‘Palm Royale’: Patti LuPone Talks Riding a Mechanical Horse & Yodeling (VIDEO)

Musical theater living legend Patti LuPone has been surprising audiences on her current tour by singing “I Wanna Be a Cowboy’s Sweetheart.” The 1935 Patsy Montana country-and-western song is not the Tony/Olivier/Grammy-winner’s standard Broadway and jazz fare. Now we know where the addition to her repertoire came from! LuPone belts out the ditty in a spectacular show-stopping song and dance number in Palm Royale, the delightfully twisted drama about Palm Beach socialites from executive producer Abe Silvia.

LuPone guest stars as the town’s (maybe the nation’s) richest resident, bold and brash real-life socialite/businesswoman Marjorie Merriweather Post, who sings the song to entertain guests at her lavish annual square dance gala. We spoke with LuPone (watch the video above for the interview), known for playing women who bounce back, about returning to her Broadway roots.

Tell us about your Marjorie Merriweather Post character.

Patti LuPone: Well, the real Marjorie Merriweather Post was born into money. Born into wealth, and she was cultured, educated. She built Mar-a-Lago. I’m sure she was a very sophisticated, discreet woman. The Marjorie Merriweather Post I’m portraying is wealthy, beautiful. And has a secret.

How much will her secret affect where the story goes this season?

We’ll see.

Related

'Palm Royale': John Stamos Shares 'SNL' Character Impressions He Did Around Kristen Wiig (VIDEO)

Did you ever think you’d do a scene riding a mechanical horse and cracking a whip?

It was unbelievable. I went to rehearsal and saw my soul, my blood: dancers. I could cry when you see these kids — and I’m considerably older than they are, so I can call ’em kids — so energetic and so expert in their field. I could not believe what [choreographer Brooke Lipton] put together for the camera. So, the rehearsal was really moving to me. Coming out to Los Angeles I felt like I was on Broadway in the rehearsal period. This horse. How do I get on it? How do I get off it and how do I sit on it? And then it became great fun. It was very hard work, but what musical number isn’t hard work? And great fun to bond with all of those people on that number.

You’ve been singing that song in concert. Did you first sing it shooting this, and then bring it to your shows?

Oh, yes. And audiences go crazy. It has absolutely nothing to do with the show I’ve just performed. It’s the first encore. I go, ladies and gentlemen, apropos of nothing. And then my multi-instrumentalist, Brad Phillips comes out with a violin and he starts playing. But when I start to yodel, the audience goes nuts. They certainly don’t anticipate me yodeling. I wish could record the song all over again because I finally figured out how to yodel.

What’s the secret?

Well, when it’s natural to me, it’s like a call. You go from chest to head, but it’s not that you’re hitting notes, you’re bringing the chest up to the head. It sits in a different place than where I initially did it. I wanted to do it again, but we didn’t. I was doing what Patsy Montana wrote. She wrote the song and performed the song forever. You can see her in movies doing this song. I had to learn the intervals of her yodel. And when I finally nailed it, I went, OK, I get how to yodel now.

It’s interesting that Palm Royale star Carol Burnett always yodeled in her variety show.

I forgot that I should talk to her about it!

Palm Royale, Wednesdays, Apple TV