Elizabeth Ashley | Louisiana Legends

major funding for this production is provided by American Bank of Lafayette the financial choice of the 80s additional funding provided by the Friends of LPB [Music] the day president john f kennedy was murdered in dallas her picture is on the cover of Life magazine the caption said she was Broadway's newest and brightest actress the year before she'd won a Tony Award for taker she's mine and now she was starring in a play with the young actor named Robert Redford backward in the pork which Neil Simon had written just for her it was the biggest hit New York she was starring in a movie the carpetbagger and it made millions she was 22 and she had what all of us all we don't even dare aspire to it and if we do we keep it a great big secret within ourselves she ended that week in a psychiatric hospital so much for dreams and and and dreams had come true ladies and gentlemen meet the very great American actress from Baton Rouge Louisiana Elizabeth Ashley hiya hiya boy my life sounds dramatic when you put it like that but it's all the truth isn't it yes but then I mean there are truths and throughs I mean those are some of the facts and facts very rarely tell you the truth I mean basically it's like algebra you know I mean what does pi r-squared really mean you know well let's try and weave our way in between facts reality truth and and and maybe even some fiction which will probably the best parts of all you moved with the Baton Rouge when you were four and departed there in 1958 yes you went to do brach Elementary yes it is me yes the first interesting thing that I found in the vast biographical information that we have on you was that at University High which you attended to whom you never won a school play I found that so interesting well be they didn't have many school buddy they had like the senior play no they did like once a year yeah and I was in that but I had a non-speaking part I was I played it was you can't take it with you the coffin plane I played SC the ballerina but it was a cut version they do for high schools it's all I had to do is do you know sort of bubble around in my tutu and sort of looked terribly cute and not say anything you went to LSU first semester look it's about you see I went to high school directly across the street yeah from fraternity row at LSU so I've been working LSU for like five six years is only as old news already now I think that your final exam at LSU is a part of war please tell me whether or not it's true here's a story your final exam well here's here's the story that is in some of them I know I know oh I know just go ahead you're exactly right one rectory and there's a famous story of next to an aspiring literary lion when you are in college your final exam in bioscience and you arrived with a copy of then bestseller Peyton Place my grace metallus you read through the test you scrawled Elizabeth and Cole across the examination and you're headed for New York true or false what do I read Peyton Place well I just sit there doing the exam no you get to New York what's it like had you ever been in New York northern Georgia so what was it like to get from Baton Rouge and and good old good wood Avenue where I lived what was it like to get to New York well Jeff aren't $35 something like that I think I had well I had I had a real I had three hundred and sixty-seven dollars that I had made but working in the summers and I bought my plane ticket and that's what I had whatever was left from that and it was the milk run you know that fight that left he was like midnight or something and I mean I'll show you how green I was because I mean I got on the epic was all this great adventure you know and I I when they got before you land you know in the the stewardess owner says all right we're going to be landing in Newark they didn't understand but I wanted to go to New York oh I've never seen snow until I got off the every was February the 8th 1958 and I got off the everything it was but you see it that's I remember that that it was a television program it was a quiz show that was cute with like was it the $64,000 question something and there was a doctor I think her south Louisiana who was a veterinarian that's winning and when he he was on the same plane with me and so he was talking to me and I mean I mean so I mean I I'm you know I was leaving home I was going to New York City and I mean I was kind of Ruby the wannabe CA it was gonna be terrific I was gonna look for a job and so he was I look back now I know he was terribly amused really but he was terribly kind and so then then two or three nights later he said he was gonna be on this quiz show and why didn't I come and watch it like sitting in the audience in like that and so I did I got gave him my number at the water Bushido and and the eddy called in and he sent that out car for me and I went to the jail and my mother my mother never could over that because that was like everybody in the world watched the program in Louisiana they particularly watch the course man was winning all this money and I remember somebody know my mother didn't watch television that's right and the neighbor miss Allen called her up I said Lucille you're not gonna believe this Lizzie's on TV my mom's did you are you crazy you're crazy she's probably in jail they said no come on over here she's gonna remember this is she almost died because you weren't there was let me ask you a question what would and this is jumping way ahead because we haven't told the story of your monumental what would you have done if you hadn't made it in New York suppose that what did you want to do I wanted to be an adventure as I wanted to find out everything wicked and and perverse and even I wanted to be like the heroine in the Hemingway novel and I mean I was gonna find out what all that stuff was that I was gonna do it as fast as I could I mean I was going to so success was not one of your goals not in that no no no escape and adventure and somehow getting to Shanghai like Marlena Dietrich in an old movie that was that was basically sort of you were you found a job as a designers model and this is interesting you founded by thumbing through the yellow pages isn't that more or less there was I worked my mother sort of ran the Agriculture Department in Louisiana for years and years because she was the administrative assistant of the Commissioner of Agriculture and that's a political jobs abandon you know so but my mother was the one constant I mean she was the only person the farmers but dogs ooh well I got about 25 years and so in the summer I made money like filing the brucellosis reports and I mean God some heavy orc some of those farmers had dead cows that never got reported to the feds because I mean I just I didn't give a good file but I why was I telling you that we were tell me how you became a model oh well I but I knew how to type a little and I could file so I went to the the I looked at employment agencies right and I call them and you got beside the paper on and I went to this employment agency and you said I what a job as a typist or fireless or you're filing and they looked at me they realized that that probably was not my strong card she said look why don't I send you because they you could probably be a model and I've got modeled in Baton Rouge and I was sort of a tall thin peculiar-looking size 5 and the when I say designers model it sounds quite a bit better than it wasn't mean that's the that's the lowest that there is it means that you are the meet in that you are at like these not we're done talking about we're not talking about your Bill Blass or your Calvin Klein here we're talking about like Jonathan Logan it was sort of like a low price sort of junior dresses and the people the the so-called designers have to have a live person that they actually make it on right and anything you march around in those clothes in front of the buyers and that that's what I did but so I got the job because they sent me to the they just happened to have lost the girls it had to do with with the size that I was not anything else all right so you go aspiring to be a adventures and you're a model now at the bottom end of the scale how do you get your theatre well I I think probably subliminally without admitting it I mean like every other American girl you know I mean you want to be a movie star whatever that is we don't even really know what that is now with the sort of media explosion the exploitation of every aspect of that it has no mystique anymore it's still all lies the public has never given a shred of truth about what it what that racket really is but it's it doesn't have the mystique or the kind of whether there was always that kind of ephemeral he didn't he didn't mean necessarily it wasn't just being an actress something it meant I don't know quite what it meant but but I had I mean I've been always been sort of such a failure I mean I was I was I mean I was the one that did they they always shook their head and said you if that girl just apply herself I mean she might be able to do something you know but so I never I didn't have the kind of confidence where I could say I want to do this or with that I mean I was just I just wanted to uh get out of town you know probably a criminal was probably in jail in jail hmm second-story woman no I've been asked a forger scam King you lived in you lived in a fifth floor walk-up with some other sparring actresses many times bathtub was in the kitchen John was down the hall pretty rough living huh I mean I thought it was great there was and I had no idea that it was not the best thing in the world because it was just like all those books then I'd always read no as long as my life was like some dumb novel I'd read then it was just fine by me and that but I'll never forget there's another girl from Baton Rouge from LSU who came up right I mean like after I was there for a few months she came to New York to write I mean she took one look at the peanut butter and the and the bread and the drawer right in the bathroom at the kitchen and she went right back home to Daddy got married within two months and I've never heard from her again so that I figured that maybe everybody to think this was so swell you also got a job on a television show and and I think that your title was wonderful you were quote the chiffon light pudding and pie filling girl right bill Cullen was the host of the show yes nice car wonderful man seems to be a dear man he was so I mean I never knew him terribly well because in those days believe it or not television was live and commercials were alive you know and so I had to be there like what was it couple times a week and dance around in my tutu and with these pies I must tell you that it was ready to expose that title so that you proper now you waited on tables you did some singing in the village yes and this you were able to attend the Neighborhood Playhouse you see when I was a model I mean I immediately got to know the other the other models and they were very streetwise sort of you or one of them was a Scandinavian woman who is married to a black man I thought that was most fascinating me and we could oh it was just thing is they'd always told me the Yankees did they did it was wonderful ever heard anybody said if there's ever been a Republican you know I know it's where they said it out loud I could believe three of them not see more than that my dear they're even a few to be found in Louisiana I'm ashamed anyway I mean but I'm the granddaughter of a Dixiecrat so there you go but what did you ask all right we were talking about Neighborhood Playhouse oh well they they let me know that I could make a lot more money in television commercials if I could talk you see and I had a very uh sort of heavy Louisiana accent that was you know sort of part tracker but goodness and so I it was so I I so this friend of mine was a painter it's guy that I've gotten to know because he was a teacher at a college where he was at NYU and I was in the village I used to hang around NYU a lot and I got to know him and I think he he sort of we kind of barely knew more about who I was than I did and he said well he said you should usually take some speech classes and you because because I think down deep I wanted to go for it but I had no idea and I couldn't admit it couldn't admit it you know so I it's the best Drama School in America I mean it always has been and it's got that reputation and I mean they have thousands and thousands of people that apply it's a two-year school you're not allowed to work professionally while you're in the school it's a it's a college accredited but it's an all day everyday you go and they only accept I think seventy-five people into the first year they only asked 25 of those people back to the second year and they do not audition you because auditions are foolish particularly they didn't want people that have done a lot of community theater or people that had graduated from university drama departments because their attitude was we just have to then they have to unlearn all this junk that they've been taught to to begin to learn anything that's useful in the professional theatre and so they wanted people that were right out of they were like out of high school and that had not had a lot of experience you know and so they you had you have a series of interviews had three interviews of course you lie these you must understand you have to not only be able to pay your tuition you have to be able to support yourself without a job because you will not have time to have oh absolutely asked you I mean I please I mean I worked I would to school all day and I worked waiting on tables some four o'clock in the morning and I mean but yes I was accepted into the Neighborhood Playhouse and I think that was probably the first time in my life I ever had any feeling that was conscious I belong here me boy have I found my turf you know he's the first day I walked in there it was like I mean I didn't think I'd be accepted I mean I swear it is right and when I got the letter that said I was I just couldn't believe it and when I walked in there the first day it was like it was the first time that I wasn't the peculiar one the alien one the crazy one I mean everybody else's was peculiar and crazy as I was it was just wonderful I mean and also it was very I mean there's no room for democracy in our to thank God but that was the first time that I've experienced that because I mean there was no no gesture during me think they said it was like they tell you like in medical school or whatever they say you know very good we walk in and Dave David Pressman had written on this board this huge board acting is not not as in capital letters an underlined three times it is not feeling believing or thinking and acting is behavior it is doing and he walked in and he said I'm gonna leave you here for a couple hours you all said I want you to memorize that to where it'll be your dying words and then he walked out what a beginning he's wonderful uh you know in all the early interviews that we researched after you had begin to establish yourself in the theater you you always said I don't even know if you're aware of this in every interview and we we must have collected 50 of them for this interview today you said I'm not the girl next door and you said it almost in in declamation in protest and explanation I suspect you've spent a lot of time explaining yourself to yourself and to the world at large and the people who are interested in in successful people like you I think I finally had to justify myself a lot of my life you know because people you know I mean I've had a lifetime of people saying you know why are you the way you are and in music what way am i that I mean what the what's the problem you know and this is why I mean I mean I mean I've always I've always been to something you know I mean that's how that's been true all my life because I had to justify and explain myself a lot and in so doing you wind up explaining yourself for yourself probably let me ask you a movie star question word of honor it's the only one I'll ask but I'm not a movie star but I've got to I think you'll understand when I when I what's it like when you advise ladies to marry movie stars you've been directed to famous movie James Fantino and George performed way depends I mean what kind of woman you're talking about well we view a woman that is a very nurturing woman if you're basically a mother and you have no ego whatsoever you have no pride at all and you want to be you you want to never really be rich but live like you're terribly wealthy and and and take care of an adult who if you want to be a mother all your life and and be treated like the furniture by everyone like by all his business associates and you won't ever know anyone else but his business associates except for the other women whose career is shopping and lunch fine Mary movie star goodness sakes encouraging a long time you changed your name from Elizabeth Cole to Elizabeth Ashley for what must sound like very unique reasons but really boards not my choice and well it was so simple the reason why the Actors Equity the trade union already had an Elizabeth Cole you stand there you say but it's my name was that a trauma to change your name it was a shock that was and I was gonna take my mother's maiden name which was air a ye are there 13 Elizabeth aired and and show you said how wonderful it all is are on your own ego my agents were see me he said no no no we've got another client named Ellen air she looks just like you she's exactly like you and I'm get you mixed up you far participated in some things outside of the theater for example mainly you've been an activist you campaign for Eugene I was we would you say no I did not gain baby gene because some of the material I had had you can't be from McCarthy and for George McGovern they're both fairly fonder you are dealing with here please no no I I was a very drawn to sort of radical activist movements and I mean I worked for snick before they threw the hunkies out you know and simply I help them with maps and roads because that was the summer they wouldn't come to Mississippi and teach the the button because there was that Mississippi of illiteracy testing is the entity teach people to read it write well enough to pass that literacy test and that was a huge movement and I'll tell you something I never in my life and I grew up a southerner I mean I grew up with the Confederate flag and I still have one flying over my house in the Caribbean and I I never saw rampant mean vulgar racism until I saw some of those some some of those young person's from Columbia University in New York City who are going to come down to the south and show us what to do interesting oh right question what actresses work do you admire oh so many do you like I mean you would be such an authority you're a great actor so it was working you're like well my onstage my heroine I mean my great heroine very people have probably heard of it was never seen Kim Stanley who was the most powerful the most powerful woman I ever saw in this stage and she was like the female Marlon Brando they were both of the edge of studio at the same time and with any great artist I think madness ingeniously like a horse race that a neck-and-neck and sometimes madness wins although Kim Stanley stopped acting for like a long time and but now she she worked again she played like Frances farmers mother in the film of Francis and maybe she did a film called the goddess there was a little black and white movie that was made in the late 50s or early 60s that is a classic I mean it is it was things you'll ever see and I meet Marlon Brando you reaiiy schmitt actresses but every moment Brando is the man mama brenda was the spectrum cuz Marlon Brando as an actor as an artist as his life as well as his work is he was respected for for people of my generation but Katharine Hepburn I mean is I admired I admired her act I think I mean I like her compared to her I probably tried to emulate her in some ways because it because I emotionally and very empathetic and also I mean I had a couple of very funny situations with her which I adored but I thought Lynne Fontanne whom I saw in the visit I mean and that was that was just it was so pretty but I mean my generation has so many I mean just just wonderful actors I mean I mean I mean you start you start with with with with Jane Fonda I mean people think it's me it's much easier to act on film than on the stage and that's not true at all it not at all it for me it's much more difficult I mean there I mean the names would just be endless fun things of one's friends as an actress in Brenda Vaccaro who I went to drama school with who you also remind me of same quality boy the saddest words in bliss you know it's just it's any roles that you would like to play that you haven't played many many many of course but I mean would you would you be like in terms of anything that you'd really like to sink your teeth into of course I mean but there are things it's like it's a time for time I think that it's very hard to be a I hate the term serious actors okay I hate that term but it's it's difficult in this in this country because we don't have a system for it's discouraged if anything and the only people that usually live like that of the people that are living that way by default because they didn't succeed anywhere else and I mean they didn't get a series and they're not in the movies and so that they wind up in rap or something but in its it's like I think that in the long haul there's certain roles that you have to play at certain times in your life if you want to continue to have credibility there's usually like seven of them I mean I I think I have it Lady Macbeth in my future I have to do streetcar because I swore to Tennessee that I would I mean Tennessee would not die until he Jimmy got that you are the ultimate Maggie the cat and I would have like Amanda Wingfield very much I want to play that wouldn't the in in mourning becomes a lecture I want to play the mother in in that play I want to I mean that like that you know you've been in this current tour Agnes of going to be the madwoman of Chaillot she okay you've been in this a current tour since August yes what's it like to live on the road and every night you know in different cities go out on a stage and be someone else right I'd rather be on the road than anywhere I mean I am by nature nomadic and I get very uncomfortable if I have to be in any one place too long I mean that's what I don't like about being on Broadway because you're nail glue here and hit your nail there everybody knows where you are it's in the newspaper every day that you know the end and that people know where to find you and I the best thing I do is leave I leave town better you shouldn't live on a boat what I'm when I'm living my other life I do well you see I did for quite a long time when I fired fire my like the reviews I fired my living I moved to the Caribbean but and I mean and I live there the way I ran out of money and I've come back good work and but since I've been back working the Great American warriors of the Lord have decided that they're going to save the Caribbean from itself in the minute the warriors the Lord or people from Saturday Night Live or Interpol show up any place me down and so I have to find another ocean where do you think you're going I want to take about five years and I want you sometime gonna have to blog my way into the change of China but I want to sail down the Pearl River come out into the China Sea and you sail around like like like India all of that and then you come down the east coast of Africa now when you do these things surely you must miss the audience not at being Liz Ashley or doors like me or interviewing you some of that must you I'm terribly fortunate I don't miss it ever I love an amenity I not comfortable with I'm not comfortable with with celebrity celebrity it's a ticket you know Fame see I always up fame would be great because I just assumed that if you got famous you got rich yeah well old contraire you know I mean how do I get so famous and any money you know me it's like Fame is it's a ticket to ride I mean you have to have enough of it it's currency in this business if you want to continue to work you have to I mean they they say in the business that if somebody is 35 and you've never heard of them there's a reason you know there are no great undiscovered stars there may be talent but talent is cheap you know it's all the rest of it that makes it happen and so that's probably true I don't like to admit it but it's probably true and it's because there's a great the talent talent is not unique talent is not hard to find but it's it's hunger and discipline and regime and madness and imagination and it's all the rest of it that that it's it's the the the the cantilever under Talent that is is what will will make it happen and if I it's so hard to explain I think I had so much of that when I was very young and it turned I felt that it did it sure wasn't what it was cracked up to be asked Freddie Prinze anyway I mean that literally will not apologize for that because they that's an absolute metaphor for what I mean it's it is such it's such a dangerous thing for one character for one's humanity for one's spiritual life that that if that it's like it's five minutes of fun for a lifetime of hell you know we've run out of time ladies and gentlemen she entered the room like a blazing house and the fires blazed this entire 28 minutes you've just spent I think some fast date time with the great American actress out of Baton Rouge Louisiana Elizabeth Ashley thank you this thank you [Music] major funding for this production is provided by American Bank of Lafayette the financial choice of the 80s additional funding provided by the Friends of LPB

Channel: Louisiana Public Broadcasting

Views: 3,105

Rating: 4.7647057 out of 5

Keywords: Elizabeth Ashley, Louisiana Legends, Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theatre

Id: YbyDkaFJwXI

Length: 28min 40sec (1720 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 21 2019