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In the early 70s, when I was doing all these westerns, I was also doing a lot of other TV work, too. Let’s see, there was Medical Center… The Mod Squad… The Partridge Family.. .Mannix… The FBI… McCloud… McMillan and Wife… Banacek. There were so many of them! A lot of them, I’m sorry to say, I don’t even remember doing. When you do that much TV, the jobs just kind of run together after a while. For instance, I don’t have any specific memories of The Mod Squad. I do seem to remember it was a pleasant, fun experience. I jumped from a plane in a parachute and that’s about all I can tell you about it! On Medical Center, I don’t even remember the character I played. I mean, that job was nearly 40 years ago. That’s a long time back, you know? (laughs)

The Partridge Family I remember because in real life I had had an operation to get pregnant and I did the show maybe a week and a half or two weeks after the operation. So after undergoing this life-altering operation that I’d had, the show seemed very…frothy. But I enjoyed doing it and what I remember most is walking through the scene feeling the fact that I’d had this big operation and that it was so monumental in contrast to the character I was playing.

As for some of the other stuff I did…I don’t have any real memories of Mannix, other than that Mike Connors was easy to work with. No problems there. I think Mannix was the first time I used my birth name of Janette Lane Bradbury in the credits. I used to get really irritated when I would get mail addressed to MISTER Lane Bradbury because everyone thought Lane Bradbury was a boy! Then on some TV show I guested on, someone suggested that I be nominated for an Emmy for my performance and they put me in the “Character ACTORS” category because there was a guy named Lane Smith and they thought I was him! That made me so mad and since Janette Lane Bradbury was my given name I thought ‘I’m going to use Janette from now on so that people will know I’m a girl.’ Anyway, I used my full name for the first time on Mannix, I believe, but then I went back and forth between the two names for a long time afterwards. Nowadays, though, I always use Janette Lane Bradbury as my professional name although sometimes I will sign an autograph as “Lane Bradbury” if the person only remembers me that way.

The same year I did Mannix I guest-starred on several other television shows, including McCloud with Dennis Weaver. I absolutely loved working with Dennis. Lou (Antonio) directed that episode and I got to dance on the show, which was great. Police Story was fun because I got to play a prostitute in it and it was a very meaty part…a terrific acting role. Lou also directed me in McMillan and Wife and there was a scene in it where I had to kiss Rock Hudson. I remember that he was extremely shy in that scene, but what a kind and lovely man he was. In fact, most of the TV stars I worked with were wonderful and were absolutely always there for you.

On the other hand, working with George Peppard on Banacek was a little bit…weird. Lou was friends with George and I remember feeling very uncomfortable during the shoot because he sort of put the make on me! Not hugely, but you know, he knew that Lou and I were a couple and so I thought it was very inappropriate of him to do that, to say the least. I would say that George Peppard had a pretty healthy ego! Other than that, Banacek was a fun show to do because I got to ride a race horse which may look easy, but it’s not. Let me tell you, my thighs really got a work out on that show! (laughs)

In 1971, I played Sally Field’s younger sister in a TV movie called Maybe I’ll Come Home in the Spring, which was actually quite controversial at the time. It was one of her first adult roles after her work on Gidget and The Flying Nun and it really ushered in a whole new phase in her career. I loved working with Sally. We were always in cahoots…just like real sisters! However, I never got close to either Jackie Cooper or Eleanor Parker, who played our parents. They were sort of old-fashioned and I think they reminded me of my own parents so I chose to react to them as if they were. One time when I was a teenager my father had caught me kissing a boy in the recreation room and he called me upstairs and yelled at me and called me a whore. Well, I didn’t speak to him for six months afterward because I was so mad at him and I just gave him the cold shoulder. So I kind of drew on that memory when I was playing my scenes with Jackie and Eleanor. In another situation I probably would have wanted to get to know them better but the fact that I kind of distanced myself from them on the set helped me stay in character. My role in the film was that of an angry and rebellious teenager named “Susie” who hid out in her room and popped a lot of pills. It wasn’t an especially difficult part for me to play because I had already smoked pot by then and even took LSD one time (which was an absolutely horrendous experience). So I was able to pull up my memories of those experiences to get into the character. I really loved that job and the director, Joseph Sargent, made it all so easy. That show was all about good work—good, connected work.

I remember doing The FBI because I got to play another prostitute! (laughs) That was kind of a special part. In the middle of doing all this TV work I was also auditioning for a lot of film roles, too. Some I got…some I didn’t get. One role that I was offered and turned down (and foolishly, I might add) was the Bonnie Bedelia part in They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? I didn’t take it because I was very full of my own ego at the time, and I thought the part was too small. Which was a mistake. I must say, I wasn’t real successful in making the changeover from television to films. But you know, it’s all part of the business we’re in.

Dealing with rejection is always hard and at first you do take it personally. But over time you just have to say to yourself, ‘It’s not me, as a person, that they are rejecting, I’m just not what they’re looking for to play this part.’ Believe me, you know when you’ve done a good reading (and when you haven’t) and eventually I had to learn how to put more effort into my auditions.

One of the film projects that I did get during this time was a real classic: Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974). I played the emotionally and physically battered wife of Harvey Keitel and I only had one scene in the picture, but it was a good one. I didn’t even have to read for the role. I remember Martin Scorsese wanted me to come in to rehearse for it but I told him I didn’t want to because I wanted my performance to be really fresh. Well, that was kind of cocky of me, wasn’t it? (laughs) I thought I had cut my own throat (with that attitude), but I met Harvey Keitel for dinner the night before we shot and he said everything was okay. So the next day we’re on the set and I did my one scene with (the film’s star) Ellen Burstyn. Right afterwards, I remember telling Scorsese, nervy thing that I was, that ‘ I’ve got about two of these [performances] in me so can we try to get it in the can on the first or second take.’ I’m not sure that was such a smart thing to say to him, but I just wanted to be my best, and I knew the way I worked the best. Ellen was wonderful. She was always right there for me. I just loved playing that character. When Harvey breaks into the motel room where I’ve come to talk to Ellen…well, we rehearsed it once and then when it came time to shoot the scene, Ellen and I were both trembling. Neither one of us were acting because he was that scary! I remember crawling out of there on my hands and knees after he beat me up and going across all the broken glass but there was so much reality that once again I didn’t feel like I had to act. I just had to react to two wonderful talents that were so incredible that they made my job easy.

Right after Alice, I did another film that still resonates with me. It was a Sci-fi film called The Ultimate Warrior (1975) with Yul Brynner. The story was set in New York in the year 2012 after a nuclear holocaust has wiped out most of civilization. I remember I burst into tears when I first walked onto the sound stage as I was standing on what used to be a main street in NYC in the ruins of what our world would look like after the atomic bomb. I had a rape scene in the film and I recall the director telling me after one of the takes that I shouldn’t struggle so hard as the boys were having a hard time holding me down. My feeling was, ‘Well, get stronger boys then, because I’m not going to let them rape me’. But there weren’t any stronger boys around so I finally toned down my struggling so the rape could proceed.The feeling of devastation and survival that I had from the bombed-out sets and from that rape scene stayed with me throughout the entire shoot…it was extremely powerful. I only wish the film had been as powerful. I remember going to a screening of it and being very disappointed with the end result.

Unfortunately I had no scenes in the movie with Yul Brynner…my scenes were toward the beginning of the film and laid the way for his character to appear. It would have been interesting to work with him. The Ultimate Warrior was a brutal film and the scary thing is if we keep going the way we are, this could really be our future!

From 1975 to about 1991 or 92 I worked mostly in television, but I worked a lot. In 1980 I had a pretty good part as a vulnerable and suddenly unemployed divorcee with three small children in the TV movie Where the Ladies Go. It was an ensemble-type show but most of my scenes were with the film’s star, Karen Black. Working with Karen was fine…I don’t recall having any problems with her. The director of the show, Teddy Flicker, was great. Very giving and supportive. He really worked hard to create an environment where all the actors could do their best work. The most memorable part of the shoot, I think, was that Lou Antonio, from whom I had gotten divorced in real life, played my boyfriend in the film. Obviously there was a lot of emotional stuff going on between us and I remember Teddy saying to me, “Just keep the lid on, Lane…keep the lid on.” (laughs)

I loved doing TV. I certainly preferred it to doing stage work because I’d had three really big hits on Broadway where you repeat the same thing every night and it’s hard. For instance, Night of the Iguana demanded that I be very emotional and that I reach way down within myself every night and it was just excruciatingly hard work. I would find myself doing things in my real life that I probably wouldn’t have done in order to bring all that negative stuff to the stage. So I would end up using real stuff in my performance which can be really dangerous.

Lou Antonio and I were divorced in 1976. Though we didn’t make it as a married couple, we did have two beautiful daughters together. Our first daughter, Elkin, was born in 1971 and Angelique was born in 1973. They both danced as youngsters [and loved it] and they are both happily married. Elkin is married to a director, Bobby Garabedien, who did a short film about three years ago called Most that was nominated for an Academy Award, and it is a beautiful, beautiful film. Elkin still dances. She and Bobby have two children: Colby, their son, is sixteen, and Jenny Drew, their daughter, is twelve. Angelique is married to Mark Hannah who is a sound producer and composer and she is a professional photographer. They have a four-year old daughter named Merivelle. I am very proud of my family. They are conscious and loving people and they’re all helping to make the world a better place.

Thinking about Lou…well, he is the most amazing human being I know. I wish our marriage had worked out and it is mostly my fault that it didn’t  I married him out of…well, I loved him, but I loved him as a friend and I think I married him out of a need to survive. In those years, I was a mess, a suicidal mess, and he was always there for me. Besides being a fantastic human being, Lou is an incredible director and the times I worked with him have been really fulfilling times where I knew I was doing the very best work I could do. He’s an incredible dad to his children and grandfather to his grandchildren.

It’s funny but out of all my TV work, the three appearances I made on Carroll O’Connor’s In the Heat of the Night in the mid-90s, are probably what a lot of people remember the most. Interestingly, I played trashy characters in all three shows! (laughs) I love those kinds of roles because you know, there’s really a lot of meat to them. In fact, if you take a look at all my TV work, I often played women who were crazy or emotionally frail or just plain mixed-up! Those parts are fun and they’re challenging, too. Working on In the Heat of the Night was wonderful. Carroll O’Connor and everyone connected with that show really set the stage for you to do your best. Carroll was an amazing man. He really supported my career and in fact, I only had to audition for the first episode. I was living in Atlanta at the time and they filmed the show in Conyers, Georgia, so it worked out really well. After the first show, I didn’t have to read for the other two episodes because Carroll already knew that he liked my work. I would say he was easily one of the finest people I ever worked with.

After I did In the Heat of the Night things got kind of dark for a while. By then I had moved back to L.A. and had found a new agent who got me a few little spots on television but it never really went anywhere. So, my TV work tapered off considerably. There were just a few more jobs in the 90s ( Savannah, Party of Five and Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction) and then nothing else after 2000. The work dropped off and I also wasn’t willing to put the time and effort into actively pursuing it, either. I guess my having done so many lead guest-star roles and really good parts in the 70s and 80s spoiled me and I was no longer willing to put myself out there for crumbs, you know? It had gotten to the point where I was driving all the way down to Huntington Beach and Long Beach to audition for a two or three line part. That wasn’t what acting was all about to me, so I stopped. The business had changed so much. I had started writing screenplays around this time, so my own interests had changed, too. My real love has always been utilizing dance and drama together and since I was never given the opportunity to really showcase that in my previous film and TV work, I welcomed the chance to do it on my own.

If I had to choose my favorite roles I would say that all the work I did at The Actor’s Studio, as well as different scenes and different pieces that I’ve written, are among my very favorites. Also, Maybe I’ll Come Home In the Spring and Dial Hotline, where I played little rebel girls, troubled…I loved those characters. I also loved the Gunsmoke episodes. They were so much fun, as was Police Story. And the first TV show I ever did, The Outcasts of Poker Flat. These days I don’t think of making a comeback, I think of doing things my own way. That’s where I’m putting my focus now and it’s a different way of ‘coming back’, I think. It is so much more difficult today out here in L.A. to find work and to have an acting career. It’s like our economy….the money goes to a few very, very rich people and it keeps being filtered into their pockets and it’s the same way now, it seems, with the actors out here. It’s so hard to get a foothold in the business. I can remember when I was first working I didn’t want to do a series because to me it was like doing Broadway. It was a lot of repetition. The same character, you know, whereas when I got to go in and do a guest star role I got to do a lead and a different person each time and I got to experience different lives. There’s just a lot fewer of those roles now. These days, the main stars get all the meat. They’re not just setting up scenes for someone like me to come in and have the meat, they’re getting the meat themselves. The business nowadays is very scary. I tell people who ask me about becoming an actress or an actor out here, that it’s got to be the only thing possible that they can do. And if they have a choice, then don’t do it because it’s too hard and there is too much of it that’s unfulfilling. And reality TV shows have not helped at all!

For a long time I’ve wanted to bring something that means so much to me—namely, dance and drama—into lives that didn’t have much, and it was actually at a church service a few years ago that I finally found the motivation I needed. It was at All Saints Episcopal Church and Ed Bacon, the head priest, was talking about how the church was going to be working with gang members and all of a sudden I felt like a huge kick in my bottom. I had been teaching a ballet class to underprivileged children in Pacoima and I already had a dance/drama idea for this class that dealt with religion, sexual discrimination and gang violence. So, while Ed’s message really clicked with me, I didn’t pay any attention to it at first. I heard, but I didn’t act. The next week he talked about gangs again and I thought, ‘Lane, you better listen to that kick in your fanny and go find out about this’. What I found out was there was a youth institute that was doing a summer program with young gang members and so I went and talked to the director, Michael Brown. I told him about my experience at church and about the idea I had. He hired me to work with these kids. My Southern wasp self from Atlanta, Georgia and a life of privilege, was going to be working with potential gang members! My God, I didn’t know anything about anything! But for four days a week for a month that summer I taught them dance and drama. We did a piece called What is Courage and it was an incredible experience.They wanted to keep it going and I kept trying to set up something so that I could continue through the youth institute but it eventually folded. After that I just thought, ‘Well, I’ll start my own performance group that will meet three times a week for three hours.’ It took me over a year to find an adequate place for us to meet because all the recreational facilities and churches in the area were already filled. I literally scoured Pasadena and Hollywood and finally found a small studio. It was called ‘The Worker’s Place’ and it was on Pico and St. Andrew’s Place in South Central L.A. I almost turned it down because it was small but it was so light and airy I decided to take it and that’s where we were for four years. We lost that studio in late 2007, but have recently found a new home at the Alkebu-lan Cultural Center on North Raymond Avenue in Pasadena. I have named the organization Valkyrie Theater of Dance, Drama and Film and our goal is to bring hope and creativity to at-risk teenagers. We’re working with professional filmmakers and artists in music, dance and drama. These children are being taught the skills and techniques for turning the negatives in their lives into helping themselves and one another. At the moment I have students that range from age five-and-a half to fifteen.

In 2003 I produced a short film I wrote called Almost Forgotten. It was directed by Hugo Pallete and scored by the wonderfully talented singer-songwriter Unita and her husband Joseph Akins. Prior to shooting the film we conducted workshops in aspects of film-making for six weekends. These workshops taught the students costume design, acting, make-up, equestrian instruction and hands-on shooting of the dancers and the horses. Around the shooting of the film and workshops, we also did a documentary called From the Midst of Pain that was shot by director Nunzio Fazio and associate producer Lisa Carosato. The film shows how the arts can heal and transform people’s lives. The three women featured, all victims of abuse, have come forth to tell their stories so that other women in similar situations can get out of whatever abusive situations they may be in. When we finish cutting and editing this film I believe it is going to have a very powerful impact on people. I raised maybe $9,000 for both projects by sending out fundraising letters but when it came time to shoot the films and do the workshops, I didn’t have enough money so I wound up putting $60,000 on my credit cards to pay for everything! When I told my brother and sister what I had done, they were absolutely appalled with me. I must admit it was a kind of crazy thing to do but I am gradually paying it off. In fact, I think I only have about a little over $13,000 left to pay on it. But I won’t ever do anything like that again. I’ve learned that I can’t jump off a cliff before I know if there’s water underneath!

Our current Valkyrie workshops are being documented by Jack Cochran so that we can see the progress of these kids. Jack is an amazing cinematographer and an amazing human being. He documents these kids lives, showing how absolutely heroic they are…a lot of their lives are just so unbelievably shattered. We’ve also done a film on Hector Aristizabal, who is a therapist and one of our mentors. Hector is a torture survivor from South America and he is a brilliant actor. I saw him do a one man show about his experiences called Viento Nocturno and it was breathtaking. We have now put it on film that’s just come out. This film needs to be seen. Not only is Hector’s performance extraordinary, so is Jack Cochran’s cinematography, as well as the music and sounds of Enzo Fina.

Whatever money comes from that documentary will then go into funding another film as well as funding the dance/drama/performance group throughout the rest of the year. I am also planning on doing a feature film I wrote called Even The Least of These. There is a character in it that I wrote for myself, a mentally retarded woman, so I would be once again exercising my craft which would fulfill not only my artistic vision and needs but allow me to create something of real meaning for the world. I am going to try my best. I would love to be able to use any actor that I want for this film and use some of the incredible talent that I work with at The Actor’s Studio—some of whom are having a hard time existing in the industry right now. Whatever Even The Least of These makes will then go into funding another film and also funding the dance drama performance group to function during the year. So, the work of Valkyrie is my number one passion. I am very, very happy, very hopeful…and I am very grateful, too.”

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My experience with Gypsy was that it was never that much fun. As time went on I got closer to some of the people but it never was any fun. My agent had gotten me a six month contract for the show which was unheard of at the time because usually they want you for a year. But he had gotten me more money because they were desperate, I guess. After about six months I pulled a muscle and I was out for a week. Then when I was ready to come back they said ‘Oh, why don’t you just take another week’, so I took another week. It was good to have some time off but when I came back, they said ‘We’re firing you because you’ve been absent too long.’ (laughs) I think what happened was they got my understudy to do the part for a lot less money. It was tough to be fired like that but I was tired of it anyway. Still, that’s not the ending you would like…

After I got fired from Gypsy I had a brief time when I didn’t have any work and then in late 1961 I auditioned for the Tennessee Williams play, Night of the Iguana. Bette Davis was starring in it and I tried out for the part of Charlotte Goodall—which was a very emotional role—and I got the part. It was really, really hard, though, as the character goes on stage hysterical and comes off even more hysterical—all in the space of three minutes! A lot of times Tennessee Williams’ words help an actor get to where she needs to be but they didn’t in this case…I just had to do it all on my own, eight times a week, for, like, eleven months. Believe me, that’s hard duty and it was extremely draining.

I must say, a lot of my experiences on Broadway were not all that great. A lot of people are crazy, you know, and at that point in my life I was a little crazy, too. I think if I did it again, with what I know now and with the life experiences I’ve had, I would know how to counteract some of that craziness, but I didn’t at the time. I mean, I had no clue. Out-of-town with Night of the Iguana was a disaster. Patricia Roe, a co-star in the play, and I were getting all the good reviews for a while, and I’m afraid it caused some whiplash. I remember Paula Prentiss, who was the understudy of Bette Davis (and also the producer’s wife), coming up to me one night outside the theater, screaming, “You are fucking up the whole show! Nobody can hear you.” Which was an odd thing to say since Pat Roe and I were getting really good reviews. But you know, I guess Paula needed somebody to dump on that night, and since she couldn’t dump on Bette Davis, I got it! (laughs)

Each night during the play’s initial run in Chicago, I would sit and prepare my lines right next to where I would have to go on stage. I remember one evening Bette Davis walking by me and giving me a very dirty look. Well, the next thing you know, she’s talking to the stage manager who then comes over to tell me that I couldn’t prepare my scenes there anymore and that from then on I would have to go down four flights of stairs to the basement to wait for my cue and then run up just in time to go on stage. The whole situation was very upsetting to me but actually it only helped me. You know, Charlotte Goodall was hysterical and so was Lane Bradbury from this kind of lousy treatment! (laughs)

Anyway, Night of the Iguana finally opened on Broadway and we were a big hit. Even though I had a contract to be with the show for a year, near the end of my run I was offered a role in Edward Albee’s play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, so I left the show one month early so I could do it. However, since I was still emotionally exhausted from Night of the Iguana I decided to coast a little bit in the first rehearsals for Virginia Woolf, and the producers wound up firing me. They replaced me with Bonnie Bedelia. It was a big disappointment but you know, it was all my own doing. I was on an emotional edge from Night of the Iguana and I just allowed my life to negatively effect my work. That was a hard lesson to learn.

It was at The Actor’s Studio that I first met Lou Antonio. In fact, I think my third scene at the Studio was with him. The work was called “Kean” and he played Edmond Kean and I played a young actress who was coming to see him backstage to get his autograph. My character was in love with him and it was a great, fun scene to play.. Lou and I started going out and after a while I moved out of my apartment and into his little red house on Route 9 in West Nyack, New York. My parents were mortified…they thought I was ruining my life! But it felt right to me, you know? I didn’t feel I was doing anything wrong.

After another play [Marathon ’33] Lou and I decided to spend a summer in L.A. to see what that was all about. Because of all my work on Broadway I got a part on Mr. Novak, with James Fransiscus. It was a teenage role and from there I went right into a guest part on The Fugitive. I didn’t have a very big part and I remember trying to cram so many different emotions into my scenes that I came across very overblown and theatrical. Back then they would let you watch the dailies as you went along so that you could see your work. You could critique what you had done and you really learned about your mannerisms. Well, I learned that I had a lot of mannerisms! And when I got them all going at once, boy, watch out because it just looked yucky. I absolutely hated my performance on The Fugitive…it was horrible. I did enjoy working with David Janssen, though. I think he had some inner demons he was struggling with but it certainly never effected his work, or our work together. He was a very giving actor and a nice man.

Around 1967, I started doing a lot of TV. Iron Horse, I think, was one of the first westerns I did. Dale Robertson was the star. That was a show, unfortunately, that I felt they just wanted to rocket through and finish as quickly as possible. I remember one time we did the first half of a scene where my hair was piled up in a bun and I had to appear from behind a clothesline and then when we came back and did the second half I came out from behind the clothesline and my hair was hanging down! I mean, they didn’t even catch it. That was, you know, it was just one of those things that was fun to do but it didn’t have the feeling of commitment behind the scenes like some of the other shows did.

I had a recurring role (as a rowdy little hillbilly named Merry Florene) on Gunsmoke in 1968 and 69, which I absolutely loved! My affection for that character must have come from my childhood when I was fascinated by the “poor white trash” children who lived in a shack on a dirt road near the top of our driveway. My sister Lynda and I would wait at the end of our driveway for our hauling group to pick us up to go to school, while the poor kids would wait at the end of their dirt road for the bus to come get them and bring them to Liberty, which was a school that our mother would not allow us to go to. We were not allowed to talk to the poor kids that lived near us, so we always looked at each other across the big stretch of pavement that separated us. I’ll never forget it—they seemed to always wear these dresses that were faded blue and patched. I always imagined that the floors of their shack were made of dirt, just like the road they lived on. My father would take them a turkey on Thanksgiving and Christmas. I used to just sit and wonder about them. Wonder what their lives were like. So that’s my earliest memory of being curious about someone that didn’t have what I had. I’ve always had a fantasy about Cinderella and the poorer world—you know, what being poor really meant. And I think I always wanted to bring something that meant a lot to people that didn’t have a lot.

One of my strongest memories of Gunsmoke is how much Milburn Stone (Doc) and Ken Curtis (Festus) made each other laugh all the time. I recall one scene between the three of us. Milburn broke Ken up and then Ken broke Milburn up and it kept happening until I broke up, too! It quickly became a real laugh fest and we just couldn’t get through the scene. It got worse and worse (or funnier and funnier) until finally the scene was shot in one or two line segments so we all could get through it without laughing.

My only negative memory of the show was that the makeup man was a golfer and I always remember him kind of slapping my makeup on real fast so he could cut out of work early to go play golf. So, I would always have to go back and touch up my makeup a little bit. But the Gunsmoke scripts were wonderful and working on that set with all those fine people was a joy. I loved the character of Merry Florene. There I was getting to ride horses and be in covered wagons and all the stuff I practiced in the woods and on my front lawn when I was a child. I was being given the opportunity to gallop off on horseback with a sack of stolen money and do all kinds of neat things…I just loved it.

Alias Smith and Jones, however, was another one of those things that felt like it was just about turning on the camera and letting it roll. It was surface TV but I remember seeing myself on the show later on and thinking, ‘Oh, you are just as surface as they are.’ Here I was, you know, in my own cocky way, putting down everybody else on the set and then when I saw myself I thought, ‘Well, you just cranked it out, too!’

Kung Fu, of course, was with David Carradine. I thought he was an extremely sensitive man. I remember I had a scene with him at an open grave where I was burying my baby. In real life, I’d already had one child (my first daughter Elkin) who was about a year old at the time, and I was pregnant with my second (my daughter Angelique). It was one of those scenes where I didn’t even have to work at it because after having a precious child and carrying another one, I didn’t see how anyone could go on after having lost a child. We started the scene and I got so hysterical, David stopped the take. God, how I wished he hadn’t done that. We eventually did the scene again. He told me later that he was sorry he had stopped the scene but he thought that I must have lost a child in real life. I guess it was very painful for him to see me acting hysterical like that. Jerry Thorpe directed me in that show and I loved working with him. We had worked together earlier on a TV-movie called Dial Hotline and he was wonderful. Jerry always took a lot of time in preparing things and everything about the show was important to him. He really cared about your performance. I can remember another scene in Kung Fu…nobody knew I was pregnant and there was a place in the story where I had to fall out of the wagon and roll away from the wheels. They wanted me to roll in a straight line and, well, I couldn’t because I had a little tummy to protect. So, I kept rolling in a circle instead and we did it two or three times and finally they just gave up because I just could not make myself roll in a straight line!

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Being at The Actor’s Studio was a godsend. You could go and work on different scenes and experience different characters and I learned on my feet. I worked with some incredible people including Lee Strasberg, and it really was an amazing and creative time in my life.

The first TV show I ever did was The Outcasts of Poker Flat in 1958. I enjoyed that a lot because I loved working with [my co-star] Larry Hagman. He played my fiance and watching him work on the show was a magical experience. It was live TV so it was like being on stage. The cast consisted of George C. Scott, Ruth White and Janet Ward, Larry Hagman, and me. We rehearsed over a Jewish delicatessen and it was so much fun. But then when it came time to shoot, I froze! I thought, ‘Oh my God! I’m doing this before millions of people and millions of people are going to see this!’ I clutched, you know, I clutched, and I can remember thinking ‘I can’t do this!’ But then, from off camera before my entrance, I started watching Larry’s scene. I was watching him on the monitor. He looked so handsome and capable, I just fell in love with him. You know, like you fall in love with someone in a movie. I thought to myself, ‘Lane, you get to work with him!You get to love him. Now go out there and do it.’ That took all the fear away. I just breezed through the rest of the performance. That was my entrance into the world of television.

My first Broadway play in 1959 was J.B. by Archibald MacLeish, which was based on The Book of Job. I got the part because the director, Elia Kazan, had seen me do several scenes at the Studio and liked my work. He called me in and had me read for the part of Jolly Adams. It was a little seven-line part…a young girl with a bunch of women, all of whom had survived a nuclear blast. Elia Kazan liked my reading and gave me the part. Even though I only had seven lines, I used them to help me hone my craft as an actress. During the rehearsals for the play I heard that my coming out ball was scheduled back home. My agent asked Kazan if I could be excused to leave the Friday after rehearsal and go and make my debut at the Driving Club in Atlanta on Saturday night and come back on Sunday to be ready to rehearse on Monday. I’d already had my dress made—it had an upside down rose on it and it was lovely. I think my wanting to make my debut in Atlanta must have tickled Kazan as he said to me, ‘I’ll let you go if you would bring me back a picture of your debut.’ Of course that was easy enough so that’s what I did! (laughs)

While I was still in J.B., I auditioned for Gypsy. My audition consisted of doing a song from Can-Can, titled I’m A Maiden Typical of France. I had done it once back in Atlanta and it was cute and very animated. While I thought I did a pretty good job, I didn’t get the part. After they were in rehearsal, my agent called me and said ‘Lane, they are getting ready to fire the girl who is playing Dainty June and they want you to go to the next dress rehearsal.’ I went to the dress rehearsal and I can remember feeling really upset that this girl that I was watching was probably losing her job.After the dress rehearsal I was told they had decided to fire her and hire me. Over the next three days I had to learn three songs and two dances…as well as how to twirl a baton and a lot of dialogue. They were already out of town in Philadelphia so they sent someone to rehearse with me at a studio in New York as twirling a baton is not easy! Not only that, but I had to twirl while going slowly into a split. A couple of batons wound up going out the studio window because I’d never done that before in my life! I had always thought I was a classic dancer, you know, and that people who twirled batons were kind of cheap white trash, so here I was twirling batons, trying to learn something that I always thought was cheap! (laughs) Anyway, I learned what I needed for the role and the first night they kind of just pushed me out on stage. I don’t remember anything about that first night, I just remember people yanking clothes off of me and yanking other stuff on me and shoving me toward the stage entrance and I went out and did the best job I could.

I think there was a lot of resentment towards me from some of the cast of Gypsy because they really loved the girl I had replaced. I remember that Ethel Merman was not supportive at all. Nor was she fun to work with. She had her performance all mapped out and it never changed. She would never look you in the eyes…she only looked at your forehead. I guess that was so if you did something different, her performance wouldn’t be effected by it. It was so totally the opposite of what I was learning at the Actor’s Studio and the way that I worked naturally. However, when Merman did the song Rose’s Turn at the end of the show I used to watch her from the wings because she always got tears in her eyes. That was fascinating to me.

The only people that were supportive in Gypsy were Jack Klugman and Sandra Church. I felt their support from the very start. From what I understand the producers had replaced the other girl with me because my voice was more of a belting voice, like Merman’s. I was like a child version of Merman, you know, my voice was really big and brash.

I had absolutely worshiped Jerome Robbins, the choreographer on the show. But then when we got into rehearsal, I found him to be really, really frightening. Because I went into Gypsy so fast, I was constantly trying to catch up. In one scene I was supposed to move this little teapot so that Ethel Merman could sweep the flat silver on the table into her purse without being caught stealing. But, in order to make a clean sweep, I had to move the teapot to another part of the table. It was simple, really, but I forgot to do it. So I got a note about it and then the next night I forgot to remove it again. I got another note and I thought, ‘How do I remember to do this?’ Well, since I was a fledgling member of The Actor’s Studio and had learned a lot about sense memory, I said, ‘Okay, before I go on stage I’ll do sense memory about really needing tea and then I’ll remember to pick up the teapot and pour myself a little bit of tea.’ But I got so involved with doing the sense memory, I again forgot to remove the teapot! (laughs) And I got another note. After the third or fourth time of doing this, there was an announcement one day during rehearsal that ‘There will be a teapot rehearsal for Lane Bradbury in the lobby at 4:00.’ So at 4:00 I went out to the lobby and the stage manager and I worked on the scene. He would say the line and I would move the teapot to the side and then he would put it back again. Then he would say the line again and I would move the teapot to the side and this went on for over half an hour. It was like writing ‘I will have better self control’ 400 times on the blackboard. So then when I went on stage I was thinking to myself, ‘Remember to remove the teapot, remember to remove the teapot.’ Well, I was concentrating so much on remembering to remove the teapot, I forgot to remove it again. I came off stage and I was going up to my dressing room and Jerome Robbins was standing at the top of the stairs, waiting for me. He just looked at me and screamed, ‘You fucking little bitch!’ I immediately knew what I had not done…removed the teapot. So the next night I did the performance, I remembered to remove the teapot but when I went to get my batons from the back of the end of the train, they were gone. After I got off stage, I went to the stage manager and asked, ‘What happened to my batons? They’re not there.’ Jerome Robbins was standing behind the stage manager. He said, ‘I took your batons so you would remember to remove the fucking teapot!’ Oh, it was a nightmare. A total nightmare. I think I got so frightened of him after that that I just went into a state of paranoia. I was so afraid of him that if I knew he was in the theater watching me I would mess up. Every time. I was terrified of him. It was a humiliating experience. On opening night my agent gave me a teapot. A little golden teapot for my charm bracelet. (laughs) That story is in a couple of books about Robbins and every bit of it is true!

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I was not a particularly good student. In fact, I was a terrible student. School was a horror story for me! When I was fifteen I met a boy and fell in love with him. His name was Eddie Cathell and his father was a doctor and the mayor of Lexington, N.C., where they lived. He was the brother of a friend of mine at school. One day he came to visit his sister, Peggy, and she asked me if I would go out with him. I remember him coming to the front door. I saw him through the screen. The minute I saw him through that screen door I fell in love with him! (laughs) He was everything I fantasized a boyfriend should be. Of course, being that he was from North Carolina and I lived in Atlanta, we didn’t see each other a lot, but I would go up there sometimes and he would come down to see me. We talked about going to New York together. He was the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Don’t tell me you can’t fall in love at fifteen! (laughs) Anyway, when I was a senior I went up to see him. I remember I was wearing my best pink skirt and matching cashmere sweater. Eddie picked me up at the airport and he was kind of quiet. He said he had to go to the train station on the way to his house. His old girlfriend, Tillie, was leaving to go back to school and he had to see her off. Eddie asked me to wait for him in the car while he went into the station, so I did. When he came back to the car he proceeded to tell me that I was very special but I wasn’t a woman to him. He said I was more like ‘this little spirit person…like an ondine.’ I said, ‘What’s an ondine?’ and he said, ‘It’s a creature from the spirit world. Audrey Hepburn is playing one on Broadway right now in a play called Ondine. That’s what you are to me. Not a woman, but an ondine’. I was devastated.

Basically, Eddie broke up with me that evening, but on Sunday we went with another couple to a beautiful mountainside covered with trees majestic in their brilliant autumn colors. At one point I tried to give him the little gold cross that I was wearing around my neck but he said he couldn’t take it. On Sunday evening he put me back on a plane to go home. I still remember, there was a full moon that night. And I also remember the way my feet felt on the tarmac as they took me away from him and how my hands felt as they held on to the railing on the airplane stairs…each step taking me into a mind-boggling land of devastating loss. I cried the whole way home—I couldn’t stop crying. I remember driving myself to school on Monday but the principal sent me home because I was just hysterical. On my way home I started to steer the car toward a telephone pole. My only thought was to kill the pain. For some reason, though, I swerved the car at the last second and just missed hitting the pole. When I got home, Miss Prinzee, our housekeeper, called my father at work because she didn’t know what to do with me. [My mother was in California at the time at a Girl Scout convention.] Daddy came home from his office and he was beside himself, too. He took me to see Miss Dorothy and she brought me to St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and prayed with me. On the way home she told me that The Atlanta Opera was doing Tales of Hoffman and she was choreographing the ballet in it. She told me she wanted me to be one of the dancers. I remember she said, ‘Lane, you can take all the devastation you are feeling right now and put it into something beautiful that will make other people happy’. I thought about it and agreed to do it. I often wonder: what do people do with their devastation when they don’t have a creative outlet?

I did the performance of Tales of Hoffman and shortly afterwards I was driving to school and I heard on the radio that The Atlanta Playmakers were holding auditions for a play called (get this) Ondine. I called my mother from school and asked her if she could get a copy of the play from the library because I wanted to audition for it. The library didn’t have the play but I decided to go to the audition anyway. It was held at the D.A.R. Building in Ansley Park. I arrived and signed in and was handed sides to read for the part of Ondine. I didn’t know what the play was about but the scene that I was given was between the Knight Hans and Ondine. I thought, ‘Eddie said I was like Ondine, so Hans must be like Eddie.’ All I did was read the scene like it was Lane talking to Eddie. The next day I got a call to ask me if I would like to play the lead, Ondine. Of course I said yes and went and picked up a copy of the script so I could see what I would be doing. I don’t remember getting any direction in rehearsals except that I had to speak up to be heard. My body had been trained but not my voice. Rehearsals were magical. It was like I was with Eddie all over again. Then came the performance. In the last scene of the play Ondine has to tell Hans goodbye. They’re going to two different worlds but she promises she will be true to him always. I knew what that felt like, but during the performance I heard someone laugh. That really shook me. When I came off stage I burst into tears. I didn’t want to go back out there for curtain calls because I felt that I must have been horrible. Some sweet member of the cast put their arms around me and said, ‘Sometimes people laugh when they are moved because they are too ashamed to cry.’ She said that there were a lot of college boys from Georgia Tech in the audience. When they finally got me back out on the stage it was just filled with flowers for me. I remember going from devastation to wonder and then the people begin to come back stage and I saw tears running down so many cheeks. What an amazing time that was for a 16 year old.

I was still very young, just a teenager, when I moved to New York City to pursue becoming a dancer. My introduction to life in the city was an eye-opener. I moved into a cold water flat. It had a couple of rooms, a tiny kitchen and a tiny bathroom…and lots of cockroaches! But I was in heaven. My parents walked up the three flights of stairs to my apartment and they were ready to bring me back home but it was already too late. I was there and I was going to stay! Because I didn’t go to college, they enrolled me in a pantomime class at Columbia University and that’s where I met an actor named Tom Wheatley. One day I was watching him rehearse and I never saw such freedom in an actor. He was on stage and then at one point he walked off stage and started walking across the chairs in the auditorium. I was fascinated by him. After he finished rehearsing, I saw him in the lobby of the theatre. I walked up to him and said, ‘Can I say something to you?’ He said, ‘Yes’. He leaned down and I whispered in his ear, ‘I love you’. (laughs) Well, right away we became best friends and he became my mentor, as well. When he auditioned for The Actor’s Studio he asked me if I would audition with him. I said ‘Sure, but what’s The Actor’s Studio?’ (laughs) He told me that it’s a place where James Dean and Marlon Brando and Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward and Montgomery Clift all studied. I said ‘Oh, wow…that sounds like a really good place.’ I had no idea what it was! Anyway, we chose to do a scene from Ondine and we went in and auditioned and they asked us to come back and do another scene. The final audition was in the afternoon of the night I was to leave NY to fly home for Christmas. Tom called me the next day and told me they had accepted us both into The Actor’s Studio! So I got into the Studio really not knowing anything much about acting except just being me.Tom was really an awesome person to work with because he never pushed me…he never pushed me to act. He only pushed me to be Lane.

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John: Can you tell us a little bit about your family?

Pat: I’m still married to Mike Deasy and we have a great life together. Several years ago he and four other guys formed a telecommunications company and in 2000 they sold it to Nokia. As a result, he was able to retire early. Right now, we’re getting ready to leave for England where we’ll be vacationing with another couple who used to live over there. We’ll drive to various areas to do some sightseeing, and I am really looking forward to it.

Our son Kevin is 43 and he is the best son in the world. Kevin has his own web design business, and he is very handsome, sweet and funny. He and his wife Katey have two sons. Drew is 14 and he loves to play the tuba. He also plays bass in the jazz band at school. Drew can tell you anything you want to know about a bug or a lizard and lots of other creatures, too. (laughs) Chad just turned 12 and he plays a saxophone in the school band. He loves sports. They are both real good boys and Katey has always been a very devoted, stay-at-home Mom. We see them all the time as they live only about a mile away from us. They have 22 acres of mostly wooded property and it’s just a great place to raise a family.

John: What kind of music do you listen to nowadays? Do you have any thoughts on contemporary country (or pop) music? Do you have any favorite male and female singers among those who are currently recording?

Pat: I listen to the country radio station but I don’t like some of what I hear. I don’t like what they call pop music today, either. When I’m in the car listening to the radio I go from station to station trying to find something I like and most of the time I end up listening to pop music from the 1970’s and 80’s. There are a lot of good singers in Nashville though—both male and female. I think Trisha Yearwood has a wonderful voice. I also like to listen to Celine Dion, Josh Groban , the Eagles and Rascal Flatts.

John: Do you ever foresee yourself making a comeback in the industry, or even just recording another CD for your fans (to market and distribute yourself)? Or, do you feel that chapter in your life is closed for good?

Pat: I don’t foresee myself making a comeback. The industry these days is way too youth oriented. But, I would love to record again. I always enjoyed working in the studio.

John: Please tell us a little bit about your life today.

Pat: After I retired from my music career I was fortunate enough not to have to work outside the home. Mike and I live on Green Mountain in South Huntsville on nearly three acres. Our land backs up to a 72 acre nature preserve and we are surrounded by all kinds of birds and animals. I have a black cat named Bo, whom I love dearly. I got him at an animal shelter when he was less than two months old and he is now eight. He still runs as fast as ever but I don’t let him go outside on his own. I bought a little dog harness for him and I take him out in the back yard once in a while for a walk. He’s wonderful.

I have loved animals since I was a child, and I always will. I can’t stand to think of an animal suffering in any way, especially at the hand of a human being. They have so much love to give, and those innocent eyes of theirs when they look up at you really get to me. There’s no way I could have ever worked at a pet store…I would have wanted to bring all the animals home with me! (laughs)

Religion has always been the most important thing in my life. My husband and I still attend church services every Sunday morning and Sunday night, and every Wednesday night, too. We’re both Bible class teachers on occasion, and we enjoy doing that.

You know, from the time I was a child, I always wanted to be a singer, but I always felt deep inside that when I married that would be the end of my dream. Over time, my life just went in a different direction, but believe me, I am a very happy and contented person. I have been extremely blessed, and it all worked out just the way it was supposed to.

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Following her tenure as a solo artist at RCA, Pat began a long and fruitful association with legendary pianist Floyd Cramer, one of the primary architects (along with Chet Atkins and Owen Bradley) of the smooth and classy “Nashville Sound”of modern country music. Born October 27, 1933 in Sampti, Louisiana, Cramer had grown up in the small town of Huttig, Arkansas, where he began playing the piano at age five. Upon graduating from high school in the early 1950’s, he returned to his home state where he worked as a pianist on the KWKH-Shreveport Louisiana Hayride radio show, later touring the southwest with a rockabilly band. Cramer moved to Nashville in January 1955 and quickly became one of the busiest studio musicians in the industry, playing on recording sessions for everyone from Webb Pierce and The Browns to Don Gibson and Faron Young. Signing with RCA Record in 1959, he began issuing a series of mellow instrumental albums geared at both the pop and country markets, while performing regularly on the Grand Ole Opry.

As a session player, Floyd Cramer developed a distinct sound in his piano playing that would eventually become his trademark. When he would hit a note, he would purposely hit an adjacent key and then allow his fingers to slip off the key, creating a sound that would be dubbed the “slip note”. It’s been written that Cramer first stumbled upon this melancholy piano style on a demo he and songwriter Don Robinson recorded of the future classic Please Help Me, I’m Fallin’, though Cramer himself always maintained that he had actually developed the style from listening to Mother Maybelle Carter on the autoharp. The “slip note” style Floyd Cramer perfected can be heard on nearly every RCA and Decca recording made in Nashville during the 1960’s, including Jim Reeves’ Four Walls and Patsy Cline’s Crazy.

In late 1960, Cramer had a huge hit record with his beautiful and haunting instrumental composition of Last Date (again featuring his slip note style of playing). The song soared to the Top 2 on Billboard’s Hot 100 pop music chart and into the Top 15 on the magazine’s country chart and made him a household name, virtually overnight. He followed this success with several other hit records, including On The Rebound and his version of the Bob Wills’ classic, San Antonio Rose (a Top 10 country hit in June 1961). Although his musical style eventually fell out of favor in the marketplace when country music became much more progressive in the late 1970’s and 80’s, Floyd Cramer was still a popular concert draw when Pat was given an opportunity to work with him in the mid 70’s.

John: How did you come to work for Floyd Cramer?

Pat: After I was no longer recording for RCA I got a call from Roy Dea who said the label wanted to do something different with Floyd, who had been on the label for several years. They wanted to use a single female voice instead of a vocal group on his next record and Roy asked me if I would be interested in doing that. Of course I was thrilled and said yes. RCA sent me the tape of the song they had in mind, Touch The Wind. [The Spanish version of the song, Eres Tu, was a pop hit a few years earlier.] The day before the recording session, Roy told me if Floyd liked me he might ask me to do an entire album with him. I drove up to Nashville and Roy took me up to Floyd’s office in the RCA building so that I could meet him. I remember Roy telling me beforehand, “With you, Floyd and Chet Atkins in a room together, the silence will be deafening.” (laughs) We were all very quiet people. Anyway, Floyd and I hit it off right away. We went down to the recording studio that same day and cut the song Touch the Wind. Chet and Roy Dea produced the session, and when we were finished, Floyd came to me and said he had the studio rented for another session and could I stay and cut three more songs for an album he was doing? So, later that day we cut Faded Love, Thinking Tonight Of My Blue Eyes (which was later nominated for a Grammy), and The Prisoner’s Song. They put Faded Love on the back of the Touch The Wind single, as well as on the album. The album came out in 1976 and was titled Floyd Cramer Country.

John: Floyd Cramer was an incredibly gifted and successful musician. What was his personality like? Was he down-to-earth, a perfectionist, a good businessman, etc.?

Pat: Floyd was a nice, normal person. He wasn’t arrogant and he didn’t have a big ego. I remember doing a benefit show with him and after the first rehearsal he invited me over to his house to meet his wife, Mary. They had two daughters and they were a very close family. Floyd also spoke highly of his grandson—about how well he could hear a song and then play it on the piano. I remember seeing a couple of pictures the boy had drawn for Floyd taped to the front of his desk. His family meant a lot to him.

After I cut those songs with Floyd in 1976 he asked me to work some shows with him. The shows were what I thought country music was going to be like when I first started out. Floyd’s shows were all about beautiful music. All the men in his band wore tuxedos and there was always a big orchestra behind us. Those shows were probably the highlight of my entire career. Anyway, later on he asked me to send him the songs I was writing. When he had enough of them he demoed all of them and sold them to his publisher, Acuff-Rose. Floyd invested a lot of his own money on those demos and he told me that Acuff-Rose offered to buy the songs from him if I would sign on as a writer with them. I told him that I had some concerns about that but I decided to sign with them anyway, mainly because of Floyd. Right away, Don Gibson recorded one of my songs (Come Back And Love Me Again), which I thought was a great honor since he was such a fantastic writer himself. I went up to the studio and added harmony to the song. But after that, nothing happened with any of my other songs and I later learned from the guy that pushed my material at Acuff-Rose that when other girl singers heard my songs they turned them down because they thought they were too difficult to sing! That only made me think that maybe they weren’t good enough singers! (laughs) Then, I got a call one day from someone I didn’t know telling me that the songs I had written would never do anything in Nashville and that I should try to get them back. Later on Acuff-Rose sold their entire song catalogue to Opryland Music, which in turn sold it to Sony, which had bought out Tree Publishing. So the bottom line is, I have close to 100 songs tied up at Sony—to this day—that no one knows about. It makes me glad to know that things are much different in Nashville these days and that the artists are able to have total control of their music. In the past, we all too often gave that control to some publishing company that didn’t deserve to have it!

John: The song Hiding A Heartache is a demo you wrote that was produced by Floyd Cramer. When did you record this song? In the 1980s? Was the song ever picked up by another artist and recorded?

Pat: After selling the first demos to Acuff-Rose, Floyd continued to demo several more songs of mine and Hiding A Heartache was one of them. That was sometime in the 1980’s, however I can’t remember the exact year. Floyd played the songs for one or two people [in the industry] but nothing ever happened with them, so, no…they were never recorded by another artist. Whenever Floyd didn’t receive any songs from me for a while he would call me up and encourage me to keep writing and to keep sending him the songs. Floyd was always hoping to make something big happen in my career. So, I continued to write songs, and to send them to him until the day he died. However, I haven’t written anything since. [ed. note: Floyd Cramer died of lung cancer in 1997 at the age of 64.]

John: In a perfect world, you would have gone on to record many more singles and even albums (either for RCA, or for another label). If this had happened back then, what kind of material would you have wanted to record—mostly pop, with some country-sounding stuff, or the other way around? Would you have had any interest in exploring folk music on your albums, or perhaps other genres, such as rock, blues or gospel?

Pat: I would have liked the opportunity to cut more crossover material—you know, well-written country ballads with some beautifully orchestrated pop instrumentation. I really liked Gordon Lightfoot’s music and I would have enjoyed recording the same kinds of albums he did. He had a lot of folk sounds in his songs, which I love. In fact, I once recorded a Gordon Lightfoot song called Looking At The Rain and I still think it was one of the best songs I ever cut. I brought it to Jerry Bradley and he agreed to produce it for me, but RCA never released it. There were a lot of songs in several different categories that I wish I could have cut back then, but in those years they always said that you had to be in one category and that you couldn’t straddle the fence.

John: Was there a “dream producer” whose production work you admired and enjoyed, that you wished you could have worked with?

Pat: Yes, Chips Moman…and it almost happened, too. He had produced some big hits in the country and pop fields for Elvis Presley and B.J. Thomas and I felt like I had finally found someone who would know what to do with me. A few years after I had stopped recording for RCA, I got a call from Floyd saying he had been playing golf with Chips and that he had played him a tape of my most recent songs and that Chips was interested in meeting me. Floyd said, “Bring your guitar and if he likes you he’ll invite you over to the recording studio at his house.” Well, I had never played the guitar on stage—only in putting down my songs on tape, because I’m not a good guitar player, and when you’re taping and you make a mistake you can always start over again. So, I was a little apprehensive at first about playing for Chips. Nevertheless, Floyd and I met him at a Shoney’s Restaurant in Nashville and later on Chips brought us over to his studio. I played my guitar and sang a song for him and he said he just wanted to know if I sounded the same in person as I did on the tape. (He said I did.) Then he took my guitar and Floyd sat down at the piano and they played some wonderful music together. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing—it was fantastic! When we started to leave Chips said he definitely wanted to work with me. I was so excited, I thought, “I’m finally going to get to record the kind of music I’ve always wanted to make.” After that, we talked several times on the phone but nothing ever happened. Finally, I called him up one day and asked if he had changed his mind about producing me and he said, “No”. However, I never heard from him again. I’m not the type to be pushy and I hate to bother people so I never called him after that. Unfortunately, that’s not the way to get ahead in country music—or in any other business, for that matter.

John: When you left RCA, did you immediately look to record for another label, or had you decided by then to retire from recording (or rather, from actively pursuing your recording career)?

Pat: I wanted to keep recording but it didn’t work out. Sometime after I left RCA, my manager Charlie Lamb got hooked up with some people in Texas who were going to start their own label and he wanted me to record for them. But when we went into the studio and I heard the musicians and the back up singers I knew it wasn’t going to work…and it didn’t! After that I just concentrated on my songwriting, sending everything I wrote to Floyd. He believed in me and I knew anything I did with him would be quality work.

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As for life on the road…yes, it was very hard back then. I remember doing a show in Pennsylvania with Waylon Jennings and some other artists, where we didn’t get paid. I had worked an outdoor show the day before Waylon arrived and the promoter told me that his partner had run off with all the money. Waylon pulled up in his black bus and Little Jimmy Dickens had returned in his bus from the day before when he had done his show—I’m assuming, to try to get his money. He and the promoter were in that bus for a long time. Waylon told me he wasn’t going on, and I decided I was going to do whatever he did. After a while he said, “Those people out there have paid good money to see me so I ‘m going to do the show.” I figured I should as well. Afterwards, the promoter gave me a check, which as an artist you’re not supposed to take, and of course it bounced! The last time I talked with Waylon was at RCA where we were recording a tribute to Chet Atkins and he asked me if I ever got paid for that show. I told him I didn’t and he said that he didn’t, either.

That sort of thing happened a lot in those years. For instance, I heard several other country stars say that after paying their band they would have to turn around and borrow money from them just to get back home! The amounts of money that artists get paid now and the types of venues they play have changed a lot since the 70’s, and they have a much better life on the road than we had.

I recently remembered a very strange occurrence I witnessed once that was probably the weirdest thing I ever saw during my entire time in the business. Like I said before, Dickey Lee is a very nice and sweet person and he really saved me once from what could have been a really disturbing experience. I had told him that I was coming up to a certain recording studio in town to have some footage taken of me singing that some guys from England wanted to use back home. Dickey knew the owner of the studio (who was a very celebrated person in the industry), and he said he was going to go over there with me because the guy could do some strange things sometimes.

When we got to the studio, Kris Kristofferson was also there recording. After I got through with my work, the owner of the studio invited us all up to his office. It was very dark inside and all of a sudden the guy jumped out of the darkness and up on to his desk, where he proceeded to squat down like a frog and act totally crazy! I was very grateful to Dickey for being there with me because I was scared to death. Obviously, we didn’t stick around!

John: Only in the 70’s, I guess! During this period, did you appear frequently on TV?

Pat: Yes, I was often a guest on Ralph Emery’s morning TV show in Nashville. Ralph was always very nice to me. He also had his own syndicated radio show at the time which usually only featured artists who had albums to promote but he always invited me on the show to play and promote my singles, too. Ralph also had me on his nightly radio show on WSM. The first time I was invited to play the Grand Ole Opry was right after my first single, You’re The Reason, came out. I performed on the afternoon matinee and then came back later that night and did three more shows. All together, I made around ten appearances on the Opry. Unfortunately, I didn’t hire a manager until some time after Everybody’s Reaching Out was released, which was a little too late [for it to do any good]. During this time, I appeared on a syndicated TV show called That Good Old Nashville Music and I also did a network show called Country Music USA. The last time I was on the Opry I had gone up to do Ralph Emery‘s morning show and I met Tex Ritter. He said, “I am going to introduce you on the Opry tomorrow night.” I was thrilled! Sadly, he died very shortly after that show.

Another person I was thrilled to meet was the great gospel singer and songwriter, George Beverly Shea. RCA hosted a big dinner party honoring Chet Atkins 25th anniversary with them and they arranged for me to sit next to George, knowing that we would have a lot in common (meaning religion). I greatly enjoyed our conversation that night.

John: Following Everybody’s Reaching Out, RCA released the song Beautiful People in the summer of 1972 as your next single. It was a remake of a 1967 pop hit for Bobby Vee. Did your producer choose this song for you, or did you have a say in this, and the other kinds of material you recorded?

Pat: Beautiful People was chosen for me by Jerry Bradley. He was trying to find something pop sounding [to try to get us a crossover hit] but that song would not have been my first choice. In fact, I had a lot of trouble recording it…the song just didn’t seem to fit my style.

John: Beautiful People was a mid-chart success and your next single that appeared in Billboard came out a year later. Titled The Lonesomest Lonesome, it was a moody and heavily-produced record with a dramatic string arrangement. Do you remember who wrote this song and how you found it? The single hit the Top 50 in Billboard. Did you like performing it?

Pat: The Lonesomest Lonesome was written by Mac Davis and had been recorded earlier by Ray Price with an entirely different arrangement. I heard the Mac Davis version on one of his albums and brought it to my new producer, Roy Dea. We both loved it and the promotion guy at RCA later told me that it was the only record he had ever gotten a call on from Ralph Emery telling them that RCA had a hit on its hands and that they shouldn’t let it slip away. When I did the Opry, one of the guys in the band asked me where Lonesomest Lonesome was on the charts and when I told him it was only in the Top 50, he couldn’t believe it. He said they were playing it constantly on the radio in Nashville, even though people couldn’t find it in any of the record stores. People would always tell me when they met me that they couldn’t buy my singles anywhere—even early on, when Everybody’s Reaching Out was a hit. I often received fan mail back then telling me the same thing. I have no idea why that was, but evidently RCA had some problems with its distribution back then.

John: Did you ever record an album for RCA? If not, did you record several sides at RCA that were unreleased but could have made up an album’s worth of material? In other words, do you know if there are any Pat Daisy cuts at RCA that remain unreleased in the label’s vaults?

Pat: There were several songs that I recorded that were never released, and I have copies of all of them. After a session I always had them make me a copy of whatever I had recorded that day. RCA said it was going to release an album after Everybody’s Reaching Out made the Top 20, but it never happened. Whether everything I cut at the label is still in its vaults all these years later is something I can’t answer because I don’t know.

John: The song My Love Is Deep, My Love Is Wide was your last single on RCA that appeared on the Billboard charts. What can you tell us about this song? Were you still being produced by Roy Dea at the time?

Pat: Yes, Roy was still producing me. Personally, I would not have chosen My Love Is Deep, My Love Is Wide as a single. I told Roy that if we were going to record it, that we should cut it “Anne Murray-style”[meaning, more pop, or country/pop sounding]. He knew how much I disliked a steel guitar sound on my records because I asked him to remove it from The Lonesomest Lonesome, which he did. Anyway, when I came in to record My Love Is Deep, My Love Is Wide, one of the best steel guitar players in town was there for the session, so needless to say, I was a bit surprised by that! But that’s how that particular song came about and while it was the last one of my RCA singles to chart, it wasn’t the last single we released.

My last recording session at RCA was sometime in 1974 at the famous Studio B (although at the time I didn’t know it was going to be my last session). In addition to My Love Is Deep, My Love Is Wide, I also recorded a song called I’ll Comfort You and two songs that I had written, For You and Would You Go Away. I cut both those songs with a five string quintet, which was kind of unique at the time. I had hoped that RCA would see that the songs were different from anything else being recorded in country music back then and that the label would promote them that way. Roy Dea loved both of the songs and put For You on the back of what turned out to be my last single for them, I’ll Comfort You. Would You Go Away never saw the light of day and I imagine it is still in the can somewhere. Roy told me he got a call from a DJ in Texas about For You saying how he thought it could become “a modern-day classic”. But unfortunately, with it being the B-side of a record that wasn’t a hit, that didn’t happen.

John: Please talk a little bit about I’ll Comfort You, which was your last RCA single. The record didn’t chart in any of the trades. Did you know at the time of its release that it would be your final single for the label? (Or was it released at the same you were leaving the label, and that’s why RCA didn’t promote it?)

Pat: That was another one of those songs that wasn’t quite me. It was released when was I was still on the label but it wasn’t worked, and it didn’t chart. During this time, my contract was not renewed but I was told by RCA, “If you ever come up with another hit record bring it to us and we’ll put it out.” The way the label usually found songs for me was to listen to other people’s albums for songs that had already been recorded. That made things easier for them as there was very little work involved on their part and they didn’t have to be creative, but it made it impossible for me to find my own sound.

John: When did you leave RCA? Did you immediately look for another record deal, or did you instead concentrate on your stage show and your personal appearances?

Pat: I left RCA in 1974 and everything ended, as far as my recording solo stuff. I was frustrated because after almost five years with the label I still couldn’t get the kind of sound that I wanted. Curly Putman once told me that I was ahead of my time because middle of the road wasn’t as popular back then as it would be later on.

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John: Who were some of your earliest musical influences? Did you ever get to meet any of them after you began your recording career, and if so, what were they like?

Pat: When I was in grade school my best friend and I used to play records by Teresa Brewer and Brenda Lee and take turns singing along with them. I met Brenda years later when she was hosting a show I attended. I thought she was nice. While growing up I guess you could say I listened to whatever our local radio station was playing, and that was usually just the major hits of the day. I don’t remember the stuff being country, per se. Back then (to me, anyway) country music sounded more like what bluegrass sounds like today. After I was married I started listening to artists like Dottie West, Jim Reeves and Marty Robbins. I later met Dottie in the ladies restroom at an RCA function. I remember we discussed Fan Fair. I liked to watch Dottie perform because she just stood there and sang her heart out.

John: When did you first begin to think about pursuing a musical career? Did you attend college?

Pat: I did not attend college. My boyfriend Mike Deasy’s mother died right before his high school graduation. His father worked a night shift and he had an eleven year old sister who needed to be watched, otherwise she would have had to go to an aunt’s house every night. Mike and I had planned on marrying eventually but because of the circumstances we decided to get married right away. We stayed in our hometown for two years and then we moved to Nashville for a while. While we were there, we watched the taping of several country music TV shows. Seeing those shows and all the great singers that appeared on them reminded me how much I loved country music and got me thinking that I would really like to try to break into the business.

John: I understand that you also lived in Huntsville, Alabama for a time, where you worked in a folk group. Was this after you first went to Nashville?

Pat: Yes, my husband’s work brought us to Huntsville in 1966. Mike was an engineer and in those years the space program provided lots of job opportunities for people. A close friend of his was in Huntsville working for NASA. He knew I enjoyed singing and that I was looking to get started and he introduced me to three guys who had a local folk group. They liked my voice and occasionally asked me to sing with them.

John: When were you signed to RCA Records? Was this your first record deal and were you given an album deal, or were you signed to the label as a singles artist?

Pat: I was introduced to RCA through the great songwriter Curly Putman. Mine is a real Cinderella story. My husband had bought me a small tape recorder and I started writing songs and putting them down on tape. I didn’t know how to play an instrument and I didn’t know how to read music so I asked one of the guys from the folk group, who had become a good friend, to play the guitar for me. He would come over to our house and I would sing the song to him and he would find the chords I was singing. Then, we would record it on this tiny tape recorder of mine and I would add the background harmonies later on. I let someone hear some of the songs I had written and he let someone else hear them and that person had some contacts in Nashville. He got me an appointment with Curly Putman, who had his own publishing company at the time called Green Grass Music, and Curly asked me to work for him as a songwriter. I continued to write for about a year and then I finally went up to Nashville to cut some demos of my songs. Curly took that tape to Chet Atkins at RCA and in early 1970 he signed me to the label as a singles artist. I was on cloud nine as my childhood dreams of being a singer and a recording artist had come true!

When I signed with RCA, I brought all the songs with me that I had written and recorded for Green Grass and now it had sold to Tree Publishing. I knew nothing about the music business at the time, and it turned out I had a lot to learn…

John: I see you first hit the Billboard country charts in February 1972, when your first single for RCA, Everybody’s Reaching Out For Someone hit the magazine’s Top 20. That is a terrific showing for an artist’s first single.

Pat: My first single was actually You’re the Reason, and it came out in April of 1970. Both sides of the record were songs I had written. I think the single made it to the 60s on the Cashbox and Record World charts. [ed. note: The song did not chart in Billboard.] My next single was also comprised of two songs that I wrote…the A side being Are You Really Leaving, Baby? It was also on the charts in Cashbox and Record World, but I don’t remember where. My third single was Everybody’s Reaching Out.

John: The song was extremely commercial and had a very memorable and infectious melody. In fact, it still sounds great today. Can you recall your feeling at the time when you realized you had a hit record on the national charts? Did RCA show a lot of belief in your career at the time and did they put a lot of promotional support behind the record?

Pat: When I first signed with RCA I was very excited as they said they were going to build my career and promote me like Capitol was doing with Anne Murray. But after Everybody’s Reaching Out peaked, they didn’t follow up with another single for almost six months. At that time in Nashville very few artists were doing anything that was really original. Everyone seemed to be copying each other’s music because that’s what the industry wanted. As for my producer, Jerry Bradley (Owen’s son), I remember him telling me early on that he didn’t know what to do with me. I didn’t like some of the songs RCA had me cut after Everybody’s Reaching Out because they were not really me. I wanted to develop my own style but unfortunately that never happened.

John: Who are some of the country artists you met during your time in Nashville? Do you have any amusing, interesting, or even sad memories of any of them?

Pat: I met a lot of the other RCA artists at various business functions. Dolly Parton was a very sweet person. Dottie West and Connie Smith were also nice. I did a show with Skeeter Davis once and was happy to learn that we had a love of animals in common. She brought her cat to the show and I have a photo of the three of us together backstage. George Hamilton the IV was a real friendly guy. We discussed the possibility of maybe being related to one another because my mother’s maiden name was Hamilton. Dickey Lee was also a very sweet and nice man. He was the co-writer of Everybody’s Reaching Out. Johnny Russell was always funny. So was Jerry Reed. I was doing a recording session one day and Jerry (whom I didn’t know at the time) came in the back door of the studio and laid down at my feet until I finished the song. Needless to say that made me very nervous since I had never met him before! (laughs) One day I was at RCA and they were throwing a party for Buford Pusser, the guy whose life the Walking Tall movie was about. I met him that day and was surprised to see that he was very quiet and shy. I attended my first DJ convention in Nashville and RCA held a big party the night before. Someone took a picture of me with Chet Atkins and Frances Preston, who was the head of BMI at the time. I didn’t know it but the next morning the picture was on the front page of all the Nashville newspapers. I guess that was RCA’s way of introducing me to the DJs because right under the picture was a blurb about my new single coming out. My first recording session at RCA was at Studio A. It was a very large room and I was scared to death! When I walked into the studio, the Jordanaires were standing there, as were several musicians that are now in The Musician’s Hall of Fame. That was a very thrilling experience for me. Harold Bradley led that first session [and all the others that followed]. We would run over the songs a couple of times and then record them. As I said earlier in the interview, I felt like all my childhood dreams were coming true.

John: When did you change your surname from its original spelling “Deasy” to “Daisy”? Was it suggested to you by an agent or your management that “Daisy” was a more commercial sounding name?

Pat: My married name [Deasy] is pronounced Day-see so when RCA signed me and looked at the original spelling they said there was going to be a problem. My producer Jerry Bradley said that every DJ was going to mispronounce my name and suggested that I change it to Daisy. I liked the idea and the label used it for a while as a promotional thing. With my first record, You’re The Reason, they sent out a Daisy night light, and some ads in Billboard even had a daisy with my face in the center. I thought that was very clever marketing on RCA’s part.

John: What were some of the venues you played in the early 1970s? Did you do a lot of fair dates, and did you tour extensively? If so, who were some of the acts you toured with and do you have any memorable stories about them, or the places you played? Was life on the road difficult back then?

Pat: I didn’t do as many dates as most artists because I had a small child at the time (my son Kevin was born in 1965) and I didn’t want my music career to interfere too much with my family life. I worked mostly on the week-ends and my husband always drove me to and from the dates. Sometimes when working shows with other performers (whom I would rather not name), I was very sad to see that they were drinking and doing other things [that were not healthy].

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JO’D:  Didn’t you work with Jack Benny in the late 50s?

BR:  Yes, I had bit parts in two of his TV specials, taped at CBS Television City. Jack was always very much “the star”…always surrounded by a retinue of “yes” people. He was very personable, though. I remember Danny Thomas was Jack’s guest star on the second show I did. Danny was nice to me, but kind of a difficult man. At one point he was improvising non-stop. Jack Benny yelled, “Did I hire you to do a monologue? Stick to the script!”(laughs) You know, the running gag with Jack was that he was only 39, so Danny Thomas responded by singing “You Make Me Feel So Young” to him. We all got a kick out of that! (laughs)

JO’D: You acted on a CBS soap opera in the early 1960s called The Brighter Day. Was that “live” TV?

BR: Yes, that was in 1962 and it was the best acting job I ever had! The show had been popular on radio for years. We did the TV show “live on tape” (as it was called in those days). We taped it about two weeks in advance. Catherine McLeod and Forrest Compton, two very fine actors, were also in the cast. I played an evil character named “Warren”. During the time I was on the show it seemed I couldn’t go anywhere without being recognized! My character was crippled, and I wound up getting killed when someone threw me and my wheelchair over a cliff. Great stuff, huh? (laughs)

JO’D: In the midst of your very busy modeling and acting career, you attended the University of Southern California and earned a Master’s Degree in English in 1962. What prompted your decision to continue your education during this time?

BR:  Well, remember, back then it was very important for a man to pursue his education. My father had always been aghast at my fascination with acting. In the late 50s, when I came back from doing all that modeling work in The Big Apple, I decided I wanted to work on my Masters. It took several semesters to achieve my goal and to get my thesis written, but I did it. Needless to say, my father was very pleased.

JO’D: Your photo shoot for American Tourister Luggage in 1964 was probably your most famous ad. It ran everywhere for years. Please tell us about that job and the effect that it had on your modeling career.

BR: That shot just really caught the public’s eye. When you look at the ad, it almost looks like I’m imitating Gene Kelly. You know, dancing out the door with a big smile on my face and not a care in the world. (laughs) A very good photographer from Tel Aviv named Gideon Lewin shot that at Los Angeles International Airport at the TWA gate. It was a hot, smoggy day and I remember we used a lot of reflectors. By the way, the suitcase I was carrying was loaded with books and magazines! We did shot after shot of me coming out of that door, into that god awful heat. I got big bucks for that shoot and I earned it, too! (laughs)

Believe me when I tell you that businessmen really did dress that formally in 1964. The tailored glen plaid suit, the brushed felt hat I carried, the cashmere coat—all were standard attire for gents in the early 1960s. That ad got me a ton of print work for Sears, Montgomery Ward,  I. Magnin and other big accounts. It was definitely my best known and most successful magazine ad.

JO’D: One of your most prominent magazine covers was for British Vogue in 1967. Did it bring you a lot of attention over here when it first hit the stands?

BR:  No, it never hit the stands in this country, only in England. It was a special Carnaby Street issue of the magazine and it wound up selling thousands of copies. I was paid in British pounds, which came to about 5,000 U.S. dollars. Catherine Deneuve’s husband, David Bailey, photographed me for that shoot, and he did a brilliant job. I am told that all the young teenage girls in England loved the “mod” clothes I wore. They might not have been so enthralled if they had known that the cool-looking British guy in the photos was actually a “Yank” in his mid 30s! (laughs)

JO’D: In 1966, you had your first—and only—starring role in an Italian/British spy film titled A Taste of Fear, co-starring Anne Baxter. It is probably one of the more obscure films out there.

BR: Obscure? That picture has disappeared off the face of the earth! It isn’t listed in any of Anne Baxter’s credits—or Carlos Thompson’s—or Claude Dauphin’s, for that matter! It was filmed in England and Italy by an Anglo-Italo company called Film-O Productions and later picked up by Columbia Pictures. I had a dual role in the film…and second billing. My scenes were shot in Brighton, England, and in a London film studio. While I was there, I was invited to visit the sets of 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was shooting on the same lot. I knew the film’s star, Gary Lockwood, from Hollywood, and he took me to see a couple of the sets. I’ll never forget them, either. They were incredible! Film sets usually are not all that fascinating or spectacular, but those sets were absolutely majestic.

JO’D: What was the plot of A Taste of Fear?

BR: It was pretty outrageous, actually. Interpol asks an American in The State Department (me) who is the exact double of one of the Dutch smugglers (me again) of some art stolen by the Nazis in WWII to gain the confidence of Anne Baxter’s character and help them find the missing artwork. It was very much like all the other espionage films that were ground out in the 1960s…pretty off-the-wall!

JO’D: You were originally given top billing over Anne Baxter in the film, weren’t you?

BR:  Yes, that’s true. Anne Baxter had been living in Australia and had not made a movie in some time. She seemed nervous about being in front of the cameras again. By the mid 60s, her film career was virtually over and yet she was very upset when she found out that “that television actor” (me) was being billed above her! (laughs) But I didn’t arrange the billing…the William Morris Agency did. In the end, I deferred and let her have top billing. She was, after all, Eve Harrington. Who was I?

After I shot my scenes in England, I joined Anne and the rest of the cast in Trieste, Italy. The film was released in the U.S. on a double bill with a British spy spoof called Where the Bullets Fly, with Vittorio Gassman and Michael Ripper. Neither of the films was all that bad, but I believe there were some problems with money. There was a lien, perhaps, placed on all the prints which kept the movie out of theaters. Anyway…one more opportunity bites the dust. I did get paid, however, so it wasn’t a total loss!

JO’D: One of your best friends in Hollywood was actor Mark Damon (The House of Usher). You also became business partners with him for a time. Please tell us about your friendship and about the nature of your business association.

BR: I met Mark in 1960, right after he worked with Vincent Price in The House of Usher, and we hit it off right away. Mark had started out as a contract player at Columbia in the mid-1950s, and had achieved some success, but his publicist (and mentor) Helen Ferguson was convinced he could be the next Robert Taylor and got him signed to a contract at 20th Century Fox. He did a few films there (Between Heaven and Hell, Young and Dangerous, etc.) and became something of a teen idol before striking out on his own as a freelance performer in the early 60s. In 1961 Mark moved to Rome and began acting in Italian films. He is an extremely bright and hardworking guy with a Masters Degree in Business from UCLA. We decided to start a semi-production company in the 60s and we named it Ramon Productions. The name, obviously, was a combination of Ramage and Damon. I got top billing because if Mark’s name had come first it would have read Damage Productions, which wouldn’t have worked at all! (laughs)

Mark met his wife, an actress named Margaret Markov, on the set when he produced the Roger Corman film, The Arena. The picture also starred Pam Grier and it grossed millions. As I said, they lived in Rome and I was in L.A., handling the business from my end. Ramon Productions was a “dummy corporation” in the event that we wanted to option anything. We kept it going for a while and then Mark left to form Producers Sales Organization with a man named Jack Hyde. Mark went on to become a fine producer. He moved back to Hollywood in the late 70s and optioned Joseph Wambaugh’s The Choirboys, and then in 1982 he was the executive producer of The Boat (formerly known as Das Boot), which received several major awards. Mark and I remain friends and he’s still going strong. In fact, he released his memoirs in 2008, titled “From Cowboy to Mogul to Monster: The Never-ending Story of Film Pioneer Mark Damon”. Obviously, I can’t wait to read it!

JO’D: In the 1970s, you turned to producing a series of films for Encyclopedia Britannica. Tell us how that opportunity arose.

BR:  A friend of mine who produced documentaries told the Film Division at Encyclopedia Brittanica about me, and they asked me if I would produce eight of these educational films for them—four on Dyslexia and four on Down’s Syndrome. Through a professor in the film school at USC I met director George Lucas who was just coming off his huge success with American Graffiti. He suggested I use film students from USC and The AFI in the documentaries, and so I did. I had a very low budget to work with and it wasn’t a profitable venture, but the films were beautifully done for their cost. Some of them, in fact, were eventually shown on PBS. I look at those eight educational films as my finest contribution to the industry. I think they made up for the less lofty work I did as an actor! (laughs)

JO’D: You knew the late film actor John Phillip Law (The Love Machine) for several years. Please tell us a little bit about him and your friendship.

BR: John was probably the truest friend I ever had in Hollywood. We knew each other for over twenty-five years and I was deeply saddened when he passed away in May of 2008. His former wife was the best friend of the late Virginia lumber heiress Lucy Haskell Hampton Barringer Yount, a very special person in my life. By the way, she was a real southern belle.

John loved to work and he continued making films right up until he died. Ironically, although he worked all over the world, he lived his entire life in the same house in West Hollywood, just above the Sunset Strip. John was a few years younger than me, but he was the kind of big brother I always wished my own brother had been. I miss him very much.

JO’D:  Another longtime friend of yours is veteran film critic Robert Osborne, a popular host on the Turner Classic Movies cable station and a journalist for The Hollywood Reporter.

BR: There is no one in the world like Bob Osborne…his knowledge of Hollywood films is unparalleled! We met in January 1961 during rehearsals for a stage production of The Country Girl, with Vera Miles and Jeff Morrow, and we’ve been best friends ever since. Bob has worked hard and diligently to get to where he is today. He loves his present job at TCM, and I think it shows. He is a good and loyal friend, and he has the world’s best sense of humor. As you can see, I have been fortunate in my life to have always fallen in with a good lot!

JO’D: What was it like working with Bob Osborne, Vera Miles and Jeff Morrow in The Country Girl?

BR: It was wonderful, but also stressful and confusing at times. Teddy Hart, Lorenz Hart’s brother, and his wife Dorothy Hart (not the actress who worked at Universal in the 1940s) had bought and transformed a terrific little theatre into a luxurious regional Equity house. It had ninety plush red velvet seats and they named it Theatre 90. We rehearsed the play for several weeks before it opened. Vera was married to actor Keith Larsen at the time and she was about seven months pregnant. She had to drive in from the San Fernando Valley, and since I lived only four blocks from the theatre, I would meet her there at 6PM and lace her into a surgical corset so that she wouldn’t “show” too much on stage. Then, Vera would relax a little before the night’s performance.

On the morning of our opening night, Bob Osborne’s father died from a heart attack at age 60. Bob had been hired to do a bit part that same day in a movie for Allied Artists called Twenty Plus Two. The film starred David Janssen and Jeanne Crain and Bob played a sailor on leave in a bar scene with Dina Merrill. Despite his grief, Bob honored his commitment to do the film, but he had to miss our opening night for the play as he flew back to Spokane that evening to be with his family and to attend his father’s funeral. I know that was quite a tough time for him.

The Country Girl opened to good reviews. I played Ralph, the backstage dresser for Jeff Morrow’s character, Frank Elgin. Vera was superb as Georgie Elgin, the part Grace Kelly had played in the 1954 film with Bing Crosby. Of course, both women (Vera Miles and Grace Kelly) were favorites of Alfred Hitchcock’s. When we did the play, Vera had just finished the film Back Street at Universal with Susan Hayward and John Gavin. And about a year before that, she had done Hitchcock’s Psycho. Vera played in our production for two weeks before being replaced by Jeff Morrow’s wife, Anna Karen.

Actor’s Equity had very strict rules back then. I had been an assistant to the producers during the first rehearsals. The actor who had been playing my part up until the time I took over wanted to be paid for his work, but Actor’s Equity refused to pay him as he was not an Equity member. Bob’s replacement while he was gone was also non union (and he was terrible in the part, too)! When Bob returned to the show, however, he was paid since he was union. My part was later combined with the actor’s who played the stage manager in the play. I did not act in the show during the last two weeks but handled the box office instead. As a result, my name was not in the original program. Therefore, there is no printed record of my being in the show. (We didn’t print any new programs when Anna Karen replaced Vera Miles, either). Things like that happened all the time back then—mix-ups, snafus, whatever you want to call them. When they did, I just moved on the best I could.

I did another play for Theatre 90 when it presented Pal Joey a few months after we did The Country Girl. The lead was played by an actor named Tony Monaco, who had made the film Wait ‘Til The Sun Shines, Nellie at 20th Century Fox in 1952, and then the following year (billed as Tommy Morton) he did another musical called Main Street To Broadway with Mary Murphy. Pamela Mason, who had been hired for the role of Vera Prentiss Simpson in Pal Joey, walked off the stage the night of dress rehearsal in a contract dispute with the producers, and was replaced at the last minute by actress Holly Harris. (Holly had replaced Vivienne Segal in Pal Joey on Broadway in 1952.) My friend Edward Stevenson had just won the Academy Award with Edith Head for doing Lucille Ball’s clothes in The Facts of Life, and he was hired to do my clothes for the play. (By the way, Bob Osborne was supposed to be in The Facts of Life but lost the part to actor Dick Patterson, who was a close friend of Lucille’s).

My clothes in Pal Joey were tailored by Knize, Inc. in New York City. Knize was the best tailor in the world and our contract with them stipulated that my clothes had to be listed prominently in the program. So, my clothes were billed right below the cast! (laughs) Because of that, and Holly Harris replacing Pamela Mason, new programs had to be printed up immediately before the play’s opening. However, they were merely sheets of paper, not the Playbill, the official theatre program of Actor’s Equity. The new programs read: “Starring Holly Harris, Tony Monaco, Pat McNulty (a new starlet at the time), Teddy Hart (the producer/actor) and William Ramage.” And right after that, “Clothes for William Ramage coordinated by Edward Stevenson and tailored by Knize, Inc. of New York City.” How’s that for a neat old showbiz story? (laughs)

JO’D:  Wow, you have such fascinating memories. You mentioned Pamela Mason. I know she was married for many years to James Mason, but I don’t know too much else about her. What was she like?

BR: Very colorful! It was actually through Pamela Mason that I met Zsa Zsa Gabor, who taught me how to cook Hungarian stuffed cabbage (a great recipe, by the way). I sat between Zsa Zsa and Diana Dors one night during dinner at Pamela and James Mason’s house—now that was fun! (laughs) Back then, the Masons lived at 1018 Pamela Drive behind The Beverly Hills Hotel. Pamela bought Buster Keaton’s old white elephant of a mansion on ten acres of prime Beverly Hills real estate. She later subdivided it and made millions of dollars on the deal! She was an heiress, you know, to an English woolens empire. As Pamela Kellino, she made some movies in England before she married James Mason. Her first husband Roy Kellino, a director, later married Barbara Billingsley, who, as everyone probably knows, was June Cleaver on Leave it to Beaver!

I met many celebrities through Pamela. Alas, she and her daughter, Portland (actress Portland Mason Schuyler), who was about 12 or 13 when we met, are both gone. So is James, of course. Portland played “the kid” in Pal Joey, but left the production when Pamela did. Pamela had a valid reason to leave, but it was still horrible of her to leave the night before we were to open! After that, Actor’s Equity never let either Pamela or “Porty” work in a union production again. Portland did open to great reviews in a show in London’s West End years later. Her career as an actress never took off, though. James and Pamela’s son, Morgan Mason, was very active in the Reagan administration and lived with actress Louise Fletcher as her lover for several years. She was over 30 years older than Morgan and Pamela was livid and hated Louise because of it! Louise, an Oscar winner for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, does a lot of B-films now. I know that Bob Osborne sees her sometimes when he is in Hollywood.

JO’D: Again, you have some great, great memories. I wanted to ask you if you ever wished you had done more acting, or are you glad that you concentrated more on your modeling career?

BR: Well, I always felt that working was the most important thing. That…and getting paid for the work! I was serious about acting but I didn’t care about billing. I didn’t want to be a contract player, nor did I want a TV series. I just wanted to work. I wanted regular, paying acting jobs. Alas, over time I learned that there were not that many available. So, modeling suited me just fine.

Things were kind of winding down for me in 1967, when I did an episode of the TV show The Iron Horse with Dale Robertson. We shot it in Calabasas in August and it was hot as hell.  I played a railroad worker and I think I made 750 dollars for three days work. By then, I pretty much knew that my acting career wasn’t going to take off, and I was miserable.

I remember my very last day as an actor on a Hollywood set. It was in 1968 and I was at Universal doing an episode of TV’s Run For Your Life with Ben Gazzara. There were hot, Santa Ana winds blowing, and with the air conditioning in the building not working properly, the heat inside the sound stage was unbearable. I was playing a realtor in the episode and I remember I wore horn-rimmed glasses. My part was not very large and I was just kind of hanging out on the set one day. I looked around the sound stage, which was empty. Waiting around, in the hot light of the day, I thought, “What the hell am I doing here? I don’t want to do this anymore.” All those trashy extras…all the dust and dirt. I had nearly fifteen years of it, which was enough. I felt the magic was gone, and it was depressing. I remember I told that to Ben Gazzara, who by the way is a very nice guy…very professional. He laughed and said he knew the feeling. It was definitely time for me to go.

JO’D: Any regrets?

BR: Sure, there are some regrets. I never felt I lived up to my potential as an actor, but then again, so few actors do. On the other hand, I feel I accomplished a hell of a lot in the modeling industry. It was good, honest work and I’m proud of it. I made many friends in Hollywood and I learned a lot about life while I was there.

JO’D: You earned a doctorate in Law from Western State School of Law in Fullerton, Ca. in 1982 and passed the California Bar on the first try. Did you practice law?

BR: No, I never really intended to practice law. I went for two reasons…to learn more about the legal system and to exercise and improve my mind. I was almost 50 when I got my law degree. It helped me get a much higher salary during my years in the banking industry.

JO’D: What motivated your interest in banking?

BR: A friend of mine, Lon Harmon, a brilliant kid from Noble, Oklahoma, had started a Savings and Loan in Beverly Hills with twelve backers, who later became The Board of Directors. Lon was very successful and within ten years there were twelve branches of Progressive Savings and Loan over the Los Angeles County area. Lon offered me a job in Financial Services and I eventually became Senior Vice-President at Progressive. As you can imagine, this was a whole different world from show business and the modeling industry, but I loved it. In 1985, the financial association was sold, and the new owner hired all new executives. So, much like what had happened to me at RKO, I was out! Oh well…all good things come to an end.

JO’D: After living there for 30 years, what made you decide to leave Los Angeles in 1985?

BR: I would say that having no job and paying almost eighteen hundred dollars a month rent for a high-rise apartment on Wilshire Blvd. made the decision for me! (laughs) I tried getting another job and sent out resumes, but got no responses. I was 51 and learned the hard way that no one wants to hire older people. I guess it has to do with the cost of insuring older workers, you know? I had made some good investments over the years, but I had to find a place to live, preferably a small town where my money would go further (and last longer). So, I traveled for a while, and then I found a beautiful coastal town in the Pacific Northwest. I fell in love with it and have been here ever since. I have a little cottage on the beach by a lighthouse. I always promised myself that as I grew older I would read, listen to music, and relax…and that is exactly what I’m doing! I was in the Hollywood rat race for over 30 years. Trust me, banking in Beverly Hills required as much socializing as filmmaking. I love my solitude now. I have a few friends, and I am in good health. I’m very happy.

JO’D: Do you have a motto that you live by?

BR: Life can be a ball, so make it happen. If one has a dream, it should be pursued. I went after every one of mine, and I am grateful for the many blessings they brought me. God has a plan for all of us, but He also gives us free will. Always follow your heart, and be good to people. I would say that’s my creed. I’ve had a great life…and I have loved it!

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JO’D: Do you have any interesting observations about any of the people you worked with on these shows?

BR:  As far as their personalities go, a few were egomaniacs. In Hawaiian Eye, for instance, Robert Conrad struck me as being very full of himself. What an ego! Connie Stevens and Troy Donahue didn’t especially impress me, either. Connie was sickeningly sweet and kind of obnoxious. On the other hand, Will Hutchins, the star of Sugarfoot, was great, sincere, and a very nice guy. The same can be said of Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. (77 Sunset Strip). A wonderful man, probably one of the nicest in Hollywood. I had a great time working on Maverick…I loved working with James Garner and Jack Kelly (everyone did). Van Williams, of Surfside Six, was also a great guy. A fellow Texan from Fort Worth, he also wound up in banking, as I did. I adored Van’s co-star, Diane McBain, with whom I had a few lunches in The Green Room at the WB commissary. Diane was so pretty…but I had the feeling she wasn’t really into her career. And, she chain-smoked! One night I shared a table at a WB function with Diane, Suzanne Pleshette and Troy Donahue. The three of them had just done a film together called A Distant Trumpet. I remember the dinner very well because I spent the whole night going back and forth to the vending machine in the lobby to buy Pall Mall cigarettes for Diane!

As I said, I thought Roger Moore (The Alaskans) was a great guy, and I still do. But Dorothy Provine, from the same show, was very negative and unpleasant. Most actors can be very spoiled…bores, actually. Some of them did nothing but complain…and about the silliest things (such as incurring meal penalties and having to work overtime).

JO’D:   What are “meal penalties”?

BR:  We normally had an hour break for lunch. But sometimes, when we were shooting exteriors, some of the actors would be called back to the set before their lunch hour was up. Believe it or not, a few of the more troublesome types (who shall remain nameless) took this to SAG as a complaint, and it often went to arbitration and to extra pay for them in the event it was proven. Sometimes I didn’t blame Jack Warner for being such a bastard. It was either him or Columbia chief Harry Cohn who said, “I’ve known a thousand actors, and I never met a grateful one.” That is so true! (laughs)

Despite the difficulties, though, we always had a lot of fun. I think the funniest thing I ever witnessed during all the years I worked in Hollywood occurred on the set of Bronco. The show’s star, Ty Hardin—while a very nice guy—could never remember his lines. Ever! There was one scene where he rode up on his horse. I was also in the shot, sweeping off a deck in the background. Ty dismounted, tied the reins to a hitching post, then snapped his fingers at the script-girl and said, “Line?” (The camera was already rolling.) The script-girl answered (disgustedly), “The line is ‘Hello’.” (laughs) Ty was not the least bit embarrassed. I swear, that is a true story!

JO’D: During the time you were working on all these Warner Bros. TV shows, were you hoping to land a TV show of your own, or were you concentrating more on your modeling career?

BR: Although the print and fashion modeling paid my rent, what I really wanted to do were feature films. In 1961, I was close to getting a terrific part at WB in A Fever In The Blood, which had a good script. The film’s director, Vincent Sherman—who was a fine and decent man—told me the part was mine. But he later called me and apologized when Roy Huggins, the film’s producer, cast a WB contract player named Robert Colbert instead of me. It was as big a disappointment for me as not getting the Nick Adams part in Teacher’s Pet. I had tested for the part of Barney Kovac, but George Seaton, the director, told me it was merely a formality as the part was already mine. Then I read in Variety that Adams had been cast in the film instead. Elvis had Hal Wallis’ office intervene on Nick’s behalf because Nick was kissing Elvis’s butt during that period. I was crushed both times. But that’s show biz…98% disappointment and rejection.

Modeling was great for the longevity it gave my career. Mine lasted longer than most, but on the other side of the blade, the modeling work kept me from ever having any kind of name recognition with the public. I can’t complain, though. I sure made a nice chunk of change.

JO’D: Speaking of which, you told me that you earned over $85,000 one year from your modeling jobs alone. That was a pretty impressive amount in those days, wasn’t it?

BR: Absolutely! To put it in context, that’s about $500,000 in year-2008 dollars. I grossed that amount in 1958—the peak year of my modeling career. There was so much catalog work, I couldn’t keep up with it. I had to be in New York a lot, so there was never enough time to devote to my acting career in L.A. Making the rounds of the casting agencies was out of the question. That would have to be done in Hollywood, and as I said, most of the time I was in New York. There also wasn’t much time for a social life. I had to look good, man! (laughs) Anita Colby “sold” me with that guarantee. I never even went to many dinner parties. I had to look rested and in top shape at all times. Hey, modeling isa tough job…a lot of people don’t realize that.

JO’D: As a male earning his living, in effect, on the marketability of his looks, did you ever experience any prejudice or condescension from anyone for working in modeling?

BR: Hell, yeah! The movie industry in those days looked at models, both male and female, as they looked at extras: low men (and women) on the totem pole. They didn’t think models could act. “Just Another Pretty Face” was the war cry, and I heard it often. Even though I had studied with Baruch Lumet, the father of director Sidney Lumet—and Baruch was a prestigious coach—I had a hard time convincing anyone I was serious about acting. A lot of my contemporaries (Buck Class, Bob Hover, John Marion, Jim Horne and several others) struggled, as well. Buck was under contract to 20th Century Fox and did Blue Denim and a few other flicks, but he was no more successful in films than I was. The same goes for Bob Hover, who also worked at 20th under the name of Link Foster. We were all thought of as models, not as actors. Period.

JO’D: Being that you were a good-looking guy in Hollywood, you must have a lot of stories about the people you dated in those years. Can you recall one for us?

BR:  (laughs) Yeah, as a matter of fact I can. There was a platinum blonde actress in town named Peggy Maley. She was under contract to Columbia in the 50s and did a lot of B-films for the studio (Human Desire, The Brothers Rico, Ride A Crooked Road, etc.) Peggy had once been a roommate of Ava Gardner’s in the 1940s and she was kind of a tough number with a reputation that wasn’t all that great. I took her out one night in the early 60s, and it was a total disaster!

For years, Jerry Wald at 20th Century Fox had a film script hanging around on the life of Jean Harlow. Jayne’s and Marilyn’s fingerprints had been all over it by the early 1960s, but there hadn’t been any takers. Peggy was staying at the time with my friend Leslie Snyder, who had once worked for Louella Parsons. After her acting career faded out in the late 50s, “Peggy June” (as she was sometimes billed) had left Hollywood to help run her father’s pizzeria back in New Jersey, but she had come back to town to talk about the Harlow part. The funny thing is, she was not even being considered for it. At 35, Peggy was blowsy and coarse and had far too many miles on her to play Jean Harlow, who died at 26.

Anyway, Leslie asked me to “be nice to Peggy” while she left for Las Vegas for a few days. I called her at Leslie’s, and she hinted that she did not have any dinner plans. Peggy told me she wanted to go to Au Petit Jean in Beverly Hills, the most “in” place to dine at the time. Tres elegante, very expensive…you know, the place to be seen. When I called my friend Bob Osborne and he told me who Peggy Maley was—that she had played one of the loud-mouthed hookers in The Wild One with Marlon Brando—I was not impressed. After I met her and saw that she talked non-stop, I was really not impressed! She was heavily made-up, dressed in one of Leslie’s mink stoles, and she looked like a real hooker! There was a motel a block away from my apartment on Sunset Plaza Drive with a coffee shop called The Knife and Fork, and I took her there rather than to Au Petit Jean. I remember we walked to the place. Peggy June was in spiked, high-heel vinyl shoes and to say she was pissed off is putting it mildly!

Peggy drank three Tanqueray and tonics before settling for “the ground round” $1.75 dinner. She followed that with mounds and mounds of vanilla ice cream topped with chocolate sauce for dessert. I had no drinks and ate a chef salad. Peggy babbled on and on and was tough as nails. Troy Donahue, who was always in the Knife and Fork looking for some female action, eyed me and Peggy, and seemed to have a new respect for me. (laughs) He came over to the table to say hello (he had worked with Peggy a year or two earlier in a film for U-I called Live Fast, Die Young). Troy had never before spoken to me when we worked together at WB. In retrospect, I should have dumped Peggy June on him and gone home alone. She’d have loved it, I’m sure. But maybe that’s why I didn’t do it! (laughs) Peggy was very pissed off at me for not taking her to Au Petit Jean for dinner, and when I brought her back to Leslie’s apartment and offered to open the door for her, she put the key in the lock and growled, “Don’t bother, I’ll do it!” No “Goodnight”. Not even “Kiss my ass.” She just let herself in and then slammed the door in my face. That was probably my worst date, ever! (laughs)

JO’D: Speaking of tough ladies, you knew Lucille Ball in the 60s. Was she really as difficult as has been reported?

BR: I didn’t know Lucille Ball all that well. We had many mutual friends but to tell you the truth, I didn’t really want to know her any better than I did! She could be, I’m told by many, to be somewhat overbearing…even shrewish. Her secretary, Mary Lou Tanner, who had been a performer once herself, was sometimes reduced to tears by Lucille’s rages. So was her wardrobe designer Edward Stevenson, who was a good friend of mine. He designed Lucille’s clothes at RKO and all the ones she wore on her TV shows in the 60s. Maury Thompson, a very funny man who directed many of Lucille’s shows, always called her “The Red Queen”. (laughs)

In all fairness, Miss Ball did start The Desilu Workshop in the late 1950s to give young Hollywood hopefuls a chance, and she worked very hard at it, too. It was her way of sharing some of the good fortune she had enjoyed with other young performers. I had several friends who were in the group at Desilu. They all had studio contracts and—along with Lucille—presented The Desilu Revue on stage at the old RKO little theater, which was on the same lot. The revue was also filmed and shown as a TV special during Christmas of 1959. I admire Lucille for starting that workshop. Young actors need all the support and nurturing they can get, and she was there to help them.

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