
24/07/2025
"Actually, I think the average voice is like 70 percent tone and 30 percent noise. My voice is 95 percent noise."
The original Broadway production of "Torch Song Trilogy" by Harvey Fierstein opened at the Little Theater in New York on 10th June 1982, and ran for 1222 performances, until it closed on 10th May 1985. The play won the Tony Awards in 1983 for both Best Play and Best Actor in a Play; Fierstein recreated his stage role in the 1988 movie version.
The person living next door to the doorway used for the sequence at the end of the movie where the actors are performing in front of Fierstein's Arnold's doorway did not give permission to film outside his home. When the director would shout, "Action," the resident would either put his radio or television really loud, or open his door, thus ruining the shot. The crew got really fed-up with his antics so they nailed his door shut, which caused a law suit to be filed against New Line Cinema.
"I'm happy that we made it. Is it everything I wanted it to be? Is anything ever? I fought with [director] Paul Bogart because I had based the entire third act on a song by Big Maybelle. When we went to make the movie, Paul refused to put it in the movie. We used a beautiful Ella Fitzgerald recording of 'This Time the Dream's on Me', which is very pretty, but it doesn't have that emotion. But to Paul, it did. It's life. I really am a theater person. That means you put something out there, and you let it go. Tomorrow night is a new performance."
Estelle Getty originated the role of Ma Beckoff on Broadway. She was unavailable filming "The Golden Girls" as Sophia, Dorothy's mother, to reprise the part for the movie so Anne Bancroft was cast instead. Bancroft and Fierstein worked together in "Garbo Talks" (1984), which was Fierstein's first film; however, they shared no scenes in that film,(IMDb)
Happy Birthday, Harvey Fierstein!