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Upon returning home, Sami was invited to fly out to Los Angeles to audition for a co-host position of a new national TV show called Country’s Top 20. She got the gig and in late 1981, taped several episodes of the show in Las Vegas. “That was such a thrill for me,” recalled Sami. “I co-hosted the showwith Dennis Weaver and he was a sweet, lovely man. We had a ball together. Everyone with a top 20 country hit at the time was on the show and I thought it was very well done.”

Sami sang on the show, as well—not her own records, but other artists material. While there was still the belief at Elektra that Sami’s recording career continued to have great potential, she was starting to wonder if real stardom was ever going to happen for her.

By March 1983 Sami had been moved over to the WB side of WB/Elektra-Asylum Records and was scheduled to record an album with Jimmy Bowen, but industry politics once again reared their ugly head and prevented the project from ever coming to fruition.

“I really don’t know what happened to that album,” Sami said, “but I guess I was getting used to it by now. I always seemed to be in the midst of labels changing presidents or other problems I had absolutely no control over. It definitely wasn’t good for my career. I only wish I had the opportunity to do it all over again. Knowing what I know now, I can assure you it would all turn out differently! Back then, I let other people decide what I should wear, how I should look, and what songs we should release…or in this case, not release. (laughs) That was my mistake, but only because I was too trusting and uninformed to know what was good for me.”

Late in 1983, Sami took a break from her dormant recording career in Nashville and moved to Oklahoma, where she, Tony Caterine and their six-year-old son Tony Cole (born May 21, 1977) settled into a three-story, white brick mansion in a plush South Tulsa suburb. A news clipping from that period described Sami’s new home as “beautifully appointed, with five bedrooms and massive hallways filled with expensive, pre-Columbian sculptures.” Sami smiled at that description and said, “Yes, I found a real southern mansion and I fell in love with it, too. I had decided by then to stop traveling so much since Tony Cole was getting to be school age and Tulsa was a nice place to live. I continued to do some shows, as well as a few ad jingles and radio commercials, but I mainly wanted to stay home with Tony.”

Despite her aborted album project from earlier that year, Sami was still under contract to WB— and still hoping for a break. Things, however, were about to get a lot tougher, as Jimmy Bowen explained in his 1997 memoir, Rough Mix (co-authored by Jim Jerome):

“The new WB (post 1983) had two full staffs and 54 acts—which meant more firings, more enemies…I wound up having to drop more than half the 54 artists on the combined roster. When I merged Elektra and WB, I got rid of most of the Warners people and kept my own staff from Elektra. I brought in Jim Ed Norman, who I’d known years earlier when he played in (the band) Shiloh, to be my head of A&R.”

Although Sami had survived the first round of cuts at Warners, the prevailing opinion there was that she desperately needed a hit record to continue to justify Jimmy Bowen’s longstanding support of her career. It was decided to bring in a new producer for her, and who better than the new head of A&R himself, Jim Ed Norman?

An extremely talented man whose deft production work helped make Anne Murray’s early-1980s comeback a huge success, Norman and Sami collaborated on what would arguably be her shining moment on record: an exquisite remake of Brenda Lee’s 1961 pop hit, Emotions. Beautifully produced with a lush string arrangement and a cool, retro sax solo at the end, the song was highly commercial, and Sami’s vocal work on it was nothing short of sublime. But, although singer Juice Newton had won a Grammy Award a few years earlier with a similar treatment of Brenda Lee’s Break It to Me Gently, and Crystal Gayle would have a # 1 country hit in 1986 with her Jim Ed Norman-produced remake of Johnny Ray’s Cry, Sami’s record, while highly reminiscent of both those songs, disappeared almost immediately upon its release. For reasons still unknown to her, Emotions was shipped to radio in March 1984, but was then promptly pulled by WB. As a result, the single never made it into most record stores and today it remains a highly obscure (and thus, much sought after) commodity on the collector’s market. Of all the puzzling and unexplainable injustices in Sami’s career, this was the one, she says, that hurt the most.

“To this day, I believe that Emotions and its flip side, I Can’t Help The Way (I Don’t Feel), were two of the best songs I ever cut. But the truth of the matter is, WB did not get involved to promote the record. Why, I don’t know. It was a total waste of time and money. I will always feel that those beautiful songs and the efforts of Jim Ed Norman and I were totally neglected and that the record company did us both a complete disservice.” A sad and bitter Sami left WB after all her hopes for the success of Emotions went up in smoke.

Following the end of her three-year deal with WB, Sami resurfaced in 1985 on Southern Tracks Records, a tiny, independent label owned by one of her earliest mentors, Bill Lowery. Sami seemed to go full-circle when she also reunited with Sonny Limbo, who produced her first single for the label, a somber, slow-moving ballad titled I’m Going Away (Before You Can Say Not To Go). Considering all that she had been through, perhaps it was no surprise to Sami when the record failed to chart. Though she would later record a duet with fellow 1970s pop singer Sammy Johns (of Chevy Van fame) in 1986, the song, Fallin’ For You, received limited airplay, sending a clear message to Sami that her recording career was definitely winding down.

“In the late 80s I did go back into the studio one more time to cut some sides with producer Snuff Garrett,” said Sami. “I was excited because I loved all the music he’d done in the 70s with Cher (Half Breed, Dark Lady, et al) and he said he wanted to record me in that same pop vein. Snuff was wonderful to me. Once again, we did the session, got along great, and then nothing happened with the album. There’s a lot of fantastic stuff I cut over the years that just stayed in the can, as they say. I have no idea where any of it is now, or if it even still exists.”

When her singing career first began to slow down, Sami got a job outside the music business, managing TC Sportswear and Accessories in Tulsa. “TC” was Tony Caterine, Sami’s ex-romantic partner and manager. “By that time, I was totally disillusioned with the industry and I just wanted out of it. I can’t say the feeling of running a shop was the same as performing, but I was so burned out, I needed to do something different in my life.”

After four years, Sami left TC Sportswear for a management position at Burgundy’s Fine Gifts, also in Tulsa. “My best friend Dee Sallee owned it and I loved working with her. We sold beautiful collectibles like Lladro, Swarovski Crystal and Hummels. I learned a lot and stayed there for about five years, when Dee closed the store.”

As if her disappointment over her former recording career wasn’t upsetting enough, Sami’s personal life took a major hit in 1993 when she was diagnosed with cancer. “It was initially breast cancer,” she revealed, “but then it got into my system to the point where my only option was to have a bone marrow transplant. Thankfully, because of two wonderful oncologists, Dr. Charles Strand and Dr. Allen Keller, I am alive today. I was in St. Francis Hospital for 30 days, then went home to a sterilized house and wasn’t allowed to go to any public places for another two months. Basically, I was dealing with the cancer for all of 1993 and 1994.” Fourteen years later, a grateful Sami reported that she remained cancer-free.

“Going through something like that makes you stop and think about many things in your life. I was told that because of the extreme doses of chemo I received that I might never be able to sing again. Thank God, that proved not to be the case. It’s funny, but during that whole ordeal the main thing I thought about was whether I would ever be physically able to perform again.”

In November 2005, Sami’s son Tony and his fiance, Andrea, had a baby boy, Maximus Anthony Caterine, giving Sami her first grandchild. “Max Anthony is a beautiful child…and the light of my life,” Sami said proudly. “He is by far the best thing that has ever happened to me.” The early part of 2006 brought some challenging transitions in her private life, but Sami came through them later that year with a renewed interest in relaunching her singing career. “For an entertainer, there is nothing like the love and applause of a live audience. Nothing could ever take the place of the feeling I have when I’m singing and going for ‘the note’! I would love to have the opportunity to perform—and record—again. The main problem is that no one seems to want to have an older woman or older person making music. A friend told me the other day that he heard a talk show host—I think it was Neil Bortz—talking about hearing a female singer who was 65 years old and how wonderful she was, and how she couldn’t get any work because of her age. Now, isn’t that a shame? But I guess that’s just the way it is.”

Sami has a rather novel idea on how that problem might be solved. “I think that Simon Cowell (American Idol) or someone of his stature needs to put together a weekly TV show about what happened to singers from the past (say, from the 1960s to the 1990s). They could call it Whatever Happened To…? and have the performers sing their old hits on the show. Hey, I would even be happy to be one of the hosts and help cheer on some of the wonderful talent that is still out there that no one gets to hear anymore! How much incredible talent is out there that had the one or two hits, and were never heard from again? I assure you, it often has nothing to do with talent—it could be due to bad timing, record label changes…a lot of things. I know that it happened to me so why could it not have happened to a lot of other people, too?

“I guess if I were to be totally honest, I would have to say that nothing in this world could ever make me feel the way that performing does. Singing was my joy and my therapy. I loved what I did, and yes, I miss it…I miss it a lot. I think back on those days in the late 70s and early 80s when I was working the best show rooms in the country, with people like Kenny Rogers and Bob Hope. It was wonderful. These days, I just sing in my car…

“Sometimes when I watch music shows, whether live or on TV, there is a sadness that takes over me and makes me feel like I am missing out on so much. I guess the question is: is there anyone out there who cares enough to bring a lot of us back? Is there anyone out there who is willing to take a chance and say, ‘We miss hearing these people…let’s give them another shot?’

“I don’t know, but I can hope…can’t I?”

John wishes to thank Sami Jo and Stacy Harris for their generous assistance with this article.

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In the spring of 1975, with MGM slated to become Polydor Records the following year, Jimmy Bowen suddenly left the label and moved to Nashville, leaving Sami without one of her strongest advocates. As a result, her recording career stalled until 1976, when she was moved over to the newly-formed Polydor, to record two singles, God Loves Us (When We All Sing Together), which was released in May of that year and went to # 91 on Billboard’s Hot Country Singles Chart, and the languid Take Me To Heaven. By this time, Sami’s various handlers and the new powers-that-be at Polydor Records thought that it might be best to redirect her as a country artist rather than as a singer of glossy pop songs. Sami was also back working with Sonny Limbo and Mickey Buckins on these sessions.

“Being back in the studio with Sonny and Mickey was something I had looked forward to and I loved every minute of it, “said Sami. “Unfortunately, Polydor didn’t do very much to promote those two songs, which I honestly don’t understand. God Loves Us…was a great song and very well produced, but the label didn’t seem to have any interest in me once Jimmy Bowen left. It was like they just dumped the singles out there without much thought, which is really not fair at all.”

After Take Me To Heaven was released in September 1976 and only went as high as # 67 on Billboard’s Hot Country Singles Chart, Sami’s recording career hit another dry spell. Still, she continued to be a big draw at many major hotels in Vegas and Lake Tahoe throughout the late 70s. She performed in the main rooms at The Playboy Club, Harrah’s, The Hyatt Regency, The Flamingo, The MGM Grand and The Sands, and opened shows for everyone from Bob Hope to Kenny Rogers.

“I wish I could say I had some exciting or naughty stories about these guys, but honestly, they were all wonderful to me. They treated me with the utmost respect and tried to help me any way they could.”

During this period, Sami was still hoping to get her recording career back on track and in doing so, try to recapture the magic that Tell Me A Lie’s success had brought her. In April 1979 it was reported in Billboard magazine that she would be recording her third album that July, with the proposed first single being a blues song called Trouble Is…Amazingly, though Sami hadn’t had any new product in the marketplace for three years, she had somehow held on to her deal with Polydor, though she was now part of its Mercury Records roster. But sadly, this association, like all the others before it, wouldn’t last. Both the single and the album Sami recorded for Mercury were later shelved.

“I recorded some wonderful songs for the label, but they never saw the light of day” said Sami. “It’s a very unfortunate thing but it happened to me, and to a lot of other people in the business, too. In fact, I’m not sure if the average music fan out there knows just how often it does happen.”

After a two-year break from recording, if not performing, in 1981 Sami came back as ‘Sami Jo Cole’ and was signed to Warner Brothers-owned Elektra/Asylum Records in Nashville. “By then it was decided that maybe it would be better, professionally, if I used a last name, so I took my son Tony’s middle name, Cole, which everyone seemed to like.” Sami’s former producer and mentor Jimmy Bowen was now the vice-president and general manager of Elektra and he was eager to work with her again. “It was another singles deal,” she said. “After cutting two albums for MGM, it was like starting over from scratch, but Jimmy Bowen said he had a lot of faith in me and believed we could find a hit together.”

At the time, the combined rosters of Nashville’s Elektra and WB Records country divisions totaled a whopping 54 acts—with everyone from Hank Williams, Jr. and Nancy Sinatra to Conway Twitty and K.T. Oslin vying for radio time. Despite the label’s being ridiculously overloaded with artists and the very real possibility that she would once again be lost in the shuffle, Sami said that Bowen made her feel he was intent on grooming her for bigger things. “Jimmy was always patient and kind and very positive as to what he thought we could accomplish.”

The first 45 out of the chute for Sami at Elektra Records was a striking, MOR-flavored ballad titled One Love Over Easy, co-produced by Bowen and his wife at the time, Dixie Gamble Bowen. It was an extremely powerful piece of material, both lyrically and musically, and was certainly one of Sami’s most brilliant recorded performances. Yet, despite the record’s excellence, and its getting several rave reviews by journalists like Kip Kirby at Billboard magazine, the single only went to #76 on the charts. Sami attributes its lack of success at the time to a puzzling lack of promotion at her label. “There was just too much product (at Elektra) and only a certain number of available slots. Without any real promotion behind it, a record doesn’t stand much of a chance.”

Despite the single’s failure to become the chart hit it should have been, Sami continued her hectic touring schedule. In those days, her agent was Marty Beck at The William Morris Agency and she was pulling in over 200 show dates per year. During this time, she also began touring a lot with labelmate Eddie Rabbitt, whose longtime manager Stan Moress had signed Sami to MGM South and had remained a steadfast supporter of her career. Eddie, too, would later claim that Sami was among his favorite female singers.

“My memories of Eddie Rabbitt are nothing short of fabulous,” Sami revealed. “He was supportive and wonderful to me and I could never explain how much he meant to me. He was such a gentleman and so talented and I feel fortunate to have shared many good times and conversations with him. I was so sorry when I heard of Eddie’s illness and his death later on came as a shock to me. It broke my heart…”

Sami’s camaraderie with Eddie was evident when she chose to redo one of his earlier hits, I Can’t Help Myself (Here Comes The Feeling), as her next single for Elektra. Although Sami gave the song a fresh and unique interpretation and Jimmy and Dixie Gamble Bowen were again at the helm, the record fared even less successfully than its predecessor, and only went to # 82 on the charts. Still, there was a certain hoopla surrounding the song—not in the States, however, but in Korea, of all places. “I had the privilege of performing Eddie’s song at The World Music Festival in Seoul. I was asked to represent the United States in the competition, and amazingly, I won first place with that song. I was on cloud nine…even though my winning was never even announced here in the States.”

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One of the highlights of Sami’s career was the night she performed with The Atlanta Symphony with Steve Buckingham conducting the orchestra. “The city of Atlanta had declared it ‘Bill Lowery Day’ as a tribute to Bill’s many accomplishments in the industry. Along with several of the other artists that Bill had helped, I was asked to perform that night. I sang Tell Me A Lie and the audience response was unreal. It was a very exciting experience…one of the most exciting experiences of my career, I think.”

Sami’s album It Could Have Been Me went to # 32 on Billboard’s Top 100 Pop Albums Chart—not a bad showing for an artist’s debut effort. Having already appeared on TV’s American Bandstand, she went on to perform on The Bobby Goldsboro Show, Hee Haw, Pop! Goes The Country and The Jimmy Dean Show, among others. The August 15, 1974 issue of Rolling Stone magazine featured an article on Sami and her photo also graced the cover of both Cashbox and Record World, two important trade papers of the day. “It was definitely a whirlwind,” Sami said, “as I was also performing in many of the country’s top show rooms at the time. My career had taken on a life of its own but I loved every minute of it.”

During this time, a news article reported that Sami was living in “a sexy, new townhouse on Dallas’s Northwest Highway”, and that she had acquired “three Mercedes sports cars and a Mark IV Continental.” Sami admitted, “I was living very well but I was also careful about making some good monetary investments for my future. That was all due to Tony Caterine’s influence. He was a brilliant businessman”

On the heels of her success with Tell Me A Lie, Sami appeared with such 70s icons as Mac Davis, Ray Stevens, Tony Orlando and Dawn and Jim Stafford on stages in Las Vegas and across the country. She said, “I felt so lucky being able to appear with all these great stars. I can honestly say that every one of them was kind to me, and they were all so supportive, too. I don’t remember anyone being hard to deal with or anyone making me feel like I didn’t belong right there with them.

“Most entertainers have horror stories of the stars they dealt with, but I really don’t. Everyone was very generous to me, and to everyone around me. I can’t tell you how grateful I am for that.”

In January 1975, a third single titled I’ll Believe Anything You Say was released off Sami’s album, but it only reached # 62 on Billboard’s Hot Country Singles Chart. Shortly afterwards, the MGM-South arm of MGM Records folded and was absorbed by the larger parent company. Sami’s recording contract was one of the few from the subsidiary label that was saved. “All of a sudden I was told that I was going to L.A. to record with MGM Records president Jimmy Bowen,” she said. “So, I went!

“The MGM South period of my life was wonderful and at the same time, very frustrating and confusing,” Sami admitted. “I loved the people and trusted them, too, and I wanted so badly to be successful for them. It just seemed that we couldn’t quite get things off the ground after Tell Me A Lie. I went to MGM Records in L.A. with the belief that things were going to be different.”

Sami recorded her eponymous second album, a lushly orchestrated, full-out pop record, at Hollywood Sound Recorders. “I had always heard of Jimmy Bowen and knew of his wonderful work with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, so needless to say, I was very excited to work with him on my next album. The material he chose for me to record came from people like Billy Joel (You’re My Home), Kim Carnes and Duke Ellinson (Changin’) and Jim Weatherly (Storms of Troubled Times), and they were all phenomenal pop songs. Jimmy had the best players in L.A. working on my record and I had no reason to think it wasn’t going to work. I obviously wasn’t very knowledgeable about the business in those days!”

Half the songs on Sami’s album were written by Weatherly (who had penned Gladys Knight’s mega-hit Midnight Train to Georgia) and I asked Sami if it was a conscious decision of Bowen’s to record her in a similar vein to Knight, who was one of her childhood idols. “Not to my knowledge,” she answered, “but Gladys’s music has always made a strong impact on me and I guess Jimmy may have heard that, too.

“Recording that album in L.A. was an experience I will never forget. Jim Weatherly, as well as Kim Carnes (whom Jimmy Bowen was also producing), were at most of my sessions. I remember that Kim was pregnant with her son at the time. I absolutely loved both of them as writers and felt very honored that they wanted me to do their material. My memories of those recording sessions in L.A. are something I will always cherish.”

The two singles off Sami Jo were the oft-recorded Kim Carnes ballad You’re A Part Of Me and Alan O’Day’s Every Man Wants Another Man’s Woman and though both songs were highly commercial, neither record charted. It would be back to the drawing board for Sami, to try to find another hit.

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By 1970, Tony Caterine had opened another Losers Club, this one in Memphis. Sami was headlining there one night when she met a songwriter and record producer named Sonny Limbo—a man who would prove to be an important catalyst in her career. “Sonny was sitting in the audience with his chair turned backwards and he was totally mesmerized by the show. It was hard not to notice him and his enthusiasm, but I had no idea who he was. After the show, he came up to me, handed me his business card, and told me to call him the next day. He said he wanted to take me into the studio, but to be honest, I really didn’t take him seriously. However, I called him and surprisingly, he did have a studio and we wound up cutting some demos together.”

Sami had hooked up with a man whose outrageous personality and numerous eccentricities were legendary in the Memphis record industry. “To describe Sonny Limbo, God rest his soul, would be very difficult to do,” Sami admitted. “He had a great ear for hearing what others could not. Sonny was a very complicated man with a tremendous amount of talent. Most times, it seems the two go hand in hand.”

Sonny Limbo apparently saw a tremendous amount of talent in Sami, as well. In the 1977 book, Rock and Roll is Here to Pay, by Steve Chapple and Reebee Garofalo, it was said that after he discovered her and took her under his wing, Sonny set out to turn Sami into “your basic city fox”. He instructed her: “Do everything I tell you and I’ll make you a Star.” Limbo told Chapple and Garofalo, “She did. I did. And we did. That kind of attitude, an outasight voice and a motherfucker song—to break a chick that’s what it takes. Then, if she looks good and has big tits, she just might make it.”

Obviously, Limbo was a total character, but today Sami will only say: “Because of some serious personal problems and insecurities, Sonny was his own worst enemy. He had a sadness that could never be explained and I truly believe that it led to his early death.” After shepherding such acts as Bertie Higgins (Key Largo) and the country band Alabama into stardom, Sonny Limbo died some years ago.

In late 1970, Limbo managed to get Sami a singles deal with Rick Hall’s Fame Records in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Home to the legendary ‘Muscle Shoals Sound’ of soul, r&b, and southern rock, the Fame enterprise had, since its inception in the early 60s, played host to such stellar acts as Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Clarence Carter and Candi Staton, and by 1970 it was branching out to record more pop-flavored artists, like Mac Davis and The Osmonds. Rick Hall had great faith in Sami’s talent and took her into the studio with his sidemen Barry Beckett, Roger Hawkins, Jimmy Johnson, Steve “Sandy Kay” Leigh and David Hood, where they cut a mainstream pop song, Don’t Hang No Halos On Me (Fame 1481), released February 1971. The tune was written by Wayne Carson Thompson, who had penned The Box Tops’ # 1 hit, The Letter, in 1967.

“Don’t Hang No Halos…was a pretty good record but nothing much happened with it,” Sami recalled. When the song failed to make the charts, she resumed her club work but returned to the Fame studios the following year to cut another single. This time, Sonny Limbo produced her session and they released Big Silver Angel (Fame 91003), which was the kind of uptempo, horn-driven pop record that was so popular back then. But just like her previous release, the single failed to chart, ushering in Sami Jo’s exit from Fame Records in late 1972. Still, “It was a good place for me to start,” Sami said, “and I got to work with some really dynamite people.”

Despite her obvious disappointment, Sami forged on—as did Sonny Limbo, who was, after all, determined to make her a star—and in 1973 he got Sami a new record deal with an offshoot of MGM South, an offshoot of MGM Records. It would prove to be both a good, and a bad, move for Sami’s career. According to the Internet article “MGM South Album Discography” by Mike Callahan and Peter Preuss:

“MGM South was a short-lived subsidiary label of MGM, primarily directed toward country music. There were about 34 singles issued on MGM South, and two albums. The artist roster included Tommy Roe, Dennis Yost & the Classics IV, Billy Joe Royal, Sami Jo, Christopher Paul, Us, Shawn, Glen Wood, and a few others. The first two singles on the label, released in the fall of 1972, both charted. Tommy Roe‘s “Mean Little Woman, Rosalie” [MGM South 7001] made #92, while Dennis Yost and the Classic IV’s “What Am I Crying For” cracked the top 40. Each artist had a followup single on the charts also…Roe with “Working Class Hero” [MGM South 7013, #97 pop and #73 country in May, 1973], and Yost with “Rosanna” [MGM South 7012, #95 in March, 1973]. A planned Tommy Roe album was canceled, and the Dennis Yost album was issued, but didn’t chart. Singles by Billy Joe Royal didn’t chart at all. Part of the problem of MGM South was identity. Rock and Roll/Pop retreads like Tommy Roe, Billy Joe Royal, or the Classics IV were not received as country acts, no matter how hard MGM pushed them. Royal would later find a home in the country charts, but that was over a decade in the future.”

In its brief time in existence, Sami Jo would prove to be MGM South’s most successful act. “Sonny Limbo had gotten together with Bill Lowery, who was head of the label, and he brought me to Atlanta to meet him. What is really funny is that Bill was known to not be very fond of female singers, but he liked me and he said he was willing to give me a chance. At the time, the guys in charge of signing new artists at MGM were Stan Moress and the Scotti Brothers (who went on to manage teen star Leif Garrett in the late 70s). Stan later came out to Dallas, watched my stage show then offered me a deal and said, ‘Baby, I’m gonna make you a star!’ (laughs) You know, the same line that Sonny had used. Stan and I have laughed about this many times since because he says that I looked at him and said, ‘Sure you are.’ Well, he did wind up helping me a lot. Stan Moress and I became great friends and we still are to this day.”

In 1973, Sonny Limbo found a dramatic, country/pop ballad with southern soul overtones, called Tell Me A Lie, for Sami to record, and it would become her biggest chart hit. A secretary at Bill Lowery’s studio who had heard some tracks Sami had cut with Sonny reportedly wrote the song with Sami in mind. Later covered by such disparate singers as soul diva Bettye Lavette, German artist Tina Rainford and country star Janie Fricke, the song told the story of a lonely woman who meets a man in a bar and reveals to him the kinds of lies some men tell their one-night stands. By the song’s end, after he’s spent the night with her, she is begging him to tell her what she wants to hear: namely, that he’ll “be back one day”.

Tell Me A Lie was a bona fide hit for Sami, reaching # 14 on Billboard’s Easy Listening Chart and #21 on the Top 100 Pop Chart. Sami made a flurry of TV appearances in support of the record (American Bandstand, among them) and then went back into the studio to record her first LP for the label. The resulting album, titled It Could Have Been Me, showcased Sami’s strong, husky voice and ably straddled the fence between country, MOR and pop. With the album’s tracks arranged by The Georgia Power Rhythm Section (with future Dolly Parton producer Steve Buckingham on lead guitar, and the co-producer of the album, Mickey Buckins, on percussion) and with the additional support of The Memphis Horns, the record had a soulful, contemporary sound strongly akin to the music such popular acts as Joe South and Tony Joe White were also making at the time. In fact, along with Sami’s follow-up single It Could Have Been Me, which reached # 31 on Billboard’s Easy Listening Chart, the album boasted covers of Joe South’s Games People Play and Harry Nilsson’s Without You, and even included a controversial song about the sordid life of an Atlanta call girl, Lovely Daughter.

“During this time people began disagreeing about what kind of singer I was,” said Sami. “Some said blues, some said country, others said pop, while others called me a ‘white soul singer’. Needless to say, it was a very exciting time (because of the success of Tell Me A Lie) but also a very confusing time—not only for me, but for the people around me, too. The main concern of everyone seemed to be: ‘which way should we go with her’? We also had to hold up the release of the album because MGM South’s president Gil Beltron decided he wanted me to record his favorite song (Without You), so we had to go back into the studio and add it to the album. Why, I don’t know, but he insisted.

“Also, Sonny Limbo was having some serious personal problems around this time and I was working more with Mickey Buckins and a lot of other people, which made things quite chaotic. Finally, Steve Buckingham, who later became a top executive at Sony Records, took over my sessions and helped me finish the album. Steve also became a wonderful friend.”

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Diane Mitchell had not been in touch with Christa for over two years when the latter contacted her again sometime in 1975. “She called to tell me that she was getting some bit parts and she also told me she was dating actor Michael Sarrazin. It was a short conversation…no more than a few minutes. I got her telephone number and told her I would call her back. However, when I did call her back some time later, the phone had been disconnected. That was the last time I spoke with Sandy.”

In spite of her ambition and seemingly good connections, Christa’s acting career in Hollywood was nowhere near as successful as she had expected it would be. In fact, after two years in L.A., she had only managed to grab a Coppertone TV commercial and two small TV roles: a bit part as a roller skating waitress on a 1976 Starsky and Hutch episode and a much larger role later that year as a bitchy beauty pageant contestant on a memorable episode of Wonder Woman titled ‘Beauty on Parade’. (Other sexy, 1970’s TV starlets that appeared with her on the show included Lindsay Bloom, Paulette Breen and Jenifer Shaw.) Christa continued to pin her hopes for true stardom on the still in-limbo LET’S GO FOR BROKE. At one point, the film had been retitled LADY J. and Christa continually plugged its supposedly forthcoming release whenever she made the gossip columns. According to one posthumous report, Christa had shot some new and possibly more explicit scenes for the film in Hollywood the year before her death but the (now R-rated) drive-in epic still eluded distribution.

Following her Starsky and Hutch and Wonder Woman roles, and hot on the heels of her singing lessons back East, Christa decided she wanted to cut a disco record. Needless to say, with her many personal and professional connections in town, that was all that was needed to get the ball rolling. Neil Bogart’s Casablanca Records brought in expatriated New York DJ Frankie Crocker (the man credited with coining the radio term “urban contemporary”) to produce the record but he and Christa reportedly butted heads. Eventually, though, she would tell friends that she had Crocker “by the balls” and that he would do whatever she wanted.

Soon after starting the project, Christa, by now exploring her self-professed tendency toward bisexuality, hooked up with one of the album’s back-up singers, Patty Collins. The two reportedly became inseparable lovers with Patty said to be quite proprietary of Christa’s attentions. Debbie Danilow, a fellow traveler with various rock groups of the period, was another back-up singer brought onto the project and she immediately clicked with Christa. According to Debbie, “ Christa was flirty, and came on to me immediately but with a sense of timeliness. She let me know she was interested in me (sexually) but wanted me to be comfortable with her first. I more or less ignored her advances, all the time keeping my eye on Patty who was keeping her eye on me! To be quite frank, I have never had an interest in having a relationship with another woman, especially sexual. I have been married five times — but always to men! But I accepted Christa as she was, and I appreciated her interest in me, even though it was not something we would act upon.”

Debbie Danilow knew Christa only briefly but the latter made a big impression on her, perhaps even more so because she was to have met her on the night she was murdered. According to Debbie, though (and several other witnesses), she had left the party before Christa arrived. Today she describes the woman she knew as “… gifted and courageous, brilliant and creative, a rare shining light with no fear.”

The night that Christa met her destiny started out for her as many other nights had. She attended a party in Hollywood with her roommate, a woman named Stephanie. They called a mutual friend, Sanford (a.k.a. “Sandy”) Smith, a Hollywood talent agent, who was also a frequent paramour of Christa’s, to join them, but he had refused. Undeterred, Christa decided to go to his house and try to talk him into going with the girls. She borrowed Stephanie’s car and drove to Smith’s house on Lloyd Place in West Hollywood. Smith later claims that he was sleeping when she got there and that he never saw nor heard her.

Either enroute to Sandy Smith’s house, or upon leaving (this part remains unclear), Christa was attacked from behind. Even though she was a certified Black Belt, the ambushed woman was unable to fight off her assailant. She was stabbed over 30 times (which tragically included numerous wounds to her neck and face) and then bludgeoned with a blunt object thought to be either the handle of a knife or a hammer. Christa’s badly ravaged body was found shortly after the attack by a young man crossing the street. Some contemporary reports say that he found her next to her car with her keys in her hand. “I was told that my mother was lying partially under a parked car,” says Nicole, “and that when he approached her, he heard her let out a long, deep breath — her last.”

Christa’s West Hollywood murder on February 12, 1977 received surprisingly little press coverage for someone so well known in the gossip columns and in Hollywood society itself. This led one writer to speculate in print that “who she knew and what she knew may be the reason her savage killing was barely reported.” According to witnesses who saw her earlier, Christa was carrying a handbag that night with the “Tommy Boy” logo on it but the purse was missing when the police arrived. It was never found and there has been strong speculation through the years that it may have contained her so-called ‘love diary’ and that’s why the killer (or killers) stole it.

Despite the horrific nature of Christa’s death, the story failed to make national headlines. The investigation into her murder proceeded apace for a time as police interviewed scores of people and searched fruitlessly for her diary which was said to be potentially explosive. When the case drifted into the background, a few crime writers tried to stir up interest, but to no avail. What remains in 2007 are two boxes of investigative notes and four notebooks filled with names and other pertinent information from the LAPD. Over 70 people have been interviewed in the past thirty years, and yet to date there has been no resolution to the case.

Christa’s daughter, Nicole, only nine years old when her mother died, grew up determined to see justice served. Toward that end, she has recently gotten the CBS-TV news magazines 48 HOURS and CELEBRITY JUSTICE to devote segments of their shows to the murder, and has herself put a number of cold case specialists on the scent. And yet, like Christa’s dreams of stardom, the case—and her killer—somehow continue to fall through the cracks.

Finally, with the rise of the Internet comes a growing “Christa Helm cult” based almost solely on her memorable TV appearance on Wonder Woman. Now, with a renewed interest in the long lost LET’S GO FOR BROKE (a movie that well could have made her a star), more and more people are suddenly hearing about the woman, the actress, and the horrifying way she died. As more and more people want to know what happened, the case will likely never grow completely cold.

Thirty years after she met her destiny at the cruel thrust of a killer’s blade, there is still a chance for justice —and even a type of fame, ironically —for the beautiful but ill-fated Christa Helm. And with it, perhaps, a sense of peace will come for one of Hollywood’s lost and forgotten beauties —a wild and free-spirited angel whose unfettered spirit did not justify the brutal way she left this earth.

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Encouraged by the Broadway success of Godspell (though less so with its rather tepid screen adaptation in 1973) Stuart Duncan decided he wanted to try his hand at film producing. His first independent film, to be shot in the summer of 1973 in Haiti (to cut down on costs) would be titled LET’S GO FOR BROKE.

Described as both a “spy spoof” and a “high-spirited romp,” LET’S GO FOR BROKE was designed to serve as a star-making vehicle for the new film producer’s protégé, Christa Helm. Having dreamed of stardom from a very early age, Christa took with her all the trappings even though this was only her second movie. (Her bit role in 1972’s THE LEGACY OF SATAN, a Grade-Z horror film directed by DEEP THROAT director Gerard Damiano, was her first film, however it wasn’t released until 1976.) Christa’s entourage while in Haiti included designers, hair stylists, colorists and a makeup artist. Never averse to spending someone else’s money, Christa’s diva behavior undoubtedly played a role in the fact that the film’s $700,000 budget soon inflated to over one million dollars.

Filming in Haiti, especially in that era, was far from the easy tax dodge it might have initially appeared to be. Duncan had to be extremely creative to get around various government restrictions as well as the nasty bouts of Montezuma’s Revenge that regularly hit Christa and several others in the cast and crew.

In the PG-rated LET’S GO FOR BROKE, Christa plays Jackie Broke, a crusading reporter who becomes involved in an international kidnapping conspiracy. Her character was described in a press release at the time as “a cross between Barbara Walters and Barbarella.” Christa told columnist Earl Wilson in September 1973 that she would not do any nude scenes in the film because her family was proud of her and “…they invited everyone in the neighborhood, including the pizza man, to the opening of LET’S GO FOR BROKE, and it isn’t even finished yet!” Thus, the film is toned down a notch or two from similar “sexploitation” movies of the early 1970s, such as GINGER and COFFY.

The film’s outlandish, Bond-style plot deals with a wheelchair bound madman who uses a synthetic dog food on his enemies which causes them to turn into (believe it or not) raw meat! Reporter Jackie Broke is interviewing a feminist who is then kidnapped and taken to Haiti. She herself is later kidnapped by the same villains and also taken to the island where voodoo and various tortures come into play until she escapes and tackles the bad guys with her feminine wiles and elaborate skills in martial arts. As if all that 1970’s action wasn’t enough, Christa even gets to sing the title song over the film’s credits!

Back in New York after filming LET’S GO FOR BROKE, Christa continued her reputation as a disco-dancing, party-loving playgirl and was briefly linked with, among others, NY Jets football great Joe Namath. Seemingly never at a loss for male companionship, by 1974 the willowy and wisecracking blonde was living in New York with an assistant director named Ron Walsh. That relationship, too, would be short-lived and the next time Christa was mentioned in Earl Wilson’s column she divulged that she had been living with adult film producer/director Joseph (AKA Jonas) Middleton, with whom she said she had written a film script titled ILLUSIONS OF A LADY. Although the film was later produced and released to theaters (premiering in Sweden on September 2, 1974), Christa’s name did not appear anywhere in the credits. Before the film hit theaters stateside, the couple reportedly split up when Middleton had insisted in shooting some hardcore scenes for the picture. “He said, ‘I’m shooting it hard’”, Christa told Earl Wilson, “so I got in my car in my bikini and I drove home. He just sat there and let me carry out my own bags! I was livid.” The released version of the triple X-rated ILLUSIONS OF A LADY starred future disco superstar Andrea True (“More, More, More”) and porn legend Jamie Gillis. From all accounts, the film was your typical grind house fare.

Like many other beautiful young women before her, Christa eventually headed for Hollywood to improve her chances of becoming a movie star. Due to her popularity in N.Y. she had many contacts in L.A. and she continued her party girl lifestyle with many famous musicians, actors, politicians…and drug dealers. Shortly after her arrival in town, Christa (with her younger sister Marisa in tow) moved in with internationally renowned financier Bernard (a.k.a. “Bernie”) Cornfeld, who reportedly managed a billion dollar empire in banking, insurance and mutual funds. Born in Istanbul, Turkey, Bernie Cornfeld was a rabid womanizer who lived with a virtual harem of magazine centerfolds, film starlets and call girls in a 39-room house in Beverly Hills called Grayhall Mansion. Located at 1100 Carolinian Drive, the house had been built in the 1930s and was once the home of the legendary silent screen star, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. before being taken over in the early 70s by the tiny-stature Cornfeld and his coterie of concubines.

From the start, Christa seemed to fit in just fine with the like-minded hedonists at Bernie Cornfeld’s love nest. By all accounts, the gorgeous starlet loved men, loved sex and was clearly not above using her charms (as many other young hopefuls before her had done) to further her Hollywood ambitions. Christa was smart and fearless, but she allegedly set parameters on what she would, and wouldn’t, do. On September 19, 1973, columnist Earl Wilson wrote that Christa had revealed to him that there had been a time that she was given a chance to be a high-priced call girl but that she had thought about it and then turned the offer down. Even so, Christa’s lifestyle at the time was far from being sedate.

While staying at Bernie Cornfeld’s, Christa’s ever-changing dance card is said to have included actors Warren Beatty, Michael Sarrazin, Desi Arnaz, Jr. and George Hamilton, as well as singer Johnny Rivers. Other names with whom she was linked in the press in the mid 1970’s included recording stars Mick Jagger and Englebert Humperdinck and acclaimed movie director Roman Polanski (whose beautiful wife, Sharon Tate had been murdered a few years earlier by the so-called Manson “family”). Christa’s daughter Nicole recalls staying with her mother in L.A. for an extended period of time and attending a party with her in Beverly Hills in which Nicole says she experienced “a contact high” off the fumes of all the marijuana that was there. “I also remember meeting Mick Jagger at that party,” says Nicole. “I’ve since learned that he and my mother dated for a while.”

Nicole learned to swim in Englebert Humperdinck’s huge, heart-shaped swimming pool (which had once belonged to 1950s sex symbol Jayne Mansfield) and says she was heartbroken when she had a play date with a then six-year old Chastity Bono canceled at the last moment by her mother, Cher. “I know that Mom was acquainted with Cher, but I don’t think they were close friends. You have to understand, in the 70’s my mother knew a lot of people in Hollywood. Whenever any male celebrities in town needed an escort I was told they always thought of Mom first. She seemed to know everyone in town and was very popular as the girl everyone wanted to be seen with.” In those years, Christa even told friends that the Shah of Iran had flown her overseas to his palace for a week. “There was a rumor that the federal government here in the States often used models and starlets like my Mom to get information from him,” says Nicole. “They apparently approached my mother to help them and she began filtering information to them on his activities. The Shah was said to have given her many beautiful gifts, like jewelry and furs. I was told he was quite smitten with her but you know, he had lots of other girls like Mom in his harem.” Said one friend of Christa’s, “She lived as a free agent and frankly enjoyed sex.”

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In 1970, Sandy and Diane left their daughters with a friend’s mother, a Mrs. Gertrude Baker, in Burlington, Vermont, and moved to New York to become models. “Mrs. Baker was very nice,” says Diane, “and Sandy and I had no reservations about leaving the girls with her.” After they arrived in New York, Sandy and Diane got a room at the YWCA and began going on modeling interviews. “My God, it was ridiculous,” recalls Diane. “We had no portfolio, no experience and no money. Every newspaper ad for modeling was either for straight porno or lesbian-oriented photo shoots. It was all extremely seedy and we got very discouraged.”

The girls eventually got hired as waitresses at The Gaslight Club where Diane says, “Sandy dated singer Lesley Gore’s fiancé.” Soon afterwards she met, and moved in with, handsome Buffalo Bills football player Ray Abbruzzese. “At this point,” Diane says, “I got tired of living in N.Y., so I went back to Vermont, picked up my daughter at Mrs. Baker’s house and returned to Milwaukee. Sandy and I kept in touch and she told me she had begun taking singing and acting lessons at the Gene Frankel Workshop in Manhattan.”

By all accounts, Sandy’s status as Ray Abbruzzese’s live-in lover was brief and in 1971 she began seeing a wealthy Broadway producer named Stuart Duncan. He was later described as the primary heir to the Lea & Perrin Worcestershire Sauce fortune. During this same period of time, Sandy’s career as a New York fashion model took off and she was able to afford a luxury apartment in the city, as well as a new Corvette. When Duncan began working on his latest stage project, an original, religious musical that would later become the show Godspell, he reportedly helped Sandy make a financial investment (of an unknown amount) in the play. That investment wound up earning her a sizable profit when Godspell later became a huge hit on Broadway.

By late 1972 Sandy had acquired a second home outside the city in the gorgeous, celebrity-studded Hamptons section of Long Island. Stuart Duncan was said to have purchased the sprawling, beachfront house for Sandy, says Diane Mitchell, “…as a gift and a token of how much he loved her. Sandy invited me and another friend out to the house one time to spend the weekend with her. With one look around, it was very obvious to me that she was truly ‘living her dream’. When we arrived at the house, Sandy opened the door with her blouse undone and her breasts staring at us, and asked, “Well, how do you like them?’ I burst out laughing while our other friend gasped in shock. Sandy had gotten her breasts enlarged and she was obviously very proud of the results. Marisa, Sandy’s sister, was also there as well as a black female model who was a friend of Sandy’s. I did notice that she had become a bit jaded, but I guess it just went with the territory. I admit there were illegal drugs at the house that weekend…we all partied and had a good time. This is when Sandy told me that she had recently changed her name to ‘Christa Helm’. I asked why and she said, ‘An astrologer told me to do it!’ Sandy was always pretty outrageous.”

With her new identity as fledgling starlet Christa Helm firmly in place, the 23-year old went on to have several other cosmetic procedures performed to enhance her already stunning looks, and even paid for her daughter Nicole’s eyes to be fixed. “They had been crossed ever since birth,” says Diane.

One of the people Christa befriended during her time in NY in the early 70s was a young writer named Jeremiah Newton, now the Film, Television and Video Industry Liaison for New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in Manhattan. In those years Newton was a relentless pub crawler and a frequent habitue of the Stonewall Inn, the legendary bar in Greenwich Village that became a landmark for the gay pride movement. Newton met Christa through his friends Candy Darling (the iconic transsexual friend of Andy Warhol’s who rock singer Lou Reed immortalized in his 1971 hit Walk on the Wild Side) and Lennie Barin, a flamboyant and well-known NYC costume designer. They were all part of a band of wild and freewheeling mavericks that tore through the town in the early 70s in search of notoriety, money and thrills.

In 2006, Jeremiah Newton contacted Nicole and remembered her mother in vivid detail: “Back then, Christa was close to both Lennie and Candy Darling, and while she and I weren’t what I would call best friends, she was definitely part of our group. At the time, Lennie Barin lived in a large, drafty loft on Bond Street just off the (then-unfashionable) Bowery. It was a large space with very high ceilings and over the years several young actors lived there with him, including David Dorman and Dennis Stewart, who was in the film Grease. Unfortunately, all of them (Lennie, David and Dennis) are now deceased, with at least two of them dying from AIDS.

“I thought Christa was beautiful and an extremely nice person. I recall she had gorgeous, creamy skin and great hair and she always seemed tan. I was told that she’d already had a lot of plastic surgery and I even heard that she had her legs made longer at some point, and that the surgery had been quite difficult. Christa was a straight-shooting, no-nonsense type of person (at least that’s how I perceived her to be). She was a fascinating girl.”

Jeremiah also recalled Christa’s luxurious apartment at the time. “She lived in a beautiful, seven-room duplex in the East 30s that she called ‘Merlin’s Magical Den’. I remember it had a stereo system that went on when you clapped your hands—very unusual back then. Her apartment was decorated with a lot of plush white furniture and I also recall an expensive display of crystal figures in the living room that was lit from underneath. I was told Christa was independently wealthy.” (More likely is that Christa’s income was subsidized in those years by several male benefactors.)

Christa and Lennie Barin seemed to enjoy an association that was both personal and professional, according to Jeremiah. “It was understood in our group that she was involved as a major investor in the play Godspell and that she had a lot of money. I believe she helped Lennie out financially. Thus, he gave Christa plenty of leeway in his life. Lennie designed a lot of her clothes and she actually wore one of the outfits he made for her when I got her a gig as a presenter at a local Emmy Awards show.

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It was December of 1974 in Cincinnati when radio and TV commercials for a movie titled LET’S GO FOR BROKE seemed to be as omnipresent as department store Santas. The film itself had its heavily touted world premiere on Christmas Day at the 20th Century Theater, an old-time neighborhood cinema of the type being slowly replaced by suburban multiplexes. Leading up to the opening, the Cincinnati Post newspaper even ran a “Go For Broke” contest tying in to both the movie and the (then brand new) Ohio state lottery. The following Saturday, stars from the film came to town for a personal appearance at the theater. Its sexy blonde star Christa Helm, age 25, received a gift of expensive jewelry from the town’s mayor and posed happily for pictures with the event’s attendees (including future Sony executive Michael Schlesinger). Helm had grown up longing to be a movie star. After a single appearance in a low-budget horror film (1972’s excruciatingly bad LEGACY OF SATAN), LET’S GO FOR BROKE was her big break in show business…or rather, it should have been. After a brief run at the 20th Century, it disappeared for many years and has only recently resurfaced on the collector’s market. For over thirty years prior to that, however, LET’S GO FOR BROKE seemed to have never existed. Sadly, the same can almost be said of Christa Helm herself.

Who was Helm and how did she end up as a disco era Black Dahlia? On the surface, Christa was the ultimate party girl—a trophy blonde girlfriend and “Good Time Charlotte” who was widely known amongst the early seventies in-crowd for her big-name boyfriends and her boundless ambition to be a Lana Turner-style Hollywood star. She was described by one friend as “very beautiful, tall, about 5’-9” with yellow-brown eyes—and smart. Perhaps too smart for her own good.”

Christa was born Sandra Lynn Wohlfeil on November 10, 1949 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the eldest of three girls. Her parents, Harry (who owned an asphalt company in Milwaukee) and Dolores (a housewife) were divorced three years after Sandy’s birth and Dolores became a born again Christian…as well as a very troubled woman plagued by alcoholism. While Harry Wohlfeil would remarry and have two more children, Dolores remained unmarried while entering into a series of violent relationships with several abusive boyfriends. “Many of these guys sexually molested my mother,” says Sandy’s daughter, Nicole, “as well as her younger sisters Marisa and Candice (a.k.a. Debbie). It’s a shame but my grandmother was obviously a very tortured soul and for many years she wouldn’t admit that this sexual abuse even took place. My Mom idolized Harry, my grandfather, and he eventually saved her and her two sisters from the harrowing home life they had with Dolores.” At some point, all three girls moved out of Dolores’s home and stayed with their father and his new wife.

In addition to her dysfunctional upbringing, throughout her childhood and adolescence Sandy suffered from a chronic health condition that often required her to wear a bulky and uncomfortable back brace. According to Nicole, “Both my mother’s sisters told me that Dolores’s constant use of diet pills during her pregnancies caused all three girls to have skeletal problems.” Due to her dependence on the back brace and the countless episodes of sexual abuse she encountered as a child, Sandy struggled with a lack of self-esteem that by her mid-teens had morphed into some pretty wild behavior. She became rebellious and developed a brash and biting personality that nonetheless garnered her plenty of attention from the opposite sex.

At 16, Sandy fell in love with Gary Clements, a 26-year old man who was rumored to be involved in the mob in Milwaukee. Within weeks, she was pregnant and a shotgun wedding for the couple followed soon afterward, in Chicago. “Several months later, when Mom was 17, I was born,” says Nicole. “However, I never got to know my father. He kind of disappeared from our lives some time after my christening. I was told that Mom looked high and low for him and that she couldn’t find him. My father never did come back. A few months later Mom was told by someone that he had died in a motorcycle accident in Florida, but she was never sure if that was true. It seems so strange to say this, but it’s like he just vanished one day into thin air.”

Following Nicole’s birth Sandy began working as a waitress at Travato’s, an Italian restaurant on Milwaukee’s East Side that was reportedly run by the syndicate. She befriended another waitress, 23-year old Diane Mitchell, who remembers Sandy today with great fondness. “I liked her instantly,” says Diane. “She was down-to-earth and gregarious as well as very pretty. You wanted to be around Sandy, you know? She did what the rest of us only thought about doing! (laughs) We exchanged daughter and husband stories —I was in the middle of a divorce at the time and I had a little girl named Kellena who was approximately the same age as Nicole —and she told me that Gary had died in a motorcycle accident. Based on how she always talked about him, I believe he was the love of her life.”

During this time, Sandy met a college student named Rolf Siebolt (or Siefert), whom she began dating for a while, though not exclusively. Her ballsy and outrageous demeanor, coupled with her stunning, blonde looks, regularly attracted new suitors and Sandy was never at a loss for male companions.

Sandy and Diane eventually rented a two-bedroom apartment together near the restaurant. “It was a nice place,” says Diane. “I scraped together some furniture from my mother and Sandy found some also. At the time our mothers were caring for our daughters, but we had the girls over on weekends or whenever we could. Sandy and I would go out to eat almost every night after work. I remember her favorite meal was escargot. In fact, she ate it constantly! She spoke to everyone in the restaurant and would often invite people she barely knew over to our apartment for drinks. I was concerned and told her that it wasn’t safe to invite total strangers over to our place like that but she would just laugh at me. She said it was fine and that I worried too much. Lucky thing, most of the people she befriended were fine. There were a couple of strange guys, but you know, that was Sandy! She didn’t seem to be afraid of very much, if anything. In those days, Sandy didn’t drink heavily or do much more than smoke pot, when it was available. That was the full extent of her drug use back then.”

One day the girls boss invited them and two other waitresses from the restaurant to accompany him to a show at The Playboy Club in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. The handsome, dark-haired actor and singer James Darren (of Gidget fame) was performing at the club and Sandy and Diane got to meet him afterwards. “He sat down with us at our table and we were thrilled,” recalls Diane. “James Darren was cute and wonderful and it was so exciting to hang out with him we both decided right then and there that we wanted to be Playboy bunnies! We thought we should try to get into the club in Chicago, though, as it was much larger than the one in Lake Geneva. My mother promised to watch my daughter and Sandy and I planned to commute by train to Milwaukee to see our daughters when we weren’t working. We went to The Playboy Club in Chicago and we were both hired on the spot. Several days later we very eagerly returned for our ‘bunny fittings’. They showed us the dorm where we would be living and then began training us in food and drink service. Sandy and I both went back to Milwaukee in preparation for the move and that’s when my mother threw a monkey wrench into the mix. For some reason she said she would not take care of Keleena for me, so after all that anticipation, I couldn’t take the job. I was devastated, as was Sandy. I told her to go to Chicago without me but she said she didn’t want to go alone, so neither of us ever became Playboy bunnies. I want to clear that up because at the time of her death, some of Sandy’s obituaries stated that she had once been a Playboy bunny and as you can see, that’s not accurate.”

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Lane Bradbury Film and TV credits:

• “Finding Red Cloud” 2008
• “Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction” 2000 (TV)
• “Party of Five” 1999 (TV)
• “Savannah”  1996 (TV)
• “In the Heat of the Night” (3 TV episodes, 1992-1995)
• “Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All”  1994 (TV)
• “A Passion for Justice: The Hazel Brannon Smith Story” 1994 (TV)
• “To Dance with the White Dog” 1993 (TV)
• “Stolen Babies” 1993 (TV)
• “Queen” 1993 (TV)”
• “Consenting Adults” 1992
• “Wife, Mother, Murderer” 1991 (TV)
• “One Terrific Guy” 1986 (TV)
• “Strike Force”  1981 (TV)
• “Walking Tall” 1981 (TV)
• “Where the Ladies Go” 1980) (TV)
• “The Waltons” 1979 (TV)
• “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do” 1979 (TV)
• “The Chinese Typewriter” 1979 (TV)
• “A Real American Hero” 1978 (TV)
• “Just a Little Inconvenience” 1977 (TV)
• “Westside Medical”  (2 TV episodes, 1977)
• “Gemini Man”  1976 (TV)
• “Serpico: The Deadly Game” 1976 (TV)
• “The Rockford Files” 1976 (TV)
• “McMillan & Wife” 1976 (TV)
• “Police Story” 1975 (TV)
• “The Ultimate Warrior” 1975
• “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” 1974

• “Doc Elliot” 1974 (TV)
• “The Streets of San Francisco”  1974 (TV)
• “Banacek” 1974 (TV)
• “Kung Fu”  1973 (TV)
• “The Bold Ones: The New Doctors”  1972 (TV)
• “Alias Smith and Jones” 1972 (TV)
• “Banyon”  1972 (TV)
• “The F.B.I.” 1968-1972 (TV)
• “Insight”  1972 (TV)
• “Mannix” 1972 (TV)
• “McCloud”  1972 (TV)
• “Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law” 1972 (TV)
• “Another Part of the Forest” 1972 (TV)
• “The Young Lawyers”  1971 (TV)
• “Maybe I’ll Come Home in the Spring” 1971 (TV)
• “The Interns” 1970 (TV)
• “The Partridge Family” 1970 (TV)
• “The Mod Squad” 1970 (TV)
• “Bracken’s World” 1970 (TV)
• “Medical Center” 1970 (TV)
• “Dial Hot Line” 1970 (TV)
• “Gunsmoke” (6 TV episodes, 1965-1969)
• “Then Came Bronson” 1969(TV)
• “Judd for the Defense” 1969 (TV)
• “Iron Horse” 1967 (TV)
• “The Fugitive” 1965 (TV)
• “Mr. Novak”  1964 (TV)
• “Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre” 1964 (TV)
• “The Outcasts of Poker Flat” 1958 (TV)

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A Message from Lane Bradbury – February 2012

Dear Readers,

Valkyrie Theater of Dance, Drama and Film, a non-profit organization which brings the arts to “at-risk teenagers”, is currently producing a short film titled “Trapped”. The film is a project about discrimination, based on a true event that happened to both Valkyrie’s Hip Hop teacher, Ryan Olaes, and myself. This situation showed me how much prejudice still lies within many of us.

The script of “Trapped” was written to allow teenagers “in crisis” the opportunity to express their creativity. Through this expression, they become the heroes of the film. We are presently seeking donations that will allow us to meet the film’s $100,000.00 budget. The Edna Wardlaw Charitable Trust has already donated $7,500.00 towards the project.

Nunzio Fazio, the award winning director of our documentary, “From The Midst Of Pain”, will direct, edit, and be the-do-it-yourself producer of “Trapped”, along with myself. The funds we are seeking will be used to rent camera and lighting equipment, attain permits and insurance, pay the crew, and obtain all the items necessary to make a short film.

If anyone can make this film happen with the extremely limited budget we are seeking, it is Nunzio Fazio. Nunzio and I have worked together since the first shooting of “From The Midst Of Pain” in 2003. He knows film upside down and backwards, is overflowing with talent, and he is HONEST.

Any amount that you can give to help produce “Trapped” would be appreciated beyond measure. Every donation of $100.00 or more will receive a donation credit, unless you prefer otherwise.

Thank you for your consideration. Please send your tax-deductible donation to Valkyrie Theater of Dance, Drama & Film, using the form found at the web address below.

Very sincerely,

Janette Lane Bradbury

(OUR WORLD IS A MESS BUT WITH OUR VOICES WE CAN CHANGE IT!)

Janette Lane Bradbury
Valkyrie Theater of Dance, Drama, & Film
818-623-0247
www.ValkyrieTheater.org
elflie17@gmail.com
AIM: ElflieLane

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