Love this Elaine Stritch interview – here’s a taste

The documentary Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me opens on February 21.

So that’s great for starters.

What’s also great is that to publicize the film, the Broadway legend and three-time Emmy winner is doing some interviews including a terrific one with Michael Musto for Out.com.

Miss Stritch, 89, left her beloved New York City to move back home to Michigan.

It’s been an adjustment: “Moving to my home town was a big move for me. I loved all the people I grew up with. For a kind of screwed up broad—I am a little screwed up, because I tried to get myself settled where I tried to feel happy, and the only place I did it in New York was on the stage. I was genuinely happy entertaining. I loved it. So to stop that was hard. But I discovered that I entertain every place I go. I can’t stop myself. I can’t end it. I love making people laugh or cry or do whatever they want to do. If you open your heart to somebody, it’s such a joyful feeling. But then, when I get off [stage], I forget what it was like. Where’s that feeling? And you can’t get it back. No one will ever know the joy of getting a laugh from an audience. It’s heaven.”

On giving up drinking: “Nothing to cry about. But I don’t want to talk about it anymore. It’s a boring subject. I’ve been on this side of it, the other side, and I’ve come out of it. That’s the way I feel about drinking—I loved it and I still do, but I don’t have a weakness where it’s overcome me. I’ve overcome it.”

On attraction to gay men: “I’ve been in love with a lot of gay men in my life—crazy about them–because the person was so attractive to me. And don’t tell me there aren’t many attractive gay men. You just named two—Noel Coward and Rock Hudson. Rock would have been happy to be in Noel’s company. He would have been cheered up. I’ve got a nephew that’s gay, and I love him. I wouldn’t change my opinion of him for a million bucks.”