Born in Detroit, MI on Feb. 2, 1925, this future funny lady was the daughter of George J. Stritch, a rubber company executive and his wife, Mildred Stritch. Stritch made only a handful of films, beginning with "The Scarlet Hour" (1956). She provided comic relief as an American nurse in the overblown remake of "A Farewell to Arms" (1957) and demonstrated her "butch" persona as the lesbian owner of a nightclub in "Who Killed Teddy Bear?" (1965). By the mid-70s, Stritch had settled in London, where she headlined the British sitcoms "Two's Company" (London Weekly Television, 1975-79), as an expatriate mystery writer who engages in verbal battles with her English butler (Donald Sinden), and "Nobody's Perfect" (London Weekly Television, 1980-82), which was a British version of the hit American sitcom "Maude". On the big screen, Stritch more than held her own in a dual role opposite John Gielgud and Dirk Bogarde in Alain Resnais' fascinating "Providence" (1977) and was the best thing as an aging sex symbol in the otherwise minor Woody Allen film "September" (1987) – she reunited with Allen in 2000 for "Small Time Crooks." Stritch was also seen as Dyan Cannon's mother in the uneven but charming Jack Lemmon-Walter Matthau vehicle "Out to Sea" (1997), in support of Richard Dreyfuss and Jenna Elfman in the comedy "Krippendorf's Tribe" (1998) and opposite Norm MacDonald and Dave Chappelle in the crass comedy "Screwed" (2000).

On television, Stritch briefly landed recurring roles on "The Cosby Show" and "3rd Rock From the Sun," garnered plaudits for her supporting turn in the 1991 mini "An Inconvenient Woman" and she won an Emmy for her guest appearance on a 1990 episode of the legal drama "Law & Order," but her most memorable role was as her irascible self in her 2002 one-woman show at the Public Theater, "Elaine Stritch: At Liberty" which aired on HBO in the form of a performance/documentary hybrid and showed off her enviable skills as a raconteur. The actress was rewarded with an Emmy for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program in 2004, and her salty acceptance speech proved to be one of the ceremony's water cooler moments. The actress also enjoyed a scene-stealing cameo in the romantic comedy "Monster-In-Law" (2005) as the only woman who could believably out-bully Jane Fonda's overprotective, hard-driving mother-in-law.

In 2007, Stritch picked up a new generation of fans when she made a memorable guest- appearance on “30 Rock” (NBC, 2006- ), the smart show-within-a-show late night TV spoof created by Tina Fey. Cast as Colleen Donaghy – the domineering mother of Alec Baldwin’s character, Jack Donaghy – Stritch stole the show and garnered an Emmy nod for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series.