Last week we had the privilege of attending a live podcast recording of "Live at the Lortel" in the West Village where the guest was four-time Oscar nominee Marsha Mason. While a good portion of the interview focused on her new play "Little Gem" and her deep devotion to the stage, all of her Oscar nominated performances got at least some airtime. (She never intended to be a film actress but then Cinderella Liberty kind of fell into her lap).
The piece of the interview we found most fascinating was hearing her talk about her work on Chapter Two...
Though that 1979 movie was obviously about her marriage to Neil Simon, she said that she never felt like she was playing herself and approached the role like any other. It was very abstract to her in a way. We were thinking about Chapter Two quite a lot after Fosse/Verdon wrapped because of the portrayal of the death of Neil Simon's first wife, Joan (played beautifully by Aya Cash). Neil Simon's part in the miniseries faded after that but in real life that time period was also quite dramatic for him so consider Chapter Two a retrofitted sequel. Controversially the playwright/screenwriter married Marsha Mason just three months after Joan's death probably while she was in rehearsals for Simon's play The Good Doctor on Broadway.
Chapter Two was actually the first Marsha Mason movie we ever saw (sometime in the 80s on VHS) after which we backtracked to see the others.
Chapter Two reunited Marsha Mason with her first screen co-star James Caan.
The podcast will be available in a week's time at the link up top. The end of the episode will be a series of audience questions so you might hear our unfocused question about attending the Oscars four times.