Veteran on-stage and on-screen actress Elaine Stritch died Thursday at her home in Birmingham, Michigan. She was 89. (Via Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival)
You might know her from her most recent work as as Jack Donaghy's mother, Colleen, on NBC's "30 Rock." Show creator Tina Fey describes her this way: (Via Getty Images)
"She is confident and brassy and stylish and gorgeous. She doesn't wear pants." (Via Sundance Selects / "Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me")
And "with a voice that was once compared to a car shifting gears without the clutch – and a presence likened to Godzilla in a stalled elevator," People says she might have been an unlikely Broadway star.
But Stritch was a star nonetheless. She worked with the stage's biggest names, including Noel Coward and Stephen Sondheim. She is perhaps best known for her performance in Sondheim's "Company." (Via Getty Images)
In 2002, after four nominations, she won her first and only Tony award for her one-woman show, "Elaine Stritch at Liberty." (Via Getty Images)
She graced the awards stage three times at the Emmys, winning most recently for her biting performance on "30 Rock." (Via Getty Images)
"Too late, Jackie." (Via NBC / "30 Rock")
But as a Broadway veteran, Stritch was really at home in New York City. In 2003, the New York Landmarks Conservancy actually named Stritch as living landmark — something The New York Times reported in its lengthy goodbye to the actress, who left the city in 2013 in failing health. (Via Getty Images, Getty Images)
A documentary, titled "Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me," was released earlier this year. She made the media rounds and headlines for dropping a not-safe-for-TV word on the "Today" show, to which she said: (Via Sundance Selects / "Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me")
"I think talking and telling the truth is a lot of fun."
Although her diabetes got worse as she aged, she had told Time in February she'd still be open to another role on stage.
That said, Stritch spoke openly to The New York Times about death and her belief in the afterlife.
"Because if it is nothing, it's nothing. I don't think so, though. I don't think so."
