Struthers is best known for her Emmy-winning performances as Gloria Bunker-Stivic in All in the Family, but the film and television industry appear to have written her off. That’s why she spends so much time, particularly in musicals out of town, though she’d rather work at home in Los Angeles.

She’s currently playing the role of Frau Blücher in Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein at the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts through October 9th. This is the second time she’s played the role which was introduced to the world by Cloris Leachman in Brooks’ 1974 movie. If you’ve seen the film (or the musical), she’s the character that smokes cigars, plays the violin and makes horses bray at the mere mention of her name. This is an opportunity that means the world to her.

“To finally, finally, all in capital letters, get a great role in a Mel Brooks musical in Los Angeles County is an answer to a very long, nightly prayer,” Struthers said in a phone conversation earlier this week. “It’s mostly been theater for the last 25 years, and I have not been able to get arrested in my own town. It has been a phenomenon that escapes me. I’m here. I’m a Los Angeles resident. I have been available. I don’t know why I am never asked to audition. I am never offered a job here. But, you give me Texas, you give me Maine, you give me Virginia, you give me New York, you give me Connecticut and there’s a job for me, always. They clamor to have me back the next year in something else.”

It was in elementary school that Struthers fell in love with acting and comedy. She was named Best Actress in the 7th Grade Class Play at Faubion Elementary School. She went on to Ulysses S. Grant High School and then Pasadena Playhouse College.

Before All in the Family, she appeared in the film Five Easy Pieces with Jack Nicholson. She was a regular on the Tim Conway Comedy Hour and appeared in The Getaway in 1972. But it would be another 25 years before another film role came around. Television gave Struthers more opportunities with roles in The Gilmore Girls, 9 to 5 and providing the voices for numerous animated shows in addition to guest star parts, but not the bigger parts she’s coveted.

Struthers has an idea why other film and television roles haven’t come her way.

“If you’ve become known to the public, not as a star of something, but as the fourth banana, I believe you remain in that fourth banana status in people’s heads. It’s not age. I just think an actor gets forgotten because there’s so many new ones coming along.“

Young Frankenstein was released in movie theaters while Struthers was appearing in All in the Family. When she saw the film she knew Mel Brooks was one-of-a-kind.

“He is insanely funny. He is the most wacky. He does it all,” she said letting out an infectious laugh as if remembering a line from one of his films. “He’s like Robin Williams on steroids. He just he goes there. He’s fearless.”

Any actress who takes on the role of Frau Blücher in the musical version of Young Frankenstein is given the tremendous gift of a monologue in the middle of the song, He Vas My Boyfriend!

“I wait for that monologue in the middle of that song every night because it’s just delicious,” she offered. “You can mine gold out of Mel Brooks’ writing and you can do all the gestures and make all the faces you want. It all works because the words are there.”

Obviously her comedic timing landed her this part. It was also comedy skills that impressed playwright Neil Simon when Struthers was cast in female version of The Odd Couple as the hyper-neat Florence Unger.

“Neil Simon came into my dressing room and said to me that it was so unusual that I was willing to make all sorts of faces and do physical insanity on stage and my physical comedy was hilarious. He has found that attractive women don’t usually want to do that. Beautiful and pretty actresses do not want to look awkward or unattractive. And I said, ‘Well, I’ve never considered myself beautiful, but I’ve always considered myself character actress. So I will do the backflip and land on my face. I don’t care.'” 

Though she met that legendary playwright, she has never crossed paths with Mel Brooks. That’s something very high on her list of things to do and she was hoping he’d visit this production.

“His best friend was Carl Reiner [father of her All in the Family co-star Rob Reiner]. They had dinner together every night. And when Anne Bancroft [Brooks’ wife] passed away, that became even more important to Mel. Mel would drive over to Carl Reiner’s house every evening. One night he drove over and the housekeeper said, ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Brooks. Mr. Reiner passed away yesterday.’ I don’t think his life has been the same. If I had a way to reach him, I would want to tell him that I would be happy to have dinner with him every night and hopefully a few times during the evening make him laugh as much as he has made me laugh. I don’t know who he’s hanging out with for dinner, but it worries me.”

She also didn’t meet Leachman until much later even though the two actresses shared a network and were often nominated for Emmy Awards opposite each other.

“I had absolutely no time with her and did not know her at all until many years later when there was an airline called MGM Airlines. It was almost like taking a private jet – maybe had 20 passengers. You had your own room on the plane and I got on it to fly, I think to New York. I was put in one of those, quote unquote rooms with Cloris Leachman. And we talked the whole way. I was fascinated while I was talking with her because she slowly took off her clothes down to wearing a slip. They came in and folded out a table in front of us to serve a meal. When they put the food down and closed the door, she took a bag out beside her seat and put it on the table. She brought her own strange food. She sat there in her underwear, never missing a beat, talking with me and eating things that I couldn’t decipher. I don’t know what that was, but it was fascinating. That was my entire relationship with the ever so wonderfully fabulous Cloris Leachman.”

Struthers has found a way of navigating the ups-and-downs of her career with her charm and sense of humor fully intact. What was meant to be a 30-minute conversation became a thoroughly enjoyable hour that only ended because I had other commitments. But before it did, I asked Struthers what advice she would give the 11 or 12-year-old who accepted that acting award at her elementary school.

She thought long and hard about it before answering.

“You know, you’re not tall, but hold your head high and maybe people won’t notice.”

Of course audiences around the world have taken notice for over fifty years. That’s something that is not lost on Struthers.

“If I just sat down in front of a crystal ball and The Wicked Witch of the West was showing me my life to come, I think it would have confused and overwhelmed me. There has been so much excitement and joy and adventure and privilege.”

In the end, Struthers would just like a few more opportunities to be funny. To be fearless. To make people laugh. And she knows with whom she’d still like to work.

“Isn’t Tyler Perry just the bee’s knees?” She had seen him several days earlier on Chris Wallace’s new show on CNN. “He’s just so elegant and so funny and articulate and brave and driven and kind. He just fascinates me. I think that the only thing that I haven’t done that I would like to do before I, as my friend Carole Cook says, take a taxi, is I would like to be in a Tyler Perry movie.”

At that moment I suggested that in a perfect world scenario she would appear in a Tyler Perry movie that shoots in Los Angeles; she wraps early and has dinner with Mel Brooks.

“Oh, my God. I really then could take a taxi. Yeah, it would be okay. I mean, there’s all sorts of things that I thought I would be that I’m not. And I have made my peace with all that. But I still want to have dinner with Mel Brooks every night if he wants and be in Tyler Perry movies. Those are my 75-year-old woman dreams. I’m supposed to say I want world peace and Putin to drop dead, but I’m being selfish.”

Main photo: Wesley Slade and Sally Struthers in Young Frankenstein (Courtesy La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts)

The post Sally Struthers Has More to Do and Show appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

On their YouTube channel they will post new concerts throughout April and early May. These videos are of concerts held in the venue (which gets its name from being downstairs from the Studio 54 Theatre) over the past year or two.

Here’s the recently announced line-up (all start times are 6:30PM EDT) with my personal recommendations being noted with an asterisk.

*Melissa Errico – Funny, I’m a Woman with Children – April 1st

Errico is a Broadway veteran who appeared in a revival of My Fair Lady, High Society and Irving Berlin’s White Christmas. In this show, which actually took place on an April Fool’s Day, finds Errico performing with just piano and guitar. It’s an acoustic concert that features songs by Stephen Sondheim, Lerner & Loewe, Joni Mitchell, Jerry Herman and Jason Robert Brown.

Nicole Henry – April 2nd – This will be a live show on 54 Below’s Facebook page

Henry is a Soul Train Award-winning vocalist and will give a live preview of her new show celebrating one of pop music’s biggest icons: I Wanna Dance with Somebody: The Music of Whitney Houston

*Bright Lights, Big City 20th Anniversary Concert – April 3rd

Jay McInerney’s 1984 novel was turned into a musical by Paul Scott Goodman and was first performed in 1999. Though not a big hit, it became a bit of a cult musical. This concert celebrates the show with a cast that includes Christy Altomare (Anastasia), Matt Doyle (the upcoming revival of Company), Annie Golden (Orange is the New Black), Taylor Iman Jones (Head Over Heels), Julia Murney (Wicked), Margo Seibert (Rocky) and more. The show was directed by Alex Tobey with music direction by Ben Caplan.

Brittain Ashford – April 4th

Ashford appeared in Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 and this concert is from her solo debut in 2017. The show includes music she wrote mixed with some covers.

*Kyle Dean Massey – April 6th

Television fans know Massey from Nashville; Broadway lovers from Next to Normal, Wicked and Pippin. In this show Massey performs songs he heard fellow cast members sing, songs he sings in the shower and other favorites.

Bonnie Milligan and Natalie Walker – April 8th

Milligan (Head Over Heels) and Walker (Alice By Heart) offer an evening of music, mayhem and murder. Not sure what that means, but that’s the description.

*Liz Callaway – The Beat Goes On – April 10th

The title tells you everything you need to know: welcome to the ’60s. Callaway, who has appeared in Merrily We Roll Along, The Look of Love and Miss Saigon, sings pop tunes along with songs from stage and film.

Legally Blonde: The Search for Elle Woods Reunion Concert – April 11th

The cast of the 2008 MTV show reunite for this concert.

*Charles Busch – Native New Yorker – April 13th

Busch, who is best known for his plays (Die Mommie Die, Psycho Beach Party) in which he performs in drag, also does cabaret shows. What makes this particular show unique is he performs the show out of drag. The material comes from the 1970s and includes music by Sondheim, Henry Mancini, Jim Croce and Rupert Holmes.

Lorna Luft – To “L” and Back – April 15th

Liza’s sister and Judy’s daughter performs a concert about “paying it forward and saying thank you.” I trust I don’t need to explain who Liza and Judy are.

*Tovah Feldshuh – Aging Is Optional – April 17th

I first became aware of Feldshuh in the 1978 miniseries Holocaust. Recently she’s become popular through appearances on The Walking Dead and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. But her heart has long been on the stage. This show will combine music and comedy to examine getting older.

*Ben Vereen – Steppin’ Out With Ben Vereen – April 18th

Last July I spoke with the Tony Award-winning star of Pippin about his career which includes Wicked, Chicago, Jesus Christ Superstar and many more shows. This show is as much about moving forward as it is looking back.

*Ann Hampton Callaway – The Linda Ronstadt Songbook – April 19th

Earlier sister Liz celebrated the 60s in her 54 Below show, now Ann Hampton Callaway celebrates one of the most beloved singers of the 70s, Linda Ronstadt. The perspective in this show is the many faces of love as expressed in the songs Ronstadt recorded. Billy Stritch plays piano and serves as her Music Director.

I Wish: The Roles That Could Have Been – April 22nd

Alexandra Silber (Master Class, Fiddler on the Roof) hosts and conceived this show which finds Broadway performers singing songs they’d probably never get cast to perform, but they are songs they love. Cast members from Anastasia, The Band’s Visit, Ain’t Too Proud, Head Over Heels and more appear.

54 Sings Legally Blonde – April 24th

18 performers gather to sing the songs from Legally Blonde: The Musical.

*Alice Ripley & Emily Skinner – Unattached – April 26th

If you know that Ripley and Skinner appeared as the conjoined twins in the musical Side Show, then you’ll understand the name of this show. Their show features songs from their Broadway careers and new material. These two women are amazing. This is a show that I highly recommend.

Christine Andreas – AND SO IT GOES…Life & Love, Lost & Found – April 29th

The two-time Tony Award nominee explores life in America today.

Joe Iconis & Lauren Marcus – Love Letter – May 1st

Iconis and Marcus are both writer-performers and they are also married. The “love letter” of the title is to another couple: Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash. This show combines original songs with unique versions of Cash classics.

*54/54/54 – May 4th

What does this title mean? 54 songs are performed by 54 singers and each song can only run 54 seconds. The selections cover everything from musical theatre to pop to originals. This should be fun!

*54 Celebrates Mel Brooks – May 7th

Though this show doesn’t have 54 performers, it does bring together a large cast to celebrate the man who brought us The Producers, Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles and many other classic films (and in a couple cases, Broadway shows.)

Performers include Veanne Cox (Caroline, Or Change), Richard Kind (The Producers), Lesli Margherita (Matilda), Brad Oscar (The Producers), Lee Roy Reams (42nd Street) and 20 more performers. Kind serves as host.

Photo of Feinstein’s/54 Below by Joseph Moran/Courtesy of Feinstein’s/54 Below

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