If you don’t know Julie Halston, now’s your time to learn – though you must have some idea of who she is! She is arguably one of the funniest actresses on stage and has been for quite some time. Her lengthy collaboration with actor/writer Charles Busch is the stuff of legend – unless you were able to see one of their shows together, then it’s tangible as a memory for you.
Halston appeared on the sequel to Sex in the City that launched this year called And Just Like That.
In June she was awarded the Isabelle Stevenson Tony Award which is given to someone in the theater community who has devoted a lot of time and resources to humanitarian, social service or charitable organizations. For Halston it is the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation. Her husband, Ralph Howard, died from the disease in 2018 after having been diagnosed with it ten years earlier. Halston founded Broadway Belts as an annual fundraiser for the organization in 2010.
During the pandemic she launched a live-streamed show, Virtual Halston, that, as she reveals in this interview, she had to be persuaded to do.
On Monday she will return to her second home, Birdland in New York City, to perform a new show entitled De-classified! For those who aren’t in New York, the show will be live-streamed. The performance takes place at 7:00 PM ET/4:00 PM PT.
Earlier this week I spoke via Zoom with Halston about her career, Declassified and her outlook on the future. You can find the full interview on our YouTube channel and frankly, no edited version of that conversation will ever be as entertaining as it is to watch the sublime Julie Halston. We had a great time talking and I know you will, too.
Nonetheless, what follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity.
What do you think the young girl who participated in the senior follies at Holy Family High School would have to say about the career that you’ve had so far?
That is so crazy that you bring that up because, literally, I was out on Long Island this past weekend for a high school reunion. Oh, yeah. It was a lot. I honestly would say to her to stop being fearful and trust your instincts. It took me a long time to trust my instincts. There were a number of decisions that I made in life that were not good. Hindsight tells us that. But one of the times I trusted my instincts was when I saw Charles Busch in his one-man show called Alone with a Cast of Thousands. I was so blown away I decided to get on his train.
Clearly it was not for money. We were doing these shows in a crack dean. Let’s really be real here, but my instinct told me to do this. I went to Hofstra University out on Long Island. I really didn’t know what I was doing. I had instincts. I had thoughts. I didn’t have a sort of formalized training. I certainly probably could never have gotten into a place like Juilliard. I was very unfocused. When I saw Charles Busch I realized that I was also a bit of an outlier. I was a funny woman, but I didn’t know how to get myself into a position to launch. It was really Charles who said I’m going to write for you and I’m going to help launch you. And he did.
If you were to go back in time to that first performance of Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, which was at the Limbo Lounge, what stands out to you most about that night? Here’s a play that he’s written and you’re in it. You had no idea that that was the beginning of what it became, right?
I had no idea. But I will tell you this and this is really all the truth. This is not part of the myth of our company. I was rehearsing with the company because he had put together a company right before he met me and I was the newest member. I didn’t understand the style at that point and I was really not doing very well in rehearsal. Again, here’s my instinct. I turned to the company one night. I remember this very well. I said, “Look, guys, I know in rehearsal I really stink. You put me on that stage in a wig in front of 60 gay men and I am going to glow!” And that is exactly what happened. I’m not joking. I got on that stage and somehow I was transformed. As Charles said, that stage lit up. That’s when the company said you have to make her a permanent member and you have to write for her.
To this day, I’m terrible in rehearsal. Terrible. It takes me a long time to find what I’m going to do. But so much of what I do depends on the audience giving me back. Comedy, the creative process, is put together by the audience and the performer.
I saw an interview that Charles gave in 2009 to D.C. Theatre Scene and he described the two of you not as Will and Grace, but more like Lucy and Viv. Do you agree with him?
Yes. We just actually just recently re-read his play A Lady in Question. Generally the character he plays is someone who’s very beautiful, very talented and very vain and usually has a fatal flaw. Which is kind of like Lucy. It’s like, come on, we’re just going to get into showbiz. And Viv is the one who says, what are you crazy, Lucy? You don’t know what you’re doing. You know Ricky is going to kill you. And that is the character that I generally play. Like Kitty the Countess to Borgia in A Lady in Question. I’m the one who says you’re nuts. We got to get out of Nazi Germany and we got to get out of here and she has to be taught a lesson.
Because Charles has performed with lots of incredible people. We were very lucky that somehow we had a chemistry that just took off from the stage. And people really loved seeing us together and. It has not gone away. All these years later, it has not gone away.
Nor apparently has the desire to see you at Birdland.
It’s crazy! Call the fire department!
This show, De-classified!, is going to offer your perspective on where we are in the world today. Given the last two-and-a-half/pushing three years, do you think we’ve learned anything?
No, that’s the problem. This will be the first time appearing on that stage in three years. So it’s very special. I don’t know if we’ve really learned a lot. I hope that what we’ve learned is to be kinder to people. I don’t know. There’s been a lot of loss the last three years and in many different ways. I just hope that we can ultimately be a little kinder.
Of course, being kind doesn’t always make good comedy. You know if we’re going to talk, we have to get a little dishy. That’s what comedy can be – a little dishy. So I have a variety of topics that I’m am going to address. One of them is a nude beach that I ended up at recently. I can’t even. I can’t. I mean, really, I can’t. I did not expect this. I was fully clothed. But as I said to the man I was with why is it that people who should not even be nude in a shower insist on going to a nude beach? It’s like you just can’t believe it. So I’m going to be addressing that.
I’ll be addressing the pandemic. I always tell a story about my late mom. I will also be addressing the fact that I have started dating after my late husband passed away. Of course that always engenders opinions. I am also going to be addressing Queen Elizabeth’s funeral. Because it’s a topic. One of the other topics is Meghan Markle. I’m going to be addressing a lot of things that have been in the news lately. And I always do a reading of a wedding announcement either from the New York Times or Vogue Magazine. And I have one that I think is going to really inspire people.
One thing that got me through the pandemic was Virtual Halston. I loved it. I’ve always been a big believer that the idea of a salon is something that is sorely missing and is something that I think society could really enjoy. I felt like those episodes were a salon. The only challenge for me is they were at 5:00 in the afternoon in New York so that means I was having a martini at 2:00.
I remember a girlfriend of mine calling me at like 11 in the morning and saying, I think it’s too early to open a bottle of wine. I was like that might be too early. I loved every episode and I loved all my guests. You just learn so much about creative people, which is exactly what you’re doing right now. I learned so much about friends of mine that I’ve known for years, but I learned even more. We had so many fun tales and funny stories. Oh my goodness. Of course, I always loved reading Joan Crawford because Joan Crawford is my Bible.
What did doing Virtual Halston do for you? How did that help you through that challenging time?
I don’t mean to get emotional, but my husband passed away in 2018 and then in 2019, I did Tootsie on Broadway. That really, really saved my life. When you become a widow, it’s like a whole half of you just dies, you know? It’s just terrible. It’s just awful. As I said to a friend, you wear this cloak of grief, but it doesn’t offer any protection.
But then Tootsie was over and suddenly we were in lockdown. That’s when it really hit me that I was alone because I’m such a social person. I live in midtown in New York City. I’m always able to see friends. Everything is very convenient in New York City. I have a great community around me. We really could not see each other during those early days. I think my widowhood became very pronounced during the pandemic.
It was really Jim Caruso and Ruby Locknar who said, Julie, if anyone should have a talk show where you yack about stories and you have friends on it should be you. He asked me three times before I said yes. I have to say it was something to look forward to every week. I did all my research during the week, so it gave me an outlet because in the beginning we really didn’t go out. Everything was shuttered. It really gave me a focus. It was a way for me to connect.
In 2015 you wrote a story for Sandi Klein’s Conversations with Creative Women which was about how aging sucks. You’ve got De-classified! coming up. Virtual Halston was a success. You got the Tony. You did Tootsie. It seems to me, Julie, like you are trying to flip a bird to F. Scott Fitzgerald and prove to him that there are second acts in American life.
Well, it’s very interesting that you say that because I feel that there are third and fourth acts quite frankly. Unless you’ve decided to either retire or just say enough is enough. I really believe that you can keep going and constantly be reinventing. I have no plans to slow down in any way, shape or form. I will say botox helps. I’m not going to deny it. I embrace it. I’m in an industry [where] age is not your friend. Too bad. I’m going to work anyway. I think it’s really important, particularly for women, to just say, oh no, I’m not letting you stop me.
I want to ask you about something that you said in your Tony Award acceptance speech. You said that from the age of nine your dream was to be in the theater. You’ve certainly more than accomplished that. What are your dreams today?
I actually have three dreams. I would love to be back on a stage because I really love being on a stage in front of a live audience. And I love being on a Broadway stage. Broadway is special. It just is. That’s one dream.
I would like to do more TV. Last year I had the great privilege of playing a recurring character on And Just Like That and Gossip Girl. I had so much fun. I finally got so much more comfortable with that milieu. So that would be nice to continue that.
The other is I am on two missions. One is that I want to continue my work with the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation. We have seen growth in the last 12 years that has been so phenomenal. When I joined the organization we had four care networks for pulmonary patients. We have 68 now.
It’s really my life’s work to help patients and caregivers and eventually [find] a cure for this terrible disease.
The other is that one of the things that has happened during COVID is the theater has really kind of crashed and burned a little. Let’s face it, with all the live streaming, with all the content out there, a lot of people I know say, I don’t know if I want to come back to the theater and live theater. It’s a little scary now and it’s too expensive.
I’m also going to make it my mission to continue this incredible live performance tradition of great plays, great new plays and great plays in the classic canon. It’s been going on for thousands of years. I don’t want it to die. It so enriches your life. It’s my church. I do think there are still people in the future that need to go to church and want to go to church and need to go to church. That church is important for our lives as human beings. Not just self-involved, crazy people. I mean, there’s that, too. But to enrich our lives as human beings and to help other human beings. It sounds very noble, but guess what? It is right now.
To see the full interview with Julie Halston, please go here.
Photo: Julie Halston (Courtesy Birdland Jazz Club)
