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Celebrate with Ecstatic Naked Twirling
Broadway To Vegas - May 24, 1999
By Laura Deni
Tyne Daly, who snagged a 1989 Tony award for her portrayal of Mama Rose in Gypsy and became
a household name through the television series Cagney and Lacy, is returning to the boob tube. A
new CBS entry casts Daly in Judging Amy, a series about a young female judge
who moves from the city to find closer family ties. Amy Brenneman plays the
single mother judge of a daughter, with Daly as her mother.
"They think you've died if you haven't been on TV on a regular basis in three
years," Daly once explained. "It doesn't matter to them that I was on Broadway
grabbing my Tony. You can't think about things like that or you get bummed."
The talented formally trained actress, who made her theatrical debut in 1966, has
had an eclectic career punctuated by interesting commentary.
When she was cast as the frump Lola in William Inge's Come Back Little Sheba,
she opined; "I'd like to be done with the sad and frumpy ladies. In some ways, I
hope this is my definitive frump."
After she took part in the original cast recording of Gypsy she offered her own review. "It was a
nightmare. People were being mean to each other instead of loving. I was sick - and still playing
shows. The pressure was huge. So when people come up and say - Will you sign this album? - I tell
them to take it back to the store and get their money back!"
When her weight gain and then loss made headlines, Tyne retorted: "My relationship with food is
violent. If they'd just make food nasty, we'd all be better off. I once had a dream that I was
literally standing at the Pearly Gates and there was this angel with wings who asked me my average
lifetime weight. If you don't have a penis the only true cultural contribution you can make is to
lose 35 pounds. I didn't gain or lose nearly as much as the press said. I'm vain about my legs. I
think I have great legs."
Three years ago when Tyne approached her 50th birthday, she told the London Sunday Mirror
"My friends and I will gather among the giant redwood trees in Northern California and wait until
the moon is full. Then, stark naked, I will start the ecstatic dancing. There just has to be a
ceremony for being 50, and I want to enter the second half of my life like a brand new baby."
What Daly did on her personal big five zero day was to shave her head, wanting to start her second
half-century in the same hairless state as her first. She says she's "always felt that I was going to
live to be 86."
Her grandfather was a Methodist minister. "The ministry, the theater and the law are all very
close. It's all about being more righteous as a human being. "
Although Daly has a room full of awards, she has learned to keep her perspective. Once while with
her daughters in a New York hotel, paparazzi sprang out, bulbs flashing. "My kids were upset. So
I was real brave. I walked up to them and said - Listen, fellows. Give us a break. We're on
vacation. They said - We're not interested in you, lady. Elizabeth Taylor is in the hotel. - It was
very humbling, which is good."
Copyright © 1999 Broadway to Vegas. All rights reserved.
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