Clean living keeps Estelle Parsons on the go at 82

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Estelle Parsons questioned her sanity after landing the role of the ruthless matriarch of a crumbling Oklahoma family in the Tony Award winning play "August: Osage County".

Her character Violet Weston is so demanding that Parsons'' predecessor on Broadway, Tony Award-winner Deanna Dunagan, cited exhaustion for stepping away from the role last year.

And Dunagan is 13 years younger than Parsons.

The portrayal of Weston, a mean-spirited, pill-popping addict, is a stretch for Parsons, a "health nut" who maintains a clean lifestyle despite the rigors of life on the road.

"August," the 2008 Tony Award winner for best play. is on a U.S. national tour after closing on Broadway in June. It will run through May, and for each performance Parsons repeatedly barrels up and down a set of steps in the family house that forms the stage set.

That''s 352 steps per show. "And that''s 700-something on matinees," quips Parsons, an Oscar-winning actress best known for her work in the 1990s TV sitcom "Roseanne".

We''re talking nine shows a week for some of the stops on the tour. Yet life on the road hasn''t slowed the Massachusetts native.

"I''ve been active all my life," Parsons said, sipping a bottle of water backstage at Washington D.C.''s Kennedy Center. "And I haven''t smoked in a long time.

"The reason and I can get through this show is that I eat right. I don''t eat red meat. I eat chicken and fish. And salad. And steamed vegetables, occasionally roasted.

"I don''t eat desserts. And I don''t drink, well, maybe a glass of wine now and then. This sounds like a laughable way to live. But it''s me. It''s a good, healthy life."

CARDIO FANATIC