Estelle Parsons is in previews. Her two-person, 90-minute play “The Velocity of Autumn” opens the 21st at the Booth. Age 86, she’s pushing those bones harder than Derek Jeter:
“At the gym daily. Have a trainer every week, do weights twice a week, bike a half-hour, do Pilates, and swim so the body never feels stiff. I never go out after the show. I take control of my voice. I spend all day hanging around at home waiting for the big event. Listen, Broadway is not for the faint of heart.”
Where’s her 1967 “Bonnie and Clyde” Oscar?
“On the floor. Was on a shelf but I got tired going up on a ladder. Everybody wants to see it. My cleaning lady overpolished it so now they just regilded the thing free of charge.
“I started as a writer, commentator and ‘Today’ show production assistant. Women weren’t breaking into TV then. I did political reporting. Worked the primaries with Estes Kefauver. But I closed my door on that. Never once saw the ‘Today’ show since. I don’t know all those blondes in their low-cut tight dresses who understand nothing and just read the f - - king teleprompter.”
Never without an opinion, Estelle says of “August: Osage County”: “The movie opened it up too much. Our play ran tightly. The picture shoots in between. I spent one year doing the play and one year tailoring it. The film wasn’t like the play.”
In this new drama she’s “an old lady in a nursing home — but it’s funny and people laugh.” OK . . . so will she ever retire?
“Never.”
Celebs with dark thoughts
Our most recent headline brings up that doing yourself in is more prevalent than realized. Ozzy and son Jack Osbourne both contemplated it. Dwight Gooden came close in ’94. Willie Nelson told Blender magazine: “Once, in Nashville, I laid in the snow in the street and waited for a car to come along. But didn’t work. No traffic. So I got up and bought another round of drinks.”
Depressed Kirk Douglas revealed he loaded his gun in ’95 but “the barrel accidentally bumped against my teeth and I started laughing. My toothache saved my life.” Early career stress was a factor with Tom Jones. Robert Blake in Boze Hadleigh’s “Hollywood and Whine”: “I think of all the times I wanted to do it. I don’t know why I’m here.” Billy Joel has said at age 21 his poison of preference was furniture polish.
Theater downers
Many productions based on miseries — aging in a nursing home, taking one’s own life — are now appearing in light ha-ha contexts.
Opened December in London’s Aldwych Theatre, booked till May, was Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Stephen Ward.” Playing to half full, it already closed. Based on the old Profumo affair, it dealt with that happy thought — suicide. Ready? It was a musical.
Fools’ Day
April Fools’ Day. Send Obama a Job Well done card. Send the wife a travel folder. Send Madoff a Monopoly Get Out of Jail Free card.
Odds & ends
Jane Lynch clutching a Carlos Falchi chocolatey-colored hand-painted clutch . . . SUPPORTING nominee June Squibb got a “Game of Thrones” game . . . PRODUCERS Judith Ann Abrams and Adam Blanshay opened “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” in London’s West End . . . NORTH West’s daddy better save his money. Last year Kanye earned $11.5 million. His new “Yeezus” is wheezing at a few bucks over one mil in royalties.
In torrential rain, customer to owner Ernesto in jammed Upper East Side restaurant Due: “Crowds, noise, canapés and dinner — that’s what New Yorkers are made of.”
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.