In 1989, Mary Louise Wilson, after nearly four decades in the theater, found herself being robbed of stage time in the minor role of “First Witch” in a Public Theater production of “Macbeth.” The director was giving it to “the younger, prettier witch.”Discussing this sad juncture in her life in her new memoir, “My First Hundred Years in Show Business,” the actor writes, “The past few years, the only parts I was getting called to read for were washroom attendants and bag ladies on television. I was even going up for parts against actual bag ladies. I had gone from featured roles on Broadway to playing parts labeled ‘Woman’ with lines like ‘Hello.’ So I was telling myself, Well, at least I’m first witch. And then this director took away the one thing that made me first.”Disgusted with the stasis of her career, Wilson decided to mold a vehicle for herself, co-writing with Mark Hampton the one-person show, “Full Gallop,” based on the autobiography of Diana Vreeland, the powerful and influential longtime editor of “Vogue.” Six years later, Wilson became the toast of off-Broadway in the award-winning production, earning universal acclaim as the flamboyant and glamorous society doyenne. The hilarious and ultimately moving monodrama proved to be a turning point in the actor’s career. From there Wilson spring-boarded to a Tony Award nomination as Fraulein Schneider in the 1998 smash hit revival of “Cabaret,” and finally won the award itself as the eccentric ”Big” Edie Beale in the musical version of “Grey Gardens.” This past season, she won more plaudits for her role as the nutty Mrs. Letitia Peabody Primrose in the Roundabout Theatre’s smash revival of “On the Twentieth Century,” which ends its run on July 19.While “My First Hundred Years in Show Business” began as a project graphing the difficult and frustrating development of “Full Gallop,” the memoir soon morphed into a funny, wise, and brutally honest re-telling of Wilson’s half-century as a performer. It’s not hard to understand why Ron Nyswaner, the Oscar-nominated writer of “Philadelphia,” was drawn to her as the subject of his new documentary, “She’s the Best Thing in It,” which premiered at the South by Southwest film festival earlier this year. Born in New Haven and raised in New Orleans, Wilson was reared to be a proper young woman but in no time was living it up as a pot-smoking free-spirited actor, raising hell in Greenwich Village and consorting with artists and writers every bit as crazy as she was.In a recent interview with ARTINFO, Wilson, now 84, spoke candidly of her bouts with insecurity, alcoholism, and personal disappointment, and how humor and staunchness have been the saving graces of her life. You write in your memoir, “The problem is that the business you dreamt of is never the same as the one you end up in.” What were the fantasies and what was the reality? It used to be show business and it turned into the entertainment industry. And in my time of coming into the theater, there was TV and commercials. And this I had not figured on. Plain people, ordinary people, this did not interest me at all. I wanted to play countesses and mad women, I wanted to wear farthingales, furs and little hats, and have lunch at the Plaza with my friends. I spent a lot of time on the subway going to auditions and interviews for commercials.Did you compensate for that lack of glamour by writing about the larger-than-life and self-invented Diana Vreeland? Right. Right. Right. She really wasn’t interested in facts. Somebody asked her, “Diana, is this fact or fiction?” She said, “It’s faction.”What determined her inventiveness? Oh, she was very homely and her sister and her mother were both great beauties. “You’re not attractive at all,” her mother told her. She loved men and men liked her. She had this great little figure and knew how to dress so she made the most of it. She made the choice: she could hide or she could flaunt. And she flaunted. And men were drawn to her. You don’t necessarily have to be a beauty to attract men.How did your family regard your looks? They used to laugh at my looks. My mother said when I was born I looked like Mickey Mouse, which was very unfair. And then when I was fifteen or sixteen, I started looking good and they were very puzzled by that. They didn’t know what to make of it. What was most enlightening about writing the book? I never realized how much my background had influenced me, what strength it had on my character, and mainly that was the humor in my family which saved us all from killing each other. It was not a happy family but we shared humor and to me it’s the most valuable trait.Was the humor caustic? Oh, yeah. I was the lowest on the pecking order and it worked its way down to the family and that quality of scoffing which I got from my father. It took me years to get over that. It was a bad habit.Given Diana Vreeland’s penchant for self-invention, did you look at possible myths about your own life? I don’t know that I do that. I’m not very good at that. I wish I could do that, exaggerate virtues. I tend to go around telling everybody my faults. It’s about being the youngest in a family of very strong personalities.What did you learn most from your brother Hugh who would later die of AIDS? Courage. He had no self-pity. My mother had a great deal of it and he had none. Very admirable. He never felt sorry for himself. I admired that and I tried to emulate it. Did you always know he was gay? It was one of those things that I knew but I didn’t know. True of straight people in the ‘50s. You knew but just didn’t look at it. I heard guys calling him a fairy and it hurt me, but I didn’t stand up to it. He never made a secret of being gay. He was quite outspoken about it. He married and he very much loved Phyllis.Did you ever want children? I did but at that point I’m really glad I didn’t because I was so crazy.Did that craziness work for you as an actor? I don’t think so. I was unhappy a great part of my life. I didn’t see what I had to offer. This book showed me the truth [while] writing it. I never really looked at my career because I was embarrassed by it. It seemed to be not a career at all. It seemed not very good. I had ruined a lot of chances but I came out the other end.How did you come out the other end? Doing the Vreeland show really helped me. Writing about her. I owe a debt to her. Because of her positiveness and self-regard. And I have to say, also, I stopped drinking, and that way, I was able to heal and to see things clearly. It really was therapeutic. I stopped drinking just before the Vreeland project. I don’t think I would have done it otherwise. I didn’t wreck cars — I just drank every day for thirty-odd years. And thought nothing of it because everybody I knew did.Was being a late bloomer a blessing? It’s terrific! I never expected this and I have to say now, I know who I am and I can enjoy life. One of the benefits is that I’m not trying to build my career. I don’t worry about what people think. I’m just having a good time.In the book, you come off with a certain generosity of spirit—How do you mean?I don’t know many people who, at 37, in the 1960s, would have an affair with a 23-year-old African-American, get knocked up by him, have an abortion, cry their eyes out, come back and find two pictures in the apartment, one of his girlfriend and one of him in drag. Most people would say, “I’m out of here.” Instead, you indulged his desire to go out with you in full drag. Well, I know it sounds strange but I loved him. I don’t know how else to explain it. He wasn’t just some guy. He was charming and smart. And I was in love with him. It was so hard for him. He would go into these depressions. In the end it was killing to me to do it, to go out with him on these… It wasn’t like he didn’t love women. It wasn’t like he was going out with men. It was heartbreaking.You eventually discovered an obituary of him years later. It was killing to read it. It’s a peek at your past. Way in the past but it had kind of present sense. I never lost the feeling I had about him. I could access the feeling and to find out he was no longer on this earth, well it was a very strange feeling of my past just dropping away. He had been a minister, had married and had children. He was very respected. I was very glad to see that.Your first Tony nomination was for the hit revival of “Cabaret.” How was that experience? “Cabaret” was great. I don’t know that I had fun, because Fraulein Schneider had no sense of humor. None at all and those songs were so tough. “Vat would you do?” Did you know Lotte Lenya, who created Fraulein Schneider in the original? I saw her in “Threepenny Opera” when I first came to New York. She was singing “The ship, the black freighter….” She lifted her arms and she had hair under her arms! Nobody had hair under their arms. She was the living embodiment of Weimar Germany. I gather from the book that you were quite the hippy in the ‘60s and ‘70s, smoking joints and being a free spirit. Did you ever grow hair under your arms? No. Never! I was a very “uptown hippy.” I wanted to be glamorous and beautifully dressed and on the other hand I live in blue jeans and sneakers. I loved the Village and it’s where I still live. The Village in the 60s was wonderful. Lots of off-Broadway theater, meeting people in cafes. I had an English bulldog, Maybelle. The only English bulldog in the village in those days and I’d walk her with a man who had a pet skunk. We drew crowds.
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