Mom Ceil Cabot

​I have always loved show business. I mean really loved it. My Father was a magician and my mother a cabaret performer. They were the most fun, funniest and joyful people you would ever want to meet, and they had the greatest friends, so why wouldn’t I want to be like them? When I was 3 years old my Mother took me to see “Gypsy” on Broadway, and I made up my mind right then and there- my destiny was clear- I was going to be a stripper. I began doing burlesque shows in our apartment on West 75th street. In fact, Dick Cavett lived in the apartment behind us, and he would ask my Dad to leave the blinds up so he could watch our TV. I’d seen Edie Adams on those Muriel cigar commercials and began parading around the living room in my panties and a boa purring “Why don’t you pick one up and smoke it sometime”- to any company that happened to drop by-much to my parents horror. I also admired Brigitte Bardot and copied her hairstyle. I was 4. When I heard the sad news on our 14inch Zenith console TV that another idol of mine was dead, I couldn’t imagine a world without Marilyn Monroe in it and cried for days. Luckily, somewhere around 6 I snapped out of my aspiring sexpot phase, and realized I wanted to be an entertainer who kept most of her clothes on. Like Joey Heatherton. Anyway, my Father – The Amazing Ballantine had caught the tail end of vaudeville with his comedy magic act and luckily sequed into the early days of television. He did all the top variety shows including Ed Sullivan with many appearances. My Mother sang and did comedy sketches and also played any instrument you put in her hands for years at Julius Monk’s “Upstairs at the Downstairs” club, NYC’s chicest intime boit as they called it. She performed for people like the Kennedy’s and Noel Coward. One day, my Dad gets a call to audition for a TV pilot, and is flown out to LA to screen test. He calls us every few hours to tell us how wonderful California is, but he has little hope of getting this job as he has hardly done any acting at all, and the rumor was Oscar winning actor Ernest Borgnine was going to be playing the lead- surely the rest of the cast would need to be of that caliber. My Mom was excited about moving to California, but I was dead set against it. By now, I had hopes of becoming a truly great serious actress. Hollywood implied superficiality and it offended my snobby New York sensibility. I was a little affected, and alternately wore berets and tiaras to school, and when other girls were thinking about boys, the only boy I wanted was a Tony. Pouting and sulking most of the way, once the Super Chief sleeper train pulled into Union Station 4 days later- (my Mother refused to fly) all misery disappeared and I just loved it here! The sunshine! Swimming pools! The Pacific ocean! Grauman’s Chinese Theatre where I thrilled to see my footprints matched Marilyn Monroe’s exactly, (YES!) and being able to drive with my Mom in our convertable to take Dad to work at Universal studios now defunct backlot. I quickly learned that the tinsel and glamour of Hollywood was not all that bad! My Dad held his own against Ernest Borgnine, and “McHale’s Navy”

Dad, top row, 3rd from left

Dad Carl Ballantine

was a hit that also spawned Tim Conway and the great Joe Flynn who always made me laugh the hardest. My Mother soon became the darling of every sitcom, and starting with “Hazel”, she guested on over 100 TV shows playing roles like “the neighbor” or “the teacher”. Ah yes, there were character actor roles then, and my Mother was truly hilarious. I think her IMDB page is actually longer than my Dad’s. We had incredible parties at our huge house in Hollywood. We had to make fruit salads in the bathtub to accommodate all the guests. I remember asking Tammy Grimes and Christopher Plummer for acting tips. Wonderful actors like Eileen Brennan and Estelle Parsons and Bruce Kirby were always hanging out. My Dad even threw Ernie’s wedding shower! By now, I was itching to act. I was in class and some of the earliest scenes I did were “The Bad Seed, “Peter Pan’, and of course “Gypsy”. I got an agent, and began going out on auditions. My folks taught me to enjoy the process, and they encouraged me to do things I loved, and not take rejection personally. They saw too many friends be destroyed by show business, and they were very careful not to let Hollywood clichés rule their lives. We always had magic, and the racetrack- (I was named Saratoga) and New York times crossword puzzles and lots of music to bring joy around. They really were remarkable that way. I didn’t even know the word depressed until I was like 24. So…lets jump to when I was 24. I had graduated from Immaculate Heart college, after trying a year on the Westside at UCLA, I couldn’t wait to move back to Hollywood. I also had just understudied and done the lead at the Mark Taper Forum in Christopher Durang’s “History of the American Film”, and went right into another play at the Taper Lab called “Force of Habit” with Herbert Berghof. I was feeling like I belonged in the theatre… when everything seemed to stop short. I was bursting with energy that had nowhere to go. . My boyfriend at the time, was a wonderful actor ( most all of them were) but that’s another story for another time, and he wanted to go try his luck in New York, so off we went! We sublet the upper westside apartment of actress Catherine Hicks waaaaay before “7th Heaven”, that was very near where I grew up. I was in heaven myself, and just that much closer to believing my dream of Broadway stardom. I did miss my parents like crazy, (did I say they were the most fun people on the face of the earth?) and was talking to my Mom in California, when a man started tapping insistently on the phone booth glass. Does anyone remember those? I kept lifting up my hand in the universal symbol for “just give me a minute”, while I tried to bid a hasty goodbye to my wonderful Mom. When I came out, this man asked me if I did commercials, and of course I had my guard up as I was in New York to become a serious actress, not to mention I didn’t want to possibly be kidnapped and sold into white slavery so I said a hurried no. He then gave me a business card and said “If you change your mind please give me a call” and he went into the phone booth as I hoofed over to the TKTS booth to see if I could score some cheap tickets for “Evita”. That night over a wonderful dinner my guy and I talked about our days, and when I mentioned the phone booth incident he asked to take a look at the guys business card. I thought I threw it away, but I found it crumbled up at the bottom of my purse. He was stunned to see the card belonged to Bob Giraldi, told me I had to call him first thing tomorrow, and that he was one of the most famous commercial directors there is. And, he was, and I spent the next 15 years working non-stop in spots for every major fast food, cereal, cleaning product, medicine, diaper, insect repellent, and TV promo known to man. I haven’t achieved my Broadway dream- yet, but I can sum up my career in terms of “Gypsy”. I started out as Baby June- grew into Louise, and while I’m not quite ready for Mama Rose, I still have the moves to make a great Tessie Tura. Whatever I’m doing, I just love show business!  ​