If you’ve watched TV, films or have been to the theater in the last 60 years, you’ve probably seen Frances Sternhagen. The two-time Tony winner played the lead in Off-Broadway’s “Driving Miss Daisy” in the late ’80s, but is more likely to be recognized for her motherly turns on “ER,” “Sex and the City” and “Cheers” — the last as Esther Clavin, mom of the know-it-all postal worker Cliff. Along the way, she raised six children. How? “You need a sympathetic husband!” laughs Sternhagen, whose longtime spouse, actor and drama teacher Thomas Carlin, died in 1991. “It helps if he’s in the same business you are, so you can take turns.” You can see her now, opposite Edie Falco, in Off-Broadway’s “The Madrid.” Here are some of her favorite books.
Ragtime
by E.L. Doctorow
I think everyone in New Rochelle loved this book when it came out [in 1975], because it’s a historical fiction set in and around New Rochelle in the last century. Doctorow lived there while writing the book. I met him once at a fund-raiser for the New Rochelle Public Library. Of course he’d be there for that!
V is for Vengeance
by Sue Grafton
I can’t remember who suggested Sue Grafton’s books to me, but she makes great airplane reading. Like Sara Paretsky, who often writes about Chicago, Grafton writes about a semblance of her hometown, Santa Barbara. It’s fun to read a good mystery by someone who not only writes well, but seems to really know the territory.
A Great Deliverance
by Elizabeth George
Elizabeth George is an American who writes British mysteries, and I’ve enjoyed several of them. This is the first one, and features Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley. The production stage manager recommended them to me when I was working in California on “Cheers.” Or maybe it was “ER”?
The Emotional Lives of Animals
by Marc Bekoff
Bekoff’s a scientist who discovered that animals experience a wide range of emotions. I remember hearing that cats don’t have masters, they have staff. Isn’t that wonderful? We had a dog named Circe, and when I’d come home from a show late at night, I’d find a note from my husband: “She’s been walked.” But Circe always seemed to say, “I’d love to go out again!”