She put her whole chest into it.
“Gilmore Girls” actress Sally Struthers made a surprising improv contribution to the beloved show. While filming Season 6’s premiere episode, “New and Improved Lorelai,” there was a scene where “we were shooting at night, and my character, Babette, had to run from the town square to Luke’s Diner. I had news to tell, like the town crier,” Struthers, 78, told The Post.
“After that many runs, my breasts were hurting, being jiggled up and down. I didn’t have on a sports bra, or anything. So I was holding them, and running.”
“And that apparently completely cracked up Amy Sherman-Palladino,” the Emmy winner recalled. The series creator laughed because “she couldn’t believe I was doing that.” So although it wasn’t in the script, “That’s the take that’s in the show—Babette running, holding her breasts.”
The “All in the Family” actress played Babette Dell in “Gilmore Girls,” Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and Rory (Alexis Bledel)’s kooky neighbor. Struthers was speaking to The Post in honor of the show’s 20th anniversary, as the beloved family drama first premiered in October 2000.
“Gilmore Girls” aired from 2000 to 2007 on The WB (which later became the CW) before it briefly returned for a 2016 Netflix revival, “Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life.”
Set in the fictional, charming town of Stars Hollow, Connecticut, the story followed former teen mom Lorelai (Lauren Graham) as she raised her precocious teen daughter, Rory (Alexis Bledel).
Supporting characters included their neighbor Babette, Lorelai’s difficult mother Emily (Kelly Bishop), Lorelai’s diner-owning love interest Luke (Scott Patterson), Luke’s nephew Jess (Milo Ventimiglia), Rory’s first boyfriend Dean (Jared Padalecki), town weirdo Kirk (Sean Gunn), and Lorelai’s best friend, Sookie (Melissa McCarthy).
The Netflix revival series ended with Rory pregnant, without revealing who the father of her baby was.
“Oh, I’m going to be irrational. I’d say a deceased man named Cary Grant. I mean, I don’t know. Who knows?” Struthers joked about the identity. “That was wonderful to leave a cliffhanger, but the fans must be frustrated!”
Working on “Gilmore Girls” also had some unexpected side effects, Struthers told The Post.
“It was seven happy years going to Warner Brothers every day and walking onto that set. Talk about a group of fun, crazy, disparate people,” she noted.
But afterward, the “A Man on the Inside” actress was playing Golde in a Maine production of “Fiddler on the Roof,” and the director said, “I don’t know why you’re talking so fast.”
Struthers recalled, “And I said, ‘What do you mean?’” After going home to think about it, she returned the next day and told the director, “I’ve just done seven years on ‘Gilmore Girls.’”
She explained to him that series creator and writer Amy Sherman-Palladino “writes the script for a one-hour television show that’s about 8 to 9 pages longer than all other one-hour television shows. And her writing is so brilliant, she doesn’t want to cut any of the words.”
Sherman-Palladino “asked us all to just speak faster,” she said, which led to the show’s famous “machine gun” dialogue pattern.
The actress recalled telling the “Fiddler on the Roof” director, “For seven years I’ve been speaking really fast. I promise I’ll slow down. I promise I will play Golde at a normal speaking pace!”
https://nypost.com/2025/10/27/entertainment/gilmore-girls-star-sally-struthers-reveals-hilarious-unscripted-moment-that-made-it-onscreen/