Some lines resonate with power and are remembered – even out of context if you have occasion to use them.  Bette Davis in character as Margo Channing in All About Eve delivered one of my favorites:

“Fasten your seatbelts; it’s going to be a bumpy night.”

Tonight I heard another in a regional production of Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Sunset Boulevard:

 ” Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.”

Norma Desmond, the aging film goddess lost in an insane illusion at the end of the play, delivered that memorable line.  The play was a testament to fleeting star quality and the short memory of audiences.  Norma’s age is the reason “thirty million fans have given her the brush.”  How old was she supposed to be in her over-the-hill state?  That was the line that was the scariest to me…

“Norma, you’re a woman of 50…There’s nothing tragic about being 50 – not unless you try to be 25.”

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