I met Betty Buckley in 2014, after I interviewed her for Vanity Fair's website. At her invitation, my husband, Robert Rosen, and I attended her concert at Joe's Pub here in NYC, and afterward she asked us to join her table at the club’s restaurant, The Library, where Bob shot the photo below. I soon took Betty's uniquely enlightening master class for singers, and over the years I reviewed several of her beautiful, heartening concerts.
Last week I put on the same white shirt I had worn a decade ago to walk over again to Joe’s Pub, part of the Public Theater, and bask in the wonder that is Betty Lynn. She told the audience she’d chosen songs for the time we’re in, including Paul Simon’s plaintive “American Tune,” Cordelia’s TikTok sensation “Little Life,” and, at the end, Betty’s thrilling signature song, “Memory,” from Andrew Lloyd Webber's “Cats"—in the spotlight her white hair appeared to transform into a halo. In the afterglow of that, I went to her dressing room to say hello to this consummate artist, basking just a little more.
I wore the same shirt as in 2014. Betty did not.
See also “Meeting Betty Buckley” ; “That Voice: Betty Buckley”; “Betty Buckley's Exquisite Blues.”