Beatrice Bea Lillie "Talking to You" Complete Live "High Spirits" Showstopper! Noel Coward

This is Bea Lillie in her last Broadway show, completely stopping the show cold with her bunny slipper dance in "Talking to You". Listen to the response and how she handles it, setting it off again. This is what used to be called a showstopper and there are very few of them in Broadway history on this level. I asked her stage manager / friend / biographer Bruce Laffey and there was no trick involved, Bea bought a pair of bunny slippers she found in a department store and somehow when she danced across the stage she made the faces pop up. No film of this I know of. Various people who saw it say it was the funniest thing they ever saw, and though no one would claim "High Spirits" was in the Pantheon and its run was relatively modest compared to its competition "Funny Girl" and "Hello, Dolly" I've also talked to many people who said it was their favorite show ever. When I worked with Amanda Plummer she remembered it very, very warmly (she was six at the time). Heavily cleaned from a live front row tape the producer made. There's nobody like Bea today, but then given how auditions are run now I don't know that she would ever have gotten through, she wasn't a great singer or dancer, it was the almost paranormal connection she made with the audience that made her such a star. You probably can't pick out his voice but Christopher Walken was in the chorus. Under another first name. Howard Kissel traded in on this when he reviewed Walken's Public Theater show about Elvis and said Bea Lillie would have been better in the part.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Beatrice Lillie
• Bea Lillie
• Noel Coward
• High Spirits
• Broadway
• Timothy Gray
• Hugh Martin
• Tammy Grimes

[jonthesYT]

I never saw her live either but love her work, got to know her biographer, friend and stage manager Bruce Laffey. This was I believe recorded in the front row with a reel to reel by the producer. Some of those recordings came out better than this one, but at the time there was no amplification so a live show didn't sound like modern live shows anyway. Now it's like the theater is a recording studio. She'd never get through an audition now, not technically a singer or dancer. Just a star.

[miltsar]

I actually saw High Spirits with Bea and Tammy ! A great show...she was hilarious. I have read that she was beginning to suffer from Alzheimer's ....but you would never know it watching her onstage that night...she brought the house down with the slightest movement of her bunny slippers ! I still remember the glow I felt watching her perform. It was a wonderful wonderful show and it is still one of my favorite musicals.

[PismoBeach]

Thanks so much for this.

I've had the album since it came out in the 60's, but never did get to see the show.

[britcomic]

Absolutely amazing to hear. I am too young to have seen her perform live, alas but I have always loved her studio recordings of An Evening With... But a LIVE show is where a true genius like Miss Lillie comes alive and so it is a rare treat to her this recording, despite it's lack of hi-fidelity. Thanks for posting!

[NFNJP]

HOW WONDERFUL TO HEAR THIS WONDERFUL STAR PERFORMING LIVE - OH I I WISH THERE WERE STARS LIKE THIS TODAY.