Flashback: Randy Rainbow (Re)Reads Patti LuPone's Autobiography

sang my first show tune when I was just three

My mother knew I'd go far. Say I'm great. I've been a show queen since way before Glee

Now I'm a Broadway star. Not exactly, but my friend has a friend who knows Edina Menzel

You know, I mean, sort of. So things are happening, he'll see. But till my ship comes in, I've got a lot to tell you

Let's start chewing the scenery with. Welcome to chewing the scenery with

Turn off your cell phones. On February 16th, I was in my dressing room preparing for the show when I got a call from New York

It was my agent with the news. Liz Smith column bore the headline It Glenn as Norma It isn even a bet It a fact she wrote Glenn Close will begin rehearsals as Norma Desmond in New York on August 1st

I got fired in Liz Smith's column. I didn't take it well

Andrew Lloyd Weber continued to be an unmitigated coward. He didn't have the balls to tell me in person

When the news broke, he sent flowers, but no apology. Then he sent two of the most delusious

letters I've ever read and which I actually tossed in the garbage, then pulled out and saved

I wanted to reprint them here, but though the letters were sent to me, incredibly, I don't have the

legal right to reproduce them without approval from Andrew Lloyd Weber. So without reprinting them

I can still give you the gist. On February 17, 1994, he wrote to say how sorry he was that he couldn't

give me the news personally because he was on his estate in Sidmonton. He assured me that he was

as upset about the situation as I was He claimed to have put everything he had into his efforts to get me to Broadway as Norma and that the bad U reviews of the London production had almost killed any chance of mounting the show in New York

According to Andrew, he was not the one making the decisions. Paramount Pictures, who owned the underlying rights because of the original movie

and his financial investors were the ones really responsible for getting me fired

He expressed his sympathy that I was unhappy and suggested that I do my

best to end my London run in triumph, ending with much love, Andrew

His February 28th letter in which he wrote to say he'd had a brain wave on my behalf was even

more delusional. After fretting that our sorry situation was making the really useful creative

team look bad, he put forward his modest proposal. Wouldn't it be fabulous, he suggested

if I took over for Glenn Close in the Los Angeles production when she went to open as Norma

on Broadway. He dismissed the snide piece about my performance in the Hollywood reporter because it was after all just a trade paper and declared that it would be a real career move and a coup for me He suggested that we meet over lunch in a quiet location

to discuss the proposal after I had digested the idea. In a few days, he would call me or I should call him

and this time he ended the letter with, All My Love, Andrew. After letting me get fired in a gossip column

he was asking me to replace the actor to whom he had given my role, If there could have been a bigger slap in the face, I'm not sure what it would have been

Nevertheless, Andrew was apparently mystified that I didn't think his brainwave was a fabulous idea

I believe my response to these two letters was, Go shit in your hat. I wasn't born yesterday