Welcome to another Wildcard Wednesday! While the star of the series currently being featured on Sitcom Tuesdays, Beatrice Arthur, is well known for her illustrious Broadway career that includes shows like Fiddler On The Roof (1964) and Mame (1966), many fans don’t know about the show she hoped would make her a star. Entitled A Mother’s Kisses (1968), Arthur played an overbearing mother who obsessively smothers her college-aged son. The show folded in October of ’68 after a two-city tryout, never making it to Broadway. The score by Richard Adler, however, has one thrillingly superb number for Arthur, “There Goes My Life.” While several live audios circulate of the show during its ill-fated tryout (and I have two myself), this rendition below comes from the 1974 Tony Awards.

Of course, if the show became a hit and cemented Arthur as the next Broadway leading lady, there probably would have been no Maude… Things happen for a reason, right?

Come back next Wednesday for another Wildcard post! And tune in tomorrow for more Xena!