Kaye Ballard obit

Kaye Ballard dies at 93, remembered for immense multiple talents and complex personal life

She was not on the list.

Kaye Ballard had a contented smile on her face as she watched herself, larger than life, at the Palm Springs International Film Festival screening of her documentary, “Kaye Ballard: The Show Goes On,” this month at the Palm Springs Cultural Center.

She had been greeted in the lobby by mobs of fans, taking pictures and congregating around her wheelchair like close personal friends. It made her caregiver nervous, and she advised Ballard to leave the theater early more than once. Her heart was weak. She needed to be in bed.

But Ballard waved her off as the audience broke into spontaneous applause seven times during the film. Ballard stayed for about an hour, until just before a scene depicting her conflict with her mother. Then her caregiver wheeled her out of the theater one last time. When she was gone, a reporter sitting across the aisle sensed she was really gone.

But there was one more celebration. A film festival official called her Saturday night, Jan. 12, and said her documentary had been named one of the Best of the Fest. Ballard was thrilled, said her closest friend, Myvanwy Jenn. Then she began to fade away.

Ballard, 93, died Monday night at her home in Rancho Mirage after lapsing into unconsciousness less than a week after being notified that “Kaye Ballard: The Show Goes On” would go on to have another festival screening as a Best of the Fest.

“I loved that she was at the theater the night the film opened at the festival,” said Festival Chairman Harold Matzner. “She received a serenade of applause from all the people who gathered from a sold-out performance. I’m sure she loved that. I’m glad it was finished in time for her to see it and enjoy it.”

“The irony of all this,” added actor Gavin MacLeod, “is, you can go back a year, a year-and-a-half, and PBS did a movie on Rose Marie’s life. And Rosie died I think three days later. Kaye said, ‘I want my movie to be better than Rosie’s.’ Then Kaye’s movie is shown at the festival, and then the award, and then she goes. It’s like these two dynamite personalities got a chance to see their lives flash in front of them on screen before they said, ‘Bye-bye.’

“Kaye was my favorite leading lady, and my favorite friend, and there is a vacancy in our lives because of her leaving that only God can fulfill.”

Ballard had one of the most illustrious careers in show business in the mid-20th century. She first exhibited her talents in Cleveland, where she was born Catherine Gloria Balotta to Italian emigrant parents. She was doing impressions of French entertainment legend Maurice Chevalier at age 5. She developed into a painter, singer, actor, musician and comic impressionist.

Ballard was offered a scholarship to Cleveland Art College, but chose to perform instead in vaudeville. A stage producer in Detroit was so impressed by her multiple talents, he recommended her to Spike Jones, the most popular comic big band leader of the Swing Era. Jones, who had novelty hits like "Cocktails For Two" and "Yes, We Have No Bananas," invited her to look him up if she ever got out to Los Angeles. So Ballard bought a one-way plane ticket to L.A. and landed a job as a singer and a comic tuba player with his band.

She was performing with the Spike Jones Orchestra at the posh Trocadero supper club in L.A. when Mel Torme came in to sing with Nat King Cole in the lounge, Ballard said. Torme had written a new Christmas song that started with, "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire ..."

When Jones' band stopped went on tour to New York, Ballard got a chance to see Laurette Taylor in Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie," which inspired her to get serious about acting, and Ethel Merman in Irving Berlin's "Annie Get Your Gun," which convinced her to go into musical theater.

Ballard made her Broadway debut in 1946 when she was invited by someone who had seen her with Jones to join the cast of the musical, "Three To Make Ready," with "The Wizard of Oz" star Ray Bolger and such future legends as Arthur Godfrey, Julie Wilson and Gordon McRae.

From there, she did such shows as "Touch and Go," which included a Royal Command Performance for King George VI, which got her an introduction to the future Queen Elizabeth; "Top Banana" with Phil Silvers, in which she replaced Rose Marie for the road tour, and "The Golden Apple," which landed her on the cover of Life Magazine and enabled her to introduce the standard, "Lazy Afternoon."

Throughout the rest of her life, with all of the other endeavors she tried, including film, record albums and and a book, Ballard always came back to the stage. Her list of theatrical credits in New York and around the country is remarkable, including:

"Carnival," "Gypsie," "Annie Get Your Gun," "Sheba," "High Spirits," a female version of "The Odd Couple," "Funny Girl," "Chicago," "The Pirates of Penzance," "Royal Flush," "Reuben, Reuben," "Follies," "Look Ma, I'm Dancin'," "Minnie's Boys," "The Decline and Fall of the Entire World As Seen Through the Eyes of Cole Porter Revisited," "Molly," "The Beast In Me," "Wonderful Town," "She Stoops To Conquer," "The Pirates of Penzance," "No, No Nanette" and "Over the River and Through the Woods."

Kaye Ballard did a tribute to early 20th century singer and comic actress Fanny Brice, which she turned into the record album, "Kaye Ballard Sings Fanny Brice" before Barbra Streisand starred as Brice in "Funny Girl."

Other notable productions included "Nunsense," which won a Carbonell Award for South Florida theater, "4 Girls 4," which she performed at the McCallum Theatre," "Crazy Words, Crazy Tunes," which she performed for most of a season at the Springs Theater in the Palm Springs Convention Center, "From Broadway with Love," with Donna McKcKechnie and Liliane Montevecchi, and "The Fabulous Palm Springs Follies," where she appeared as a guest artist as an opportunity to sell copies of her book, "How I Lost 10 Pounds in 53 Years: Kaye Ballard, A Memoir," in the lobby in 2004.

She toured with two critically acclaimed one-woman shows, "Kaye Ballard — Working 42nd St., At Least," and "Hey Ma... Kaye Ballard," which she also brought to the McCallum. She did her last touring production in 2012 at age 86, "Doin' It For Love," a tribute to Broadway standards and performers, and the stories behind them with Montevecchi and Lee Roy Reams.

She said she was proud of having always been a working entertainer, without ever having to take a job outside of show biz.

"I’m very happy because I’m doing the things I’ve done for 60 years," she said in 2012. "I’m just doing the best of the things, like Sophie Tucker and Jimmy Durante (material), and telling things that were in my book. It’s really wonderful."

After her first Broadway show, Ballard next went into cabaret, headlining New York's finest supper clubs, such as the Blue Angel and Bon Soir. She had a voice that rivaled Judy Garland's and, with her comedy and acting skills, she became a magnet for New York music publishers and their "song pluggers." In 1954, she introduced a Bart Howard song called "In Other Words" for Hampshire House Publishing, led by her future Rancho Mirage neighbor, Howie Richmond. It became known as "Fly Me To the Moon" after Frank Sinatra recorded it.

Gretchen Reinhagen, a New York singer-actress whose family has long been part of the Coachella Valley theater community, did her own New York cabaret show saluting Ballard, called “Special Kaye: A Tribute to the Incomparable Kaye Ballard,” and performed it at the Annenberg Theater with Ballard in attendance.

“There is a huge fan base for her and deservedly so,” Reinhagen said at the time. “I saw her a couple of years ago with 'The (Fabulous Palm Springs) Follies' and it was like seeing a master class. I don’t think people know her as the incredible musician she is. I think people in the theater world or cabaret are very familiar with her cabaret work, as well as her Broadway career. I think some of the broader population that know her from ‘The Mothers-In-Law’ don’t know about ‘Working 42nd Street At Last.’”

In 1957, she and Alice Ghostley played the two wicked stepsisters in the live telecast of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, starring Julie Andrews in the title role. During the 1961–1963 television seasons, Ballard was a regular on NBC's The Perry Como Show, as part of the Kraft Music Hall Players, along with Don Adams, Paul Lynde and Sandy Stewart. In 1962, she released an LP record, Peanuts Album, on which she played Lucy van Pelt from the comic strip namesake of the album (with Arthur Siegel playing Charlie Brown), and dramatizing a series of vignettes drawn from the strip's archive. In 1964 she had a guest role on The Patty Duke Show, playing a teacher for would-be models. From 1967 to 1969, she co-starred as Kaye Buell, a woman whose son marries her next door neighbor's daughter, in the NBC sitcom The Mothers-in-Law, with Eve Arden playing her neighbor. From 1970 to 1972, she also appeared as a regular on The Doris Day Show, playing restaurant owner Angie Pallucci . She made appearances on the American television game show Match Game. In 1977, she was a guest star on The Muppet Show. She also appeared on the television series Alice, in which she played a kleptomaniac phony medium, as well as Daddy Dearest, where she guest-starred opposite Richard Lewis and Don Rickles as a DMV clerk.

In 1995, she was awarded a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars.

She played Coach Betsy in the Disney film Freaky Friday. She appeared in The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! as "Madam A-Go-Go," a mysterious fortune teller who appears in the episode "Fortune Teller". She also performed with The Fabulous Palm Springs Follies at the Plaza Theatre in Palm Springs, California.

 

Filmography

Film

Year       Title       Role       Notes

1958      The Girl Most Likely         Marge  

1964      A House Is Not a Home Sidonia

1970      Which Way to the Front?              Senora Messina               

1976      The Ritz                Vivian Proclo     

1976      Freaky Friday     Coach Betsy       

1980      Falling in Love Again        Mrs. Lewis          

1981      Irene     Dotty Busmill     TV movie

1982      Pandemonium Glenn's Mom    

1988      Tiger Warsaw     Aunt Thelma     

1990      Modern Love     Receptionist      

1990      Eternity                Sabrina / Selma                

1990      Fate       Judy      

1994      Ava's Magical Adventure              Leona   

1998      The Modern Adventures of Tom Sawyer                Mrs. Grumpy Old Man  

1999      Baby Geniuses Mayor  

2000      The Million Dollar Kid     Mrs. Crabby       

2000      Little Insects       Queen Palooma (voice)

2003      Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There      Herself Documentary

2017      Senior Moment                 Maria   

2019      Kaye Ballard - The Show Goes On              Herself

Television

Year       Title       Role       Notes

1951–1955          The Arthur Murray Party               Herself 2 episodes

1954      The Steve Allen Show     Herself 1 episode

1954-1955          The Colgate Comedy Hour            Herself 7 episodes

1956–1963          The Ed Sullivan Show      Herself 4 episodes

1957      Cinderella            Portia    TV special

1957–1962          Tonight Starring Jack Paar             Herself 27 episodes

1958      Make Me Laugh                Herself 3 episodes

1958–1960          The Garry Moore Show Herself 3 episodes

1960–1963          The Perry Como Show    Herself 52 episodes

1962      Play Your Hunch               Herself 2 episodes

1962      The Tonight Show            Herself 2 episodes

1963      Candid Camera Herself 2 episodes

1963–1975          The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson             Herself 55 episodes

1963–1978          The Merv Griffin Show   Herself 10 episodes

1963–1979          The Mike Douglas Show                Herself 34 episodes

1964      The Patty Duke Show      Mrs. Selby           "The Perfect Teenager"

1967–1968          The Hollywood Palace    Herself 2 episodes

1967–1969          The Mothers-in-Law       Kaye Buell           Main role: 56 episodes

1967–1975          Hollywood Squares          Herself 168 episodes

1968      Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In          Guest    "1.5"

1968-1969          Kraft Music Hall                Herself 2 episodes

1968–1969          The Jerry Lewis Show      Herself 4 episodes

1969      The Red Skelton Show    DMV Clerk           "Willie Lump Lump's Birthday"

1969      Storybook Squares          Herself 1 episode

1969      Della      Herself 2 episodes

1969      The Leslie Uggams Show               Herself 2 episodes

1969–1970          Kraft Music Hall                Herself 3 episodes

1970      The Doris Day Show        Flossie Moore    "Kidnapped"

1970      All My Children Mrs. Remo          TV series

1970      Love, American Style      Sally       "Love and the V.I.P. Restaurant"

1970      The Bob Hope Show        Herself 1 episode

1970-1971          It's Your Bet        Herself 2 episodes

1970–1972          The Doris Day Show        Angie Pallucci     Recurring role: 10 episodes

1971      The Dick Cavett Show     Herself 1 episode

1971      Here's Lucy         Donna   "Lucy and Harry's Italian Bombshell"

1971      Love, American Style      Helen    "Love and the Dream Burglar"

1972      The David Frost Show     Herself 1 episode

1972–1973          The Carol Burnett Show                 Herself 2 episodes

1973–1974          Match Game      Herself 10 episodes

1973      Pyramid               Herself 5 episodes

1974      Celebrity Sweepstakes   Herself 1 episode

1974      Celebrity Bowling             Herself 1 episode

1974      The Bob Braun Show       Herself 1 episode

1974-1976          Dinah!   Herself 1 episode

1975      The Montefuscos             Filomena              "Filomena's Visit"

1976      Police Story        Nurse Ladue       "Officer Dooly"

1977      Alice      Seama   "The Hex"

1977      The Muppet Show           Guest    1 episode

1978–1981          The Love Boat    Cora Bass / Joan Redmond / Babe             3 episodes

1979      Fantasy Island    Elvira Wilson      'Hit Man/The Swimmer"

1980      The Dream Merchants   Esther Kessler    TV miniseries

1980      Broadway on Showtime                Salome "The Robber Bridegroom"

1980      The Steve Allen Comedy Hour     Herself 3 episode

1980–1981          Trapper John, M.D.          Beulah Krakowsky / Mother        2 episodes

1981      Irene     Dotty Busmill     TV film

1981      Here's Boomer Sophia "Make 'Em Laugh"

1983      Great Performances       Duchess               "Alice in Wonderland"

1984      Young People's Specials                 Mrs. Deluca        "That Funny Fat Kid"

1985      Doris Day's Best Friends'               Herself 1 episode

1986      The Lee Phillip Show       Herself 1 episode

1987      The Law & Harry McGraw             Angela Calucci   "Angela's Secret"

1989      The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!         Madame Agogo                1 episode

1989      Monsters             Faye Ingram       "Rerun"

1989–1991          The Munsters Today       Mother Earth / Mother Nature   2 episodes

1990–91               What a Dummy                 Mrs. Treva Travalony      Main role: 24 episodes

1991      The Munsters Today       Mother Earth     "A-Camping We Will Go"

1991      Doris Day: A Sentimental Journey             Herself TV Documentary

1993      Daddy Dearest   Mrs. Lento          "Al vs. DMV"

1994–95               Due South           Mrs. Vecchio      3 episodes

1996–1999          The Rosie O'Donnell Show            Herself 3 episodes

1998–2001          Biography            Herself 2 episodes

1999–2001          Mysteries and Scandals Herself 4 episodes

2002      The Hollywood Greats    Herself Season 8, Episode 8: "Doris Day"