He taught me how to sing, how to belt, what my mother was talking about all those years. I had no idea I had that power in my voice.
I didn't want to do anything my mother wanted me to do so surely I wasn't going to sing for her.
I discovered that the character of Alice represented 80% of the working women in this country, the blue and pink collar women.
I got the part of Dorothea, the lead and I went every day after school to David Baker's house in a suburb of Portland and he taught me the score. He played the piano like four people, he played like an orchestra. He was amazing and handsome and sweet and of course I fell madly in love with him.
I was at a point in my life where I wanted to give back rather than look behind me to see who was encroaching and what could I get.
I'd forget the piece just before I went out to do the concerto, the panic was too great. This was not anything that gave me pleasure. This was fulfilling somebody else's dream.
In a way, you're the storyteller, who can possibly make a difference in somebody's life in terms of teaching tolerance.
It was always acting, singing and dancing that I loved.
It was time to find a way to subsidize the arts. To give something back. I wanted to teach, I wanted to give master classes and I wanted to direct.
Making a film of a work you've played for six weeks gives you intimate knowledge of the character. By the time you go in front of the camera you've worked out the behavior and life of a character.
Making films you don't get too much opportunity to rehearse and develop a character.
My mother gave me singing lessons; that was totally painful, because I couldn't do what she wanted to hear. She used to say: there's more there, there's more voice but I just didn't want to give it to her.
Once you have the pattern of life of this person, the choreography, so to speak, you have the canvas that you present eight times a week, not without feeling underneath it, but it's not as churning as the discovery process was.
Rose was sexy. It was my fantasy about her. She accomplished so much and came from so little in terms of a background that would have prepared her for the world, let alone the world of entertainment.
So I majored in Drama, did all the plays that were possible to do, skated through school in order to be in every production on stage or backstage in whatever capacity and I came to New York looking for work in the summers.
Talking about auditions, you never know what anyone else is thinking.
The play is one of the very few pieces of great dramatic and comic writing that I have read in a long, long time. I was drawn to it because of the power of the writing, which gives me the actor a chance to explore many facets of myself.
The story about me, apocryphal or not, is that I could sing before I spoke. My parents went into bedroom one day and there I was standing in the crib singing God Bless America.
We do a lot of shows for young people who have probably never been to the theater before and they are learning about the Holocaust, which unhappily, many of them do not know about.
We give you this story. It is for the audience to be moved and gut wrenched, not us. It isn't as if we don't go through those real feeling and it isn't as if I don't cry three or four times a night. I usually do.
When she was a teenager, Linda's parents encouraged her to keep practing the piano, but she admits she hated to playing it.
Linda has been nominated for a Tony Award four times.
In 1980, Linda performed in the musical variety special Linda in Wonderland, which later garnered two Emmy awards.
Since February 14th 2005, Linda has been married to actor Steve Bakunas.
During the nine year run of Alice, Linda received two Golden Globes and one Emmy nomination.
In 1987, Linda won a Tony Award for her role in the Neil Simon's play Broadway Bound.
In 1998, Linda directed an all-Brazilian jazz version of As You Like It for the Wilmington Shakespeare Festival.
Periodically, Linda teaches master classes for New York University's Performing Arts Division.
Linda sang the song "New Kid in Town" for the opening credits of her 1970's television series Alice.
At the age of 5, Linda began her acting career.
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