Shoot Me

'Twas the opening day of the TriBeCa Film Festival today

And the SVA theatre on W23rd St was the setting for the world premiere of Chiemi Karasawa's eagerly awaited documentary SHOOT ME: ELAINE STRITCH. I had booked early and took as my date Allen Read (from the PEG O' MY HEART readings) who had worked with Stritch in THE FULL MONTY at Paper Mill and had plenty of Stritch stories of his own.

The film is a triumph and reveals every facet of the 87 year old Broadway legend. Hilarious raconteur, the straight shooting no-nonsense demanding force of nature, the mesmerising artiste and the frightened vulnerable woman besieged by diabetes and terrified by the loss of her faculties.

Apart from the requisite celebrity interviews such as Hal Prince, Nathan Lane and Cherry Jones, we also meet Julie Keyes who sat next to Stritch at an AA meeting and was suddenly commanded to pick her up the next day and run errands. Too stunned to refuse she found herself in the unwilling role of factotum until she fell under Stritch's spell and became a devoted friend.

 Perhaps most touching (and the scenes of Stritch in the throes of a diabetic attack are both harrowing and moving) is her longtime relationship with musical director Rob Bowman (pictured at piano) upon whom she increasingly relies for support as she struggles with memory loss and physical frailty.
After the film there was a Q & A with the director and star but no sooner had Stritch made her laborious way to the stage than she announced she urgently needed to go to the bathroom so she disappeared for a while as the director and Rob Bowman held the fort. But really there was nothing more to say; the film had already answered all questions and it seemed only fair to let the exhausted and overwhelmed star get something to eat and go home to bed. I don't know of future plans for the film's wider release but it is essential viewing for fans and newbies to the legend alike.

A jolly postscript to this: the following morning I got this message from the lovely Allen Read who had done FULL MONTY with Stritch.
" Thank you so much for the movie last night. What a special experience! After I left you I got a wild hair to call Elaine at the Carlyle. I got her voicemail and just left her a message reminding her of who I was, not sure if she'd even remember after reminding her. And I told her how brilliant I thought the film was and how honored I felt to have known her and worked briefly with her. Shortly after that my phone died. When I plugged it in around midnight I had the sweetest voicemail from ELAINE!!!!!! It was lovely and I'll, of course, be saving it forever!!!! She asked me to call her back and join her sometime for cappuccinos!!! So thank you again for all of that. Thought you'd get a kick out of it!! "