Kathleen Turner Isn’t Just a Movie Star
Kathleen Turner has one of the most recognizable voices in show business: deep, booming, gallivanting between American and British pronunciations, raspy as a cheese grater. When it comes to singing, her stentorian timbre technically makes her a baritone. “By the time I got to high school,” she said one recent Tuesday afternoon, holding court at a back table at Joe Allen, in the theatre district, “the musical director put me in with the boys, which was fantastic.” The sixty-seven-year-old actress had ventured to midtown—begrudgingly—from her roost in Tribeca to grab lunch before heading to Town Hall, where, on December 16th, she will put on a one-night-only command performance of her cabaret act, “Finding My Voice.” In the show, Turner croons such standards as “I’d Rather Be Sailing” and “Sweet Kentucky Ham,” and recounts bawdy, behind-the-scrim stories from a life on the stage. Sometimes she’ll even throw in a curse word—or ten.
Turner—who was in head-to-toe black, including New Balance sneakers—is the sort of woman who dresses simply but accessorizes with decadent bling. Her milky-blue jade ring and gleaming earrings were the work of the jewelry designer Helen Woodhull, who died in 2005. “I collect her,” Turner said. “For three of my Broadway plays—‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ and ‘Indiscretions’ and ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’—we designed pins for the original cast. And then we’d break the mold so no one else could ever have it again. That was when I was rich.”
Turner poked at her chopped salad. “The most reliable thing here is the burger,” she said. “But, well, you know.” As she was about to try another forkful, the actor Reed Birney, also sixty-seven, with a downy puff of silver hair, swanned over. “Kathleen!” he cried. “How are you?”
“Reed and I did our first Broadway show together,” Turner said, extending her hand.
“We did ‘Gemini’ together, playing brother and sister,” Birney said.
“1978,” Turner added.
“We’re still here,” Birney said.
“We’re still here, honey,” Turner said. “Still workin’. We did good.”
As she prepared to leave for the theatre, for a walk-through to check lighting, she reflected on several things that annoy her: when a movie star like Meryl Streep steps into a stage actor’s signature part for a film (“I think Meryl’s great, but I do mind that she takes roles,” she said of Streep’s film “Doubt.” “Cherry Jones should have had that film”), young agents (“I flew out to L.A. and sat in a room full of twentysomethings telling me how wonderful I am, and one guy says, ‘By the way, what have you done?’ ”), and people who try to butt into her act (“One night when we were at the Carlyle, this guy in the audience started singing right along with me. The next one was coming up, and I said, ‘Excuse me, sir, do you know this one?’ He went, ‘No.’ And I went . . . ‘Good ’ ”).
A person who does not annoy Turner: her hairdresser of forty-some years, Joseph Piazza. “He now lives in New Jersey, so I take the ferry to see him,” she said. Piazza is the reason she started singing professionally. He also cuts the hair of her director, Andy Gale. A few years back, Piazza and Gale discussed Gale’s collaborating with Turner on a musical project. “I happen to have perfect pitch,” Turner said.
At Town Hall, Turner joined Gale, a compact man in gray chinos with a short white beard and wire-framed glasses. “How do we get onstage?” she bellowed, eventually finding her way. As the two stood on the edge of the stage, Gale said, “This place was built in 1921 by suffragists, and Margaret Sanger was on this stage at the beginning of what became Planned Parenthood.” He explained that the suffragists had wanted no box seats.
“If women ran the world, I swear to God it would be better,” Turner said.
Gale said, “You’re running this!”
Turner didn’t care for the positioning of the spotlight. “It’s a very severe angle,” she said. “I wonder if we could put a spot down the center?” She moved around, marking out the positions of the grand piano, the bass player, and her guitarist. On the night of the show, she will wear a “midnight-blue tunic and flowing pants” (she had first asked her designer for “heavy, heavy silk pajamas”) and sing near a vase of red roses.
“It’s really a classy show,” Gale said.
The roses, Turner said, are a nod to one of her most beloved traditions. “When you open in a show, your dressing room looks like a funeral parlor,” she said. “So many bouquets. By two weeks, they’re all dead. I like having roses. Always. So every week I have a standing order for two dozen roses for my dressing room. Because I have seen no reason to wait for someone to give me some.” ♦
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Kathleen Turner Isn’t Just a Movie Star - The New Yorker
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