by Bob Minzeheimer)
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Swoosie Kurtz, 'Molly's' mom, has a new starring role
Swoosie Kurtz: author of a new memoir, ‘Part Swan, Part Goose,’ talks about her career as an actress, how she “forgot to get married,” and why her parents are “icons of the greatest generation.”
Bob Minzesheimer, USA TODAY 11:59 a.m. EDT May 5, 2014
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(Photo11: Perigee)
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NEW YORK -- Swoosie Kurtz has enough credits as an actor – from a "blink-or-you'll-miss it" scene on The Donna Reed Show in 1962 to her latest role as Melissa McCarthy's mother on the CBS comedy Mike & Molly -- to fill four pages.
And as she nears 70, Kurtz has a new role: first-time author.
She says she's glad she waited so long to write Part Swan, Part Goose: An Uncommon Memoir of Womanhood, Work and Family (Perigee).
It recounts a career that includes two Tony Awards (for Fifth of July in 1980 and The House of Blue Leaves in 1986).
But the memoir also is built around her parents, whom she calls "two icons of the greatest generation."
Frank Kurtz was an Olympic diver and a highly decorated World War II pilot who died in 1996 at the age of 85.
Margo Kurtz, who wrote My Rival, the Sky, a popular 1945 wartime memoir from a home-front perspective, is 98 and lives with her daughter.
Kurtz was rereading her mother's book during the start of the Iraq War in 2004, and was struck by how fresh it seemed.
"Except for the way communications have changed – skype-ing and texting - parts of it could have been written yesterday afternoon," Kurtz says. "People don't change. Their emotions don't change. The feelings of loneliness, the wrenching separations and joyful homecomings that my mother described, that's the same."
She set out to reintroduce her mother's book, which has gone out of print, to a "new generation" of readers. (It recently was re-released as an e-book.) Then, the plot thickened.
Seven years ago, Margo Kurtz began to suffer from dementia and moved in with her daughter in Los Angeles. "Of course, I would take care of her because she was always there for me," Kurtz says. "It's the full circle of life: parenting my parent."
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Swoosie Kurtz, 'Molly's' mom, has a new starring role
Swoosie Kurtz: author of a new memoir, ‘Part Swan, Part Goose,’ talks about her career as an actress, how she “forgot to get married,” and why her parents are “icons of the greatest generation.”
Bob Minzesheimer, USA TODAY 11:59 a.m. EDT May 5, 2014
Part_Swan,_Part_Goose
(Photo11: Perigee)
SHARE11
21
CONNECT11
40
TWEET11
LINKEDIN11
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NEW YORK -- Swoosie Kurtz has enough credits as an actor – from a "blink-or-you'll-miss it" scene on The Donna Reed Show in 1962 to her latest role as Melissa McCarthy's mother on the CBS comedy Mike & Molly -- to fill four pages.
And as she nears 70, Kurtz has a new role: first-time author.
She says she's glad she waited so long to write Part Swan, Part Goose: An Uncommon Memoir of Womanhood, Work and Family (Perigee).
It recounts a career that includes two Tony Awards (for Fifth of July in 1980 and The House of Blue Leaves in 1986).
But the memoir also is built around her parents, whom she calls "two icons of the greatest generation."
Frank Kurtz was an Olympic diver and a highly decorated World War II pilot who died in 1996 at the age of 85.
Margo Kurtz, who wrote My Rival, the Sky, a popular 1945 wartime memoir from a home-front perspective, is 98 and lives with her daughter.
Kurtz was rereading her mother's book during the start of the Iraq War in 2004, and was struck by how fresh it seemed.
"Except for the way communications have changed – skype-ing and texting - parts of it could have been written yesterday afternoon," Kurtz says. "People don't change. Their emotions don't change. The feelings of loneliness, the wrenching separations and joyful homecomings that my mother described, that's the same."
She set out to reintroduce her mother's book, which has gone out of print, to a "new generation" of readers. (It recently was re-released as an e-book.) Then, the plot thickened.
Seven years ago, Margo Kurtz began to suffer from dementia and moved in with her daughter in Los Angeles. "Of course, I would take care of her because she was always there for me," Kurtz says. "It's the full circle of life: parenting my parent."
SwoosieMargo
Swoosie and her mother Margo Kurtz(Photo11: Courtesy of the author)
And that, too, became part of Kurtz's memoir, along with excerpts of her mother's book..
The title of Kurtz's memoir, as well as her first name, comes from "The Swoose," the nickname of her father's B-17 bomber cobbled together from parts of other planes.That name came from a Kay Kaiser song about "Alexander the Swoose," a creature who was half-swan, half-goose.
And for those reading out loud, Swoosie rhymes with "juicy" not "woozy," although she says her name is frequently mispronounced "even by my friends."
Her memoir, written with Joni Rodgers, whom she credits for "turning scraps of paper and unfinished thoughts into a vision," also recounts the life of an unmarried woman.
Kurtz describes relationships with several men, including Josh White, once famous for the Joshua Light Show at the Fillmore East, but jokes, "I just sort of forgot to get married." She asks, "Why is it that people are so uncomfortable with the thought of a woman who is, by choice or not, alone?"
But Kurtz is not entirely alone, Along with health care aides, she cares for her mother, whose memory comes and goes.
Landing a role on Mike & Molly four years ago was a "gift that keeps giving," she says. It lets her spend more time at home in L.A. (She also has a Manhattan apartment, a trophy of her years on Broadway.)
If younger viewer's only know her as McCarthy's mother, that's okay with Kurtz.
"Melissa's a generous soul who's incredibly funny on an off-screen", she says. "When we started the show, she wan't famous. Now she is but she hasn't changed at all."
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