Elaine Stritch

Raspy-voiced, hilarious spitfire Elaine Stritch has got plenty of stories about her illustrious career in show business. Her famed solo show, Elaine Stritch at Liberty, is lush with captivating tales about charming Noel Coward, dealing with booze after the death of her husband, and bedding Marlon Brando. But she has never told, in public, the story of the time she was on stage and caught on fire. On April 26, 1970, the opening night of Sondheim's Company, Stritch transfixed the audience of the Alvin Theater with her show-stopping "Ladies Who Lunch." The song, which ironically toasts a leisure class of trophy wives, tickled an audience member in the first row—Elise Hofensenther—who was attending her first Broadway show, as the winner of her local radio station's "Win tickets to the premiere of a Broadway show!" radio station giveaway. Elise, used to the conventions of Lynrd Skynrd concerts (she was not classy), showed her appreciation for the dry scathing wit of the number by raising her lighter into the air. Elaine Stritch, though distracted and irritated by the audience member's behavior, was a total pro. Stritch improvised a bit of business during the song, elegantly and seamlessly reaching into her purse and spraying perfume on her pulse points, and then, into the air surrounding her, during the part of the song where she demands, "everybody rise!" Unfortunately, an unscrupulous stagehand had filled the prop perfume bottle in Stritch's purse with lighter fluid. He'd planned to steal it after the show, so he could treat his pyromaniac girlfriend—who was as big a fan of Broadway paraphernalia as she was of the smell of butane—to a unique birthday gift. The rest of the evening was a disaster. Elaine's perfume spritz caught the breeze from a ceiling fan, which whipped the mist of lighter fluid into the range of Hofensenther's arm, and then, in blowtorch form, back at Stritch, who promptly went up in flames. Luckily, Hal Prince, who had been, until then, enjoying the fruits of his directorial debut in partnership with Stephen Sondheim, was sitting in the second row. Prince that night had brought with him, as his date to the show, a sack of wet sawdust. Prince had had a spat with his wife, Judy that evening, about her parents, and he gave her the ultimatum that either she get a hotel for his in-laws that weekend, or else, he'd take a sack of wet sawdust to the Company premiere in her stead. As Judy Prince made up their bed to her parents' liking, and began laying Hal's pajamas on their pull-out couch, Hal hastily grabbed the sack of damp sawdust, which he would soon empty onto Broadway treasure Elaine Stritch during the second act of his and Sondheim's groundbreaking musical about postmodern singlehood, successfully extinguishing the flames that engulfed her.