Kaye Ballard
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Kaye Ballard | |
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| Born | Catherine Gloria Balotta November 20, 1925 Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. |
Kaye Ballard, also credited as "Kay Ballard," born Catherine Gloria Balotta on November 20, 1925, in Cleveland, Ohio, to an Italian immigrant father, is an actress who has appeared on Broadway and on television. From 1967 to 1969, she co-starred in the NBC sitcom, The Mothers-in-Law, with Eve Arden.
Ballard established herself as a musical comedienne in the 1940s, joining the Spike Jones touring revue of entertainers. Capable of playing broad physical comedy as well as stand-up dialogue routines, she became a familiar face in television and stage productions. In 1957, she and Alice Ghostley played the two ugly stepsisters in the live telecast of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella, starring Julie Andrews in the title role.
She has also made appearances on the American television game show Match Game, and in 1976 was a guest star on The Muppet Show.
On Broadway, she has starred as Helen in The Golden Apple, where she introduced the now classic "Lazy Afternoon." She also portrayed Rosalie in Carnival! (with Jerry Orbach), and Ruth in Joseph Papp's production of The Pirates of Penzance. She closed out-of-town in Marc Blitzstein's Reuben, Reuben and played Hattie Walker in the Paper Mill Playhouse's 1998 revival of Stephen Sondheim's Follies. She also appeared as Molly Goldberg in an unsuccessful musical adaptation of the popular radio serial. In 2005, she appeared in a road-company production of Nunsense, which was written by Dan Goggin. She recently completed her autobiography, How I Lost 10 Pounds in 53 Years.
Over the years she has made numerous recordings. In 1958 she recorded for MGM THE FANNY BRICE STORY IN SONG which got the ball rolling for a Broadway musical. She also recorded an album for United Artists entitled BOO HOO, HA HA. She can also be heard on various Ben Bagley Revisited albums as well as the soundtrack album of THE GIRL MOST LIKELY.
She survived breast cancer and has never married. On the DVD release of the 1957 CINDERELLA, Kaye is featured in the bonus features part of the CD as well.
[edit] Filmography
- The Girl Most Likely (1957)
- A House Is Not a Home (1964)
- Which Way to the Front? (1970)
- The Ritz (1976)
- Freaky Friday (1976)
- Falling in Love Again (1980)
- Pandemonium (1982)
- The Perils of P.K. (1986)
- Tiger Warsaw (1988)
- Eternity (1989)
- Modern Love (1990)
- Fate (1990)
- Joey Takes a Cab (1991)
- Ava's Magical Adventure (1994)
- The Modern Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1998)
- Baby Geniuses (1999)
- Little Insects (2000) (voice)
- The Million Dollar Kid (2000)
- Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There (2003) (documentary)
- The Pool of Desire (2004) (short subject)
- Broadway: Beyond the Golden Age (2007) (documentary)
