"At first we couldn't understand why a marvelous song like 'Loch Lomond' was sort of rejected by the audience, and then a song like 'Danny Boy', that you'd think everybody's sick of, was acceptable. Well, 'Danny Boy,' believe it or not, is a winning song. At the end of it, the girl says, 'Even if I'm dead, if you come back and you whisper that you love me still, I'll hear you in my grave.' And then I'll know that you'll be beside me for eternity. Whereas 'Loch Lomond' starts off so well, but each verse says 'But me and my true love will never meet again ... "
She began her acting career at the Gate Theatre in Dublin while in her teens, came to the U.S. in 1937, and acted with Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre on the Air before heading for Hollywood, where she made such classic films as _Dark Victory, Watch on the Rhine_, and _Wuthering Heights_, for which she received an Oscar nomination. In 1946 she settled on Manhattan's East Side, and has been based there ever since, although she frequently returns to Hollywood to act in movies.
Perhaps even better known for her stage roles, she names Eugene O'Neill's poignant, autobiographical _Long Day's Journey Into Night_ as her favorite play. When it was revived Off Broadway in 1971, her portrayal of the morphine-addicted Mary Tyrone became the biggest hit of her stage career. Miss Fitzgerald has recorded this play and others for Caedmon Records.
Married to Stuart Scheftel, a wealthy executive and producer, she has one son from a previous marriage, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, the hugely successful young director who was nominated for a Tony Award for _Whose Life is this Anyway?_ Miss Fitzgerald is the first actress ever to receive the Handel Medallion, New York's highest cultural award.
If Geraldine has one regret about her career, it is that it took her "so many decades to get up the courage to sing. Everybody told me not to, because I have such a funny voice. ... Then I realized that I needed a vehicle for expressing what I feel about the world and about people that was very flexible, and was mine. And if the audience would put up with the harsh sounds, then I could use it. And evidently they can, so if they can now, I guess they always could."