Interview: Renée Taylor Looks Back on the Love of Her Life in Dying Is No Excuse

Apparently, there used to be a saying in Hollywood: “You know you’re a schmuck if you don’t like Joe Bologna.”

That little aphorism was relayed on the phone by none other than Bologna’s son, Gabriel. But it’s probably true — Joseph Bologna was a one-of-a-kind performer, known for playing the tyrannical King Kaiser in My Favorite Year, Adam Sandler’s disappointed father in Big Daddy, and a philandering press agent in Neil Simon’s Chapter Two.

Bologna, who died in 2017 at the age of 82, was also part of a long-lasting Hollywood love story. Married for 52 years to the equally beloved Renée Taylor, their partnership spanned screen and stage, dotted with Lovers and Other Strangers, Made for Each Other, It Had to Be You, and If You Ever Leave Me…I’m Going With You!

This month, Taylor is memorializing their time together in the new stage play Dying Is No Excuse, running August 7-30 at Berkshire Theatre Group. Directed by the couiple’s longtime friend and colleague, Elaine May, the tender comedy is the story of their romance, from meeting to passing, with actor Jack Maxwell playing Bologna, and none other than Taylor playing herself. Only, Taylor says with a laugh, because Meryl Streep was busy.

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

This play is a beautiful tribute to your relationship with Joe. How long have you been working on it?
Oh gosh, about four years. I started working on it when I had Covid. There was nothing to do but write. I was actually happy to be home and I thought “Now I could write the play about Joe.” He’s gone, now, seven years. It took a few years to really grasp everything.

When I finished it, I read it to Elaine. We read her all our plays, It Had to Be You, Bermuda Avenue Triangle, If You Ever Leave Me…I’m Going With You! Usually, she laughs a lot. This time, she hardly laughed at all. And I said “Do you hate it?” And she said “Are you kidding? It’s perfect. I want to direct it.”

What was Joe like as a person?
Oh, my God. I don’t know what to say. Whoever met him said “What a guy.” He inspired people. He had tremendous integrity and honesty and loyalty and talent. He was a great jokester.

And he loved Vermont. When he died, we put his ashes under an apple tree at the house where we used to write most of our plays in Vermont. And I wrote on “Here is Joe Bologna, writer, actor, lover of Vermont.” The people who met him there always said how inspiring he was.

Why did he want to play the man Sylvia has the affair with on The Nanny as opposed to her husband Morty?
Did you see The Nanny?

Of course.
Ok, well, the husband was a jerk, so Joe wanted to play the guy she has the affair with. In Gene Wilder’s movie The Woman in Red, he played a cheating husband, and in Neil Simon’s Chapter Two, he played the cheating husband. That was his alter ego.

How has Elaine impacted your life?
I’ve known Elaine longer than I knew Joe. I was in a play over 60 years ago called Easy Does It, and Elaine saw it. She came backstage and said, “I’m doing an improv play and I’d like you to audition.” I auditioned, and she made me come back for a week, doing all kinds of characters and situations until she hired me.

Then she told Mike Nichols about me, and he hired me to stand by for Anne Jackson in Luv. When I went on, Mel Brooks had come to see Gene Wilder, so he saw me, too, and he cast me as Eva Braun in The Producers.

My favorite movie.
A few months before his wife, Anne Bancrof,t died, they came for dinner, and Mel said to me “Did I ever thank you for playing Eva Braun?” And I said “No.” And he said “Well, I’m thanking you now.” He said, “Of all the girls, your idea to do Eva Braun with a New York accent, that was hilarious.”

It must be nice to work with Elaine, who’s been a friend for a so long, on a play this emotional.
I would do anything to work with her. You know something funny? The theater asked if I had a picture of me and Elaine. The only one I have is of me, Elaine, and Gene Wilder doing a sketch at Madison Square Garden for the Democratic Party for Eugene McCarthy in front of 3000 people. It’s from 1968. And they said, “Don’t you have anything more recent?” I said, “No. She doesn’t take pictures.”

Who’s playing Joe in this production?
His name is Jack Maxwell; he’s a wonderful actor who worked with us when we were touring in Lovers and Other Strangers. He came in and read and we were just blown away. Joe hired him just like that. I said, “You can’t hire the first actor that walks in,” and he said “Oh, yes, I can.”

Joe was like that with everybody. Angelina Jolie came in and read for us when we were doing Love Is All There Is. She was 18, she was beautiful, and she was pretending to be Italian with a thick Florentine accent. We hired her at the first reading, too.

And you’re playing yourself?
Yeah. Meryl Streep was busy!