I translated the third verse of “Docteur Faust” by Serge Gainsbourg.
I weighed 92.15 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since February 17.
I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice and it stayed in tune about half the time.
I weighed 93.2 kilos before lunch. That’s a record high for the early afternoon since I’ve been recording my weight.
In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and on the way back stopped at Freshco where I bought five bags of Canadian cherries, a pint of Canadian blueberries, bananas, a pack of Canadian ground beef, a large tin of Full City Dark coffee, and a loaf of multigrain sandwich bread. I did a price match on the cherries with the No Frills price of $8.80 a kilo.
I weighed 92.4 kilos at 18:35.
I was two days behind in my journal and worked on getting caught up.
I grilled four chicken legs and had one with a potato and margarine while watching an interview of Kristen Chenoweth and another of Lesley Ann Warren on the topic of Carol Burnett.
Kristen says Carol is her main influence. Her earliest memory of Carol Burnett is watching her dad laughing at the show. She wanted to be able to make her father laugh that hard.
Lesley was 19 and had already done Cinderella on TV, two Broadway musicals, and The Happiest Millionaire before she met Carol when Carol invited her to be a guest on her show.
Lesley grew up in Manhattan and used to sneak into Broadway shows, which is where she saw Carol in Once Upon a Mattress. Later she was a big fan of The Carol Burnett Show.
Lesley started studying ballet when she was 6. At 13 she auditioned for George Ballancine’s School of ballet and was accepted. At 14 she started taking jazz dance classes, singing lessons, and acting lessons because she had gotten the musical theatre bug. She began auditioning for musicals without telling her parents. She won a role in Bye Bye Birdie but her parents wanted her to finish high school and wouldn’t let her do the show. She finished high school at Professional Children’s School while still studying dance, acting and singing. She skipped Grade 8. She auditioned for the Broadway show Hundred and Ten in the Shade and got in. She graduated at 16 and at 17 was rehearsing for the show.
When she auditioned for Richard Rogers’ Cinderella, she was terrible and he said she wasn’t ready. But the director had seen her on Broadway and asked him to give her another chance. She had a private audition in his apartment and she sat at the piano with him while he taught her exactly how he wanted her to sing “My Funny Valentine”. She learned it and got the part.
Carol had so many colours to the palate of her talent.
Bob Mackie was a genius at construction of costumes. The jump suit that Lesley did her number and danced in on The Carol Burnett Show kept her boobs from moving.
Dancing helped her train for physical comedy. A lot of actors only perform from the neck up.
The broadest comedy she’s done is Life Stinks by Mel Brooks.
Lee Strasberg was her acting teacher for ten years. One of his exercises was that the student has to go to the zoo, pick an animal, then study its characteristics and imbue them in a character.
One can see Carol’s influence by watching the female cast members of Saturday Night Live.
A lot of Victor Victoria was improvising except for Julie Andrews’ part because she doesn’t like to improvise.
When Lesley didn't win the Oscar she was at first devastated but then she looked around and saw that Dustin Hoffman had also lost, so it was easier to handle.
She was nominated for a Golden Globe for 79 Park Avenue and did not expect to win.
The Muppets was also like a variety show. It required ten days of rehearsal. Lesley had seen Lili starring Leslie Caron about seven times as a girl. She falls in love with a puppet. It had such a strong imprint that when she went to work with the Muppets she felt like Lili.
When Lesley did Carol’s show she had been singing and dancing for years. Her mother had been a torch singer at the Copa and sang all the time at home. So when Lesley did her sultry and sexy number she was impacted by her mother.
Kristin Chenoweth studied Musical Theatre at Oklahoma State University and earned a Masters Degree in Opera Performance. She turned down a scholarship to The Academy of Vocal Arts in 1993 to make her New York debut in Animal Crackers. She made her Broadway debut in Steel Pier in 1997. In 1999 she won a Tony for her performance as Sally in You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown. She also won for On The Twentieth Century. She made her film debut in Topa Topa Bluffs in 2002. She originated the role of Glinda in the 2003 musical Wicked and the part was written with her in mind. She co-starred in Pushing Daisies for which she won an Emmy Award. She also co-starred on The West Wing, Sit Down Shut Up, and Schmigadoon. She starred in the short-lived sitcom Kristin and on GCB. She starred in 12 Men of Christmas and Family Weekend. She co-starred in Into Temptation, Bewitched, RV, Deck the Halls, Space Chimps, Tinker Bell, Four Christmases, You Again, Hit and Run, The Opposite Sex, The Boy Next Door, Strange Magic, Hard Sell, Class Rank, My Little Pony, The Star, The Witches, and Holidate. Her first album in 2001 was Let Yourself Go. Her 2009 memoir was called A Little Bit Wicked. She is a coloratura soprano.
During supper I got a chicken bone stuck in my throat. It was sharp and wedged sideways and when I tried to swallow it just dug in. I went to the bathroom and made long, slow, hard coughs to try to jar it free. This had never happened to me before and so I was frightened. I was thinking I might have to head for emergency at St. Joseph’s. I pushed harder and finally coughed it free. It was almost the length and shape of a thin toothpick.
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