The first full telling of Stritch's life tracks one of Broadway's great personalities from her upbringing in Detroit during the Great Depression to her fateful move to New York City, where she studied alongside Marlon Brando, Bea Arthur, and Harry Belafonte, and across her later years, when she enjoyed a stunning renaissance.
Alexandra Jacobs incorporates an astonishing amount of research, including countless personal interviews and physical documents like letters and telegrams. As a result, her portrayal of Stritch is wholly fleshed out, from the actor’s earliest days as a socialite in Detroit to her time as the reigning grand dame of Broadway ... Still Here takes an unflinching look at Stritch’s long love/hate relationship with alcohol ... Still Here also makes considerable effort to round out the portrait of the star, with thorns and all ... Still Here ends with the star saying that under the footlights 'was where I lived.' This biography expertly sketches out the vast other hours of her life, painting a thorough picture of a woman who lived life on her own terms—in an age when it was exceedingly difficult to do so.
... [a] meticulously researched biography, which uses Stritch’s struggles with alcoholism as a window into her work and her life ... As in real life, the Elaine in Jacobs’s book frustrates and entertains in equal measure. She triumphs in Bus Stop she drinks too much, she falls in love with Rock Hudson, she drinks too much, she battles with Walter and Jean Kerr on a mediocre musical, she bewitches Noël Coward, she drinks too much, she sleeps with the dancer Grover Dale, and the circle goes round ... If you read Still Here looking for tidy conclusions or happy endings, you’ll be unsatisfied. It remains unclear if Stritch was ever happy or ever at peace. But as a chronicle of one impossible brilliant actor and the community around her, this biography provides a thoroughly entertaining and vividly drawn picture of show business in the 20th century. And of course Elaine gets the last word, which surely she would appreciate.
