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"At Gore Vidal\u2019s recent memorial at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre,&amp;nbsp;Elizabeth Ashley told the story of going on a bender with the playwright Tennessee Williams&amp;nbsp;during which they met up with Vidal at the Carlyle Hotel bar. As they were leaving after an hour spent with the erudite Vidal,&amp;nbsp; Ashley told Williams, \u201CI feel so stupid.\u201D To which Williams replied, \u201COh, darling, never mind. He\u2019s just an old smarty pants.\u201D&amp;nbsp; Upon telling the story at the memorial, Ashley fished a drink out of a planter near the podium and gave a toast to \u201COld Smarty Pants :  Who\u2019s going to speak truth to stupid now?\u201DAshley, who recently returned to the role of &amp;nbsp;the role of national committee vice-chair Sue-Ellen Gamadge in the Broadway revival of  Gore Vidal\u2019s 'The Best Man,'  has done a pretty good job of speaking truth to power through the decades. A self-described \u201Ctabloid baby before there were tabloids,\u201D Ashley graced covers and was given a forum in which she did not shy away from talking about politics and social issues. She\u2019s been outspoken since 1961 when she took Broadway by storm, shortly after arriving from Louisiana.&amp;nbsp; At age 22, she won a Tony as the ing\u00E9nue in the comedy \u201CTake Her, She\u2019s Mine,\u201D which she followed with \u201CBarefoot in the Park\u201D opposite Robert Redford. She went on to acclaimed performances on Broadway in \u201CCat on a Hot Tin Roof,\u201D \u201CAgnes of God,\u201D \u201CAugust: Osage County,\u201D and \u201CDividing the Estate.\u201D&amp;nbsp; She most recently has been featured on the TV series, \u201CTreme,\u201D and is working on a sequel to her 1978 best-selling memoir, \u201CPostcards from the Road.\u201D She recently sat down with ARTINFO and, in her familiar smoky voice, talked about how sex, politics, and show business converge in the most fascinating and ridiculous ways.What I noticed about this production was that it captured the sexual energy of the political world.&amp;nbsp; Has that been your experience?Omigod, yes! All the years I spent on the National Council of the Arts in Washington and at the Kennedy Center, I found that politicians are both intrigued by it and terrified by it. So much of politics has to do with using sexuality to manipulate their constituencies who are frightened or hostile to that aspect of human behavior, whether it\u2019s homosexuality or abortion or what have you.How does the aphrodisiac of political power compare to that of show business?It\u2019s probably the same except that in show business it\u2019s overt, and in politics its repressed and consequently more twisted.&amp;nbsp; When I was having an affair with a U.S. Senator [John Tunney], the joke was that he and his best friend Ted Kennedy were the only politicians in the country who were having sex.&amp;nbsp; Everybody tried to keep their public persona asexual, which was total bullshit.&amp;nbsp; At Washington parties, you get a few drinks into these Republican right wingers, and they tried to get their hands all over you.&amp;nbsp;Do you think they\u2019re aware of the hypocrisy or is it willful blindness?How can they not be aware of it?&amp;nbsp; What fascinated me is that during the Nixon and Reagan years, the bureaucracy, the civil service, of Washington was gayer than San Francisco!&amp;nbsp; And yet you had these politicians in whose office they worked viciously attacking gays and their civil rights. It was just absurd. My friend Judy Abbott, George Abbott\u2019s daughter, who was a surrogate mother to me, showed me a picture of Nixon and all of his guys that ran in The Washington Post and she said, \u201CI always see these pictures, and there are all these blandly good-looking guys and not one woman in sight.\u201DHow was your political outlook formed?I grew up in Louisiana politics. &amp;nbsp;My mother ran the department of Agriculture.&amp;nbsp; I was a girl page in the Louisiana Senate, so I knew politicians from an early age. My mother said, \u201CMost of them are damn fools! Don\u2019t pay attention to them. Get them a pencil if you have to but not anything else.\u201D &amp;nbsp;But I could always get those good ol\u2019 boys to get their own coffee and pencils.&amp;nbsp; I just sat in the anteroom and did my nails and read movie magazines.Of all the politicians you came in contact with whom were you most intrigued by?Lyndon Johnson. I totally got him. I was going to anti-war protests during the day and dining at the White House at night. I never lied about it. They knew that about me. He was one of the smartest people I ever knew, there was never a better politician, and yet I saw this man literally tear himself to pieces over Vietnam. His tragedy was Shakespearean.As a liberal Democrat do you find yourself on the defensive in your native South?Growing up, I\u2019d never met a Republican until I came North. I nearly dropped my tequila when I first heard someone say, \u201CAs a Republican\u2026.\u201D And then Johnson\u2019s Civil Rights bills, of course, delivered the South to the Republicans. But it also has a lot to do with how the Northern Liberal intelligentsia has dealt with the South on a surface level, that they\u2019re all illiterate cracker fools --which is not the case. The degree that you are demonized makes you go into identity defense.Did you base your Mrs. Gamadge on anybody in particular?I think there\u2019s a little bit of Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin, a drop here and there, don\u2019t you? That absolute certainty that they have, that unblinking, unthinking, unquestioning authority that they have the right answers.What do you make of Bachmann and Palin?I think they are tragic. They\u2019re destructive, but they\u2019ve been used and manipulated by people who are much smarter than they are and who hold them in withering contempt. They\u2019re pawns in a game, and the people who bought them and own them have used them in very smart ways. It\u2019ll be interesting to see the trajectory of their lives when they\u2019ve outlived their usefulness and are thrown in the trash bin. It\u2019s sad, really.What do the Gamadges and Palins of the world want?Recognition. Fame. Power. The same thing behind the whole degradation of our culture. Everybody wants to be famous. Everybody wants what capitalism promises, the rewards of consumerism and wealth. It\u2019s the oldest story in the world. Why else would people degrade themselves in such a manner? &amp;nbsp;It\u2019s that carrot that\u2019s always dangling in front of people.As someone who got that carrot early on, what did you learn about fame?To run away from it as fast as you possibly can! I\u2019m a working professional at 73, and I\u2019m so very grateful for that.&amp;nbsp; But I\u2019ve never had a press agent, and I\u2019ve kept it that way for a very good reason.What will you miss most about Gore Vidal?I believe that heretics are as critical to life as air, water, food, and shelter. Without heretics, all you have is the status quo.&amp;nbsp; And that\u2019s not where you want to be \u2014 ever.[content:advertisement-center]&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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