Showbiz legend Lainie Kazan |
Bugs' interview with Lainie Kazan originally ran in Three
Dollar Bill on October 22, 2009.
Broadway legend Lainie Kazan is a brassy broad but she
says she really ain’t. Then Lainie, who chews up the scenery in the new
Hollywood comedy Oy Vey! My Son Is Gay!, tells me,
"At first I thought people would be offended by the title of the movie,
so I wanted the director to change it to ‘Oh Fuck! My Son’s a Shmuck!’"
Kazan inspired Jack Kirby's
comic book superheroine Big Barda |
Ladies and gentlemen, Lainie
Kazan.
Most young people know Kazan as
the in-your-face mom in the classic comedy My Favourite Year with Peter O’Toole, or the mom in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, or Bette Midler’s mom in Beaches, and now the mom of a Jewish gay son in Oy Vey! My Son Is Gay!
But Broadway audiences first fell
head over heels for Lainie back in 1964 when she was the understudy for Barbra
Streisand in Funny Girl at
NYC’s Winter Garden Theatre. Fifteen months passed before Lainie, then 24, got
her first real shot at the big time and she remembers it like it happened
yesterday.