7, 2004

Count on actress Morgan Fairchild to enter into every new phase of her career with a dollop of elegance, a sprinkle of sex and just a little bit of a wink.

The one-time diva of soap operas ("Falcon Crest," "Flamingo Road," "Search for Tomorrow") and ’90s-era Old Navy shill admits that, at 54, she’s getting more of a certain kind of part lately: Mom.

Specifically, she adds, the hot mom.

She played Chandler Bing’s mother on the NBC sitcom "Friends." Earlier this year, she played a mama in the indie comedy flick "Knuckle Sandwich."

And currently, she’s playing the überhot mom, Mrs. Robinson, in the touring production of "The Graduate" that opens Tuesday night at ASU’s Gammage Auditorium.

The play is based on the 1967 film, starring Anne Bancroft and Dustin Hoffman, about a young man named Benjamin who has an affair with an alcoholic married woman while falling in love with her daughter.

The Tribune spoke to Fairchild about her career, the touring play and the prospect of getting nude for what’s been "The Graduate’s" most hyped scene since Kathleen Turner opened the play in London four years ago.

Q: The play has really tried to expand the role of Mrs. Robinson, and because it’s the celebrity linchpin for the show, you’ve really got to have a depth in the role. What did you think when you accepted the gig, and what have you brought to it?
A: I haven’t seen the movie in 20 years, but I’m adding a lot of shades of gray here. I haven’t seen anyone else do it on tour, so I don’t know what they did. I’m told I get a lot more laughs than the others, but I’m going for more of the pathos, the anger. She’s an alcoholic, and alcoholics are not happy people deep down. She’s sardonic. I think she’s funny.

Q: Kathleen Turner played her big, with an almost insatiable appetite. You’ve defined your career, on TV especially, as a more graceful figure.
A: I love Kathleen, and I didn’t see her do it — and she is my husband on "Friends" — but the way I’m playing it, I’ve put a lot of layers into it for myself, so it’s much more up, over and out, so it’s not straight through after him. It might be more graceful, I don’t know. I gather I’m playing it in kinder and gentler ways with Benjamin. She’s not pouncing on him.

Q: How do you play the alcoholic side of her?
A: I’ve had a few alcoholics in my life, and I knew that they push the boundaries with people around them. When we opened in Fayetteville, and I came offstage, one of our dressers said, "My mother-in-law is just like that. You sound just like her. You scare me." (Laughs.) Mrs. Robinson isn’t falling down. She’s what you call a functional alcoholic.

Q: The play attempts to give a little more backstory to her and why she drinks.
A: The director was born in 1965. The novel and play take place in 1963. I was explaining to (the cast and company) that in the ’50s — this was before Ecstacy and before everyone was doing grass — the anesthetic of choice was barbiturates or martinis. People drank, but nice people weren’t alcoholics. People just drifted through their lives frustrated with the cookiecutter, assembly-line progression of life, the anathema of divorce. (Mrs. Robinson) is trapped in this marriage, and she’s drinking. She’s the trophy wife, the acceptable wife, the one who wears designer clothing and throws the best cocktail parties. She’s trapped and she’s sort of amusing herself. She watches the world go by and makes wisecracks.

Q: Let’s get right to the point that everyone wants to know. Are you, in fact, doing the nude scene? Some actresses have rankled at the prospect or have tried to do creative things with a towel.
A: Oh, honey, it’s in the contract. You don’t do this show without doing the nude scene. I tried to get out of it. But it’s very brief, and it’s tastefully done. And I’m told it’s exceedingly well lit. It’s one of the few times you’re looking for your dark spot instead of your light. (Laughs.) Thankfully, nobody’s walked out during that scene.

Q: How was it the first time?
A: I didn’t know how I was going to do it. I’d only had 10 days of rehearsal, and on the run-through Wednesday night before opening, the director said, "Do you want to take off your clothes for the scene?" and I said, "No"; he didn’t know how I worked. On opening night, I just took ’em off and went out there. The audience — they cheered. That really gives one hope. (Laughs.) They haven’t cheered since then. Now, they’re just quiet. You can hear a pin drop, which is frightening.

Q: Mrs. Robinson is such an archetype of the "hot mom." I guess younger people might be more familiar with the character of Stifler’s mom in "American Pie."
A: I was up for the "American Pie" mom before it went to Jennifer Coolidge. I just have the market cornered. (Laughs.) I’ve made a career of playing hot mamas, only now I’m doing it with younger men. (Laughs.)

Q: Tell me about the show’s Benjamin and daughter Elaine.
A: These kids are so much better than some of the young people I work with in Hollywood. They come in and make the show work. Nathan Corddry is Benjamin and Elaine is Winslow Corbett. They’re just so wonderful. I feel like I’m their mother. Nice kids.

Q: Tell me about how you’re recognized by folks nowadays. I’m sure there are going to be younger people in the audience who see you and go, "That’s the Old Navy lady!"
A: Different people remember different things. I’ve always tried to stay very current, with the Old Navy ads or (reality TV show) "He’s a Lady" on TBS. I always felt you have to reintroduce yourself to audiences every five years. When they first talked to me about doing Old Navy in 1996, some of my Beverly Hills lady friends were like, "How could you do that? It’s not Neiman Marcus." I said, "Honey, do you know who their target demographic is? It’s 13-year-old boys. I’ve got an audience who knows who I am — teenage boys — and they think I’m a babe and they don’t know how old I am." (Laughs.)

Q: So there’s a parallel between you and your character — aiming younger?
A: I guess so. There’s always a younger audience, and they’ll always be arbiters for what the television and movie studios will program to, and that’s something you have to realize in this business. Hey, I’m not 15. I can’t be Hilary Duff. But I can be Hilary Duff’s mother. And hopefully she’ll be a wisecracking, smart, sexy mother who’s fun to watch.

 

 
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