MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Professional actors and singers are like athletes. They use their bodies constantly, performing up to eight times a week. Remarkably, three different women in their 90s have been gracing New York stages this season. Reporter Jeff Lunden caught up with them - barely.
JEFF LUNDEN: Look, once you hit your 90s, you'd be excused if you retired and kicked back your heels. But not these three women.
JUNE SQUIBB: I love working. I'm still doing film, and I have a great deal of stamina.
LUNDEN: That's Academy Award-nominated actor June Squibb. She turned 96 during rehearsals for the Broadway play "Marjorie Prime." Down the block, 97-year-old singer Marilyn Maye has been doing her New Year's show at Birdland twice a night.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MARILYN MAYE: (Singing) As long as I'm still in this game, I want to play for laughs, for life, for love. So here's to life.
I sing. I just keep singing (laughter). There are no exercises. The show is the exercise (laughter).
LUNDEN: Anne Reid, who, at age 90, is the youngster of the group, is making her Broadway debut in a modern-dress version of "Oedipus." She was visiting New York last year when, at Thanksgiving dinner, she told the guests...
ANNE REID: Well, my dreams of working on Broadway have passed me by. That's never going to happen now at my stage. And ta-da, you know, the following year (laughter), here I am. So my motto is never give up on your dreams.
LUNDEN: And really, what is showbiz but chasing dreams? June Squibb has been acting for over seven decades. She lives in California, and her agent asked her if she'd like to come back to Broadway to star in "Marjorie Prime."
SQUIBB: So they sent the script, and I read it and I said, oh, I should do this. And I can do it, you know, physically, 'cause I now have to think, physically, can I do things?
LUNDEN: Squibb, who walks with a cane, spends most of the sci-fi play sitting in a chair. Cynthia Nixon plays her daughter. At first, Marjorie is an elderly woman with dementia.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SQUIBB: (As Marjorie) I had a friend named Rosemary.
(LAUGHTER)
SQUIBB: (As Marjorie) She's dead.
(LAUGHTER)
CYNTHIA NIXON: (As Tess) Well, what a good story.
(LAUGHTER)
LUNDEN: In the second part of the play, Squibb plays Marjorie Prime, a holographic AI version of the character. Physically, she sits up a little straighter.
SQUIBB: And then vocally, I felt it would be a little musical. You know, it would be a little trilly. It wouldn't be my natural voice.
LUNDEN: Many singers' voices change over the years, but Marilyn Maye's instrument has remained remarkably intact.
MAYE: Sometimes I work four days a week, six hours a day. You know, I think that's one of the reasons why my voice is hanging in there. And then I just do so many shows, you know, each year.
LUNDEN: Of course, it helps when you're working with a great set of pipes to begin with. And that voice made her a frequent guest with Johnny Carson on "The Tonight Show."
MAYE: I did the Carson show 76 times.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE TONIGHT SHOW")
JOHNNY CARSON: One of my favorite singers, she really is outstanding. Get her records or listen to her. You can hear the lyrics, you hear the story, and she knows what it's all about.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CABARET")
MAYE: (Singing) Life is a cabaret, old chum...
MARILYN MAYE AND UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS: (Singing) ...Come to the cabaret.
LUNDEN: Maye did the first commercial recording of "Cabaret," and she still sings it in the same key.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MAYE: (Singing) Life is a cabaret, old chum. Come to the cabaret.
LUNDEN: Marilyn Maye's got bookings through next November, and Reid is working on a cabaret act for after "Oedipus" closes, and June Squibb has four film projects coming up. All three talk about the need for rest, from naps to a good night's sleep. Still, Anne Reid doesn't think of herself as old.
REID: I thought, by the time you get to this age, you would feel differently, but you don't. It's just that people treat you differently. I'm having a good time at a party until somebody comes up and says, you're amazing, and then I want to hit them - you know? - because suddenly they remind me that I'm old, and I don't want to be reminded.
LUNDEN: As the cliche goes, and these women prove, you're only as old as you feel. For NPR News, I'm Jeff Lunden in New York. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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