Clean living keeps Estelle on the go at 82

Estelle gets the role of a ruthless matriarch in ‘August: Osage County’.

Washington: Estelle Parsons questioned her sanity after landing the role of the ruthless matriarch of a crumbling Oklahoma family in the Tony Award winning play ‘August: Osage County’."I called my agent and said, `What am I, the lamb being led to the slaughter here, that this show is impossible?`" the 82-year-old Parsons told Reuters.

Her character Violet Weston is so demanding that Parsons` predecessor on Broadway, Tony Award-winner Deanna Dunagan, cited exhaustion for stepping away from the role last year. And Dunagan is 13 years younger than Parsons. The portrayal of Weston, a mean-spirited, pill-popping addict, is a stretch for Parsons, a "health nut" who maintains a clean lifestyle despite the rigors of life on the road. "August," the 2008 Tony Award winner for best play. is on a U.S. national tour after closing on Broadway in June. It will run through May, and for each performance Parsons repeatedly barrels up and down a set of steps in the family house that forms the stage set. That`s 352 steps per show. "And that`s 700-something on matinees," quips Parsons, an Oscar-winning actress best known for her work in the 1990s TV sitcom "Roseanne". We`re talking nine shows a week for some of the stops on the tour. Yet life on the road hasn`t slowed the Massachusetts native. "I`ve been active all my life," Parsons said, sipping a bottle of water backstage at Washington D.C.`s Kennedy Center. "And I haven`t smoked in a long time. "The reason and I can get through this show is that I eat right. I don`t eat red meat. I eat chicken and fish. And salad. And steamed vegetables, occasionally roasted. "I don`t eat desserts. And I don`t drink, well, maybe a glass of wine now and then. This sounds like a laughable way to live. But it`s me. It`s a good, healthy life." Cardio fanatic Parsons, who won an Academy Award for her role as Blanche Barrow in the 1967 film "Bonnie and Clyde" and received a 1968 nomination for "Rachel, Rachel", is also a cardio fanatic. "I do the bicycle because I had a knee injury. I`m back to running, which is one of my favorite things in the world. I won`t use a treadmill. I look for a track. If I`m not running, I swim. "That`s my life. I`m not doing it for the play." It`s a good thing that Parsons has stamina. She was on Broadway with the emotionally-charged "August" for a year and will have been on tour for 11 months by the time it closes. After the tour ends, Parsons plans to produce a festival of Eugene O`Neill plays and teach at the Actors Studio. She`s also traveling to India for a wedding. "I`m not good at doing nothing," she said. "I love to travel and there are a lot of places I just haven`t been going to. I don`t know what retirement means." Parsons does admit to having the normal aches and pains associated with being an octogenarian. "The play is really abrasive emotionally. Physically too," she said. "When I get up it takes me a long time to get the kinks out. So I have a sauna and a steam every day." Despite her clean lifestyle, Parsons credits much of her zest to genetics. "My mother is pure Swedish," she said. "When they`re working on cadavers, they always guess the Swedish bodies as 10 years younger than they were. Isn`t that interesting? "What am I doing? I lived a normal life. I`ve drunk, I`ve doped. Not much, marijuana, nothing more than that. Who knows why I keep going on?" Bureau Report