‘I was always the sexy tootsie’: Kelly Bishop on Broadway hits, Gilmore Girls – and how to do the Dirty Dancing lift

She was a Broadway hoofer then she helped inspire – and found fame in – A Chorus Line. As she releases her memoir, the great ‘raconteuse’ recalls her Dirty Dancing fears – and the sharp suits and sharper barbs of Emily Gilmore

Kelly Bishop, the majestic Broadway hoofer beloved for playing an immaculate matriarch on TV’s Gilmore Girls, has a memoir out. It’s a brisk and bright 244 pages but if you want the really short version, her life story can be found in a single song, At the Ballet, which was performed by Bishop in A Chorus Line. Its lyrics – about finding a childhood refuge in dance, where “graceful men lift lovely girls in white” – came from a legendary all-night discussion in which she and other dancers spoke intimately about their careers. This marathon confession was the origin of A Chorus Line, the hit 1975 musical conceived by director Michael Bennett.

Bishop had been in chorus lines for over a decade and was about to turn 30 when she joined that gathering, presided over by Bennett, one Saturday night in New York. The dancers – some unemployed (including Bishop) and others hotfooting it from various curtain falls – came together to talk about the nitty-gritty behind the razzle-dazzle.

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