‘Gilmore Girls’ Star Sally Struthers Sets Record Straight on Her Retirement
What To Know
- Sally Struthers clarified that she is not retired and continues to work actively in theater, despite fans’ assumptions based on her absence from television.
- She is recognized by fans of all ages for her roles in All in the Family, Gilmore Girls, and the recent Netflix series A Man on the Inside.
- Currently starring in a stage production in New Jersey, Struthers expressed her love for theater and noted that her reputation now allows her to bypass auditions.
Gilmore Girls star Sally Struthers recently set the record straight about her retirement — specifically, that she is still working hard at 78, despite fans thinking otherwise.
During an interview with People published on October 26, the actress shared that she often argues with fans over whether she has retired.
The actress, who got her big break as Gloria Stivic in All in the Family, told the publication, “I’ve been doing these plays and national tours, and yet people come up to me on the street — they’re always taller, so I’m always looking up at them — and they always sound a little obsequious and they say things like, ‘Oh, it’s so good to see you, dear. We don’t see you on television anymore. We miss you. Are you retired?'”
Struthers added, “Then I go, ‘No.’ They say, ‘Well, we don’t see you.’ ‘Well, that doesn’t mean I’m not working. I do theater all over the country.’ And they’ll say, ‘Oh, well, we don’t go to the theater.'”
The star behind Babette Dell in Gilmore Girls continued, “I said, ‘But you’re just assuming I don’t work anymore. I’m trying to tell you I work all the time!'”
Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett Collection
Additionally, Struthers opened up about how fans of different generations recognize her in public.
“It’s funny, a 20-year-old young lady will approach me and call me Babette because of Gilmore Girls. And then her mother, if she’s with her, will go, ‘No, darling, she’s Gloria,'” she recounted. “And now people are starting to call me Virginia from the Netflix series,” she added of her character, Virginia Faldau, in the 2024 series A Man on the Inside.
Currently, Struthers stars in the stage production An Old-Fashioned Family Murder as Mrs. Shirley Peck at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Struthers told People that she’ll “always go back to” theater because “it’s always there for me.”
“There are always offers. And I’ve gotten to the point at 78 years old where they don’t even make me audition anymore. It’s the most wonderful, delicious existence in the world,” she explained. “That’s one of the payments for getting older, is if people know your work, they actually don’t make you audition because auditions suck.”