One Crazy Cat

Today is the 67th birthday of one Betty Lynn Buckley, possibly the maddest hatter in all of show business, or at least all of musical theatre. 

Known for her piercing belt and intense lyric interpretations, Betty came to national attention as the step mother on Eight is Enough and Sissy Spacek's kind-hearted but doomed gym teacher in Carrie. In 1983 she cemented her place in musical theatre by winning a Tony award for originating the role of Grizabella the faded prostitute cat in Cats.

Although  I'd long known I would eventually move to New York, the impetus for me to actually come here was auditioning for Betty's acting class at the T. Schreiber Stuidio and being invited to join. It happened so quickly. I'd come to New York for a weekend to visit my friend Tim and spotted an ad for Betty's class in his copy of Backstage. Two weeks later my bags were packed and I was studying with Betty Buckley.

Betty was a huge believer in meditation and chakra work, and as it happened at the time I was religiously (that word seems especially out of place here), meditating and focusing on my chakras daily. It seemed like it would be a good fit. 

Betty was not at my audition, but I met her just before the first class. She told me she'd looked over my resume and that I had some "nice credits." Well okay, if community theatre productions of The Matchmaker and Gypsy can be considered nice credits, then yeah, I had some nice credits. I suppose she was just trying to be polite. That didn't last long.

Each class started with 30 minutes of meditation. Not guided meditation, just "let's turn out the lights, light a candle, and all work on our chakras." This was to help center us and to put ourselves into a meditative state as we approached our work. 

Nearly as soon as a a pair of students started presenting a scene to the class, Betty would shatter any magical state that might have been created by screaming, "NO! No! I don't believe you! You're not breathing! YOU'RE NOT BREATHING!" 

Holy fuck wads, she was so nice on Eigth Is Enough. And  yes, I'd seen enough episodes of Fame to know that acting teachers yell, but did that really apply to acting teachers whose whole foundation is based on remaining calm and relaxed? 

I know I tested Betty's nerves and got a terse response when I inquired if it was okay to use the slightly different color pallet of chakras (which I had learned from that spiritual leader Shirely MacLaine) that I was used to instead of the ones that Betty prescribed. Forty-something me wouldn't have asked, or maybe even thirty something me. I would have just said, "fuck her, if these colors are good enough for Shirley, they're good enough for me." But twenty-three year old me didn't know any better. 

"These are the colors that work! Use these colors. Aren't you here to learn?"

She also wasn't too happy when I sincerely questioned the notion of praying to God if, as she claimed, we were finding God within ourselves when we meditated.

"You could do with a little more humility," she growled. Or hissed...I guess cats are more hissers than growlers.

I did have one triumphant moment in the class. The first assignment for every new student was to go to the zoo and study an animal, then come present our work to the class to guess which animal we had chosen. I spent several intense (and odorous) hours in the reptile house at the Central Park Zoo studying an iguana. When my turn came to take the floor at the class, I got down on all fours and slithered around, eyes darting, head twitching, and tongue occasionally chasing an imaginary fly. 

"Iguana?" Betty guessed.

Oh my God! I'm brilliant. I nailed it. She didn't say lizard, or alligator, or generic reptile. No, she said IGUANA! I'm going to make it in this business after all.

The next week the class was canceled. Betty Lynn had been called home to Texas to attend to her dying father.

"That's strange," said my scene partner Sheila.

"What's strange?" I asked.

"Well, I took Betty's class last summer...and her father died last year, too."  

Oh Betty Buckley, you are so fiercely talented...but you are one mad, crazy cat.