JoAnne Worley
You were wonderful in Drowsy Chaperone but so different from Georgia Engel! Different costume, different tone. Can you tell me a little about how you made those adjustments?
Georgia was more Billie Burke, and I'm more Margaret Dumont. All the characters in the show are kind of stereotypes of that era, and Margaret Dumont was the Grande Dame—a little dotty.
The long ropes of pearls are a nice 1920s touch.
Those are Beatrice Lillie. I always give her credit.
Since you're L.A.-based, has doing Drowsy on Broadway been like coming home?
What do you buy?
What's been the best thing about being back in New York?
Your roots are really in musical theater. I mean, you were Carol Channing's standby for the original Hello, Dolly!
Which is different from an understudy.
I'm a little fuzzy. What's the difference?
Thank you for the clarification! So how did Dolly come about?
I gather you never did go on for Channing?
Did you learn a lot from the whole Dolly experience?
So you really got a bird's-eye view of how director/choreographer Gower Champion worked.
Congratulations! Was Gower Champion fun to work with?
And hasn't composer Jerry Herman remained a close friend too?
It sounds like you had a lot of good times with Jerry.
Are you a prankster?
Indeed! But are there any of those other roles you'd like to do again?
How did you enjoy doing the Encores! production of Sondheim's Follies this past season?
Had you ever performed for Sondheim before?
He was in the audience?
Did he say anything about your performance in Follies?
Before your big breakout with Laugh-In, Merv Griffin gave you your first major exposure on his talk show, right?
How did Merv discover you?
You were a guest on his program many times...
With his recent passing, I was wondering if you have a favorite memory of Merv.
Speaking of memories, I saw that you attended the ceremony for Rowan and Martin's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame a few years ago. Ruth Buzzi was there as well. Are you two still friends?
When Laugh-In became America's number-one show, were you aware of the impact it was having on TV comedy the time?
What was the atmosphere like on the set when you were creating all those characters and sketches?
Do you ever feel that, for young female comics in particular, Laugh-In helped to build a bridge to shows like Saturday Night Live?
At the time, did you enjoy all the constant media attention?
The "others" of Actors and Others for Animals?
I understand you have your Yorkie with you for the run of Drowsy.
How does she like New York?
Have you ever used her as Chowzie in Gypsy?
Okay, final question: You are so identified with the image of putting your finger to your dimple. How did that start?
It was just one of those things that came out of the moment?
See JoAnne Worley in The Drowsy Chaperone at the Marquis Theatre.
Yes, our director [Casey Nicholaw] asked me to bring the beads [when he offered her the role]. I had done it quite often in the shows that I worked in; if there's a section of choreography that's difficult for me or takes too long to learn, I say, "How about I do this?!" Quite often they let me do the beads. I like a costume that earns its keep on stage. I like things that work with me.
Oh, yes. It's a walk in the park. People are saying to me, "Oh, JoAnne, is it difficult doing eight shows a week?" It's not difficult at all. It's a joy and a pleasure. The only difficult thing is fitting in my shopping, which I love to do.
Everything! Whatever tickles my fancy. I'm a professional shopper! I'm very good at it!
Shopping! Saks. That's my religion now. I love it. And also being in the theater community. That's exciting.
That's right. I stood by.
Do you know the difference?
$500 a week. Or more [laughs]. Standby usually means a person who is not in the show; they are "standing by." An understudy is quite often somebody who's in the show, although sometimes they aren't, who can step into that role if they needed to.
Well, I had just closed the tour of the Gower Champion/David Merrick show Carnival in Chicago, and Carol Channing's regular standby, Bibi Osterwald, wasn't available. So they offered me the job knowing full well Carol would never be out, and Carol told me that. I really had a good time. I was a baby. It was a present, just getting a paycheck.
Oh, gosh, no. No, no, no, no. I was also, at the time, working at Second City here in New York. And because I knew Carol would never be out, and Second City was the kind of show I could get out of if I needed to, I would call the theater each night at half hour to say, "Is everything fine?"
Yes, I did. One of the most important things I learned—I was fortunate enough to be out of town with the show the last two weeks before coming to New York— was the process of putting in a big new number at the last minute; throwing out what I thought was a perfectly good number, but they had their reasons.
That's correct. I had such straight respect for him. When I auditioned for the national company of Carnival, I remember we were on the Imperial [Theatre] stage, and I did my number in a little yellow dress. He came up onstage afterwards and said, "You're perfect! You've got the part! Except I have two guys in mind to cast opposite you as Marco the Magnificent, and one is tall and one is short." Obviously, as I'm kind of tall, that meant if he cast the tall one, I would get the part. And if it was the shorter gentleman, I probably wouldn't. Well, he cast the shorter one and I still got the part!
Oh, gosh, yes! We laughed! And of course, because he was so handsome, how could you not have a crush on Gower Champion? Gorgeous, gorgeous. Now I know [his widow] Marge, we've attended spas together, so it's kind of nice. Marge was also involved with Hello, Dolly! at that time. Of course, it was mainly Gower that I worked with.
Oh, my wonderful Jerry Herman! Well, I did Jerry's Girls on a tour in upstate New York—myself, Denzel Washington's wife Pauletta Pearson, and two other girls. When they said, "We're going to do it with four 'names,'" I thought it could never work! How are they going to decide who gets the good numbers? But with Jerry Herman, they're all good numbers. That's the secret.
Oh, yes, he absolutely loves to laugh. I remember once I gave him a rubber hand as a joke. I said, "Sometime when you play piano, have this in your sleeve." And it was around Halloween, so they had one with a bloody stump. I said, "Then pull your sleeve up and have the bloody stump on the piano!" We'd laugh!
Not really a prankster. I just like to make people laugh, and I love to use props. Like when I do the female version of The Odd Couple, you would probably think I would play the slob because I'm tall and I'm loud. Well, I did do that part once, with Sandy Dennis as the other part, the neatnik. It was Neil Simon who, in fact, said, "JoAnne, don't you think you want to play the other part?" Because if you're [playing] the slob, the neatnik person gets to use all the props, and that's where I find a lot of my humor—in props and things. I had a wonderful bit [in The Odd Couple] where she's sobbing, and in my bag I had a little house with a chimney and it was my Kleenex holder and when I would cry I would take the Kleenex out of the chimney. 'Cause I like a prop that gets its own laughs. If I was just getting a Kleenex [out of my handbag], that's too boring. But out of the chimney?! It was wonderful.
How about the one I'm doing now? That is my favorite.
Sure! Mama Rose, that's a very comfortable suit to put on.
Fabulous. I loved doing that so much. Well, everybody in the show did.
I had. It was when I came in for a few weeks [in 2001] to do [a guest spot in the off-Broadway musical satire] Pete & Keely, a Steve and Eydie kind of show where you would do a section of your own material, as you would on a variety show. I did a take of "Everything's Coming Up Roses" with—guest what?!—a wardrobe prop that gets a big laugh. I start in the audience doing it, and I'm singing "Everything's Coming Up..." and I looked out and ...Stephen Sondheim!
Yes! So, [prior to Follies] I had performed for Mr. Sondheim. I probably frightened him.
You know what? He gave me a note. But I was so dumbstruck that he was actually giving me a note that I didn't remember it! I didn't want to say, "What?" So I went, "Oh, okay!" I probably made it even worse!
Yeah. It was a tape of a Merv Griffin Show I had done that got me Laugh-In.
I was playing one of the clubs in the Village and Merv Griffin, and I think his wife, came in to see another comedian. I was on that night and they asked me to be on the show.
Many times. We became his family, you know, his on-air family of people.
[Pause.] I think it would just be his laughter. He was the best laugher. And actually, I would work to makehim laugh, and not so much the viewing audience. It was just like sharing, like we've been doing right here, sharing and laughing with friends. Something would [spontaneously] happen and we would just play it and laugh and enjoy it. Enjoying was the key. He actually enjoyed what he was doing, what the performers were doing, and we enjoyed being with him.
Yes, absolutely, we talk all the time. We have a shopping act that we do together. Because she's short and I'm tall, I find two dresses that are exactly alike and I go "Ta-da!" Like [they were] for both of us. So now whenever we see each other, we go "Ta-da!"
Only in retrospect can you appreciate it. All I know is that we knew we were having a very good time and were enjoying each other's performances. We knew good stuff was happening.
We had fabulous writers, and the director was great. We were encouraged to contribute written jokes and sketches, or if we were given a joke and the last line was "Café Edison at Hotel Edison," and we thought, "Wouldn't it be funny to say, 'Latte, please!'" at the end of the sketch, we'd give it a beat, so they could snip it, and then go "Latte please!" Quite often, the gold came after [the scripted section]. It was a very stimulating circumstance to work in when you're encouraged to contribute like that.
I think the bridge was built for us before that. Women like, obviously, Phyllis Diller and Marie Wilson... the bridge was built for us, and the Saturday Night Live people are building a bridge for others. That's how it works. But when it became difficult to cross the street, that's when we knew Laugh-In was very successful.
It's not a matter of enjoyment. Sammy Davis Jr. was on [Laugh-In] many times, and I remember one time a bunch of us were in his dressing room, talking, and we said, "How do you do this, Sammy?" Because, you know, he had been a big star his whole life. And he said, "If you can't handle it, don't go out of the house! It's part of the job." That's it.
The name is kind of silly; people always stumble over it. It started as Actors for Animals maybe 30 years ago when [Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea TV star] Richard Basehart and his wife were driving and somebody threw little puppies out of a car window [in front of them]. They stopped the car. He had been going to the set, and they said, "Let's collect a fund and pass it around to all the actors; we have to take care of these puppies!" Everybody on the set—the wardrobe, the cameraman, the lights, you know, the script girl—started to collect.
Exactly. But the main thing we do is spay and neuter. We pay for a free spay and neuter for pit bulls, which is a big thing. We have feral cat programs and we help with medical and humane legislation and all the other good things. What we don't do is pet placement. If people call and say, "I'm looking for a pet," we give them a number to call. We don't physically board animals, but if someone can't afford to have a dog's broken leg fixed, they call us with requests and we give them the number to call where it can be done.
Harmony! She's a joy!
She has become a street-fighter, all five pounds of her, soaking wet. She'll take on any dog. So my mission in life, walking with her, is to keep her away from every dog on the street. And that's not easy.
Never. I wouldn't put my dog through that. I know what happens! It's passed off to the little kid actors, and [from] the little kid actors to the stagehands, and I'm on stage working! I wouldn't put my child through that! What I've done before, when I've done Gypsy, is encourage them to go to a shelter and rescue a little dog to be the Chowzie. By the end of the show, somebody has adopted that dog. I've run into people from different productions that I've done of Gypsy who said, "Oh, yes, I'm the one who adopted the dog!"
In Laugh-In at the top of the show, [the announcer would say], "In the show tonight we have…," and we were in the window. I thought, "Oh God, we gotta have something to do." So [points her finger to her dimple]... that's how that happened! Sometimes I do one. If it's convenient, I do two [laughs].
Yeah. It's like something I did in [the stage comedy] The Mad Show when it went to California with a couple of new cast members, one of them being [future Laugh-In co-star] Alan Sues. While rehearsing Alan into this show I'd done for over a year, if he was taking too long to get something, I would say, "Boooor-iiiiiing!" Sometimes I just use that. It breaks it up, it focuses it. Like, "Look, they have turkey saaaaausages! Turkey baaaacon! But no laaaaatte?!" [Beat.] "Boooor-iiiiiing!"