Ellen Burstyn and David Selby out of costume on the set of
Long Day's Journey Into Night at Houston's Alley Theatre.

Photo by Blase DiStefano

Though the play's heavy
and the actors are heavyweights,
Ellen Burstyn &David Selby
have a lighter side.

by Blase DiStefano

This interview ran in OutSmart magazine, March 1998.

Ellen Burstyn has appeared on stage, screen, and television. She won an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a British Academy Award in 1974 for Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore; the next year she won the Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle awards for Same Time, Next Year, for which she was also nominated for an Academy Award. She received other Oscar nominations for The Last Picture Show, The Exorcist, and Resurrection. For her TV work she has received Emmy nominations for The People Versus Jean Harris and Pack of Lies. If that's not enough, she was the first woman to be elected as president of the Actors Equity Association.

David Selby began his career in theatre. His list of Broadway and Off-Broadway plays is extensive, but a few include David Rabe's Sticks and Bones, The Heiress with Jane Alexander, and Much Ado About Nothing with Kelly McGillis. His many feature films include Up the Sandbox with Barbra Streisand, Rich and Famous with Candice Bergen and Jacqueline Bisset, and Dying Young with Julia Roberts. Probably best remembered for his role as Richard Channing on the nighttime soap Falcon Crest, Selby also appeared in Flamingo Road, another nighttime soap, and in the '70s he starred in Dark Shadows, a soap opera about vampires.

In the midst of rehearsals for the play Long Day's Journey Into Night, members of the press gathered on the set at Houston's Alley Theatre with the play's stars Ellen Burstyn and David Selby, the play's director Michael Wilson, and the Alley's artistic director Gregory Boyd.

Blase DiStefano: The two of you were in Dying Young [a 1991 film starring Julia Roberts and Campbell Scott].
Ellen Burstyn: [Nods yes.]
David Selby: [Nods no.]
Burstyn [to Selby]: You weren't?
Selby: Dying Young?
Burstyn: Uh huh. It's in your credits.
Selby: Oh, yes.
Burstyn: We never met [during the making of the film].
DiStefano: That's what I thought.
Selby: That's funny.
Burstyn: Did you ever see the film, David?
Selby [Nods no]: I don't go to a lot of films. But it was great working with Colleen [Dewhurst, also in the film].
Burstyn [to DiStefano]: Was there a question. . . ?
DiStefano: Actually, no, I was just curious, because the two of you had made that film together, and now you're together in this play, so I wondered if maybe a TV series was next.
Burstyn [smiling]: No.
Selby: She keeps those TV series secret. [In 1986 Burstyn starred in The Ellen Burstyn Show, a TV series that was not a hit.]
Burstyn [playfully]: Why did you bring it up? Can't we forget?

Blase DiStefano [to Selby]: So what have you been doing since Rich and Famous [1980]?
David Selby: My God, Rich and Famous with Candy and Jackie [Candace Bergen and Jacqueline Bisset]. Jackie was actually producing that.

Didn't George Cukor direct it?
Yes. You know, he still had feelings about Clark Gable because of Gone With the Wind [Cukor was directing it, and Gable had him fired]. He'd say, "By God, David, they still think I'm only a woman's director," and he would name all the actors he worked with, but he wouldn't even mention Gable. But he was still a vibrant man. And he used four-letter words all the time, all the time, all the time.

Dark Shadows--you must get tired of everyone bringing up it up all the time.
No, no. That's part of how I got my start. . . . We did a full script every day.

How did you manage that on a daily basis?
We had teleprompters, but I never used 'em.

You knew all the lines?
It just takes a lot of study. I'd study for about three hours. By the time you block it for camera, and rehearse, you've had a few go's at it. But it was live, so all the mistakes were on there. [There is a video of bloopers from this afternoon soap.]

Blase DiStefano [to Burstyn]: Much has been written about the many negative happenings on the set of The Exorcist. Did things happen on the set of Resurrection that were positive? [Resurrection, a 1980 film, is about a woman who is in a car accident in which her husband dies; however, she is brought back to life after a brief experience "on the other side." Though paralyzed from the knees down, she realizes she has extraordinary healing powers.]
Ellen Burstyn: Yes, we had many miracles.

Can you tell us one?
My favorite one had to do with the fly. Do you remember the fly that landed on my toe when I first moved my toe and it flew away, and that was the first sign that life had come back in my leg?

Yes.
Getting a fly to act is very, very difficult. What they do is freeze flies, put a frozen fly on your toe, say "Action," and the lights melt the ice, and the fly flies away. That was the plan. But we went through fly after fly, and they either didn't thaw or they wouldn't fly or they died. So we got down to the last frozen fly, and we were about to shoot, and there were no other flies. When they said "Roll it," I said "Wait. Stop. Before we go any further, we need help with this one. 'Please, God, this is our last fly. Could you help us?'" And it worked!

While working on Resurrection, did the subject matter, in general terms, parallel your life in any way?
Just in my interest in the goddess. That was what had inspired the story. You know, Resurrection was a story that I had [commissioned to be] written, and it was inspired from the reading I was doing at the time on the re-emergence of the goddess and bringing the feminine into a religious figure.

It was a beautiful story, and you were great. And you were nominated for an Academy Award, right?
Yes.

So where do you keep the Oscar you won for Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore?
My house belonged to Ben Hecht, the writer, and he did an addition on the house, so I have a great big library-bathroom, and all of my awards are in there.

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