Harvey Fierstein on “I Was Better Last Night”

You may not expect Harvey Fierstein, with a giant dog named Charlie, to live in a small Connecticut town. After all, this native New Yorker is a Broadway legend. But it was here in the library of Ridgefield, Connecticut, her hometown of adoption, that correspondent Rita Braver met with Fierstein to talk about her new memoirs, “I Was Better Last Night.”

“I was better off last night – Is it something people always say in the theater when someone comes to see them? Braver asked.

“Oh, yes. Definitely,” he replied. “Always say, ‘Oh well, you should have seen it last night. It was a little off tonight. Did you hear that note?'”

And, says Fierstein, he grew up feeling a little dull. Born in 1954 into a Jewish family in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, he said he often wanted to dress up as a girl and finally tried to make up his mother on Halloween: “And I painted myself so beautifully. And then I realized that I can’t go to my friends to do tricks or treats like that, and I just grabbed my hands and smeared my face. “

“Have you become a zombie?” Braver asked.

“I was still in drag, but I was in socially acceptable drag, because I was a monster.”

“In the book you say you first said the words out loud ‘I know I’m gay’ when you were in high school?”

“Once I found out, it was like, I had to tell everyone. And no one was surprised!” he laughed.

Firestein studied visual arts in both high school and college, but realized he had a knack for acting. He was only 17 when he won a role in a play by Andy Warhol, “Pork.” “I was turned into an asthmatic lesbian maid by the star’s mother, named Ameila,” she said.

And soon, he made a name for himself in experimental theater, with a series of drag roles: “It’s the biggest mask there is. All the actors hide behind the characters, but when you hide behind the genre it also forces you to be someone you are. “

Braver asked, “Most of your work was in action. But then one of your friends and mentors told you that you were smart and funny and that you should start writing plays yourself. your answer? “

“I said, ‘I’m dyslexic. I can’t write a play. I don’t know how to spell.’ You follow and write. “And that set me free in a way that nothing else has.”

“Torch Song Trilogy,” which also became a movie, was the story of Arnold Beckhoff (roughly based on Fierstein), a drag queen trying to find love.

Fierstein said he initially thought the play’s gay themes would not work on Broadway: “I thought I would close, I would make money, life would go on.”

But in 1983 the “Torch Song Trilogy” won the Tony Awards for Best Performance and best actor, Fierstein becoming the first openly gay protagonist to win for playing a gay character.

The following year, he won another Tony Award for writing the book “La Cage Aux Folles”. But he didn’t take on a role in the show, about a couple of gay nightclub owners, until a renaissance in 2011, to which he says he couldn’t say no: “Regret is the only thing you don’t want in your La life. Failure? We can all cope. Regret? It’s not that easy. So I took it. ”

Hollywood also discovered Harvey Fierstein, playing him, among other roles, as the gay brother who helps transform Robin Williams into “Mrs. Doubtfire.”

But Fierstein had developed a serious problem with alcohol. “Are you a secret drinker?” Braver asked.

“A secret drinker, who’s the worst guy, because no one sees you. And at the end of my drink I was drinking half a gallon of 100 Southern Comfort tests a day. That’s a lot of alcohol.”

After a suicide attempt in 1996, he got sober. Her comeback role in 2002 was another Tony-winning performance as Edna Turnblad, a closed mother who transforms into “Hairspray.”

Fierstein fondly remembers that the whole company started calling her “mama” and then, “A couple of months later, I opened ‘Fiddler on the Roof.’ So here I am with a beard, my own beard, “Now I have five daughters and everyone calls me Dad. And that couldn’t have loved me more. They’re both amazing parts of my life.”

And what a life! She wrote the books for two more hit musicals, “Kinky Boots” and “Newsies,” and is now reviewing the book for the “Funny Girl” revival. But this great Broadway movie feels happier here in Ridgefield, greeting friends like the owner of his favorite restaurant, Southwest Café. And, Fierstein said, he prefers to do it all alone, without a long-term partner. “I’m bad, I’m bad,” he said. “I don’t know what’s inside me. I want to do what I want to do. How long have you been married?”

Braver said, “This spring will be 50 years old.”

“Yeah, yeah. So you don’t remember what it’s like to be happy!”

READ AN EXTRACT: “I Was Better Last Night” by Harvey Fierstein
In his new memoirs, Tony’s winning actor and playwright recalls his film roles in “Mrs. Doubtfire” opposite Robin Williams, and “Death to Smoochy” with Edward Norton and Jon Stewart.

For more information:

• “I Was Better Last Night: A Memoir” by Harvey Fierstein (Knopf), in hardcover, e-book and audio formats, available on Amazon and Indiebound | Live media and events
• harveyfierstein.com
• Harvey Fierstein followed Twitter and Instagram
• Ridgefield Library, Ridgefield, Connecticut.
• Ridgefield Playhouse, Ridgefield, Connecticut.
• Southwest Cafe, Ridgefield, Connecticut.

Story produced by Amy Wall. Editor: Mike Levine.