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betty buckley is a powerhouse. Anyone who’s seen her onstage or heard her clarion voice can attest to her formidable strength. It was immediately apparent upon meeting her, too. But as soon as we sat down to chat, other colors poured forth almost instantly. She was soft-spoken, giggling, reminiscing, confessing, and even tearing up as she told her story with candor, self-deprecation, wit, and a very open emotional and psychological channel. In the same way she interprets a song, she allowed herself to be totally honest and extraordinarily vulnerable.

That balance of strength and vulnerability is actually Buckley’s hallmark. Every role she’s played onstage has been a fascinating mix of steely conviction and underlying fragility—Griza-bella, Norma Desmond, Mama Rose, Margaret White, Edwin Drood; those qualities manifest in Buckley’s unique voice, which can belt to the rafters and fl icker like a candle fl ame in the same stanza, and are coupled with her supreme gift for interpretation. She is singular and indelible.

Betty Lynn Buckley was born in Fort Worth, Texas, to parents who could not have been more in confl ict about her talent and desire to perform. Her mother, a former singer/dancer, delighted in providing her daughter with lessons and taking her to talent shows and later pag-eants (where Buckley was crowned Miss Fort Worth) while her father, an Air Force lieutenant colonel, was adamantly opposed. They fought frequently about it, and Buckley was left with great insecurity about her choice to perform. “I’ve been in analysis for years and have had to work really hard on myself to give myself permission to do what I do,” she says. But the inner turmoil she experienced didn’t aff ect her resumé. Buckley booked her fi rst show, 1776 , on the fi rst day she arrived in New York in 1969. Promises Promises (in London) and Pippin (back in New York) followed in short order and, by the end of the ’70s, she was in Hollywood, memo-rably appearing in the fi lm Carrie , as the gym teacher Ms. Collins, and then co-starring as Abby Bradford on the hit series Eight Is Enough .

In 1982, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s monster hit Cats brought her back to Broadway; gave her her signature song, “Memory”; won her a Tony Award; and cemented her place in the musical theater pantheon. She worked steadily and memorably onstage for the next fi fteen years ( The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Song and Dance, Sunset Boulevard, Gypsy, Triumph of Love— for which she received a second Tony nomination—and the legendary Carrie ) until 2002 when Buckley began pursuing her other passion, horses. In 2003 she co-starred in the song cycle Elegies at Lincoln Center and in 2010 off -Broadway in the play White’s Lies . She has continued to tour internationally as a concert artist in halls and cabarets around the country. She has starred in

As Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard . Buckley’s Norma downplayed the gorgon and emphasized the vulnerability to great eff ect. (Photofest)

betty buckley 127 has aff orded her an eclectic career that crosses all genres.

You were born in Texas. How did the stage bug hit?

My mother had been a singer/dancer and her sister, my aunt Mary Ruth, was a dance teacher and had danced at the original Billy Rose Theater, Casa Manana. When my dad married my mom she had to give up her singing and dancing. He had a moral thing about show business. He really disapproved of it. He thought it was a trivial pursuit. He also likened actress/singer-type people to prosti-tutes or ladies of the evening, because the only actress/singers he had been exposed to were the dance hall girls in Lemon, South Dakota.

That sounds like it’s from another century!

Yes, exactly. When she was pregnant with me, she actually moved back to Big Spring to have me so I could have Texan citizenship. She wanted me to be a Texan! She had a very exten-sive record collection of all the great lady singers and Broadway shows and she was thrilled when I manifested a love for music and songs. She told me that I sang “Jesus Loves Me” in church when I was two. And when I was a kid I was always in the church choir, the junior choir, and the all-city chorus. The choir teacher was always putting me in the back row saying,

“Blend in, Betty Lynn, blend in.” I didn’t know that my voice wasn’t blending in. I was really self-conscious about it. My mom took me to my fi rst piece of musical theater when I was eleven, Pajama Game , with the original Fosse choreography, and I had this epiphany. I didn’t know the word epiphany then, but it was a very transcendent moment. I remember it very clearly. I remember where I was sitting in the theater, on the aisle. I remember the row. An energy force rose up through the top of my head and looked back at me and said, “This is it!

This is what you are gonna be doing for the rest of your life.” I didn’t know what “it” was, but I later realized that it was the musical theater. I came home from school, and I said to my mom, “I want to learn ‘Steam Heat.’” And she was really excited because she loved show busi-ness. I would always sing with these recordings she had . . .

You mentioned that the recordings were girl singers. Are you talking about Rosemary Clooney and Peggy Lee or Mary Martin and Ethel Merman?

Nancy Wilson, Della Reese, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, and Judy Garland, at Carnegie Hall. I could sing, note by note, the whole Carnegie Hall concert. I taught myself how to sing with these great lady singers. I also loved Michael Jackson and I loved The Beatles. I loved all the ’60s music: Led Zeppelin, Jeff erson Airplane, Janis Joplin. And I loved jazz. I spent all my

Betty Buckley

babysitting money on jazz and jazz instrumentalists and Brazilian music—Antonio Carlos Jobim and Brazil 66. So anyway, these two guys, Ed Holleman and Larry Howard—one had directed Pajama Game and the other was the lead dancer—opened a dance school in Fort Worth. My mom called them and said, “My daughter wants to learn ‘Steam Heat.’” I had stud-ied dance from the time I was three—tap/ballet/jazz, with my aunt who was a dance teacher.

How’d you get away with that given your father?

Well, because it was my aunt. From the time I was three I had dance lessons. So I knew I could do “Steam Heat.” My mom hired them to give me a private lesson. They said, “Can you sing?” And I said, “Yes.” So I sang and they said, “No, no, sing it as loud as you can!” So I sang it and everyone jumped back. I knew I had this big voice, but, prior to this moment, I didn’t know that it had a purpose. So, they taught me “Steam Heat.” My mother had this little suit made for me with the black bowtie and the Fosse derby hat and she had this local pianist record the track. I got into the talent show. I was just this little teeny kid with this really big voice singing “Steam Heat” with all the original hat tricks and Fosse choreography. They put my number right before the senior girls can-can line, which was the 11 o’clock number posi-tion. From that moment, I became an 11 o’clock number specialist. It really is what I do. Give me that and I can bring it home. Anyway, so I fi nished “Steam Heat,” and the whole audience was astonished. And then the house went nuts. I ran off stage and the principal said, “Go back, go back,” and he said I said, “Boy, we’re havin’ fun tonight!” They gave me this huge ovation and from that moment I was notorious. Everybody knew who I was. They called me “little bitty Betty Buckley, with the humongous voice.”

So you stopped being afraid of having to blend and having to . . .

Yeah, I realized “I can sing!” So my mom then became a stage mother. If she was in the room right now, she’d be saying, “I was not a stage mother, Betty Lynn! You know I wasn’t!”

She was, in fact, a stage mother. She entered me in every talent show you can imagine. My father would get angry, and he and my mother would have these huge fi ghts. She would sneak me out of the house for my dance classes. When I went to college my dad wouldn’t let me major in theater so I majored in journalism. He told me it was okay for a woman to be a jour-nalist (my mom was a jourjour-nalist), but really my career should be a compliment to my hus-band-to-be’s career. It was the ’60s. For some reason my father approved of beauty pageants, which I thought were ridiculous. As a young budding feminist and later a charter subscriber to Ms. Magazine , I saw such a double standard in our community.

But you were Miss Fort Worth . . .

I was recruited because I was the girl singer in town that year.

So you saw it as a performance opportunity?

No, my mother saw it as some great fun thing. I was raised to be this really, do-good, straight-A student, little all-American girl. Just do what people tell you to do and keep smiling.

But it was okay. My mother was not as extreme as Mama Rose. She’s a very lovely, strong, Southern, Texas gal, and she has a mind of her own. And she taught me great things. And the thing is, by nature, I’m very laid back. Without her impetus, I doubt that I would have had the motivation or the drive to do what I have done, and I’m grateful for all of that. Very grateful.

Anyway, I didn’t win Miss Texas. But the producer of the Miss America Pageant saw me, and the following year invited to be a guest entertainer at the pageant, and I was on the telecast. It was a really big deal.

betty buckley 129 You had your fi rst audition in New York on the day that you got here from Texas!

It was January 1969. I called my agent, Rodger Hess, who had signed me to this big agency when I was a junior at TCU [Texas Christian University] after I had appeared on the Miss America Pageant. When I got to town he said, “You have an audition in fi fteen minutes.

Take your music and go.” It was at the American Theater Laboratory, and I was the last girl to audition on the last day of auditions for 1776 . After I sang, they said, “Who are you?” I said,

“Betty Lynn Buckley.” “When did you get to town?” “Today.” “Today?!?! It’s like a movie! It’s like a movie!” So they kept me there for two hours and they taught me “He Plays the Violin”

and had me read. The thing was, they’d been in rehearsal, and they had another girl who was a classic soprano [playing Martha Jeff erson], but that section of the show wasn’t working. So they decided to let her go, but they didn’t know what they wanted. Then I walked in and I was diff erent. So they hired me. I got it that day and I was in rehearsal and costume fi ttings the next day. I was such a naïve kid. I was very sheltered and had no skills for anything. I didn’t know how to take care of myself, I didn’t know how to cook, I didn’t know how to . . . nothing.

Nothing and I was completely naïve. These guys [in the cast] Howard Da Silva, William Dan-iels, Paul Hecht, they really took me under their wings and taught me everything. Da Silva befriended me. He was a fantastic actor. I loved him. These wonderful actors would tell me,

“This is what you do well, and this is what you need to learn. This is where you should go study.” I did everything they told me to do. They were incredible. Such a wonderful experi-ence! In the beginning of 1776 , I had inherited the other girl’s costume. I had this brown wig, and I was doing my own makeup. I shared a dressing room with Virginia Vestoff , and I watched her to see how she did her make up. I loved everything about her! I thought, “Ooh, she’s an actress ! I need to study her.” She was like, “Why are you staring at me? Get away from me kid!” I was so silly.

You were hungry .

I was trying to learn. I thought, “Oh, my wig is brown, I have to wear darker makeup.”

Why did I think that? I don’t know. I had this pale, pale skin. So I go to the pharmacy and I buy this really dark makeup, and this really red lipstick and this really blue eye shadow. It was our fi rst big dress rehearsal in New Haven. When Martha appears on the second fl oor at the window and opens these shutters, she’s supposed to be like a breath of fresh air. That was the description. I looked like a cigar store Indian. I had this brown makeup, and red, purple lipstick. I’ll never forget it as long as I live. I thought I was doing the right thing, but Howard Da Silva and William Daniels, could barely control their laughter. And the audi-ence at this invited dress literally gasped. I was thinking, “Something’s wrong but I don’t know what it is!” I came down and out on the stage, and no one knew that I needed help opening the door. It had a spring latch and when you opened it, it slammed back. I tried to manage but my costume wasn’t cooperating. Patricia Zipprodt, the amazing costume de-signer, made the clothes exactly like they were made in the 1700s. I had these three-foot paniers on each side and I got one of my paniers caught in the door. So I pulled and pulled on my skirt and lurched free, stumbling down these two little steps onto the raked stage. I tumbled forward and William Daniels caught me. I was pretty sure I was going to be fi red.

But the producer, Stuart Ostrow was so kind. He came back and said, “We are not going to fi re you. We’re hiring a makeup artist and we are going to remake your wig and costume just for you.” We were four weeks in New Haven, then we were in Washington for four weeks, then we came to New York, previewed and opened and it was huge. I did it for seven months and then I auditioned for [the London company of ] Promises, Promises , and I got the female lead in that.

Y ou were in a huge, Tony Award–winning hit. How’d you have the instinct to move on to something else?

Because I loved Promises, Promises . Burt Bacharach and Hal David scored my life in col-lege, and they were really important to me. And the idea of going to London was thrilling to me. I blew the audition. I learned “Knowing When to Leave” overnight and it’s way too diffi cult to learn that fast. I just didn’t do it well. Then I had this inspiration, my inner voice saying “you need to take off your costume and run over to the Shubert where Promises, Promises was play-ing and talk to the stage manager Charlie Blackwell.” So I did. I convinced my sweet dresser to unlace that dress, which took forever.

During the show?

Yeah, I just had to sing the violin song, and then I had the whole rest of the show off until the bows. So, I assured my dresser I’d be back in time and I raced over, and it happened to be the intermission at Promises . I asked to speak with Charlie, and when he came to the stage door I burst into tears. I said, “Mr. Blackwell, My name is Betty Lynn Buckley and I blew my audi-tion, but I can do this, I can really do this.” He was so kind and so generous, and he agreed to coach me. He worked with me for about an hour before the Saturday matinee. And I asked him, “Can I come to the call back?”

Chutzpah!

I did have chutzpah. But, I only had that when I had that inner conviction. In my youth, I had a really loud inner voice that would instruct me quite clearly and say, “Do this, now!” And this voice said . . . and I don’t mean to say I “hear voices,” but I do, at least this one. It’s just this inner instruction, this inner being, and it said, “go, take your costume off , put on your jeans and go talk to the stage manager.”

I think we all hear those things but most of us dismiss them .

Yeah, but the hard part is to hear the diff erence between that clarity of your true inner voice and the clutter of your mind. I tell my students, there are many voices in your head. My father’s voice would say, “Get off that stage, who do you think you are?” As recently as Cats , not so long ago in the scheme of things, I had this inner voice that clearly came from my father.

“Get off the stage! No one cares!” Attack voices, which I was subject to all my life until I really worked on myself through analysis and meditation.

And yet you had the inner conviction to disregard those voices .

In certain moments, yes. That dauntless voice came from my mother. My mother’s expe-rience was, “Always ask for what you want Betty Lynn, and when people say ‘no,’ don’t take no for an answer.” And, “always think positively and things will work out. If you think you can do something, do it! Don’t hesitate, just do it!” Again, that’s why I’m really grateful for her moti-vation and her drive, because I didn’t initially have the courage of my own convictions. So anyway, Charlie got me the audition and I went back and sang, and I read the scene. They thanked me and I left. Charlie came bursting through the side doors in the alleyway of the theater and he picked me up, swung me around and said, “Go back, go back, they’re calling [producer] David Merrick!” So, I went back into the theater and repeated the audition. Then Hal David, Burt Bacharach, and Neil Simon all came down the aisle and shook my hand. I was euphoric. It was one of the happiest days of my life, because I had followed through and made it work. I got the part. I was in London for a year. I was twenty-two and the leading lady. Tony Roberts was the leading man. I got to work with Michael Bennett. I was nominated for an

betty buckley 131 Evening Standard Award, and I got to sit next to Laurence Olivier at that event. It was so

fabu-lous. David Merrick and his girlfriend, Etan, whom he later married, would take me all around London. Donna McKechnie did the show for the fi rst six weeks. I watched her do the Turkey

fabu-lous. David Merrick and his girlfriend, Etan, whom he later married, would take me all around London. Donna McKechnie did the show for the fi rst six weeks. I watched her do the Turkey