Salute to a famed mom
ANGELICA Page’s one-woman show “Turning Page,” about her mom Geraldine, who starred with names like Paul Newman and John Wayne, opens off-off-B’way on Friday.
Geraldine Page. 1986’s Best Actress Oscar for “The Trip to Bountiful,” nominee eight times, fourtime Tony nominee, Emmys, Baftas, Golden Globes. Theater Hall of Fame calls her “one of the greatest actresses of all time.”
Angelica: “Mom, who passed in ’87, had me bring her Oscar to the hospital. She said, ‘to give someone for safekeeping.’ Who? I asked the friend who drove her to the theater and the ‘Agnes of God’ dresser she hung with. Nobody has it. Nobody knows. It’s a mystery. I’d like to give it to the Smithsonian.
“She’s gone but, still, you can’t get my mother off the stage — so I’m playing her. Channeling her through me. She’s talking about her life, letting it unravel. With imagination, I create reality. I bookend it as Angelica.
“Nobody came forward to write her story, which she wanted told. A psychic, whose actual record- ing I kept, said: ‘Your mother wants you to speak for her.’ “So I do. I studied Sanskrit because she was agnostic. She was also phenomenal. Age 3 I woke her up one night. I wanted a tea party. She immediately rose and made an imaginary tea party that lasted until 4 a.m.” I vaguely remember during her tumultuous marriage to Angelica’s actor father Rip Torn a ceramic teapot got thrown during a family dinner and he said, “Oh, God, what a beautiful pattern you made.” Says Angelica: “She called him ‘The most fascinating man I ever met.’ ” The show is scheduled to run until April 8.