Arts & Entertainment
Critics beginning to adore Pia Zadora
By Scott Harrah
Senior Editor
Pia Zadora sits in her Tulsa,
Okla., hotel room talking
on the phone and sipping cof -
lee. Her 2 1/2-year-old daughter,
Kady, tries to sneak a sip.
“No, no, honey, you’re not old
enough to drink coffee,” she says,
snatching the cup away.
Zadora played Sunday at Omaha’s
Orpheum Theater.
As she discusses her career, she
takes brief stops and tends to the child.
Although she’s currently on a tour ol
the Midwest, performing the classic
pop and jazz standards that finally
gave her a respectable name, she
doesn’t ignore her family. Her hus
band, millionaire businessman
Meshulam Riklis, Kady and her 8
month-old son, Kristopher, come
first.
She says she paces her tours be
cause she often brings the kids along
and needs time for them.
“I don’t like to tour for a long time
because I’m a family person,” she
says. “Sometimes it’s very hard for
Kady.”
Five years ago, marriage was
Zadora’s only stable thread
of sanity. At the time, she
was Hollywood’s favorite pin cush
ion. Critics lived to ridicule her roles
in classically bad films like “The
Lonely Lady” and “Butterfly.”
Although she’d had a mildly suc
cessful career on Broadway, critics
and the entertainment industry
dwelled on the fact that she’d been in
a lot of celluloid garbage. At age 9,
Zadora played an alien girl in “Santa
Claus Conquers the Martians.” She’d
also made several bubble-gum songs
in Europe, which turned her into what
she calls a “teeny-bopper queen.”
Some critics claimed her career
was a vanity production, financed by
her husband’s corporate millions. His
company owns Dubonnet Wines, and
Zadora once starred in its ads. When
I
she won the Golden Globe Award for
“Best Newcomer” for her role in
' “Butterfly,” some Hollywood moguls
claimed Rikl is “bought” the award for
her by wining and dining the press.
But insults like that are behind her
now. Her two albums, “Pia and Phil”
(with the London Philharmonic Or
chestra) and “1 Am What 1 Am,”
established Zadora as a legitimate,
talented singer.
When she debuted at Carnegie
Hall, she received an unex
pected standing ovation.
When she performed her first concert
in Hollywood, the notoriously vicious
Los Angeles Times jazz critic Le
onard Feather wrote: "She has it all,
the range, expert intonation, a sensi
tive feeling for the lyrics and enough
dynamic variety to preclude the dan
ger of overkill. Zadora is nothing to
laugh at, and likely never will be
again."
She says the California concert
was the beginning of the new Pia
Zadora — the one critics rave about.
Since the show-business industry
dominates Los Angeles, she knew she
had to be great or she’d never be taken
seriously.
“1 knew with L.A. (the concert), it
would be the beginning or end of my
career,” she says. “Today, I’ve got a
legitimate career. Five years ago, it
was a fraud.”
Seven years ago, following
the success of Linda Ron
stadt’s pop-classics LP
“What’s New,” friend Frank Sinatra
encouraged Zadora to make a similar
album. Sinatra recognized her vocal
ability when she opened for his night
club act.
“As far as my approach to the
albums, Linda Ronstadt was my role
model,” she says. “She look old
songs, simplified them and made
them her own.”
When Zadora was attending paro
chial school in her native New York
City, one of her teachers suggested
that she try drama school to overcome
her shyness. While attending the
American Academy of Dramatic
Arts, Burgess Meredith asked her to
audition for“Midgie Purv is,”a drama
starring the legendary Tallulah
Bankhead. She got a part and
Bankhead soon took the young
Zadora under her wing.
“She was very fabulous and bigger
than life,” she says of Bankhead. “I
loved her because she was a unique
individual, very dramatic and very
much her own person. When I first
met her, she asked me, ‘How long
have you been in show business.’ 1
glanced at the Mickey Mouse watch
my mother made me wear and replied,
‘Exactly 20 minutes.’”
Bankhead adored her from then on,
she says.
Zadora continued to succeed in
both on- and off-Broadway roles,
performing in “Fiddler on the Roof,”
“Applause” and “We Take the Town”
with Robert Preston.
When she was 17, she wed 49-ycar
old corporate tycoon Meshum Riklis,
who her mother’s friend said was
“king of the Jews.” During the early
years of the marriage, Zadora was a
jet-set society woman, but she soon
became bored with it and went back to
show' biz.
Initially, she was a top-40 pop
star in Europe with hits like
“Let’s Dance Tonight” and
“I’m in Love Again,” which was pro
duced by the Village People’s pro
ducer, Jeff Morlac.
In Europe, she was a star, but back
in the States she was nobody.
“I knew I had a career, and mine
was in Europe,” she says. “Everyone
has kind of a European cogni/ancc of
me because of my namcandmy look.”
Then, in 1982, she starred in the
Orson Welles film “Butlcrlly,” about
a father’s incestuous affair with his
alleged daughter. “Butterfly” became
an instant camp classic, and Pia
Zadora became the laughing stock of
Hollywood.
— ■ i
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Zadora
in iv«.\snestarredm iheLoncly
Lady,”an infamously trashy potboiler
based on a Harold Robbins novel.
The film — a sensationalized hoot
featuring rape with a garden hose,
lesbian casting-couch scenes and dis
mal direction — swept the Golden
Turkey Awards, and critics called it
one of Hollywood’s best bad movies.
“Wemade ‘Lonely Lady’ in Italy,”
she says. “They should’ve killed it
there, too.”
Although some considered her the
I
black sheep ol Hollywood, she never
felt she’d been misguided in her ca
reer.
“Life is UK) short to be a Monday
moming quarterback,” she says.
“Nobody offered me ‘Kramer vs.
Kramer,’ so I did ‘Lonely Lady.’”
When the “Pia and Phil” LP
came out two years ago,
those who once laughed at
her were amazed she could sing.
See PIA on 9
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