Kaye Ballard thinks she deserved a Tony nod for Carnival, says it was between her, Dolores Grey and Lansbury for the part of Mame

[Will42]

BY DAVID NOH

They call me a legend,” Kaye Ballard told me, “but it’s only because I’ve lived this long.”

At the Bistro Awards, held on April 23, Ballard, 86, who has conquered the worlds of Broadway, movies, television, and cabaret, received the Bob Harrington Lifetime Achievement Award. “I loved that, but I wish I could get a Tony. You know, I was never even nominated. I should have been, for ‘Carnival,’ and I deserved an Obie for ‘The Golden Apple.’”

Ballard will be appearing at Feinstein’s at Loew’s Regency on June 17 (540 Park Ave. at 61st St.; feinsteinsattheregency.com), in a show entitled “Maybe This Time.” Yes, that Kander & Ebb classic was written for her, not Liza Minnelli, and she will explain it to you all. She also introduced one of the great songs, “Lazy Afternoon” in “The Golden Apple”: “The composer, John LaTouche, was a friend and used to come see me perform at the Bon Soir. He said, ‘Would you come over for dinner? I want to play the score for you.’ I heard that song and said in my heart, ‘I’ve got to sing that song!’ I did seven auditions for it. John always wanted me but the producers thought, ‘She’s just nightclub!’ But I got it, and it was unbelievable — those lyrics “You can hear the grass as it grows” — incredible, but all the lyrics were!”

Marc Blitzstein’s 1955 urban folk opera, “Reuben, Reuben” was a fascinating project: “Blitzstein was so brilliant, David, but he was content with failure, if you know what I mean. He was afraid to find out if he was a great success. Bobby Lewis was our great director, and when we did the run-through, it was so brilliant. But when we had a problem in Boston, Arthur Miller wanted to help Marc, but he wouldn’t accept any help. He was adamant about what he did, and he should have been a little more pliable.

“Also, Eddie Albert was fabulous in rehearsal, but he became frightened in front of an audience and became the Eddie Albert you saw in movies. Even when people were walking out and on opening night when we got the worst reviews, the cast all loved it so much we all offered to do it for free on a bare stage in New York. By that time, we had worked on it in Boston for three weeks and gotten standing ovations, but it was too late because the critics bombed it that first night.

“I loved it, because I was thin, and it was an attractive part and I had wonderful material. But there were other disappointments, like losing ‘Mame,’ the disappointment of my life. It was down to just me, Dolores Gray, and Angela Lansbury, and they told me I could never be from Beekman Place. I wanted to move there and send them a card which said, ‘You’re wrong.’ It broke my heart, and I thought, ‘Well, I’m just never gonna get anything really good.”

Ballard did get to be seen by more than 100 million people on the telecast of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “Cinderella” in 1957: “When they played the score and recited the book, tears just ran down my face. Alice Ghostley was the best, the funniest, laughing at Julie Andrews, who was very good but didn’t want her costumes to be dirty, so the patches had to be specially sewn on them.

“I knew both Alice and Paul Lynde and, in answer to your wondering who stole comedically from whom, nobody stole anything from anybody. They just had that same personality and voice, and when they got together, it was hilarious. They were so alike.”

Ballard may not have a ton of awards, but she’s had famous friends galore, the cream of showbiz royalty, and she said, “My God, I’ve always been starstruck, so to get to know the people I worshipped, this little Italian girl from Cleveland, I couldn’t believe it!

“Judy Garland and Ethel Merman would come together to see me perform and do imitations in nightclubs all the time, and Judy would say, ‘Do me! Do me!’ I went to a friend’s house one night, and there was Irene Dunne, Greer Garson, and Joseph Cotten! They were talking about [the film] ‘Theodora Goes Wild,’ and Irene Dunne said, ‘Oh, no!’ She was embarrassed, she didn’t like it, and I said, ‘Are you kidding? Would you stop? You’re simply great in that!’ Greer Garson — I wouldn’t talk to her but I’d just look at her and whisper, ‘Random Harvest!’ And when she left, I said, ‘Good night, Mrs. Miniver.’

“Barbara Stanwyck was a very disciplined lady during the week when she worked, but on Friday night she’d get drunk until Sunday. She wasn’t as much fun as Bette Davis, whom I visited at the Lombardy Hotel. She answered the door herself and said, ‘Don’t evah have a stroke!’ And ‘Why couldn’t B.D. [her daughter] have waited until I was dead to write her book?’

“I was at B.D.’s 60th birthday party at the Plaza Hotel. Everyone was so old. I was around 30 and the youngest person there. B.D. said, ‘Oh, Mommy, Mommy, this is the most wonderful party!’ and Bette said, ‘Bull****!’

“Cary Grant was the handsomest man I ever saw, and I asked him, ‘How do you stay so thin?’ He said, ‘I think thin.’ ‘I’ve tried that. It doesn’t work.’ But he appealed to men, women, dogs, cats, like Hugh Jackman now. Onstage no one’s better than he is, and I love the way his pants fit more than anything in the world. He has the most appealing body — ooh!”

Ballard, suddenly turning interviewer, herself, had a particular question she wanted to ask me: “David, why is it, if a woman is strong, why do they think she’s gay? In my early life, I did everything twice, and I found myself after 40, thinking, ‘This is ridiculous.’ I’m only happy working and with my dogs, but so many people terrorize you, saying, ‘Come out and say something!’ But I’m nothing. At the moment, I have someone who takes care of me, a friend for 40 years, but nothing! Why do they automatically think you have to make a declaration? I’m glad that Ellen and Rosie have done it, but I have no reason to do that and won’t.

“They used to say that about June Havoc, who had a lady with her all her life, who was like a nun. It was such a joke. June was one of the most wonderful people, totally heterosexual. All of my friends are gay and I love everybody for what they are, not what they do in bed. I don’t give a damn and don’t understand this attitude.”

http://www.chelseanow.com/articles/2012/04/25/gay_city_news/arts/doc4f988ba00aca2930459289.txt

[Patash]

OK, your trick worked. I had to read the entire thing to find out what your title meant -- as if the Tony nod was between her, Delores Gray, and Angela Lansbury. That's what I got from your post, but of course, not at all what you were saying.

Interesting article, nevertheless!

[theeatah]

I've read elsewhere that it was between Gray, Lansbury and Nanette Fabray. Fabray refused to audition, apparently. Surprised that Gray never did the role in stock.

[Gypsy9]

I agree with Kaye Ballard that she deserved a Tony nomination for her role in Gower Champion's wondrous CARNIVAL back in the 1960's. She was a hoot in that show.

[Gothampc]

"in a show entitled ťMaybe This Time.ť Yes, that Kander & Ebb classic was written for her, not Liza Minnelli, and she will explain it to you all."

Can someone explain this? I thought K&E wrote the song for Liza to audition of Cabaret and wouldn't let it in the show when she wasn't cast.

[Ed_Mottershead]

One of my fondest NYC theatre experiences was the Off-Broadway review, The Decline and Fall of the Entire World as Seen Through the Eyes of Cole Porter. Kaye's spin on Louella Parsons was worth the price of admission alone.

[Gaveston2]

If Kaye Ballard doesn't want people to think she's gay, maybe she shouldn't have written in her autobiography that "all my emotionally satisfying relationships have been with women".

Yes, I realize that isn't necessarily the same thing as having sex with those women, but I can understand how people might get that impression.

She lives near Palm Springs and has received occasional pressure to come out from the local press (in case anyone is wondering why she brought up the subject in the first place).

[Gothampc]

^^If only Eve Arden were still around to tell us the real truth.

[SonofRobbieJ]

Goth,

I had heard it Maybe This Time was indeed introduced by Ballard well before Cabaret. I just can't remember where I read it.

[best12bars]

"Maybe This Time" was definitely not written for the film version of Cabaret and had been produced or performed elsewhere prior the film's release, which is why it was ineligible for an Oscar as Best Original Song that year.

[BrodyFosse123]

Instead of writing a new ballad for the 1972 film adapation of CABARET, John Kander and Fred Ebb were persuaded by Liza Minnelli (and later, Bob Fosse) to use a song from their trunk - "Maybe This Time", a tune Liza had recorded for her very first album in 1964.

Fosse wasn't initially a fan of the song, but changed his mind after deciding on how to stage it (in the empty nightclub). Minnelli has said that Fred Ebb jokingly blamed her for the loss of an extra Oscar nomination in the Best Original Song category for her desire to sing a previously-written song.

[Playbilly]

I hope she told Ebb, "There's got to be a morning after."

[Matt2]

Wikipedia states that MTT was written by Kander and Ebb for Kaye Ballard, but keep in mind the source where that information comes from. After all, it runs contrary to almost everything else I've heard and read about the song and who it was written for. I'm almost positive Kander and Ebb wrote Maybe This Time for Minnelli. I know the song was part of her repertoire by at least 1964. Her debut album, "Liza, Liza" (also released in '64) features the song, as BrodyFosse states above. In fact I found a clip of her singing the Maybe This Time at the Olympia. The video places her performance in June of 1966, long before Cabaret opened. Her voice is rather raw, but it's still a great performance demonstrating the great potential Minnelli had.


Liza at the Olympia

[Matt2]

Btw, weren't "The Money Song" and "Mein Herr" written for the film version of Cabaret? And even if they had been trunk songs, I don't think they'd been produced before. If so, I'm surprised either song (if not both) weren't nominated for the Oscar. It's not like '72 was chalk full of great original film songs. And both Cabaret songs were better than that year's winner, the drippy "Morning After"

[SonofRobbieJ]

It's possible that Ballard is lying. But I've heard this story before. The song has a copyright from 1963. It's also possible they wrote it with Liza in mind...but Ballard sang it first. No matter how you slice it, it was never written for Cabaret.

[Dollypop]

As many times as I've spoken with Jerry Herman, he has never mentioned that Kaye Ballard was anywhere near being considered for Mame. For Very Charles, maybe.

Bear in mind though, that both Herman and Ballard are "of a certain age" and their recollections may not be as crisp as they once were.

[Sonia&Vernon]

Kaye has been saying she was a finalist for Mame as way back as 1967 when The Mothers-in-Law started. Kaye says Jerry Herman told her no one would believe she ever resided on Beekman Place.

Fred Ebb and Liza both now say that Maybe This Time was written for Kaye. The story supposedly goes that Kaye, who was always Fred Ebb's biggest champion before he became known, was a regular on The Perry Como Show in 1961-62. Kander and Ebb wrote My Coloring Book for Kaye and she passed the song on to the show producers. The producer told Kaye she was "the funny woman" and gave the song to co-star Sandy Stewart to sing. Fred Ebb said that he would write Kaye a song that would always be hers and Maybe This Time was the result. Kaye says she recorded the song as a single for Reprise Records, but I can't find any record of that at the moment. When Liza recorded the song a couple years later, Fred told Kaye that the record producer had found the song and he had nothing to do with it. Kaye later found out that it was actually Ebb's idea to give the song to Liza and made it seem as though he wrote it just for Liza. As a result, Kaye didn't speak to him for several years. They eventually reconciled.

[Lohania]

For the person who mentioned about Kaye living in Palm Springs, she bought her house there from Dezi Arnaz in 1967 when she did "The Mothers-In-Law" Desilu-produced sitcom. The house belonged to Arnaz and Lucille Ball when they were married. So, her moving there years ago had nothing to do with it being a gay mecca, since I'm not sure it was at the time (and it's always mostly been a male gay mecca). I read parts of Kaye's bio and she said she identified with Liz Smith, and it implied she was lesbian or bisexual. She also had a relationship with Marlon Brando and dated other men as well, so who knows.

I just know I've always been fond of Kaye Ballard. She's funny, has a good singing voice, and tells great show-biz stories.

[TheatreDiva90016]

I just saw her at a party two weeks ago. She's doing great.

[Gothampc]

"She also had a relationship with Marlon Brando"

The only woman of that era who didn't have a relationship with Brando was Elaine Stritch.

[Gaveston2]

For the person who mentioned about Kaye living in Palm Springs...

I am that person and I never said the location of her house reveals her sexual orientation. For one thing, she doesn't live in Palm Springs per se, she lives in Rancho Mirage, two towns over, on a street named for her. (It's more a Republican Mecca than a gay one, and was made famous when Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby built homes there.)

Moreover, Ballard bought her house back in the days when a lot of stars (including most of the Rat Pack) had second homes in Rancho Mirage--before Palm Springs became known as a gay Mecca. She's lived here for a long time.

I think Palm Springs is relevant only because it has a large gay population and that may have resulted in more pressure on Ballard to "come out" (rightly or wrong, accurately or not) than she might have faced elsewhere.

She does have a lot of gay friends, including lesbians. I know many of them. But she says as much herself; I don't see what that proves. My point wasn't to make any claim about Ballard's sexuality, but merely to explain why she might feel a need to talk about it. (She does dance around the subject even while denying it, however; see the link above: "I've done everything twice.")

[Lohania]

Sorry I misunderstood, Gaveston. I Netflixed a couple of Mothers-In-Laws DVD's a few months ago (worse show than I remembered from TVLand, BTW), including one with extras where Kaye was interviewed about buying the house from Desi. That led to me looking up some info on her and reading parts of her autobiography that are online. It does seem she has been ambiguous in some of her past statements about herself and now she feels compelled to clarify or backtrack. It may be a generational thing that she's concerned enough to bring it up, because theater people certainly don't care and she doesn't seem to work much in TV anymore.

[PalJoey]

What an icky and bitter interview.

I find it very sad when people who came of age in the 1960s, pre-Stonewall, closeted era, make statements like "I love everybody for what they are, not what they do in bed."

Someone should tell Miss Ballard that being gay or lesbian is NOT about "what you do in bed." It's about whom you love.

Someone should tell Miss Ballard that being gay is about having the kind of "emotionally satisfying relationships" she herself says she had. Meanwhile she recoils at the idea of anyone considering that love of one woman for another as lesbian. She recoils at the idea of anyone considering June Havoc gay.

She says that June Havoc couldn't have been a lesbian because she was a "nun." She says that June Havoc was wonderful and "totally heterosexual." She says that June Havoc "had a lady with her all her life."

Which was she, Kaye? A nun? A heterosexual? Or a woman who had a lady with her all her life?

And isn't it a little pathetic for someone who had had "emotionally satisfying relationships with women" to claim that Hugh Jackman's tight pants excite her "more than anything in the world."

She asks why do people "have to make a declaration"?

Maybe, Miss Ballard, because being open and honest is the only antidote to growing old and continuing to lie about yourself.

It's not about talking about what you do in bed. It's about who you ARE.

You are who you love.

[Gaveston2]

No harm done, Lohania. I just want to be clear I don't pretend I can identify sexual orientation based on zip code.

joey, some of Ballard's friends feel exactly as you do. I have to admit to some inconsistency on the subject: if she were 46 or 56, I would wholeheartedly agree. Since she is 86, I tend to shrug off her defensiveness on the subject--though I'd advise her to condense her denials to a one-liner ("It's been so long since I had sex, I don't remember what I was!"). As you point out, the more she talks the worse she sounds.

The lesbian friends of Ballard that I know are very fond of her companion and feel the woman deserves more acknowledgement after 40 years. I've worked with them both, but my gaydar doesn't work on women of a certain age.

It does seem to me that Ballard does a lot of hinting and circling the subject, only to promptly issue a denial. I'm not sure what purpose is served by that game.

[PalJoey]

She also says:

At the moment, I have someone who takes care of me, a friend for 40 years, but nothing!

What a callous, belittling, demeaning way to speak about a woman she's been with for 40 years.

Either she's a horrible person or this interview makes her seem like one.

[Gaveston2]

I've seen similar quotes in other interviews, joey. When Ballard says, "But nothing!" she means "but there's nothing sexual between us", not that her friend/assistant is "nothing".

I agree it's confusing in the interview quoted here. I think that's an example of a verbal utterance that came out wrong in print.

She's not a horrible person; at least she wasn't when I worked with her. And she and her assistant seem very close. (I don't know them socially.) It has been suggested to me by her friends that Ballard has a tendency to see herself as a victim (and one sees some of that in her autobiography), but I can't confirm that from my personal experience.