Actress, singer and all-around American icon Elaine Stritch died Thursday in Birmingham, Mich., at 89, after a career that encompassed Broadway, London’s West End, Hollywood and TV — where she won a new generation of fans as Alec Baldwin’s mother on “30 Rock.”
Born in Detroit on Feb. 2, 1925, Stritch moved to New York to study at the New School, and made her Broadway debut in 1946, in a show called “Loco.”
It was just the first credit in an impressive list that includes Noël Coward’s “Sail Away” (1961), Stephen Sondheim’s “Company” (1970), the 1996 revival of Edward Albee’s “A Delicate Balance” and her autobiographical solo show, “Elaine Stritch at Liberty” (2001) — for which she won her sole Tony Award.
Her last Broadway appearance was in 2010, when she replaced Angela Lansbury in the revival of “A Little Night Music.”
The idiosyncratic looks and prickly personality that made her a theater legend worked against her in movies, where she was relegated to supporting roles.
Nevertheless, she had a robust TV career: co-starring in the British sitcom “Two’s Company” (1975-79), winning an Emmy for a guest role in “Law & Order” and, of course, making Baldwin’s life impossible on “30 Rock.”
Outspoken and bitingly funny, Elaine Stritch was the subject of the documentary “Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me,” which premiered earlier this year.
“It’s bound to be interesting,” she quips in it. “It’s about me.”