Her Favorite Things

(The original at Marissa Messier's Broadway Actors site is no longer available. I have preserved its wording.)

Musical

Pippin

Play

Nicholas Nickleby (that's the production, I guess), Twelfth Night

Movie

The Bicycle Thief

Actor

Gene Hackman, Liam Neeson, Alec Guiness, Sir Ralph Richardson

Actress

Edith Evans, Colleen Dewhurst, Susan Sarandon

Director

Richard Jones, Max Stafford-Clark, Andre Servan, Garland Wright

Song from musical

Depends on my mood

Role played

Mrs. Warren, Hedda [Gabler], Cherubino, Amanda (Glass Menagerie)

Ice cream flavor

pumpkin

Breakfast food

rye toast

Candy

Reeses peanut butter cups

Pie

cherry

Book

Anna Karenina, One Hundred Years of Solitude, mysterie stories (esp. Dorothy Sayers and Ngaio Marsh)

Color

Green, red

TV Show

Law and Order

Cartoon character

Mighty Mouse, the Gargoyles

Historical Figure

Joan of Arc

Record album

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Art of Bee Caauto with Joan Sutherland

Quote

All it takes to be a great actor is absolute sincerity. If you can fake that, you've got it made. (Fred Allen?)^◊

Number

5

Magazine

The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Sunday New York Times Magazine—for the crossword puzzle

Sport

baseball

Beverage

coffee

Animal

dog

Talk show host

Steve Allen

^◊Evidently Ms. Clarke was citing the following from memory:

The most important thing in acting is honesty. If you can fake that, you've got it made.

Thus quoth George Burns, who in turn adapted a quote from Groucho Marx: The secret to life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made.

The Burns quote, in various forms, apparently makes it way through introductory college courses in drama. That's probably how Ms. Clarke first heard it.

—Andy West, 9 November 2004.