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It was odd when we did The Rink, it was very much with Chita in mind when we finally got
it, and the part of her daughter, Angel, was really not the first lead. It was a big part,
but it was a second lead, and Liza literally—I think Fred will remember it the same way,
which is interesting—said, “I want to do it.” And I remember she was in England,
and Fred I think was with her, and she called to tell me she wanted to do the part, and
I said, “But it’s not the lead. And it’s certainly not glamourous.” She was playing
a thirty-year-old woman who was really schlumpy, and she said something I will never forget.
She said, “Johnny, I want to do it because it doesn’t have one spangle in it.” And
I knew what she meant, and she was brilliant in it, and the audience did not want to see
her without sequins and spangles. It was a very strange thing.
MW: How about the critics? Would they allow her to do that?
JK: No, she was…it was a bitter thing for her, because she was terrific in it, and she’s
a terrific actress. And I remember, Terrence McNally, who wrote the book, telling me the
story--he went backstage, after the reviews came out, and Frank Rich…he’d hardly had
a sentence about her performance, and she was crying, and she said, “He dismissed
me in two sentences.” And Terrence said, “You’re lucky. He dismissed me in two
paragraphs.” There was something about that show that rubbed him and several critics the
wrong way. I still think it’s one of the best things we ever wrote.