Attending the 17th annual Keep Memory Alive ‘Power of Love Gala’ benefit for the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health celebrating the 80th birthdays of Quincy Jones and Sir Michael Caine at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. PacificCoastNews.com
Kady Z. Copyright
Very proud of my daughter and her new video. Here is her interview with UK Yahoo :
She therefore sounds like our perfect girl, and so not only did we bag the exclusive first EVER showing of her new video (scroll down,) but we also had a One Minute Gossip with her too.
Describe yourself in 3 words
Fun, Loyal, Laidback
What’s the best advice someone in the industry’s given you?
Don’t stink. Good hygiene is a must.
Tell us your celebrity crush/es?
Rob Thomas
Who’s the most famous person in your phone?
My mom!
When was the last time you told someone you loved them & who was it?
My boyfriend, just a couple hours ago.
What was the last lie you told?
That I don’t lie!
What’s your secret hangover cure?
Coconut Water
What’s your favourite sandwich filling?
Anything with a lot of mayo!
What’s your random beauty/grooming tip?
Nipple Balm is the best chapstick/lipgloss ever!
Tell us your biggest omg! (shock) moment?
When I found out that I was the fresh face of the Grammy Glam Project for the Grammy Award this year, in conjunction with Herbal Essences and Oil of Olay. I got to walk the red carpet at the Grammy’s and it was such an honour!
Single “Crashing Down” available now on iTunes >>
Written by Bobbie Katz
One Golden Globe, 1 Grammy nomination, 3 marriages, 3 children, 15 years away from performing to raise her family and 2 years of living inLas Vegasare bringing an accomplished singer and film and Broadway star to the Suncoast for 1 night on Saturday, February 23. Pia Zadora is back and ready to paint the town – and she’s painting it by numbers.
Zadora’s 75-minute stage show was created by 3-time Emmy® winning director and choreographer Walter Painter, Emmy®-nominated Academy Award® writer Jon Macks. Featuring some of the greatest songs ever performed, Zadora will be accompanied by legendary Sinatra pianist and musical conductor Vinnie Falcone and his orchestra. Zadora will perform classics including “The Lady Is a Tramp,” “Come Rain or Shine,” “All of Me,” “Young at Heart” and “The Man That Got.Away.”
One thing is for certain — there is no doubt that audiences will see a woman of many hues who couldn’t be more content with where she is today.
“I love living inLas Vegas,” Zadora enthuses. “It’s like a community, especially having come fromL.A.andNew York. I’m on my third marriage – we’ve been married for nine years and it’s going so well that I no longer call him my current husband; I call him ‘Detective Honey.’ He is on the Las Vegas Metro police force.
“I was visitingLas VegasfromL.A.with my first husband, Rik, on my son’s birthday and my second husband was stalking me – he followed me here fromL.A.I had brought my baby from my second husband, who was 5 at the time, with me and he didn’t think that I was supposed to take him out ofL.A.There was violence involved and my attorney told me to file a report with Las Vegas Metro. So I did. The report came across the desk of Michael Jeffries. Michael and I spoke on the phone a few times and then about a year later, we decided that we should meet since I didn’t know what he looked like. He sounded like a middle-aged cornhusker on the phone; I didn’t expect a hunky Alec Baldwin type. We met and got engaged two weeks later.”
That was 10 years ago. Zadora’s two children, by Rik (Meschulam Riklis, with whom she remains best friends), Kady and Kristopher, who are now 27 and 25, were also still living at home in L.A. with her at the time so she couldn’t move. Jeffries would come in Saturday afternoons after work and go back toLas Vegason Tuesday afternoons. After they got married, he retired from Metro, moved toL.A.and transferred to the Sheriff’s Department. Then two years ago, with Kady and Kristopher grown and gone and her youngest son then 13, the couple decided that it was time to move back toLas Vegas. Jeffries had to go back to the police academy before he could rejoin Metro again.
As for Zadora, she got back into singing through friends such as Deana Martin (Dean Martin’s daughter) and Chance Torme (Mel Torme’s son), getting up on stage and singing with them at theirLas Vegasshows. Before she know it, she had engagements booked at both the Cabaret Jazz at The Smith Performing Arts Center in Las Vegas, where she performed the last weekend in July, and the Metropolitan cabaret in New York City, where she performed a few months ago and got great reviews. In addition, after herSmithCenterperformance, she started working on a reality show with Discovery Studios and Hoodworks Entertainment. While she can’t divulge anything about the show as yet, she jokes that there will be no Kardashians and no hillbilly hand-fishing, nor will it be called “Here Comes Pia Boo Boo.”
Zadora has come full cycle. She began her career on Broadway at the age of seven after being discovered while studying acting at the AmericanAcademyof Dramatic Art. This success led to a number of Broadway shows, including a two-year stint from 1964-66 inFiddler On The Roof, and featured roles in The Sound Of Music, Little Mary Sunshine, Funny Girl, Damn Yankees, Crazy for Youand Dames At Sea. She has also appeared in numerous feature films, including Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964),The Lonely Lady (1983), Hairspray (1988) and Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994).
Of course, it’s also hard to forget the flack she encountered when she won the Golden Globe for the movie Butterfly in 1981.
“The hub-bub was that I had won it for Best Actress when I actually won it for Best Newcomer,” she recalls. “I had a funny name and my husband had financed the film. It was like ‘Who is this?’ I became Johnny Carson’s answer to Rula Lenska. But I didn’t let it get in my way or run with my tail between my legs. I used all of it to get where I am today.”
Zadora admits that getting back into performing was a little daunting at first. “I felt like I was standing on the edge of a cliff,” she says about herSmithCenterengagement. “But it was a combination of fear and exhilaration. Once out there, I felt that I hadn’t missed a beat for 15 years. I connected to my inner diva. And I’m really excited about performing at the Suncoast. It’s the quintessentialLas Vegasshowroom.”
And it’s just adding more colors to her life.
The renowned Pia Zadora returns to the New York stage for an exclusive five-show engagement at The Metropolitan Room from February 7-10, 2013, ending a 15-year hiatus from the New York stage. He new show, “Pia Zadora–Back again and Standing Tall”which the native New Yorker premiered on the West Coast in 2011, recently played the prestigious Smith Center in Las Vegas this summer.
Born in New York, Zadora was first a child actress on Broadway–appearing with Tallulah Bankhead, and later with Zero Mostel in “Fiddler on the Roof”–and in film, appearing in “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians” in 1964. For her breakout film, “Butterfly”(1981) she won a Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year. In 1984 she was nominated for a Best Female Rock Vocal Performance Grammy Award. Also in 1984 she had a hit duet with Jermaine Jackson that reached #1 in several European countries.
Frank Sinatra introduces Zadora on film. The music direction is by legendary Sinatra pianist Vinnie Falcone, who leads a five-piece all-star band, that includes Jay Leonhart on bass, Ronnie Zito on drums, Joe Lano on guitar, and Ned Ginsberg on keyboards. Bob Mackie designed the gowns.
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Pia Zadora, Golden Globe winner, Grammy nominee, and ShoWest winner is returning to the New York stage after an extended run in the demanding role of motherhood. The renowned singer and actor now gets back to her first love: on stage, singing with all her heart and entertaining her audiences.
Zadora, a Broadway child star who received critical acclaim for her performances as she grew up on stage and screen, is a complete entertainer who has garnered international recognition for her acting, concert shows, and as a pop artist. She received rave reviews for her musical performances of show standards when she officially returned to the stage this past summer at The Smith Center in Las Vegas.
Doing the Smith Center and being on stage “felt like I had come full circle,” said the native New Yorker, “so coming back to the East coast where I grew up, seemed like the natural next step.” Zadora will be at the Metropolitan Room on February 7-10 with her show “Pia Zadora – Back Again and Standing Tall.” These five performances mark her first professional appearances on the East Coast in over a decade.
Zadora’s 75 minute show was created by three time Emmy Award winning director and choreographer Walter Painter, Emmy nominated Academy Award writer Jon Macks, with Peabody Award and Tony winner Larry Grossman and it features the greatest songs of the “Great American Songbook” and is described as pure non-stop entertainment. She will also wow the audience visually, with gowns and stage costumes designed by the legendary Bob Mackie.
Accompanied by legendary Sinatra pianist and musical conductor Vinnie Falcone and his orchestra, plus some of New York’s finest musicians, Pia’s set will appeal to lovers of both jazz and popular standards with songs such as “Lady is a Tramp,” “All of Me,” “Get Me to the Church on Time,” “For Once in my Life,” “City Lights,” and “I Am What I Am.”
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Pia Zadora returns to the stage in special performance.
By Kiko Miyasato
With classic tunes—songs from the Great American Songbook, as popularized by Sinatra, Bennett and others—making a comeback in pop culture today, you’ll recognize one woman championing the music: Pia Zadora. “The classics … they’re stories of people’s lives; they’re timeless,” said Zadora, who didn’t always feel that way about that genre of music.
Zadora admits that, at first, those types of songs were beyond her years and life experiences—she just didn’t seem to fit into the lyrics; she wasn’t quite convinced this genre of music was for her. By the mid-’80s, Frank Sinatra
had stepped in and taken the young pop princess under his wing. As her mentor, Sinatra guided Zadora away from pop music and toward singing the classics. Sinatra, being Sinatra, knew that Zadora’s voice could carry the songs, and her voice did. Today, she continues carrying the torch that Sinatra lit. “Now that I’m a little more mature and I’ve lived and had life experiences, I can understand them, apply them—they fit me now more than they did before,” she said.
Since she first stepped onstage at age 7,
Zadora has always seemed to find a home in front of an audience. She became a darling of Broadway, television and music—a true multifaceted entertainer. This week, Zadora returns to the stage to share her story—and her life experiences. And, of course, she’ll perform classics such as “Come Rain or Shine,” “The Lady is a Tramp” and “Young at Heart.”
“You’re getting to know me through music and song,” she said. She’ll also share stories, laughs and the knowledge she’s gained through being a public figure, a mother and a wife. “Now I feel like I’ve come full circle. I can go home and take care of the house and take care of the kids, but then I can go onstage and be a diva. I’ve reconnected with my inner diva. Now, I (feel like a) complete person.”
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Pia Zadora performing her Opening Night engagement ‘Pia Zadora – Back Again and Standing Tall’ at The Metropolitan Room
Pia Zadora, Golden Globe winner, Grammy nominee, and ShoWest winner is returning to the New York stage after an extended run in the demanding role of motherhood. The renowned singer and actor now gets back to her first love: on stage, singing with all her heart and entertaining her audiences. Check out photos from her opening night concert below!
Zadora, a Broadway child star who received critical acclaim for her performances as she grew up on stage and screen, is a complete entertainer who has garnered international recognition for her acting, concert shows, and as a pop artist. She received rave reviews for her musical performances of show standards when she officially returned to the stage this past summer at The Smith Center in Las Vegas.
Zadora’s 75 minute show was created by three time Emmy Award winning director and choreographerWalter Painter, Emmy nominated Academy Award writer Jon Macks, with Peabody Award and Tony winnerLarry Grossman and it features the greatest songs of the “Great American Songbook” and is described as pure non-stop entertainment. She will also wow the audience visually, with gowns and stage costumes designed by the legendary Bob Mackie.
Accompanied by legendary Sinatra pianist and musical conductor Vinnie Falcone and his orchestra, plus some of New York’s finest musicians, Pia’s set will appeal to lovers of both jazz and popular standards with songs such as “Lady is a Tramp,” “All of Me,” “Get Me to the Church on Time,” “For Once in my Life,” “City Lights,” and “I Am What I Am.”
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Star of Stage, Screen, TV, Grammy nominated artist and all around sweetheart the fabulous Pia Zadora took time before the last New York show of her coming out of retirement tour, PIA ZADORA: BACK AGAIN AND STANDING TALL at the Metropolitan Room in New York City, to sit down and chat about her life in the arts, raising children, tweeting and handcuffs!
By Karen Feld
Following a 15 year absence from the New York stage, Pia Zadora presented an incredibly slick comeback show. “Pia Zadora–Back Again and Standing Tall” was well-rehearsed and more Las Vegas than the laid back Metropolitan Room in style. Dressed in a long, low cut Bob Mackie bronze sequin dress with a high side slit, she exuded sex and wowed the men in the room.
Zadora, who admits to 58, introduced her current husband, Las Vegas police detective Michael Jefferies, quipping “he’s my own age, that’s the best part.” She made references to her ex’s (Meshulam Riklis was 31 years her senior). This was an introduction to “Maybe this Time.” She attempted to diffuse her controversial tabloid life with jokes, most of which seemed too scripted rather than spontaneous. “Here’s a song I’m an expert on” introduced the energetic “Get Me To The Church On Time.” “Things are going so great, I no longer call him my current husband,” and she dedicated “For Once in My Life” to Michael whom she met after reporting a stalker. Two weeks later, they were engaged — hubby number four.
The native New Yorker is a better singer than actor. Her selection of songs includes some of the best known from the American songbook: “All of Me” and “Pick Yourself Up.” She reflected on a high point in her life when she opened for Frank Sinatra in Las Vegas and then toured with him and comedian Don Rickles. She did well with a Sinatra medley. Throughout her performance, she invoked Frank’s name frequently and repeated his directive to her, “Don’t screw up.”
Vinnie Falcone, who was Sinatra’s conductor and pianist, did moving jazz arrangements and was featured on piano in one of her best numbers “Come Rain or Come Shine.” Ned Ginsberg on keyboard, Joe Lano on guitar (also worked with Sinatra), Ronnie Zito on drums and Jay Leonhard on bass produced awesome sound in this small venue.
Zadora knows how to present a song with seductive moves as in “C’est Si Bon.” She connected well with the audience during the Duke Ellington number, “I’m Beginning To See The Light” and “You’re Nobody Till Somebody Loves You.” Her love for New York – she first appeared on Broadway at age seven – was evident in “City Lights.”
Zadora’s closing number, “I Am What I Am,” was strong and re-enforced for all of us that she’s her own unique creation. She’s re-invented herself in a way that shows off her best vocal talent and stage presence. The show was created by Emmy award winning director and choreographer Walter Painter, writer Jon Macks and Tony winner Larry Grossman. Her final show in this run is at the Metropolitan Room today but plans for a return visit are underway.
Be true to yourself as long as you don’t hurt anyone else. Be who you are. You only live once. It’s all about honesty and the world you live in. Honesty is important even when it hurts someone else’s feelings.The above sums of the philosophy of Pia Zadora and how she is now living her life.She has had more careers in her lifetime than most. She made her Broadway debut when she was seven years old in a play with Tallulah Bankhead! She won a Golden Globe in her twenties. She made a few “wrong turns” in her career and then, thanks to Frank Sinatra, she began singing with symphony orchestras. She performed from Carnegie Hall to The London Palladium and was beginning to be taken very seriously in this business. Then Life happened. She left the business for fifteen years to raise a family. She recently returned to performing AND New York tin a new cabaret show. This February, 2013, was her first appearance in New York since appearing in Crazy for You in 1995.
I am a fan of Pia’s. My mom was in New York this weekend for my birthday, her FIRST TIME EVER IN NEW YORK! We celebrated at Pia’s show Saturday night. We are both excited that we saw her. She is at the top of her game and not to be missed. I was also very excited to sit down and talk with her earlier this past week.She returned to the New York stage for an exclusive five-show engagement at The Metropolitan Room, 34 West 22nd Street, ending a 15-year hiatus from the New York stage. Her new show, “Pia Zadora — Back Again and Standing Tall,” which the native New Yorker premiered on the West Coast in 2011, recently played the prestigious Smith Center in Las Vegas this summer.
Pia made her Broadway debut in Midgie Purvis starring Tallulah Bankhead
Golden Globes in 1981 "Newcomer-of-the-Year"
She teaches them to smoke and smoke. Pia was seven years old at the time.That carried off stage as well! She was wild. Pia would go in her dressing room and Tallulah would say, “Here, Darling, take a sip of this. It will help you. You’ll feel good.” On stage, the smoking consisted of some sort of powder puff device. Off stage, Tallulah tried to show her how it was really done so that people would believe her!Then there was Divine and John Waters who Pia worked with in the original Hairspray. All of these iconic people left an imprint on Pia in terms of helping to model and shape her life. She likes to walk straight ahead and be brave. All of these icons share that quality. They were her biggest role models.One of Pia’s fondest memories goes back to when she was in Fiddler on Broadway. Also in the cast was Bette Midler; she played Tzeitel. They used to hang out together and had a lot of fun. The girl who played the middle sister was Liza Minnelli’s best friend.
Although Pia was ten, they included her with them. They would go dancing and dinners and partying. When Pia went to see Liza six months prior to this at the Hilton in Vegas, it was like two school girls seeing each other again. They were yelling and screaming together backstage. It was as if they both were reconnecting with their past. They were eleven and twenty one again. That is a wonderful fond memory. Another great memory for Pia was having her daughter. Pia married businessman Meshulam Riklis in 1977, when she was 23 and he 54. He used to joke about the age difference. When she got pregnant, he said, “Thank God! Now, you’ll have someone your own age to play with.”
What makes Pia unhappy? Seeing people who are suffering and in pain or sick or dealing with real challenges and dealing with life struggles and what they have to endure. This is why she does what she does. She wants to alleviate their challenges…even for a short while through her music. She desires to make people feel better and understand that we all suffer throughout life to varying degrees.
We talked about LIVE entertainment and why it is still so important.Pia is right when she says you cannot replace the experience of a one on one LIVE performance. This is one reason why she loves cabaret and intimate settings like The Metropolitan Room in New York and The Razz Room in San Francisco. It is a form of performance art in which you can share with your audiences the story of your life and look in their eyes and impart your feelings and your lessons and your stories, no matter how you desire to phrase it and make an impact on them one on one. Has she ever lost her concentration on stage? It is inevitable! When she was ten, she was in Fiddler on The Roof with the legendary Zero Mostel!
One night the curtain went up at the wrong time and Mostel dropped a candlestick and it rolled across the stage. They went with it. When you are in a play, you become the character and improvise and go with whatever happens. You must pretend that it didn’t distract you while remaining in character. Once, Pia was appearing in a supper club about fifteen years ago. At the time, Pia’s daughter had a Pomeranian named Baldie because of a bald spot on his head. One night the audience was reacting to something going on on stage behind her. She turned around to see Baldie. He had followed her onto the stage. Because of the physical resemblance of Pia and her daughter, he used to mistake the two. They also walked the same way. Pia refers to this as a “truck driver kind of a walk.” Upon seeing Baldie, Pia quipped, “Oh my God! My old wig has followed me out on stage.” It cracked the audience up.
Frank Sinatra and Pia Zadora
Then there was the time she was opening for Frank Sinatra. She had these quick changes between gorgeous Bob Mackie gowns.
They were throwing shoes and etc at her. Within 45 seconds she was trying to make a graceful entrance back on to the stage. As she made her entrance, she heard a gasp. She looked down to see that she was pulling on to the stage practically a whole roll of toilet tissue on her heel! She didn’t have much a comeback for that one except that there was no time for her to go to the bathroom between costume changes! She told the audience someone must have stuck that on her heel.The biggest change that Pia has seen since first starting out is social media.There was NO internet when she began in this business.
Now she can see practically everything she ever did on the internet and You Tube. Technologically, everything has gone beyond its original scope. Along with that, the entertainment industry has lost part of its personal touch.I asked Pia about her creative process and he she prepares for a new project. She tells me she has ADD.While we were talking on Monday, she was spiraling because of the list of things she had to do that day prior to flying to New York for this engagement.
While we were talking, she chipped a nail. So add a trip to the manicurist to her already full list of things to do. She says the only way she can contain and/or confine herself to the task at hand is to meditate which she tries to do when she is in one of her ADD clusters. When all else fails, she gets a massage. It takes her a while to calm down but eventually she gets to that place where she can start thinking about what lies ahead and what needs to be done. These thoughts are ever present when she first wakes up in the morning. She tries to go for long walks to sort it all out.
What she wants to do or say or what she wants to sing all starts to form. With this particular show, she has a great team surrounding her. This is her “come back” show. She took a fifteen year hiatus to “torture myself.” She had two young young kids traveling with her when she got pregnant with her third. They had no frame of reference and needed to settle down and go to school. She needed to give them a normal life. She couldn’t keep doing what she was doing. As a child, she didn’t have a normal life. She was always traveling and working. At the point that she decided to take a break, she was a single mother. She ended up settling down herself to give them a normal upbringing and fifteen years quickly came and went. She got married a couple of times during that period. Her NOW husband is her FOREVER husband. He is a policeman.
They moved to Vegas where he was on the force. They still live in Vegas. Her youngest is now fifteen and basically independent. They started seeing shows. A friend asked Pia to come onstage and do a number and she realized how much she had missed this.Singing full blast while driving her son in carpools was fun but being on stage was much more fun. She started pointing together this new show, a show in which Zadora slips into a number of jazz, Broadway and popular standards from “Great American Songbook,” the Grammy-nominated Golden Globe winner updates us on her colorful life, her career and her growth as an artist.The show is created by the Emmy-winning director and choreographer Walter Painter; the Emmy-nominated Academy Awards writer Jon Macks, and the Tony and Peabody Award winner Larry Grossman.
The music direction is by legendary Sinatra pianist Vinnie Falcone, who leads a five-piece all-star band, that includes Jay Leonhart on bass, Ronnie Zito on drums, Joe Lano on guitar, and Ned Ginsberg on keyboards. Bob Mackie has designed the gowns. It’s going to be a fun run. To reach this audience, she has done many print and radio interviews. I was lucky that she fit my interview in as well. She did The Huffington Post last week.She is going to be on The Joy Behar Show. No one reads newspapers anymore! In the list of icons above that made an impact on Pia, one name is conspicuously missing. He stands in a class alone. Frank Sinatra.They spent a lot of time together. They traveled together. They did a cross country tour, Don Rickles, Frank Sinatra, and Pia. Prior to that, she was appearing in Florida with Jackie Mason. Sinatra was a friend of Mason’s and came to see the show. The next day she received a dozen white roses. The card read, “You knocked them dead, kid from the guy with blue eyes.” Two hours later, his people called her and asked if she would like to open the show for Mr. Sinatra.
It came after a time in which she had been doing a lot of pop music in Europe. She had a number one song in France in which she had a duet with Jermaine Jackson. She also had a Grammy nomination in ‘85 for Best Rock Vocal Performance Female, for “Rock It Out.” Sinatra changed Pia’s musical direction. She then did the Pia and Phil album. She sang classic standards with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and she did it well.These are standards that Sinatra recommended when she was with him. That album started her on her Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, London Palladium and Pyramids in Egypt tour. That led to symphonies all around the country. The tide turned musically for Pia because of Sinatra. He had a major impact on her.
The things that Pia has enjoyed the most came later on in her career. That would include Hairspray with John Waters, Naked Gun: 33 and a Third. In the beginning, it was really an experimental process. The later part of her career has been about choosing things that she has fun with. She also loves singing the standards.This is also where she has had the most success.One of my platforms is arts in education.Pia also feels that it is very important. It is important to have a strong background in music. Pia comes from a musical family. Her father was a Broadway and concert violinist. He did both Broadway and classical.He worked in the pit on La Cage Aux Folles, Porgy and Bess, and many others.He was constantly practicing and had a very strong work ethic. He had studied in Europe. His mother was an opera singer. She started Pia vocalizing when she was three. Pia later on went to Julliard. A lawyer goes to law school. Why shouldn’t someone in music have the same type of education? Everyone needs to study their craft.What would she tell her 25 year old self? Youth is wasted on the young! The one thing that she tells her kids which they don’t realize yet is that they will not be young forever. It really does go quickly as corny as that may sound. You turn around at 25 and then you’re 50! They have to see this! Jump on that horse and ride it. It is so fleeting.
What she is doing now is what Pia really loves doing. She desires to keep doing it.The greatest change facing Pia in today’s industry is keeping herself fresh and in the NOW and real and being true to what she desires to do despite all the other influences around her.Technology is so different from where it was twenty five years ago. There are so many different things happening that are distractions. They can be alluring but once must stay simple and true to what you are doing and not suffocate the art. Pia has been mostly out of the public eye for the past fifteen years. It is now all about re-establishing herself. Many have a preconceived idea of who and what she is all about because of who she was in the past. She has to enlighten them because it really is not who she was and certainly who she is not now. She is also connecting with an audience who don’t know who the heck she is. There is a whole new audience out there and listening to the kind of music Pia desires to sing.
This music is timeless. A lot of pop stars are now doing the standards. The old and the new are merging and Pia is re-introducing herself.We talked about Carol Channing receiving the 2013 Kennedy Center Honor.We are both in agreement that Carol is the consummate and ultimate musical comedy entertainer. Pia’s father was a violinist for Hello, Dolly for its entire run. He passed away about fifteen years ago. Pia knew Carol when she was a small child. Pia last saw Carol six months ago when she appeared with a symphony in Palm Springs. Carol Channing is the one and only. She has no competition. She stands alone.There is more of grounding within Pia since leaving the business fifteen years ago. She understands herself more now.She understands what she desires to do and wants to do better as opposed to the many random choices that were made by both her and those she surrounded herself with.When she was younger, she had such a hard time with all the controversy surrounding her. That comes with being young and “crazy.” That has all changed in a good way.The business has also grown and evolved. She considers it more of branching out than changing.
When it comes to these gorgeous Bob Mackie gowns, she considers them a second skin. She says she sleeps in them!Pia has held on to these dresses even after she stopped working. She couldn’t let them go. So when it came time for her to start working again, there were a couple of gowns that he made for her when she was pregnant. She has taken them in and going through these gowns, she has been reconnecting with the memories of her concert career and all of the places that she traveled to.They have become a part of her. After she has “whatever”, she hopes that will live on somewhere.
This next question comes from Myles Savage of The Platters. Has Pia shared any love today? (This was asked around 12 Noon EST on Monday. She was in Vegas). She had just woken up. The night before, she had accidently kicked her little Papillion in her sleep. She yelped and immediately Pia grabbed her to comfort her.She ended up petting her for about an hour and a half. THAT was the love she had shared prior to my call.
“Pia Zadora-Back Again and Standing Tall” performed five times on four consecutive evenings.
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