Patti LuPone Gave Her Thoughts On “Cats” And Barbra Streisand As Mama Rose On “Watch What Happens Live”
Here’s an easy one: What do Broadway legend Patti LuPone and professional shit-stirrer Andy Cohen have in common?
Answer: Both their Suns are in DRAMA, and their Moons are in SHADE.
This is why I never miss Patti on Watch What Happens Live!
Since recent corona-recoverer Andy knows La LuPone is afflicted by the same curse as Jim Carrey in Liar Liar, he can ask her whatever “messy” (hey, Lil’ Kim and Titus Burgess’ word, not mine) questions he wants and receive golden truth nuggets!
Here’s what went down this on this episode of Patti Talks Shit On WWHL. Andy got drag queen Alyssa Edwards to pop in remotely and ask Patti probing questions in a game called “The Shady Lady Who Lunches!” In that game Patti got to share her opinions on Sam Mendes picking Bernadette Peters over her for the lead in the 2003 Gypsy revival (she received a “very cold note” from him), and also on that sad sack jerk Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats flopping at the box office:
I saw it originally in London and hated it, and so I’m not surprised that it bombed onscreen.
In another game called “Holly-Would You Tell Me” (same “game”, except with no Alyssa), we got even more Peabody Award-winning sound bites.
She discussed her decades-long “feud” with Glenn Close, which began when Patti, who originated the role of Norma Desmond in ALW’s Sunset Boulevard in London, found out that she was fired from the Broadway production and replaced with Glenn, who played Norma in the Los Angeles production. A few years ago it was reported the two were seen out for drinks, but Patti says:
Well, that’s a very long story, because we didn’t grab drinks, she crashed our table. It was put in the paper the wrong way. I was out with Jon Hamm, and Andrew Rannells, we were sitting together. It was fun, and Glenn came and sat next to Jon Hamm. That’s what that was about. And I said to him, if you fuck her, I’ll never speak to you again!
And according to Patti, if 78-year-old Barbra Streisand plays Mama Rose in a Gypsy film adaptation, she better call The Irishman’s special effects guy:
I think maybe fifty years ago, she would have been a brilliant Madame Rose. I think she’s too old. But again, there’s technology to change all that, but I don’t know whether mentally she is… has that kind of… hunger.
Then Alyssa returned to ask more questions in a questionably similar drinking game called “Patti LupOwn Your Truth.”
In this one, she admitted to getting dragged out of Prince’s nightclub by bouncers for screaming “colorful language”, going on a double date with Robert DeNiro, Harvey Keitel, and Ellen Greene, and trashing her dressing room after being fired from Sunset Boulevard:
It was in Liz Smith’s column that I’d been fired, so I started to scream and cry cuz I was at the theatre ready to go on, and I took a floor lamp and I used it as batting practice. And I smashed up my waiting area and then took the floor lamp and threw it out of the second floor window.
Then she capped everything off by admitting she had crabs twice. A thrilled Andy said, “I feel like everyone in New York in the eighties and nineties had it at least once”, to which Patti replied, “How bout the seventies?!”
The last time Patti was on WWHL, she gave us the reeeally good shit when asked about Madonna starring in the movie version of Evita (a role Patti played in the original Broadway run). She said Madge was a “movie killer” who’s “dead behind the eyes”. Never one to forget iconic bitchery, Andy tried to bait Patti into slagging off some more actors in a game called “Are! They! A Movie Killer!?” But this time Patti kept it positive, complimenting Renee Zellweger, Cher, JLo, and even Lindsay Lohan. The closest she got to shade was when she said she didn’t think she’d ever seen a Christina Aguilera movie. But that’s just facts! If you haven’t seen Burlesque, you haven’t seen Burlesque. And you would remember if you’d seen the modern Cher-classic Burlesque.
Pic: YouTube