April 26, 1999

Tributes to a Lady with "Bazzaz"
Compiled by Jim Caruso

Kay Thompson played piano with the St Louis Symphony; coached Judy, Lena, and Liza and jazzed-up M-G-M. She also wiped the floor with Astaire in Funny Face, turned cabaret on its ear, and birthed a pint-sized sensation named Eloise. Kay "joined the choir" in 1998, leaving behind some zebra skin rugs, a red vinyl piano, and a slew of pals who can't stop talking about her. "When Kay Thompson held me at my christening," says her goddaughter Liza (Minnelli), "I knew life was going to be wonderful! In their own words, here are some thoughts from other friends and fans."

The phenomenal Kay Thompson jazzed into my life when she moved into Liza Minnelli's Upper East Side apartment, to relish her last years in Rigaud-scented luxury. The world was entering the '90s and so was Kay, although her real age was a secret kept tighter than Jocelyn Wildenstein's grin. She said I reminded her of Robert Alton, the M-G-M choreographer whom she had assisted on The Harvey Girls; this was as good as Miss Thompson did not suffer newcomers gladly. We had an immediate rapport. She spoke about her Hollywood past in a flip, off-the-cuff manner as if I had been there. Eventually I felt as if I had been there singing with Judy, dancing with Audrey, and kibitzing with Noël. Kay spoke about everything as if I understood. No time to explain ... too boring. Get it, or get lost. Hours, sometimes days later, comments would become clear. "Ahead of her time" would be an insane understatement; Kay Thompson was ahead of any time.

She once had me do a city-wide search for a record of monks singing. After days of lurking around funky stores that smelled like old socks, I found a dusty cassette of some friars chanting it up near Parma. "Pure heaven!" Kay roared. She played the tape day and night, which didn't particularly thrill anyone but her. About three months later, there was full-page spread in The New York Times about Chant, a brand new CD of Franciscan monks that was #1 on the charts. We were all stunned. I asked Kay what clued her in to this fad, and she replied in her ever-blase tone, "It was just time for monks."

The telephone became Kay's personal radio show. Checking my messages, I'd hear that singin', swingin' alto: "Hello, hello ... hello and how-dee-doo, and a big, fat, Texas howdy!" This was the opening number of her club act, which had turned the '40s and '50s glitterati into cheering obliterati. Conversely, one day, after the "name, number, and fax..." greeting on my machine, her message was tight-lipped and terse: "You very likely can be faxed, but can you be fixed?"

Kay and I spoke twice the week before she "joined the choir," which was her euphemism for dying. As always - but much more prophetically this time - the last thing she said to me was, "See you in the movies..."