“Broadway, Broadway! How great you are!” Dainty June sings in the first act of the musical, Gypsy, is only one of the seemingly endless proclamations Patti LuPone makes in her newest venture, Patti LuPone: A Memoir. LuPone starts with the opening of the musical Gypsy in her hometown of Northport Long Island with her grade school theater troop, The Patio Players. Her second production of Gypsy in Chicago’s own backyard at the Ravinia Festival in Highland Park is where the ever fun and ever spontaneous LuPone starts her tell-all memoir. Wanting to be onstage since the age of five, LuPone talks about the inspirational highs and brutal lows of the theater, the label of the press, and the scrutiny of the public. She talks of, well, everything from the good, the bad, and the ugly to say to the least, her love/hate relationship with John Houseman, her “interesting” years at the Juilliard School including everything from tears to laughs and of course, her odd, drawn out affair with Kevin Kline, her first lover. These being only the early years of her career, she later goes on to talk about the Broadway musical Evita, “the alcoholic” otherwise known as Andrew Lloyd Webber and everything from Les Miserable to Anything Goes and beyond. Later she even talks about falling in love with her husband and living more of the normal life in Connecticut out of the limelight for while.
Full of spunk and character, LuPone outdoes herself in this new memoir. Not only giving us the bare essentials, she goes into the juicy details of the biz, her life and everything in between. Full of pictures and even a bit of LuPone’s colorful vocabulary (yes, she slips a few F-bombs in there, but hey, she is only human) anyone may to drawn to hearing about this fabulous diva’s life. (Even if she does exclaim she is not a diva and that throwing lamps out of windows is a normal exercise for anyone in the theatrical industry). She draws us a picture of how cutthroat show business really is and how you really have to have something to really make it big. Not only is Patti LuPone a talented author and TV/movie star, she is currently working on the concert of Stephen Sondheim's Company.