This is the story of a man and a woman and a love story that spans the ages. But first, a joke… we think.
“I’m staying at this hotel in Skokie and their motto is: ‘The little things matter,’” actress Renée Taylor, 86, said by phone from New York, where she lives. “So I called the manager and asked him if he really meant that. I told him it was important for me to have the pool at 86 degrees during my stay. He called me back to say the actual temperature of the pool was 86 degrees.”
That’s Renée Taylor’s power. The Emmy-winning actress and writer is in town for a three-week run of her one-woman show “My Life on a Diet” at the Center for the Performing Arts North Shore in Skokie, opens Tuesday and runs through August 13. 4. Written by Taylor and her late husband, actor Joseph Bologna, the autobiographical comedy follows the life and career of a famous actress.
“It was my husband’s idea to write it,” said Taylor, who is best known for playing Sylvia Fine, Fran Drescher’s outspoken mother on the 1990s TV series “The Nanny.” “I didn’t think people would care about my life and what I was eating.”
The basis of the show is that Taylor takes the audience through her lifelong dieting process, with Joan Crawford, Barbra Streisand, Marlon Brando and Cary Grant inspiring that part of her life. Mixed with the dialogue are images of people who have passed through her life.
“It was wonderful to see my husband’s face,” said Taylor, whose husband died in 2017 at age 82. “And audiences seem to enjoy seeing the faces of people like Marilyn Monroe and Grace Kelly again.”
Taylor said she tends not to go off-script because she worries it will cause her to exceed the show’s scheduled 90 minutes.
“I mean everyone has to go to the bathroom, you know?” she said with a smile.
Her career has spanned more than 70 years. But the actress is still worried about being funny.
“Sometimes, I’ll sit there and think to myself, ‘They’re not smiling at all,’” said Taylor, who last appeared at the North Shore Center with Bologna in 2005 with the Broadway play “It Had to Be You.” . “And I started thinking that maybe I’m not funny at all. But when I look at the crowd, they smile and are interested in what I have to say, which makes me feel good.”
And there are parts of the show, as in life, that are not funny.
“There were parts where the audience got a little choked up,” Taylor said. “When you share your life with people, sometimes you go deeper. I think when I talked about my husband’s death and about us loving each other, everyone got emotional.”
So is she. “It was very healing for the audience and for me,” she said.
Taylor’s aim is to make people laugh a little — and take their eyes off cell phones for a while: “I mean, what did these people do before cell phones?” But she also intends her show to give an example of what life is like.
“I moved to New York a year ago,” she said. “My husband and I have lived in our home in Beverly Hills for 43 years. But after he died, there was no fun there without him.”
She stopped. A deep breath.
“I like it here now, but I’m scared,” Taylor said. “I know how cold it is. But summer is magical. I can walk to the opera.”
At the age of over 80, she said this was the best time of her life.
“I never imagined that I would be sitting here right now,” she said. “My husband’s energy is always with me. I can feel it. Anyway, he always said he would keep in touch.”
