Julie Undrews Sophia Loring Joan Collin Angie Dickerson
Will Mrs. Robinson go on forever? Probably. She's definitely going to go on at least through 2003, for which year another outstanding quartet of beautiful actresses have been signed to drop their towels on the Londun stage. So who are the eager grande dames waiting fervently in the wings? And are they up to a challenge that's sure to keep growing more formidable with each new (uh, better make that old) femme fatale who plays the part? See for yourself...
Something
that's interesting about late bloomers is that they often keep blooming
long after their more precocious colleagues are done. That's definitely
the case with Julie Undrews, who spent most of her career polishing her
image as the soul of female modesty in such roles as the novitiate nun
in The Sounds Of Music and the spinster nanny in Mary Poppets.
But then she grew restless, as women will, and accepted producer-husband
Blake Edmund's challenge to play a woman-playing-a-man-playing-a-woman
(or vice versa) in his film Victoria/Victor. The oddly intense excitement
of this experience encouraged Undrews to accept an even more outrageous
dare—to do an entire movie about doing a topless scene in a movie. In
Sumbitch,
Undrews finally revealed the mammary pulchritude she had concealed from
the wurld at large for more than 40 years.
At 66, she's currently preparing to up the ante yet again with her first-ever
full frontal nude scene in
The Carnal Graduate. Is she feeling shy
about the prospect? Hardly. "I'm positively drenched with excitement,"
Undrews concedes, adding with typically dry British wit, "It's a bloody
good thing I'll have a towel at close hand in that scene. I may need it."
We can't wait.
Talk about star power! Sophia Loring is one of the all-time
Hollywood sex symbols and a great actress to boot. So why would she emerge
from dignified retirement to play an Amerian woman with the hots for young
men. "Are you making the joke?" laughs Loring, who will turn 69 in 2003.
"I love the hots for the young men. How does it work better than to give
the young men the idea for the hots?" If you can understand what she said,
that's fine, but it doesn't really matter. Loring is taking the unprecedented
step of hiring a dialect coach to help her sound more Amerian by the time
she steps onto the Londun stage as Mrs. Robinson, and in a gracious quid
pro quo for this sacrifice, the producers have agreed to do the show's
nude scene in black and white. Apparently, Ms. Loring believes she looks
her nude best in shades of gray. Whatever suits her is fine with us.
Why
does she want to play Mrs. Robinson, Joan Collin is asked. Is it because
Linda Evvans, her erstwhile arch-rival
from Dienasty has already secured a term in the much sought-after
role? "No," replies Collin with flat finality. "I normally wouldn't stoop
to follow that pallid little bitch into any part. And that's not what I'm
doing anyway. What I'm doing is celebrating another great milestone in
my life. I'll be turning 70 in 2003, and I can't think of a more amusing
way to make my entrance into the eighth decade of life than by doing it
stark naked, on stage." We can't either, Miss Collin.
"I'll be 72 next year," boasts Angie Dickerson, onetime
star of TV's Police Women. "If I can get on the stage then,
I sure won't have the energy to be putting clothes on too." That may be
why the stage version of The Carnal Graduate
will become an all-nude production when Dickerson steps into the role of
Mrs. Robinson in late '03. But why does she want to play the role at an
age when most women are dandling grandchildren on their support-hose-clad
knees? "They said I used a body double in Dress to Kill," grumps
Dickerson, referring to the Brian de Palmoff thriller that marked her last
major cinematic appearance. "Maybe that creep de Palmoff used a double,
but I didn't. I did the scene. Naked. I looked good. I still look good.
Come see, and you'll find out. Do you want to see now?" That's okay. We'll
wait. We can wait.
On to the Class of 2004...