E-Mail This Article to a Friend Stritch and famous A Broadway legend comes to town BY IRIS FANGER

How many 78-year-old women have their names, topped off with an exclamation point, emblazoned across their own Web sites? Meet Elaine Stritch, who’s made herself a legend with a six-decade stage life that belongs in the Guinness Book of World Records. And if an interviewer uses the word "still" to her, as in "Are you still getting new scripts to read?", the lady barks in response, "What do you mean, still? Everybody says those kinds of words to make you think you’re an old lady. I walk on the street and somebody says to me, ‘Are you still working?’ You know, that’s a bad attitude."

Timeless, ageless, monumental, and vulnerable are just a few of the words that describe Stritch as she appears alone on stage as a singer/raconteur, dressed only in a white silk shirt and black tights, in the Tony-winning Elaine Stritch at Liberty, which opens a two-week run at the Wilbur Theatre this Tuesday. Boston, however, is coming late to this particular party. At Liberty premiered in 2001 at the Joseph Papp Public Theater, then moved to Broadway and London before graduating to a 2003 US tour and the HBO special that was shown last May. Just last month, the TV version brought Stritch an Emmy Award to add to the Tony she won for the Broadway production — finally, after four previous nominations, dating back to 1956 for Best Featured Actress in Bus Stop.

Stritch credits original producer John Schreiber for jump-starting At Liberty. "He was really responsible for me getting off my backside and doing something about it. He gave me walking-around money for a year and found John Lahr, which was a godsend."

The show’s credits read "Constructed by John Lahr [drama critic for the New Yorker]; Reconstructed by Elaine Stritch." "The billing is accurate," Stritch says. "He gave me ways to go. So that’s how it all started, sweetheart, and then it was just awful hard work. I’ve rewritten scripts. I’m a rewriter. I know how to make it right for me. But I certainly don’t know how to write a play, and that’s what I consider this to be. It’s my life, so you can’t go wrong. You could go wrong — but I didn’t."

Born in Detroit, Stritch moved to New York to study acting at the New School before stealing the spotlight with a ditty called "Civilization" ("Bongo, Bongo, Bongo, I don’t want to leave the Congo") in her 1947 Broadway debut, Angels in the Wings. She was 22 and not a singer. Indeed, you might compare the effect of her vocal delivery to a growl, a warning, or a punch in the jaw. "Doing musicals was a big surprise to me," she admits. "I didn’t set out to do that. If I had, I’d have taken singing lessons and all that. I think you have to be a good actress to be in musical comedies. It’s not two different things."

Musicals became part of her stock in trade. She stood by for Ethel Merman in Call Me Madam and headed the national tour. Her rendition of "Zip" in the 1952 revival of Pal Joey created a sensation. Then there’s her memorable performance of Stephen Sondheim’s ballad of boredom, "The Ladies Who Lunch," in the 1970 premiere of Company. These songs and more are included in At Liberty, along with anecdotes about her illustrious colleagues (including Marlon Brando, who tried to seduce her, and Noël Coward, who wrote a show for her), all wrapped into her life’s history.

But as with any theatrical experience that grabs you, there’s more to Stritch’s show than gossip and reminiscence. The change of pace comes as she describes the alcoholism that nearly obliterated her, the loss of her actor husband, John Bay, to cancer after 10 years of marriage, and the diabetic coma that jolted her into abstinence. "It’s not a story about show business. It’s a story about people and human behavior and emotions. When I can apply my problems to the common man, that makes me feel good.

"My profession is the most naked in the world. You walk on the stage and they know all about you."

Elaine Stritch at Liberty is at the Wilbur Theatre, 246 Tremont Street in the Theater District, October 19 through 31. Tickets are $27.50 to $67.50; call (617) 931-ARTS, or visit www.broadwayacrossamerica.com, or drop in to the Colonial Theatre box office, 106 Boylston Street in the Theater District.