With her gravel-edged belt, a voice like a car shifting gears without the clutch, as People magazine noted in 1988, her charismatic stage presence, tart-tongued quips, and her signature outfit: a long white man’s dress shirt, a black vest, black tights, and nothing resembling pants, Elaine Stritch, or “Stritchie” as Noël Coward referred to her, became a living emblem of show business durability.

Her career, which began in the 1940s, spanned almost 70 years and notably included roles in Coward’s “Sail Away”, and Stephen Sondheim’s “Company”, but reached its highpoint in 2001, when in her late 70s, Stritch delivered a Tony Award-winning performance in her one woman show “Elaine Stritch At Liberty”.

“Equal parts blond bombshell and battle-ax,” Adam Feldman noted, “Stritch sings in a skeleton key that somehow unlocks every song. Her curmudgeonly, whiskey-drenched style explodes with a rare force of character: a tough yet tender blend of honesty, rue and mordant wit.” She was, as NPR’s Scott Simon observed, “her own greatest character.”

In this On And Off The Record podcast, Adriaan Fuchs takes a closer look at the life and career of the “First Broad of the American theater”: the one and only, Elaine Stritch.