| Pia, `Too Short' but plenty sassy by Karen Thomas Some might say the term petite is sexist. That makes Pia Zadora laugh. At 5-foot, 1 3/4-inch, the actress/dancer is too short to be a Rockette, but big enough to have a sense of humor: she calls her new musical production Too Short to Be a Rockette, ``alluding the fact that I'm petite,'' she says with a giggle. She never really tried out for the Rockettes, but she knows exact requirements: dancers must stand between 5-foot, 5 1/2-inches and 5-foot, 9 1/2-inches. In one number, Good Things Come in Small Packages, Zadora hoofs it up with two 6-foot, 2-inch dancers. The autobiographical revue combines singing and dancing with slides from her show-biz childhood. ``It reveals a lot of personal things about me people didn't know,'' she says. For instance: ``I talk about my husband,'' Meshulem Riklis, the 68-year- old billionaire whom Zadora married in 1977 when she was 22. ``I tell the story of his first proposal, when he said, `We'll have to have kids right away, so you'll have someone your own age to play with.' '' The couple has two children, Kady, 8, and Christopher, 3. Kady is in the show, and when it opened in early June at the Coconut Grove Playhouse in Miami Beach, Riklis and Christopher were in the front row. ``Guys in the audience and girls on the stage.'' Zadora's husband was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer, so the tiny dancer was doubly thrilled he was there for opening night. ``He underwent seven weeks of radiation at Sloan Kettering, and just got his (test results) and he seems to be back to normal. That means the radiation was effective.'' ``He's looking great,'' she says. ``He's been on a diet, and his spirits are really up now. Prostate cancer is common in older men. If you catch it early, it's very curable. The radiation was his decision. It was that or surgery.'' During rehearsals, Riklis spent his weeks in NYC and weekends in South Beach. Too Short, Zadora says, ``kept my mind off it and kept me busy. It kept me not thinking about it, which is all you can do.'' Her show moves to Atlanta June 28. USA Today ; Arlington, Va.; Jun 24, 1992 |
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