The ‘Queen of Flamboyance,’ Having Conquered, Moves On

Christine Baranski got tagged as the “Queen of Flamboyance” during the time she commuted between her home in Connecticut and Hollywood while filming the CBS sitcom “Cybill.”

But on this sunny, hot and lovely day sitting on the terrace of a tony restaurant in Litchfield County, Conn., Baranski was far from flamboyant-looking.

Dressed in a white tank top, white casual skirt, with a sweater tied around her waist, she could have been any local matron--except for her clipped, theatrical voice and her bearing, much like a Broadway star coming from the wings for a curtain call.

But Baranski, who co-stars with Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy in the comedy “Bowfinger,” which opened Friday, wasn’t playing the star at lunch last week. Warm, open, chatty, she talked freely about her emotional makeup, her career, husband and children and Hollywood role-playing.

With dark blond hair cut shoulder length, a strangely upturned nose and a face that’s not quite beautiful but is eye-catching and sensuous, she attracts attention without trying.

In “Bowfinger,” Baranski plays a 50-year-old, over-the-hill diva whose grand gestures and entire one-note repertoire could have come from a book called “The Art of Coarse Acting.”

“Is there really such a book?” she asks. Assured there is, she laughs one of her hearty laughs and says: “Oh, I took the role because it was such a wonderful script and because this washed-up actress, who never was any good, is such a wonderful character, with her gestures, her overwrought delivery.”

In the movie, a nearly broke, failed Hollywood producer-director, Bobby Bowfinger (Steve Martin), makes one last stab at fame and fortune by recruiting a motley crew of misfits, including the ham actress, conning them into a scheme to trick the movie’s biggest star, played by Eddie Murphy, to appear in his extremely low-budget film.

“I loved doing the movie,” she says. “Steve and Eddie are so brilliant. I love being in the process with gifted people, being on a set with Steve and Eddie and Heather [Graham] and Frank Oz.”

She is now working with Ron Howard and Jim Carrey on Universal Pictures’ feature film version of Dr. Seuss’ “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas,” expected to be released next year around Thanksgiving.

But back to “Cybill,” and Baranski’s extended stay in Hollywood. (Her husband, actor Matthew Coles, and their two children stayed back East.) She played Maryann Thorpe, a witty, neurotic divorcee. As long as she was in Hollywood, she says, she decided to make a splash, LaLa Land style. Hence, the “Queen of Flamboyance” label.

“I really decided to have fun with it,” she says. “I mean, I had gowns designed for myself and I did the awards shows”--a couple of times as a recipient, winning an Emmy and other awards for her work on “Cybill”--”and I made the best-dressed list several times.”

Buffalo, N.Y.-born and Juilliard-trained, Baranski has won countless other awards, including two Tonys for her work in Tom Stoppard’s “The Real Thing” in 1985 and for Neil Simon’s “Rumors” in 1989. She learned her craft in dramatic, comic and musical roles on the road, then off-off-Broadway and off-Broadway, developing a breadth that few actors possess.

“My career has been a slow, steady progression,” she says, gesturing a rising line on a graph. “I’ve loved it.”

She’s looking to keep the graph line moving up in the future. Earlier this year she played Mrs. Lovitt, the Angela Lansbury role, in a Los Angeles concert version of “Sweeney Todd,” and she sang at Carnegie Hall in May at the 16th birthday party for the New York Pops Orchestra.

“I’ve been doing more and more singing,” she says, “because it’s my theory that it may get harder for actresses to age in front of a camera and to maintain their stellar presence. But if you can sing in a nightclub, the older you are, the more textured your artistry. So, I intend to put together a cabaret act.”