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Chapter 1: What childhood experiences shaped Christine Baranski's career?
Welcome to Rosebud, presented by Giles Brandreth, produced by Harriet Jane, and listened to by you. Yes, you! Cue the music, it's just for you. Hello, this is Giles Brownruth, this is Rosebud, and if you sense a little excitement in my voice and manner, it's because I am excited. I'm excited, first of all, because I'm in New York City.
This is where, today, we happen to be recording an episode of Rosebud. But it's a special episode of Rosebud. It's with a great American actress. People often say, Charles, we love Rosebud. And we love the range of guests you get. And you seem to guest people that other people can't get. How do you do it? Well, all sorts of ways.
But one of the ways we do it is I chat to people who've been on Rosebud and seem to have enjoyed it and say to them, who do you think would be good on this? Who do you think would like doing this? Because there's no point inviting on somebody who actually doesn't want to talk about their past, their childhood, doesn't want to remember things.
And I was talking with Julian Fellows, the creator of Downton Abbey, scriptwriter, actor, and a very old friend of mine. And I told him, I said, I'm going over to New York. Who should I get? And he said, do you watch The Gilded Age, my TV series? I said, I do watch The Gilded Age. I love it. You know, you're doing for America in the 1890s what you did for Downton at the turn of the 20th century.
He said, exactly. He said, it's huge. He said, do you want someone who's constantly being nominated for Emmys because of it? I said, I do. And he said, well, do you want somebody who is funny and revealing and rather touching and fascinating? I said, please, please, please. Who is it? And he said, it's Christine Baranski. I said, well, she's your leading lady. He said, yeah.
But if I introduce you, she might do it. She hates doing podcasts. She says no to podcasts. But if I affect the introduction, you might hit lucky. And we have hit lucky. Christine Baranski is an actress. And, well, she's going to be in the West End coming up shortly this fall because she's going to be in a wonderful play, Hay Fever, by Noel Coward.
But I don't think I realised that she was really a classical actress. A lot of Shakespeare. Ibsen. the great works.
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Chapter 2: How did Christine Baranski cope with the loss of her father?
She then became, of course, a television star. Most people probably introduced to her through the sitcom, where Sybil, where she played the character Marianne. People loved her in Mamma Mia. Oh, Mamma Mia. So Christine Baranski is our guest. And do watch this on YouTube as well as listening to her, because she comes... looking like a star. She is a star.
She's glamorous, so intelligent, so perceptive. You can't help listening and enjoying our special guest today, Christine Baranski. Cue the music. This is the Gilded Age of Rosebud. Christine Baranski, we're very excited that you're here on Rosebud. Julian Fellows, creator of The Gilded Age, said, oh, you're going to be in New York.
If you are lucky, you may get a chance to encounter Christine Baranski. Yeah. Julian, as you know, is one of my oldest friends, has been on Rosebud. You were with him this week?
I was with him, and I had dinner with him two nights in a row. How lucky was I? And I sat to his right, and yes, both times I sat to his right and had the pleasure of his company. Marvelous man. I'm in love with him. Good.
Well, I'm already in love with you. Love is in the air. And we have the example of Julian, of course, who I think proposed to his wife on the day of their first encounter.
Yes, a half hour into their meeting, he knew he was going to marry her. But when you see them, and when you see, of course, when you see Emma, you think, well, of course. What a marvellous woman.
Well, I'm so grateful to Julian for the introduction. I'm grateful to you. And I'm going to take you right back, Christine Baranski. Am I pronouncing the name correctly? Yes. Good. Born May the 2nd, 1952. I have to ask you this to begin with. What, Christine, is your very first memory?
My very first memory was standing in a crib in my home, in my childhood home in Buffalo, New York. My crib was in my parents' room, and I just have a distinct memory. I was tiny, I mean, to have still been in a crib.
Clearly, I wasn't walking yet, but I do remember the texture of what's called the bumper that goes around the crib to make sure the baby doesn't hit her head on one of the wooden slats in the crib. So I have a sensual memory of this bumper. I think it was pink.
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Chapter 3: What influence did Christine's grandmother have on her life?
And I remember standing, standing up and being aware of being a human being. That's it. No other deep thoughts on the subject, but that goes way back.
And we can picture you there standing, maybe holding the side of the slats to keep yourself upright. You're there. That's you. Now, who were these parents and why were they in Buffalo? What was your father's name? What was your mother's name?
My father's name was Lucian Baranski. My mother's name was Virginia Mazurowski Baranski. My father was the editor of a Polish newspaper in Buffalo. My mother and father wanted to marry, except World War II intervened. And my father then fought in the war as a lieutenant in the army. He fought in the Philippines and was in Nagasaki when they liberated the camps. Why were they in Buffalo?
They were in Buffalo because grandparents and great-grandparents were Polish and migrated to what was a very active, large Polish-American community, which still exists in Buffalo.
Why did they come over? Were there many people coming over from Poland at the time they came over? What were they escaping from?
Well, my grandfather, my paternal grandfather, actually did come over when World War I broke out. And he was an artist. And he came over. And I think on my mother's side, they also came over. I don't think they were refugees. They were not Jewish. But there was a vast immigration happening. And I think they were from Warsaw.
But the wonderful thing about my upbringing, which I love to talk about actually, is that the Polish-American community, I was raised in a bilingual house, and I felt the effects of Polish culture. My paternal grandmother... Janina Baranski and my paternal grandfather were actors in the Polish theater community in Buffalo. And my grandfather looked rather like Rudolph Valentino.
He was so handsome. I did not know him. He died before I was born. But my grandmother, Janina, lived with us in Buffalo. When I transferred out of that crib... I made my way to another bedroom that I shared with Nana. She didn't act on the stage anymore, but she had a radio show that she wrote with her friend, and they wrote a comedy show on Buffalo Polish Radio. So I grew up with an actress.
We had twin beds, and Nana was to the left of me, and she was a huge influence on my life. But I have very fond memories, and to this day I treasure my Polish-American upbringing.
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Chapter 4: What was Christine Baranski's journey to Juilliard like?
And what kind of an actress was she?
Well, she performed. She was also a singer. She sang in the Countess Maritza and the Merry Widow. And I don't know what kind of plays. You see, I didn't see her on the stage, but she certainly... in her life, behaved like an actress. I always say she was my Auntie Mame. She had a flamboyant, utterly gracious personality. She wore vivid, colorful clothes.
She claimed she knew Mae West, and she had some clothes. One was a feather fan that she said belonged to Mae West. How she might have known Mae West, I don't know. But she was beloved by all her friends because she was warm and gracious, and she was very loving to me, very physically demonstrative and just tender.
And when I'd wake up in the middle of the night and be afraid, she would come into my bed, and she had lovely long fingernails, and she played the piano, so she had beautiful, delicate fingers. But she would scratch my back. And I'd always say, Nana, scratch my back. And she would, just with these lovely, soft fingernails and fingers, she would just coax me back to sleep.
And so she was that kind of loving personality, which my mother was not. My mother was not physically demonstrative. My mother was... Raised by a woman who was not terribly warm in that way or demonstrative. How was she raised by a woman who was not, given that she is the daughter of a woman? No, no, no. That was my father's mother.
That is your father's mother. Yes. Now, why is she living in the house with you?
Well, because she actually, it was her house, and she lived upstairs for a long time. So Nana lived upstairs, and we had the downstairs, and it was Nana's house. And then they decided to rent out the upstairs, probably to get money, to earn some money. So we had people living up there who were renters, and then... They built another bedroom as part of the house in the back.
And so Nana and I shared that bedroom. And my brother Michael was next door. So it was a three-bedroom house. And I had really the good fortune of... having a roommate with such an extraordinarily gentle, beautiful and vivacious woman. Her friends loved her. She spoke beautiful Polish and she was known to being a wonderful public speaker in Polish.
And she had a very wealthy friend who would take Nana on trips to Europe because for the pleasure of her company, she would take Nana all over. And Nana would come home with, you know, souvenirs and things from...
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Chapter 5: How did Christine Baranski get her start in theater?
She thought Nana was a bit of a diva, and she probably was. But my mother was raised in Buffalo, in the Depression, walked to school with newspapers in her shoes, ate jelly sandwiches for all the years of the Depression. And as I said, she didn't marry my father till after the war. And then there's more story to follow. Once I turned eight years old, my life changed dramatically.
But my mother did live with, had to live with her mother-in-law, which I think is... under any circumstances.
Before your world changes age to age, describe your father.
He was a big, well-built man, Also very gentle, very sweet. I just have such a strong memory of Sunday mornings. We would have something called the Sunday morning club and he'd get my brother and I in bed and read us the comics before my mother would drag us off to mass. But he'd wrestle with us on the floor and he loved reading.
dance and he loved ballet and so he insisted that I study ballet and I remember my mother having to take me to Lili Schuwalski's ballet classes. Lili Schuwalski was very Polish and I remember my first dance recital after I did my number, whatever it was, I went and ran into my father's arms, he was in the audience and he just adored me and I had a wonderful relationship with him and
I often tell this story, so if any of your listeners have heard this, I'm sorry, but my fondest memory of my father... was when he took me to see a Polish singing and dancing group. They're called Mazowsze, and they actually still perform. My father took me, and I was, what was I, maybe seven, maybe eight. It was a date with Tatush. I called him Tatush, which means father.
Tatush took me to the ballet, and I was sitting on the aisle, and my father was sitting next to me, and he was, as I said, very tall, well-built man. And the dancing, there's a lot of Polish singing and Polish dancing. And at the curtain call, remember, the performers waved their beautiful scarves up and down at the audience.
And I suddenly heard this shouting coming from my father as he shouted, bravo, bravo. And I was stunned that he was being so vociferous, and I thought it was embarrassing. And I looked up, and there were tears rolling down his face as he shouted, Bravo. And at the time, I was so embarrassed that this big man was acting like that.
And now I think back, maybe all these years of being a performer, maybe it's... Maybe it's for that man shouting bravo.
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Chapter 6: What challenges did Christine face as a young actress?
And my mother walked into my bedroom and told me that my father had died. And I was eight. How old was he? Forty-nine. Oh, my. It was an aortic aneurysm. Oh, my. Sudden death. So we continued to live there for maybe a year, and there was enormous tension between my mother and grandmother. And then my maternal grandparents bought a house near them in another part of Buffalo.
It cost all of $10,000 at the time. And we moved away from Nana's house. So I was suddenly separated from... Leaving Nana where she was. Yes. And then Nana lived there for a while. God knows how painful it was for Nana. And it was a tremendous loss for me to lose this woman.
How had your parents got on, as far as you remember? I mean, you were only eight when you died, so you may have no recollection at all. But did they seem to you to be happy?
No.
Yes, I think so. In fact, my mother wanted, you know, he came back from the war, and he didn't talk much about the war at all. But I remember that my mother often spoke once my father passed away. She said, I wanted nothing more than to be a stay-at-home mother. Because I remember coming back from school, she was a wonderful cook and a wonderful baker.
There'd be donuts or there'd be homemade cakes. She wanted that life. And I remember the first eight years of my life being happy and secure. And then suddenly this changed everything. Oh, when I had to change schools and get new friends and a new neighborhood. And it was, looking back, I think it was quite traumatic.
Did people talk to you about it? I mean, the way people now deal with children and grieving is so different.
No. No, they did not. I have no memory of my mother ever discussing my father's death with me, like, how do you feel? In fact, this is rather extraordinary. I was already in my 30s, sitting at the kitchen table with a girlfriend and my mother crying. was there and we were talking, I don't know about what, probably about life in Buffalo, whatever.
And my mother actually said to my friend, mind you, I'm a grown woman. She said, well, Chris didn't remember her father's death. She had no feelings about it. She was too young to have feelings about it. I remember saying to her, of course I had feelings about it.
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Chapter 7: How did Christine Baranski's career evolve in television and film?
I just had to suppress them all because Nana was gone. I couldn't really talk to Nana. Nana was devastated by the death of her son. But then we moved away. And my mother, as I said, was not a demonstrative woman. So no memory of ever sitting on her lap or of her... embracing me.
I remember one lady, shortly after my father died, was staying with us for a while, and I remember she said to me, how are you feeling? Are you okay? But otherwise, I had to internalize it. Fortunately, I had been raised very much, you know, daily mass and going to church, and I had a relationship with God, and I did a lot of praying. Right. I prayed enormously helpful.
I prayed that, of course, my mother wouldn't die. Otherwise, I'd be a total orphan. And I prayed for my mother. And then suddenly money became an enormous issue because my mother didn't, you know, she was prepared to be a housewife. She didn't even know how to drive. Hmm.
So most of the rest of my youth was spent with a woman raised in the Depression whose mantra was, we can't afford it, we can't afford it. But she did manage to raise two actually wonderful kids. It was a success, and my brother was a successful... He wound up working in the theater in Buffalo, and she did get a job there. working, ordering parts or something.
So she had a skill set that she was then able to get a job at a place called Houdai. She worked at Houdai during the war and then worked at the Buffalo Forge Company. She had a mathematical mind and she... She worked for years until she retired at the age of 70, ordering parts for air conditioners. Can you imagine how dreary that job was?
And she had a terribly mean female boss she'd complained bitterly about. But she did actually have a good enough job to support us.
Did she remarry?
No. We told her we didn't want another Tatush, that he was irreplaceable, and she never even dated. Oh, it was awful. Do you feel guilty about that now? No, no. I'm not sure she would have... I'm not sure what the market was, for one thing. Oh. We said we didn't want another father because our father was so special. But looking back, she was in her early 40s when he died.
She was a beautiful woman. She could have. But back then, you know, what did we know about, like, a woman in her 40s? We didn't think she was young. We thought she, you know...
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Chapter 8: What life lessons has Christine Baranski learned through her experiences?
So there you have it.
So the rest of her life was much of a muchness. She kept working until she was 70. She did her duty by her children.
I admire my mother so much. In fact, when people ask me about Aunt Agnes, I say I'm playing my mother. Ah. A survivor, someone who played the hand she was dealt. Tough, but when it came to her family, to taking care of things, she took care of her own mother got cancer. She took care of her mother. She took care of her father. She took care of us. She worked overtime.
She put me through Juilliard. I got a scholarship, but she had to throw in lots of money. She supported me. And then the rest of the story goes. She retires at 70 to enjoy... her grandchildren, I had two daughters, and she was hit with the first of three cancers. So her first cancer was lymphoma, stage three. She went through chemo and went into remission. Years later, a lump in her breast.
She had breast cancer, had the breast removed, had radiation, went into remission, then lung cancer. She suffered three different forms of cancer. The end of her life came at 85, a recurrence of the lymphoma. And I think what actually took her out was she was one treatment away from finishing chemo. She got pneumonia, which if you smoked most of your life, which she had...
pneumonia is going to take you out because you just don't have the lungs. But my mother was extraordinary too. The doctors thought she was something of a medical miracle to have withstood that many treatments for all of those cancers. So she was a tough old broad. She had a great sense of humor, devoted mother, but she was not Nana. And thank God I had Nana for eight years.
You'd say you admired her. And obviously you didn't love her in the way that you loved your father. No.
Not in the same way.
But did you love her?
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