This is an IHeart podcast.

This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the Thing from IHeart Radio.

According to the online urban dictionary, today's guest has become a verb.

To Lupone is, quote, to give an outstanding theatrical performance,

to make an audience revel in open-mouthed awe at your unparalleled brilliance, unquote.

Don't cry for me, Argentina.

The truth is I never left you.

All through my wild days, my mad existence, I kept my promise.

Don't keep your distance.

Patty Lepone has 26 Broadway credits to date and has won two Tonys, one for Evita and one for Gypsy.

In London, she originated the role of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard and Fantine in Les Miserables, for which she won an Olivier Award.

She's worked in film and on television, most notably as the mom on the ABC drama

life goes on.

Before all this success, Patty was in the first class of the drama division at Juilliard

in 1968, which seems like a reasonable place to start dreaming of a career in the theater.

But Patty Lepone's story really begins even earlier.

I knew when I was a kid that I had a Broadway voice.

I wanted to be a rocker because I grew up in that era, transistor radios at the beach.

You know, the rascals.

The rascals.

We started in the 50s, little Anthony in the Imperials.

I mean, all through the 50s and 60s and 70s.

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