Dreams do come true and we were finally able to finish our interview with Lainie Kazan. You Might Know Her From My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Beaches, My Favorite Year, Lust in the Dust, Funny Girl, The Nanny, and her five decade recording career. Lainie remembered getting her start as Barbra Streisand’s understudy in Funny Girl, being embraced by the LGBTQ+ community, & her transition from chanteuse to film vixen to ethnic mom. A wonderful conversation with a fucking a living legend. Folks, it’s Lainie Kazan! 

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Discussed this week: 

Lainie’s IMDB 

Upspeak 

Vocal fry

Catalina Bar and Grill

Feinstein’s/54 Below

Funny Girl era Lainie Kazan (originated by Barbra Streisand)

Funny Girl revival canceled || Lea Michele + Funny Girl

Funny Girl Producer, Ray Stark

“Lekos“

Lainie does Playboy

Lust in the Dust (1984) w/ Tab Hunter & Divine; dir: Paul Bartel

Costume designer, Dona Granata

Coppola One from the Heart (1981) playing a  “broken down valise of a woman”

Nightclubs with Hugh Hefner, Lainie’s Room East and Lainie’s Room West

My Favorite Year (1982); dir: Richard Benjamin

My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)

Cesar Romero was reportedly hung like a horse

Movies with Adam Sandler (8 Crazy Nights,  Don’t Mess with the Zohan)

Gigli (2003)

Ben & Jen (Lopez)

On Jennifer Lopez: “She’s very plain looking until the camera gets ahold of her”

Coaching Mayim Bialik in Beaches

Producer, Bonnie Bruckheimer, Lainie’s bff

On Hollywood: “It’s a community...nobody likes anybody”

Peter O’Toole in My Favorite Year

Fran Drescher in The Nanny had best craft services 

Pinnochio (part of Shelley Duvall’s Faerie Tale Theatre) “Okie a doke Pinocch”

Director, Peter Medeck

Aqua Velva commercial

Lainie singing “Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair”