Upper St. Clair graduate’s cabaret show celebrates friendship with Elizabeth Taylor
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In 1981, Ann Talman placed a call from New York City to her hometown Upper St. Clair, announcing:
“Dad! I got the Broadway show. And guess what? Guess who’s playing my mother? Elizabeth Taylor!”
What followed was 18 months of touring with a cast that also included Maureen Stapleton and Anthony Zerbe in a production of Lillian Hellman’s “The Little Foxes,” with Talman portraying Alexandra, daughter of Taylor’s Regina Giddens.
“I have so many stories about that time in my life and Elizabeth,” Talman said, and she celebrates their long-lasting friendship in “Elizabeth Taylor and the Shadow of Her Smile,” a one-woman cabaret show that debuted in 2022.
Rather than taking a tell-all approach, Talman focuses on Taylor’s warmhearted nature, “just how kind and loving she was.” And she explores the parallel between their respective roles in “The Little Foxes” and what was transpiring in Talman’s life:
“My mother had died right before I got the show, and Elizabeth became a mother to me.”
Losing Martha Talman put Ann in the role as primary caregiver for her older brother, Woody, who had severe cerebral palsy. Their relationship served as the inspiration for her first one-woman show, “Woody’s Order!,” which explores his perseverance through life as a non-ambulatory and non-verbal, but highly intelligent, individual.
“When he was born, his life expectancy was 12,” she said. “He lived to be almost 70.”
Devoting so much time to him — and to their father, Col. Woods Talman, late in his life — tended to cut into Ann’s acting career, although she did rack up credits on numerous TV shows, including “Murphy Brown,” “The Street,” “Law & Order” and a year on “General Hospital.”
And in 1992, she played one of George Costanza’s surprisingly many love interests in an episode of “Seinfeld.”
‘Upped my game’
Following Woody’s death in 2018, Talman reenergized herself as a performer by embarking on a self-study graduate school program.
“I decided that I would get back to my singing and cabaret and all things music,” she said, working diligently on studying and honing her skills into early 2020. “Covid happened, and I just upped my game.”
She wrote most of “The Shadow of Her Smile” during the pandemic’s initial lockdown phase, and subsequently worked with show director Lina Koutrakos and musical director Alex Rybeck on taking it to the stage.
Opening night was on March 31, 2022, at 54 Below in New York City, to an enthusiastic reception: Talman went on to receive a MAC Award from the Manhattan Association of Cabarets, honoring excellence in the city’s night life, and a Bistro Award in the Musical Memoir category. The Times Square Chronicle named “The Shadow of Her Smile” as a top-10 cabaret show of 2023.
She took the show on the road, to theaters in San Francisco, Chicago, Maryland, Indiana and Florida, among others. One destination, though, is high on the wish list for the Upper St. Clair High School Hall of Fame inductee:
“All my friends are just like, so, when are you going to come to Pittsburgh? So I just have to make that happen.”
Accompanying her reflections on Taylor is a variety of musical selections, including what she calls the “Hubby Medley.”
“It’s all about the night I asked her, ‘Why do you keep getting married?’ She says, ‘Because I love to be married.’ And then I sing about each of her husbands,” Talman said.
For the record, they were Conrad Hilton Jr., Michael Wilding, Mike Todd, Eddie Fisher, Richard Burton (twice), Sen. John Warner and Larry Fortensky.
‘They were fearless’
As far as other “The Shadow of Her Smile” musical selections, one of Talman’s favorites is Bob Merrill’s “Mira,” from the musical “Carnival!”
“It has a line in it, ‘beyond the bridges of St. Clair,’ and I’m from Upper St. Clair,” she said. “I sing that when I talk about coming to New York, a girl from Pittsburgh.”
Regarding Taylor’s legacy, Talman wanted to emphasize her activism in the early years of the AIDS epidemic, a time when world leaders tended to distance themselves from the subject.
“Elizabeth and Princess Di were two of the first people to show that it’s OK to touch people with AIDS, and hug them and embrace them,” Talman said. “They were fearless in that regard, and the pictures of them got to people: If they’re not afraid, then why should I be?”
Taylor died March 23, 2011, at age 79.
“People treated me like I had lost my mother again,” Talman recalled. “I got flowers and sympathy cards.”
To celebrate what would have been Taylor’s 91st birthday in February 2023, Talman gave a special performance of “The Shadow of Her Smile” at the Laurie Beechman Theatre in Manhattan, and she was invited back for an encore this year. On April 21, the show is scheduled at the Westport Country Playhouse in Connecticut.
Among the treats for audience members is Talman singing the near-title song, “The Shadow of Your Smile,” with lyrics by Paul Francis Webster that include: “You held a piper in your hand to mend its broken wing.”
The composition is featured in Vincente Minnelli’s 1965 film “Sandpiper,” starring Taylor.
“What I say is, even though I didn’t know it at the time, I was that piper with a broken wing,” Talman explained. “And she helped me heal, get over my mother’s death and get on with life.”