Star of Broadway, and 30 Rock

Larger-than-life Broadway legend Elaine Stritch, also known her role in 30 Rock, has died at the age of 89.

The star of many one-woman stage shows, she started her career in the mid-forties after a stint at acting school, where classmates included Marlon Brando and Walter Matthau .

She worked with some of the stage's greatest composers - from Noel Coward to Stephen Sondheim – and appeared in two Woody Allen films, September (1987) and Small Time Crooks (2000)

Her most recent major role was playing the formidable harridan Colleen Donaghy, mother of Alec Baldwin's Jack Donaghy, on 30 Rock.

She was known for her sharp tongue and love of booze, one saying: ‘I drink and I love to drink, and it’s part of my life’. She quit drinking in her sixties only to take it up again later, and she discussed her relationship with alcohol in her 2002 one-woman show, Elaine Stritch at Liberty, which earned her a Tony and Emmy award .

Comedian Greg Proops was among those paying tribute on Twitter today, saying: ‘Elaine Stritch is singing and drinking in the purple beyond. Johnny Winters is wailing on slide.

Roseanne Barr said: ‘RIP ELAINE STRITCH! I love u! We'll miss u terribly-no 1 alive is as gr8 an actor/entertainer as U! All Hail a vagenius has left this realm!’

And Girls star Lena Dunham said: ’Elaine Stritch, we love you. May your heaven be a booze-soaked, no-pants solo show at the Carlyle. Thank you.’

The Carlyle was the New York hotel where Stritch lived for most of her life, moving to Michigan last year. It was there, in the town of Birmingham, that she died of natural causes today.

Published: 17 Jul 2014