Rosemary Harris (#242) - November, 2009

"The Royal Family"'s own theatre royalty Rosemary Harris (Tony Award winner for The Lion in Winter) talks about her current role as Fanny Cavendish at Manhattan Theatre Club and her 1975 performance as Julie Cavendish with such costars as Sam Levene and Eva Le Gallienne (including what she's stolen from "Miss Le G"). She also takes us back to her childhood role as "The Queen" in a play written and staged by her older sister; her discovery by Moss Hart and her Broadway debut in an unsuccessful show that he both wrote and directed; her illustrious directors and leading men, including Laurence Olivier (who personally demonstrated how she was to play Ophelia's mad scene), John Gielgud (who fired her at one point), Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole, among many others; whether she agrees with the generality that she plays English roles in America and American roles in England; her participation in the founding of such influential theatre companies as the APA (later the APA-Phoenix), the Chichester Festival and the Royal National Theatre, and why she feels the disappearance of the company structure is such a loss for actors today.