Bea Arthur Explains How She Got Into Comedic Acting

Interviewer: Keeping with the theme of comedy, did you-is-three pending offers. That when your comic timing, your comedy-sense of comedy- Bea: Well I tell you, yes, because I-at the new school where I went to dramatic school, I was-I was-of course I was very tall, I told you I had enormous breasts and I was kind of cute. And the-the head of the school immediately cast me in all kinds of-of classical roles. And my first was Liz Estrada. I played-I couldn’t act my way out of a paper bag, but I did. What was I going to say? I was talking about-yeah, so I would so all these classical things, and I was hired once, again as a singer – everyone-every-everyone was trying to emulate Lina Horn at the time. And I auditioned and got it-got a job at a-a nightclub. I forget whether it was the Blue Angel or the-I dunno. But at any rate, I-the man wrote a book later. He said I had the worst dress he had ever seen in his life. But at any rate, I was there for I think two or three nights. And Julie Smonk was the-the manager, and he came to me and told me he would have to fire me. He said, you know, he said, “You’re so tall and so obviously in control, that nobody is going to believe you if you sing about my man done left me and I’m going to throw myself in the river” You know, he said, “You ought to try comedy” and I thought, “Me? Comic-I…” but going back to Threepenny-do you realize I’m talking about myself? CAREY: That’s great. BEA: Threepenny Opera, my song came and I walked to the audience and my first line of the song was “I used to believe in the days I was pure” Which I’d-I really meant. And the audience broke up. They laughed like crazy, and my next line was, “And I was pure, like you used to be” and again, and I thought, “Hey! This is-“ and it did something for me because I realized that it’s a hell of a feeling to-to get a laugh and to, you know, to make an audience do what you want it to do.