It was for a sex scene in the 1970 film “Five Easy Pieces”; she still feels bad that her mom watched it.
Then there was the time when each of her fellow actors from the ’70s sitcom “All in the Family” won an Emmy award, but she did not.
Try going back to work the next day or week and not feeling a little strange about your absence of hardware.
If you think those were difficult career spells for the blond actress who’s gone from being a prime time TV star to being the spokeswoman for charitable organizations, Struthers has some news for you: Nothing, it seems, is quite as daunting as making your living on stage.
“Theater is not for sissies,” Struthers said by phone during a recent stop on the 50th anniversary tour of the classic American musical “Hello, Dolly!”
“I know a lot of actors who would never step a foot on the stage because it’s too hard. It’s really tough to learn an entire play, memorize all of the dialogue, all of songs and the blocking and choreography and then do it beginning to end without stopping. When you’re making a movie, you may only need to know two to five pages of dialogue a day. If you mess up, you can do retakes. With live theater, there is none of that; you are on your own. It’s exhilarating but it’s not for the faint of heart.”
Struthers should know.
Though she’s still best recognized for her role as Gloria Stivic, a liberal foil to her conservative pops Archie Bunker on “All in the Family,” Struthers has spent the better part of the past two decades on stage.
She’s done “Grease” and “Annie” on Broadway, played Mother Superior in a national tour of “Nunsense” and portrayed Mama Morton in a regional production of “Chicago.”
Her latest role comes as the lead in “Hello, Dolly!,” which will be performed tonight and Saturday at the Ferguson Center for the Arts in Newport News. It’s the first touring production of this iconic Broadway show in more than two decades, and it’s all because of the actress who’s still a little embarrassed about baring it all for Jack Nicholson.
“Hello, Dolly!” follows the exploits of Dolly Levi, a brassy turn-of-the-previous-century widowed matchmaker.
Despite several revivals on Broadway and countless regional productions, “Hello, Dolly!” has not been on a national tour since Carol Channing originated the lead role on Broadway nearly 50 years ago. That’s because Jerry Herman, the show’s lyricist and composer, didn’t think anyone other than Channing was up to the task of bringing Dolly back to a national audience.
Then he saw Struthers performing in a Los Angeles production of the musical “Mame.”
“He apparently liked my work, and we’ve since become good friends,” Struthers said. “‘Hello, Dolly!’ is classic American musical theater, and our producer, Dan Sher, felt a certain obligation to make this a really sterling production because of the 50th anniversary. You just can’t go out there with shoddy costumes and used sets. You build everything new and make it over-the-top so it’s extra delicious for the audience, and I think that’s what we’ve done.”
In recent years, Struthers has divided her frequent stage work with television roles, notably as Babette Dell, the raspy-voiced, cat-loving neighbor on “The Gilmore Girls.”
She’s also provided her distinct voice to animated shows like “American Dad.”
Even though she’s moved well past it, Struthers can’t shake the connection to that role as Archie Bunker’s little girl.
The actress may not have won that Emmy in the same year as her co-stars, but she did win two Emmy trophies for her portrayal of Gloria.
And while critics and historians laud the show for its groundbreaking depiction of racism, homosexuality and women’s rights, Struthers’ recollection of the show is more personal.
“It’s the laughter that has stuck with me more than anything else,” she said. “In rehearsal we would laugh as loud as the audience would later. The script girl actually had to time our laughter so the writers would know how much dialogue they had to cut when we taped the show. It was just constant laughter in my life for eight solid years. That’s my lasting impression of ‘All in the Family.’ ”
The live studio audience also proved to be an effective training ground for Struthers’ future theater work.
“I don’t know that there are too many shows that do that anymore, but ‘All in the Family’ was done in front of not one, but two live audiences a week,” Struthers said. “We would tape at 5:30 for one audience, break for dinner, and then tape in front of another audience at 8. Then the best moments were edited together. If you watch an episode of ‘All in the Family,’ you can tell it’s in front of a live audience, because you can see the actors hold for the laughter. When the laughter is piped in later, you can tell because the actors keep talking, there’s no natural pause.”
She has a hard time in scenarios without an audience, or one that has been instructed to exist in silence.
“I don’t know how someone like Jim Carrey can do it,” she said of the actor’s film work. “He has to work in a comedy vacuum. He could be hilarious and the crew isn’t allowed to make a noise, let alone laugh. That’s really hard. I can’t think of anything more uncomfortable. Live theater is a blessing for those of us that make our living being funny, because we get immediate reaction. That feels so good, like you’re floating about four inches above the stage floor.”
If that’s true, then Struthers must be levitating these days.
Since opening last month, “Hello, Dolly!” has earned rave reviews, and critics have been particularly effusive about her performance in the lead role.
“I am just delighted,” she said. “You know, Hollywood tells us females that at age 40 we ought to hang it up, so to be out here leading a company at 66 years old and getting these glowing reviews feels like I’ve died and gone to heaven.”
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