Where There’s a Wilson, There’s a Way

"People see me on the street and they think they recognize me, but they really don’t know who I am," says Elizabeth Wilson, whose Broadway credits include Picnic and The Desk Set in the ’50s, The Little Foxes in the ’60s, Sticks and Bones (for which she won a Tony) in the ’70s, Morning’s at Seven (for which she should have won a Tony) in the ’80s, and A Delicate Balance and Waiting in the Wings in the ’90s, the last-named production stretching into 2000. Now, she’s in two one-act plays, The 75th by Israel Horovitz and The Vibrator by Arthur Laurents, being presented under the collective title Double Play at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, NJ. That’s where I spoke with Wilson last week.

Of course, most of America probably saw her in some of her many films: Picnic, wherein she was one of the few cast members that director Joshua Logan retained from the stage production; The Graduate, in which she played the title character’s mother, cackling with triumph and glee after Benjamin announced he was marrying someone of whom she approved; Nine to Five, with Wilson as Dabney Coleman’s executive assistant; and The Addams Family, in which she appeared as Fester’s mother.

Still, she’s not a household name and she knows it, even though she could be said to have a face known in many households. As she explains, "They say, ‘Who are you? Did you teach my daughter? Do you go to my church? I know you, but who are you?" Wilson gives an indulgent smile. "Part of it, I know, is that the name Elizabeth Wilson is too bland. I’ve been told I should have got myself a more memorable name — like Swoosie Kurtz. But I was very proud of my name and my family, so I always said, ‘No, thank you.’ This was years ago, at the same time when talent scouts were offering me contracts — but they said, ‘You have to fix your nose because it’s too big. You have to break your jaw because your mouth is crooked. You have to change your forehead because it’s too low.’ And all the while, I thought, ‘I don’t think so.’"

Now, here she is at 81, starring with Tom Aldredge from Sticks and Bones. "We still remember how they booed us [in that show]," she says, "because it was a play about people in denial of the Vietnam War, which a lot of our audience was, too." Here at George Street, she and Aldredge are the entire cast for the two one-acters. Does Wilson miss the camaraderie of the many ladies she worked with in such female-cast-heavy shows as The Desk Set and Waiting in the Wings? "Depends on the ladies," she says through mock-gritted teeth before issuing a laugh. When asked her favorites, she immediately lists Colleen Dewhurst (Ah, Wilderness in 1988) and Kim Stanley (Picnic) before expounding on Eileen Heckart in Picnic. ("She was wonderful. When Roz Russell got her part in the movie, she was so disappointed, but Josh Logan said he’d make it up to her and eventually gave Heckie the movie of Bus Stop.") She also goes on about Maureen Stapleton, with whom she co-starred in the short-lived The Secret Affairs of Mildred Wild ("There was a glow when she performed, one with color and heat — she was that focused") and for whom she stood by in Plaza Suite in 1969.

"I did that for reasons I won’t mention," she says, then makes a what-the-hell gesture with her hand. "I had a crush on someone in the cast. Then Maureen went off to do a TV show, just at the same time E.G. Marshall came in for George Scott. We played it for a month — I had rehearsed it a lot — but Doc Simon owed Barbara Baxley a favor and
said he wanted her to play the part. I was heartbrokenm and E.G. did the most brave and heroic thing: He quit over it. Barbara didn’t have enough time to rehearse and I do believe that Doc Simon was sorry he did it."

I’ll bet he was, too, for one day Wilson received a phone call in which she was asked if she would be available to assume Irene Worth’s role in Lost in Yonkers. Says David Saint, who’s directing her now in Double Play and who sat in on our interview, "I remember Liz telling me that they offered it to her and she said, ‘I just don’t want to be that mean in the summertime.’"

"They didn’t offer it to me, darling," Wilson gently chides him. "They just called to see if I was interested. But they wanted me to read and I had cataracts at the time; I just couldn’t read at all." (Wilson doesn’t aggrandize herself. When The Addams Family comes up, I say, "Raul Julia was also with you in Threepenny Opera," and she immediately corrects me: "No, I was with him.")

When I ask what she considers to have been the highlights of her long career, she brings up Big Fish, Little Fish, Hugh Wheeler’s 1961 play that ran all of three months, despite being directed by John Gielgud and having Jason Robards, Hume Cronyn, and George Grizzard in the cast. "I was doing a TV show at the time and called during a break to see if I got the part," she relates. "When they told me I had it, I thought, ‘This little girl from Grand Rapids has arrived!"

Actually, Big Fish Little Fish was an important building block in her career for another reason. One Sunday night, during an Actors’ Fund benefit performance, Mike Nichols and Elaine May came to see the show on their night off from their own hit revue at the Golden. "I remember the next day, I was walking in the Village," she tells me, "and I saw their stage manager, whom I knew, across the street. He cried out, ‘Hey, Mike really liked you!’" That must have been true, for after Nichols became a director he cast Wilson in the aforementioned The Graduate, The Little Foxes, and Plaza Suite — not to mention the films Catch-22, The Day of the Dolphin, and Regarding Henry.

I was unaware that Wilson had performed in Plaza 9, the Julius Monk revue at the Plaza Hotel in 1962. "My friend George Grizzard took me to see it, and I just love the sound of two pianos," she says. "I was so smitten with the show, I just had to be in it. It took three auditions before Julius would hire me, but he did, and soon I was doing two shows a night — at nine and eleven."

She and Aldredge did The 75th two decades ago as a workshop at the Public, but the show never had a commercial run there. When David Saint said he wanted Wilson at his 375-seat theater and that she could do any play she desired, she mentioned this one. Saint knew he needed a companion piece, so he asked Arthur Laurents to come up with one — and Laurents wrote a play in which a senior citizen finds a vibrator.

"I was really shocked at the title," Wilson admits. "I thought, ‘I can’t tell anybody this!’ I’m sorry. I know, I’m from another generation. So before I tell any of my friends, I prepare them with a long speech. ‘You’re going to be shocked. Are you sitting down?’ Finally, I
say it, and they scream with laughter. But my sister was quite surprised that I’m doing it."

I couldn’t resist asking how her sister reacted to Wilson’s appearance in The Happy Hooker? "That Lynn Redgrave was in it too really helped," she replies without missing a beat. "But what a funny thing: Years later I was to do a movie for the Mormons in Salt Lake City, and when the Mormons looked up my credits and saw The Happy Hooker, well, they started doing all sorts of research to find out what kind of person I was. They were very upset. But they hired me anyway."

You bet they did. Their research must have involved watching some Elizabeth Wilson performances — and once they saw what a terrific actress she is, all was forgiven.

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[To contact Peter Filichia directly, e-mail him at pfilichia@aol.com]