Instead, let's just spend a few minutes thinking about three very different careers. Two of our ladies have moved on to thrill audiences in the great beyond; the last is still on this mortal plane (as much as anyone recently touring in Hello, Dolly! can be).
Sills joins the inevitable Miss Davis as the only, to me, truly convincing Elizabeths (yes, I'm looking at you, Miss Blanchett; Dame Judi's turn was a camp, and so doesn't really count).
Demure!
Jeanne Crain may hold a somewhat less superstellar place in the celebrity firmament, but it was a fine enough career, the stuff of Photoplay covers if not all that much more, really.
I was going to write that at least she escaped, unlike many of her contemporaries, making a late-career shocker. Then I discovered she in fact headlined what must be a nifty little picture, one that although forgotten now is, titlewise, right up there with the best of the worst: 1971's The Night God Screamed. One can only imagine.
Broadway!
Finally, a Great Lady of the Stage, still trouping: Miss Leslie Uggams. It was never as big a career as it could have been (she is big; it's the musicals that got small), but she's working, and there's a lesson for us there somewhere, kiddies.
*Remind me someday to tell you my story about Beverly Sills's ring. Total diva heaven.
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