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MAMA PIA
'LONELY LADY' IS ANYTHING BUT AS SHE JUGGLES MOTHERHOOD AND HER CAREERS

Sure, we've heard all the jokes. She's heard all the jokes. But it looks like Pia Zadora is having the last laugh.
She has a new singing career, a tour with George Burns (coming to the Circle Star Center), stage and television plans, a very rich husband and two children, Kristofer, 4, and Kady, 6. Whom she can't seem to keep from playing with the phone

So what's Pia Zadora's act?
Basically I sing songs from my two standards albums, with a 32-piece orchestra. And my kids come on stage sometimes. Kady sings "The Little Mermaid."
And if one day a producer comes up and says "Look, we want Kady to do a remake of 'Santa Claus Conquers the Martians' . . .
Oh perfect! She'll be doing my life story.
How did you start doing standards?
I was Frank Sinatra's opening act 10 years ago. Before anybody knew who I was. And he suggested it.
You didn't see him sneaking off for any lunches with Nancy Reagan back then, did you?
Oh God no. Those books are out of control. I'm waiting for the day they write one about me.
A lot of the critics have already gotten pretty nasty.
I understood most of it . . . I was a young girl married to an older man and he was involved financially and I had a funny name and the first picture was based on incest and I became a sex symbol and I was a cross-dresser in a former life. . . . Maybe it happened for the best. It toughened me and I developed an attitude. A kind of ". . . you" attitude, as they say in French.
I really got a kick out of "Lonely Lady." I don't think I was supposed to, though.
That was the problem. It was so bad it became a cult film. A lot of people thought it was intended to be campy -- but it was intended to be serious! But don't tell them. . . . Really, it turned out to be such a piece of crap. But it was a great premise. It could have been like a female "Rocky" kind of thing.
You were doing a lot of sexy parts. I mean there was "Butterfly" and Stacy Keach and that bathtub, and "Lonely Lady" . . .
Well, I would have liked to have done something like "Kramer vs. Kramer" but nobody offered it to me, you know? And that ("Lonely Lady") was the closest thing to something serious I was offered. I mean, believe me, I got offered a lot of crap that you would have been proud of me for turning down. A lot of junk rolled my way. Really creepy, sleazy kinds of things. . . . I don't know. I can't even, like, think back on it now. I'm premenstrual today and it really irritates me.
Are you still pursuing acting?
I recently did "Funny Girl" (on stage) and so what I'm doing is -- and by the way I got a wonderful review in the L.A. Times, Sylvia Drake the critic said, "Everybody knew she could sing but everybody wondered can she act and the answer is yes, she can." Front page. So now I've gotten some theater offers, some original stuff and revivals I'm pondering and . . . (Kady! Tina! Who's on my line? My God it's the Filipino embassy, they're looking for information, they're tapping our line!)
Are they really?
No, someone's on the phone. One of my girls is Filipino and they're babbling on. So, I'm segueing into stagework. You know, stage is where I started. I was offered "Born Yesterday" and I'm thinking about that. But the special I'm doing for television is really exciting and . . . (Would you go down and tell them to get off the phone please? Before I jump out the window?) . . . My daughter is fidgeting with the phone . . . (I'm on a phoner, please. Otherwise I'm leaving and she'll never see me again. And I'm taking her out of the will. Thank you.) . . . It's one of those days. One of those days. But, uh. . . .
The TV special.
Yeah. So that's real, real exciting for me . . . It's going to be totally different. We're going to do a show that can also be a one-woman show, air on national television and go to the Palace in New York for a week.
How'd you get involved in "Hairspray"?
John Waters did an article on me in American Film. And he loved "Lonely Lady"! He said that I was the actress of the '90s or, I can't remember what he said, the '20s or . . .
Some decade.
I don't know, timeless, all kinds of stuff. And he put a whole chapter on me in his book. And we did like a wild, way- out, funky funny interview and the next thing you know, he called me and offered me a part in "Hairspray."
And you ended up playing this beatnik in a black wig.
The funny thing was we went to a screening and my husband was watching the film and at the end he said, "Hey, it's cute, but where were you?" And I said, "I was the beatnik, dumbbell." "Oh, I thought it was Elvira." So I immediately went and filed for a divorce.
Did you get to know Divine?
Yeah, he was sitting in the middle of the street fanning himself when I came on the set that night in Baltimore. It was so hot and he was so heavy. But no, a real sweet, wonderful guy, I loved him. And just at the point where he was going mainstream he had to conk out.
There probably aren't many actresses who worked with Divine and Orson Welles.
That's true. Two biggies. In "Butterfly," I remember we were shooting the court scene and Orson, I mean he literally couldn't get off the podium to go for lunch. And at one point something got set on fire and he couldn't move. I mean he almost went up in flames. He had a glass of vodka there next to him and I thought it was water. I was going to throw it on him and he said "No! No! No!"
So what's it like touring with George Burns?
He's the cutest little guy you'd ever want to meet. You just want to put him on top of a birthday cake and sing to him. He's a real sweet guy.
What's his appeal? Or Sinatra's? They're both still huge stars late in life.
They enjoy what they're doing. I guess that's the secret. . . . Forget me, I've got another five years and I'm hanging it all up. I'm not going to hobble on stage with a cane.
Would you really hang it up?
Oh yes. What did I say to Kady the other day? I called her in to do a number with me and said, "Don't worry, the tables are going to turn. In 10 years you're going to be out there headlining and you're gonna say 'Listen, I want to bring my mother out to sing a song. Remember Pia Zadora?' "

By STEPHEN WHITTY, Mercury News Staff Writer
San Jose Mercury News, July 19, 1991, p.21

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